determine unknown [old] codec... help!

#1

I’ve got several folders full of AVI animations created in 1999 (passed to me by a client). I can’t figure out what codec they are, and they won’t play back. I’ve got k-lite full installed, even gspot and MediaInfo say unknown. VLC doesn’t help. FFMPEG doesn’t play back.

I don’t have cleaner or anything like that. (Have Vista 64, MBP with Leopard, and XP 32 access to try different things). Maybe if I started up my old win2K laptop, would it help?

What were some common and not so common obsolete AVI codecs from the '99 era?

#2

Cinepak or Microsoft Video. Both should be part of the standard codecs though.
Are you sure these ain’t any capture card related codecs? Tried Avids Codec LE pack already?

#3

fairly sure it’s not a captured vid - they’re old medical animations.
Tried Avid codec LE, no go.
When I open the “media information” in VLC, it list like 48 streams, roughly half audio, half video, either as mpga or mpgv, with one at the end that is CVD - type “subtitle”. That’s as much info as I can gather.

#4

CVD is some CD rom video stuff.
http://forum.videohelp.com/topic98177.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Video_CD#CVD.

Try burning on a DVD or mounting as an image and playback from there on.

You could also try Super C or Handbrake for decoding.

http://handbrake.fr/
http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

#5

Try GSpot. It’s worked in the past for me to identify old codecs (IV54, etc) that new machines can’t find.

http://www.headbands.com/gspot/

#6

If you refer to OP, I already tried GSpot. It said Unknown. Thanks though :thumbsup:

#7

Is it possible to upload one of these clips to a file hosting site? I’ve not come across a video that I couldn’t play on my system, and I have a large number of video players and video information tools installed.

#8

sure:

http://loklomedia.com/files/samlogo.avi (~320kb)
http://loklomedia.com/files/skeletonwalk.avi (~34MB)

right click save as.

#9

Damn, you got me there… No program is able to play it.
I also cannot find any sensible information when I open the file with a hex editor.
Are you sure that they are video files? Could they not be some sort of 3D data of an ancient piece of software?

Video experts at http://forum.doom9.org/ may be able to help you.

#10

I’ve got a whole folder full of these, they’re supposed to be medical animations.

I’ll try at doom9

Thanks.

#11

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