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Brief description of my problem:
I have NO audio in the AVI files from specific digital camera on Win Vista
Business 64 bit while the same file plays WITH audio on Win XP Sp2 32 bit.
This is the problem:
The AVI files giving problem are produced with a digital camera Konica
Minolta DiMage E500. On my other system Win XP SP2 32 bit I am able to hear
the audio from the AVI in windows media player 11. From what I have seen in
other communities are there other people having similar problems with other
brands of digital cameras as well.
The sound is configured properly on my Windows Vista Business 64 bit
computer. I can hear audio from AVI movies from other camera brands. All AVIs
from Konica Minolta DiMage E500 are not playing with audio in Windows Media
player 11 on my Windows Vista Business 64 bit.
Both on Win XP Sp2 32bit system and Win Vista Business 64 bit system when I
play the AVI and take properties the info displays dash '-' for audio and
video codec.
In Windows Explorer taking file properties the Audio codec displayed is
"CCIT u-LAW" on Win XP but Win Vista will not reveal the codec.
I downloaded a freeware tool called AVIcodec tool version 1.2
(http://avicodec.duby.info/) and this tool reports that the AVI from the
Konica contains sound of the CCITT u-Law codec consistent with the file
properties of Windows Explorer under Win XP 32 bit.
The AVIcodec tool reports that both Win XP SP2 32bit and Win Vista Business
64bit has the CCITT u-Law codecs installed and the version are identical to
each other, version "4.0 .0".
The only AVI related differences I can find is:
Win XP SP2 32bit:
AVI Decompressor: 6.05.2600.2749
AVI Draw: 6.05.2600.2749
AVI Mux: 6.05.2600.2180
AVI Splitter: 6.05.2600.2749
AVI/WAV File Source: 6.05.2600.2749
Win Vista Business 64bit:
AVI Decompressor: 6.06.6000.16386
AVI Draw: 6.06.6000.16386
AVI Mux: 6.06.6000.16386
AVI Splitter: 6.06.6000.16386
AVI/WAV File Source: 6.06.6000.16386
Alternative 1: So either my Konica Minolta AVI is not complient to the CCIT
codec but since it works on Win XP I don't beleive so.
Alternative 2: There is a problem in the Windows Vista AVI splitters etc.
I have not switched my Windows Vista to use 64 bit media player so
theoretically should it still be using the default 32 bit executables and
hence should this question maybe not be posted in the 64 bit community?
Is there anything I could do?
Are there anyone else out there with a similar problem trying other things?
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I found a post to another group probably giving the solution to my problem. I
sincerely thank this Adam Albright for writing such an excellent story.
Here is what he wrote:
---------------------
Subject: Re: playing avi files in media player 3/29/2007 5:07 PM PST
By: Adam Albright In: microsoft.public.windows.vista.general
On Thu, 29 Mar 2007 16:57:28 -0500, "LaRoux" <hlx[ at ]newsgroup.nospam>
wrote:
[Quoted Text] >If it's divX codec for WMP you want, go to www.divx.com and download the
>divX for windows package. Several components aren't Vista compatible yet but
>the codec is.
The point is Media Player won't accept or stumbles on some codecs even if
they're installed on your system. I can download some files, ask Media Player
to play them and this is what happens:
Example file claims it is AVI
1. Media Player starts up, shows "acquiring codec" in lower left.
2. About 20 seconds later it says "codec acquired".
3. It starts to play the video portion only, not the audio.
Now here's the fun part. What did Media Player just say? It acquired the
codec. So you would think if I click on the file a second time it would just
start to play right? No, it again says acquiring codec, another 20 seconds
goes by, then again it plays just the video portion. If I repeat this
exercise in stupidty ten times then Meida Player will say "acquiring codec"
10 times each time again going out on the web looking for another copy of the
same codec it already obviously has and again saying it is "installing" it,
but never is it able to play the audio portion.
Now the funniest part of all is I can open this video file in any one of my
other players and it plays fine, BOTH the audio and video tracks, and no
player except for brain dead Media Player needs to acquire any new codec off
the web.
Lets have even more fun. I open the example file in GSpot. (version
2.70a)Surprise it isn't a AVI like the file pretends, it is a divX file.
Since AVI is a wrapper, Media Player should be smart enough to read the file
header like all my other players do before trying to play or jumping to
conclusions it is a avi file. But alas, we're talking Microsoft software,
which we all know isn't too smart.
Lets look deeper. According to Gspot my system has no less then 6 codecs
that can play the video stream in this file. Since Media Player did play the
video portion it obviously used one of these, but apparently can't remember
since it keeps going out to the web to get a fresh copy every time I ask
Media Player to play it.
The real problem with this file is Media Player won't play the audio track.
Let's see if we can figure that out. Well guess what, according to GSpot it
says among other codecs Windows Media audio codec and other compatable
Microsoft audio codecs are already installed. This obviously must be so since
all my other players can play this file fine accessing these codecs. Why
can't Media Player?
Deeper into the rabbit hole:
Gspot has a tool that tests the playing of many kinds of video/audio files.
