Repair AVI?

[pelham456]

If an AVI file is corrupted, it usually triggers "Repair File?" upon play attempts. Funny thing, tho, a certain percentage of NON-corrupted AVIs (10%? 20%?) also do this, even tho the files are all there.

On occasion I've hit "Repair" w/o thinking; it does something and then plays just fine. Moreover, I don't think it ever prompts me again (i.e. the repair is permanent, not just compiling this one time to get it playing).

So it's actually CHANGING the file, right? Hmmm. I don't like that. Where possible, I'm gonna make a COPY of the file before ever hitting "Repair" again. But it begs the question -- what is this all about?!

And is there a way to have VLC default to "don't repair"? Nothing I hate worse than queueing up 20 videos to play, and having it all come to a dead stop b/c clip #7 is waiting for my imput!!

:mad:

[ptx4]

I believe in this case it would be because of some not completely correct yet correct enough join or may be other work on the video and you probably won't lose anything having VLC change it.
To me it happens only with ages old vids with Monty Pythons, I guess there is some rough joining tool from era of all files split in 30MB files and smaller...

As to where switch the reapairing off, I don't have idea. Sorry.

[gordian_knot]

I could be wrong because I don't use VLC very often, but I doubt if VLC is re-encoding the file or anything. More likely trying to fix the index in which case it probably won't make things worse. Having a bad index causes problems like not being able to seek within a file and I imagine it fixes it by going through the file and building an index of whatever is used to index avi files (keyframes or whatever).

I can't tell you how to turn off the messages, except to look through the options or preferences.

[themidlander]

In maybe because you are downloading another type of file using VLC? That happens for me and I just ignore it! Files join okay

[Billiwog]

a certain percentage of NON-corrupted AVIs (10%? 20%?) also do this, even tho the files are all there.
Having the whole file doesn't guarantee that the original wasn't corrupt. There are a lot of damaged clips floating around the net; 10-20% is probably a minimum estimate, depending on the source.

I would think that VLC only makes the repairs in memory; it would likely pop up a "Save as" dialog if it were changing the original file. On my machine VLC asks to repair the file every time, even after being 'repaired', FWIW.

It's always good to have a backup copy in any case.

Disable Repair pop-up in VLC:
>Tools >Preferences -under 'Show settings', click "All", if needed
>expand Input/Codecs >expand Demuxers >AVI.
Set the dropdown to "Never Fix", click Save.

[pelham456]

oh yeah, (gordian), it definitely has something to do with "indexes". i've seen that stated at some point.

anyway, i've now turned repair OFF. if the PC blows up, i'll come lookin for y'all!

:eek:

[groovesection]

AVI files (Audio Video Interleave) is just that, the video and audio are combined when played into one contiguous file (even though they are 2 tracks.the interleave takes place at 1ms intervals)

The index is used to track the relative positions of the audio & video track,subsequently if an AVI index is damaged,you cannot skip through the file because the index is corrupt and the player cannot find the nearest Keyframe to start decoding from.
repairing the index does not write/encode or change the file and is nothing to be concerned with :D

[buttsie]

I cant say I have ever had the VLC player ever repair a single clip with the exception of its special ability to allow a preview of the first part .001 of a multiple file download after it has been repaired


The best place to pose any questions about turning off the repair facility would be on their forum

http://forum.videolan.org/viewforum.php?f=14&sid=545f0594bab2f1122c11da1259ff5d1b

[billybunter]

To repair avi or any format I use AVS video converter.

[ozmre]

^ Hi Billybunter, thanks for mentioning a software solution.

I have numerous files that have index errors (and come up with the "Seeking" error in VLC). A quick repair seems to solve the problem, but this has to be done every single time that the file is accessed, so it is only a temporary fix (as alluded to by billiwog and groovesection)

I have tried converting these files to DVD, and then burning, but this doesn't solve the broken index.

Does AVS do a complete re-encode, or does it just re-build the index?
Thanks!

[Dave666]

I use AVS which does appear to be able to play corrupted files to some extent. If that fails I then give any video converter a go with it again this works some of the time.

[billybunter]

^ Hi Billybunter, thanks for mentioning a software solution.

I have numerous files that have index errors (and come up with the "Seeking" error in VLC). A quick repair seems to solve the problem, but this has to be done every single time that the file is accessed, so it is only a temporary fix (as alluded to by billiwog and groovesection)

I have tried converting these files to DVD, and then burning, but this doesn't solve the broken index.

Does AVS do a complete re-encode, or does it just re-build the index?
Thanks!

I'll check, but I'm sure it re-encodes. You have to pay for it though. There is a free version, but it is crap.

[ozmre]

^ Thanks!

It would seem that Avidemux and DivFix will also repair the index permanently. Has anyone had any experience with these?

Edit: DivFix seems to be working out great so far.

[yield65]

Use mplayer from mplayerhq.hu or the front-end SMPlayer and use the options -ni for AVI's in which you have problems seeking to a position. You can also use mencoder which came with mplayer to correct the videos if they are really damaged or corrupted. A very simple example would be:

mencoder -ovc copy -oac copy filename.avi -o newname.avi

there are a lot of options and parameters and codecs that you can use but you don't need additional software or more stuff, just the simple package.