TASVideos

Tool-assisted console game movies
When human skills are just not enough

Codec Problems

Table of contents [expand all] [collapse all]

Terminology

Player
A movie player is the software you use to play movies. It is the visible end of the chain.
Container
Every movie file appears to the user as a container, which contains the video and audio stream of the movie (and possibly other types of streams, such as subtitles).
Codec
A codec is an implementation of encoding the video or audio data into a stream of bytes. Every movie file must be decoded using codecs. Codecs, after installed in the system, are transparent to the user. They are automatically used by the player.
Movie file
On this page, we only discuss multimedia movie files: AVI, OGM and MKV files.
Emulator movie files are not multimedia files and they are discussed in the FAQ instead.

Common Problems

I can hear sound, but there's no video!

You are missing codecs. Please read the "Codecs" section below.

What is this MKV/MP4/OGM file and how to I play it?

MKV, MP4 and OGM files are media files, just like AVI. If your current media player cannot play them, please see the "Player software" section below. If you still encounter problems, please see the "OGM and MKV" section below.

Player software

Different operating systems have different software.

Note: Just installing a player is not enough. Every player depends on the codecs installed in the system, so read more.

Linux and BSD

Simply install MPlayer. It is able to play all movies released on this site.

For some H264-encoded movies, you need version 1.0pre7 or higher. Version 1.0pre6 crashes at H.264, depending on encoding settings.

If the video is scrambled from the very beginning and the colors are completely wrong, chances are your versions of MPlayer and x264 are too old to properly decode it. If you want to be sure, use the latest svn (->MPlayer) and git (->x264) revisions, respectively.

Windows

There are many choices for Windows.

  • Phil, Raiscan, Johannes and moozooh recommend using Media Player Classic along with FFDShow (below) instead of Windows Media Player.
  • Bisqwit and Nach recommend MPlayer (source), which supports almost everything, although its user interface isn't very fancy.
  • TNSe recommends VLC, which handles OGG, MKV, AVI, WMV and many codecs.
  • BSPlayer is also reported to work well.
  • Raiscan also recommends getting the latest version of FFDShow which includes codecs necessary to view videos on this site.

Mac

On MacOS X, these players can be used:

File types

Although our older movies primarily were AVI, the newer ones are all MKV. If your movie player doesn't support MKV, please upgrade.

OGM and MKV

MKV (Matroska video) is a next-generation multimedia container that is expected to surpass AVI in many aspects. OGM (Ogg media) is another such container, albeit with fewer functions and somewhat worse software support.

Players that support OGM and MKV include:

MKV will work with Windows Media Player if you install the latest Matroska Splitter. It can also be found at the x264 homepage just below the x264 decoder, which you will probably need to download to view the newer videos on this site anyways!

Codecs

Video Our movies are exclusively encoded with the H264 codec. (However, some older used DivX or XviD).

Audio Newer movies use Vorbis (with libvorbis) exclusively. Older movies use MP3.

Windows solution: FFDShow

FFDShow is a decoding filter of DirectShow for decompressing many kinds of movies.

It is recommended to install its newest version. It supports all codecs we have used.

Download here:

You should enable FFDShow decoding for the following FOURCCs (these are the ones that are found in our movies):

  • h264
  • H264
  • DIVX
  • XVID
  • FMP4

Another possible solution is CoreAVC, which is a very effective decoder with lower hardware requirements for H.264 video playback compared to FFDShow. However, it is commercial software.

AVI splitter filter

Users of MPlayer and VLC can ignore this chapter.

Some of the XviD-encoded movies might require the AVI Splitter filter from the guliverkli project.

To install it, download and unarchive the package and use the file from Release folder if you're running Windows 9x/Me or Release Unicode folder if you're running Windows 2000/XP.

Copy AviSplitter.ax to system32 folder, C:\WINDOWS\system32

Then launch command prompt [START > Run > Type: cmd or command]

› To install the file, type: regsvr32 AviSplitter.ax
› To uninstall the file, use: regsvr32 -u AviSplitter.ax

In the end, you should receive a message saying that your file was successfully (un)installed.
After that, you can try again to replay the movie that didn't work.

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CodecProblems last edited by FractalFusion on 2009-10-31 22:47:57
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