It will look at your system and see which files should play the file. Seems
simple enough. Gspot says file should play using codecs already there. What's
that? Well, still deeper, if we click on that we learn the file that drives
audio is called msaud32.acm and quartz.dll. Both of these should be in the
Windows system 32 folder. Lets check. Both are. There are several other
files, installed as other codecs, to avoid getting even more muddy, lets skip
those.
Remember GSpot can "render" a audio/video file. Not is the usual sense as it
normally pertains to video editing, but a simpler meaning it that it can hook
to Direct Show routines and attempt to play as if it was a player. Ok, lets
try that. Now we're getting somewhere. GSport reports "partial render
failure, video could be rendered, but audio could not. Hmm we already knew
that, can Gspot tell us more?
You bet. At this screen it just states a memory address with "unknown"
behind it which just means something is preventing Media Player from playing
the audio track.
I don't give up easy, have you noticed?
Gspot has another function called VGS that stands for Visual GOP Structure.
First you need to learn what a GOP is. Still deeper into the rabbit hole.
GOP is a video term that stands for Group Of Pictures. All compressed videos
are comprised of different kinds of frames. These frames have different
construct. You have 'I' frames, which refer to some intra frame image, these
are based on actual data. Then you have 'P' frames which are actually
predicted images from a construct of a prior actual ('I') video frame that
the codec just guesses with and makes a I frame out of which is a educated
guess of what the frame should be which reduces a lot of duplication and in
part is what allows a file to get compressed. And lastly we have 'B' frames
which are similar to P frames but forward or backward predictions of motion.
All very interesting but beyond the scope of what we're trying to figure out
right now. The point is GSpot shows a visual representation of the GOPs. The
usefullness if this is it should find gaps or corruption if it exists in a
video file.
So does my test file have corruption in it? Yes! The GOP visual shows
several flaws or corrupt frames, all happen to be I frames. This is likely
what is preventing Media Player from playing the audio portion, since the
first frame in this video is one that happens to be corrupt. Apparently Media
Player was able to get over the hump and play the video track anyway, but
failed to play the audio for this reason, while other players apparently were
smart enough to skip over the file corruption.
So now what? Well it doesn't really matter to me since I have other
"smarter" players. But maybe we can fix it. Since corrupt files are a fact of
life when downloading from the Internet for a whole host of reasons if helps
to have some "repair tools" One such application is called Video Fixer. This
is a class of application that can quickly scan a file see corrupt or missing
segements if the file has been split and you jointed it, then make a offset
adjust so it in effect rewrites the file skipping over the bumps. So I try
that.
Now finally Media Player can play the file, both video and audio.
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I tried a couple of AVI fixing tools and they don't help on the kind of AVI
file I have from a digital camera.
I got a new shiny PC with a new operating system and especially audio things
are shoppy or not working etc and worst of all there is a complete silence
from the people who knows what is going on so the question is: anyone working
on this problem? How long will it take to fix it?
Here is another interesting post about the new audio system in Vista:
http://forum.videohelp.com/topic317153.html?highlight=avi%20vista
Subject: Audio - Vista's Achilles' Heel?
Originally posted 20th of December 2006. That is about half a year ago.
-----------------------
I've been testing Vista (Ultimate RTM) for a little while, specifically with
one of our apps under development.
The video side of things is greatly improved (i.e., rendering video to a
window or full screen) but...
....Vista's audio leaves a lot to be desired.
Playing back DV AVI files (or a live DV feed) leads to very choppy audio -
on the same PC under XP, the audio is perfect.
After digging, I found out why: Vista uses a completely new audio subsystem.
DirectSound is now emulated with software and no longers provides direct
access to the audio hardware as it does in pre-Vista Windows.
The fundamental problem with this is that any video processing applications
that rely on DirectShow will, by default, use a DirectSound-based audio
renderer. Such applications have to be rewritten to get around this.
I have done this with our app and can confirm that, when a non-DirectSound
renderer is used, the audio problems go away (same audio hardware, different
driver model).
Many modern motherboards have integrated audio, such as SigmaTel High
Definition Audio Codec. This is available to applications via DirectSound,
WaveOut and the new Vista audio layer.
And there seems to be a bug, too. Using DirectSound, multiple applications
can use the same piece of audio hardware - the OS mixes the different audio
streams. Using the non-DirectSound way with a DirectShow application removes
this mixing problem and, instead of just rendering a single audio stream, the
apps lock up/misbehave. (Something else to 'program around'.)
Though Microsoft have their reasons for changing the audio layer with Vista
(mainly too many badly-written third party audio drivers causing BSODs),
doing away with the hardware-accelerated DirectSound capability is, IMHO, a
major oversight.
Many existing applications may not perform as well on Vista, creating a bad
user experience. Also, many legacy sound cards won't work - the manufacturers
must provide new Vista drivers.
My advice - be cautious about switching to Vista if you have apps that use
DirectSound for audio (which includes DirectShow-based multimedia apps).
Consider 64-bit XP Pro if you need a boost. Our 32-bit app definitely
benefits from running on the 64-bit OS (since it is so DirectShow intensive).
_________________
John Miller
enosoft - high performance tools for music and video
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