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Annoying .avi playback issue on Xbox 360
#1
Chronos[Ha-G]
Chronos[Ha-G]
Right, quick rundown.
I "acquire" episodes of Top Gear, and recently I've been experimenting with playing them through my 360 onto my new HDTV - this has worked well thus far. However, I've run into an problem recently that has irritated me since it renders my setup useless for the most part. The files I get - in .avi format - work perfectly fine on the computer, and most of them work perfectly fine on the 360 as well. But, a few of the episodes - most notably, the last two files I've received - have some sort of error/EOF/whatever issue in them; I'll describe it as best as I can.
Basically, the 360 reads the offending files - which are approximately an hour in length normally - as only about 15-16 minutes in length. If I let the file play past this limit, the audio's still there, but the video cuts out. I'm no video guy, but it looks to me like the 360 thinks that the file actually does end there. Further, since I know of no way to force a 360 to play a file past it's end, I can't check if the video would pick back up afterwards. The most irritating part of it is that my computer has no issue playing the episodes normally, only my 360.
To correct this, I've been thinking of trying to convert the files from .avi to something else (.wmv, perhaps?). I'm curious as to whether or not the conversion might cull the issue I'm seeing with these episodes. However, if anyone knows anything else about why exactly these files might be doing this, or what I could do to fix this problem - I'm all ears. The quicker the solution, the better as far as I'm concerned.
I "acquire" episodes of Top Gear, and recently I've been experimenting with playing them through my 360 onto my new HDTV - this has worked well thus far. However, I've run into an problem recently that has irritated me since it renders my setup useless for the most part. The files I get - in .avi format - work perfectly fine on the computer, and most of them work perfectly fine on the 360 as well. But, a few of the episodes - most notably, the last two files I've received - have some sort of error/EOF/whatever issue in them; I'll describe it as best as I can.
Basically, the 360 reads the offending files - which are approximately an hour in length normally - as only about 15-16 minutes in length. If I let the file play past this limit, the audio's still there, but the video cuts out. I'm no video guy, but it looks to me like the 360 thinks that the file actually does end there. Further, since I know of no way to force a 360 to play a file past it's end, I can't check if the video would pick back up afterwards. The most irritating part of it is that my computer has no issue playing the episodes normally, only my 360.
To correct this, I've been thinking of trying to convert the files from .avi to something else (.wmv, perhaps?). I'm curious as to whether or not the conversion might cull the issue I'm seeing with these episodes. However, if anyone knows anything else about why exactly these files might be doing this, or what I could do to fix this problem - I'm all ears. The quicker the solution, the better as far as I'm concerned.
#2
Garbledina
Garbledina
What do you use to play them? Burnt to discs?
I use a program called TVersity to stream the files from my computer to my 360 and I've never had any problem like that...
I use a program called TVersity to stream the files from my computer to my 360 and I've never had any problem like that...
#3
Jay
Jay
Welcome to the wonderful world of shoddy media player codexes. The xbox ability to read files is pretty limited and even with certain file types when certain people extract videos from whatever source, they want to be creative and use less than ideal codex plugins making the people look around the net to gain the ability to watch their videos. My suggestion? Download it from another source. You can try to use that data to another file type but the issue will most likely remain there as the "way" it was extracted kinda pigeon-holed your options.
#4
PatrThom
PatrThom
AVI is only a container type. Which codecs were used to compress the video inside of them? That might be your issue.
--Patrick
--Patrick
#5
Chronos[Ha-G]
Chronos[Ha-G]
I connect either my 500 gig hard drive or a much smaller flash drive to the 360 via usb and watch them that way.Garbledina said:What do you use to play them? Burnt to discs?
I use a program called TVersity to stream the files from my computer to my 360 and I've never had any problem like that...
I'm not sure, since I receive the files via torrent (And I don't know a huge deal about video). Is there a way to find out just by looking at the .avi file?PatrThom said:AVI is only a container type. Which codecs were used to compress the video inside of them? That might be your issue.
--Patrick
Arg.SeriousJay said:Welcome to the wonderful world of shoddy media player codexes. The xbox ability to read files is pretty limited and even with certain file types when certain people extract videos from whatever source, they want to be creative and use less than ideal codex plugins making the people look around the net to gain the ability to watch their videos. My suggestion? Download it from another source. You can try to use that data to another file type but the issue will most likely remain there as the \"way\" it was extracted kinda pigeon-holed your options.
#6
figmentPez
figmentPez
You can get all the information you ever wanted about a video file using a program called Gspot.Chronos[Ha-G said:]I'm not sure, since I receive the files via torrent (And I don't know a huge deal about video). Is there a way to find out just by looking at the .avi file?
#7
PatrThom
PatrThom
Ooo. I am so going to add that to my toolkit.
There is a long history of .AVI files being some of the most cantankerous to get playing on your machine. These days, everything I send is either in .MPG (MPEG-1), .MOV (H.264), or .WMV (Windows Media 9). DivX is a giant pile of suck (as a company)* and the only reason it is still around is because it is so much better than WM9.
--Patrick
*My personal opinion. Yours may vary.
There is a long history of .AVI files being some of the most cantankerous to get playing on your machine. These days, everything I send is either in .MPG (MPEG-1), .MOV (H.264), or .WMV (Windows Media 9). DivX is a giant pile of suck (as a company)* and the only reason it is still around is because it is so much better than WM9.
--Patrick
*My personal opinion. Yours may vary.
#8
Cat
Cat
The Xbox 360 has been a pretty terrible media player for me. I have files that used to work just fine but after some updates I have to be connected to xbox live to play vidoes and even then there are some odd incompatibilities.
#9
Chronos[Ha-G]
Right...now I either have to start converting files, or try and get that program running that Garbledina suggested. Hmm...
Chronos[Ha-G]
Duly noted. I'll see if converting the file...which I don't yet know how to do/what software to use for it...will work any better.PatrThom said:Ooo. I am so going to add that to my toolkit.
There is a long history of .AVI files being some of the most cantankerous to get playing on your machine. These days, everything I send is either in .MPG (MPEG-1), .MOV (H.264), or .WMV (Windows Media 9). DivX is a giant pile of suck (as a company)* and the only reason it is still around is because it is so much better than WM9.
--Patrick
*My personal opinion. Yours may vary.
And said program says that its audio is MPEG-1 Layer 3 - which is mostly irrelevant to me since the audio continues to work fine - and its video is XVID 1.1.2 Final. Whatever that means.figmentPez said:You can get all the information you ever wanted about a video file using a program called Gspot.Chronos[Ha-G said:]I'm not sure, since I receive the files via torrent (And I don't know a huge deal about video). Is there a way to find out just by looking at the .avi file?
Right...now I either have to start converting files, or try and get that program running that Garbledina suggested. Hmm...
#10
PatrThom
PatrThom
MPEG-1 Layer 3 is also known better as .MP3, which is a pretty standard format these days.
XviD is a sort of open source version of MPEG-4, putting it in the same family as DivX. It looks like the XBox 360 has had support for XviD since Fall of 2007, though it has been called 'less than perfect.' It seems there is an exhaustive list of what will/won't work (anything on the list works, anything not on the list doesn't work) over here.
--Patrick
XviD is a sort of open source version of MPEG-4, putting it in the same family as DivX. It looks like the XBox 360 has had support for XviD since Fall of 2007, though it has been called 'less than perfect.' It seems there is an exhaustive list of what will/won't work (anything on the list works, anything not on the list doesn't work) over here.
--Patrick