This happens to me more and more often lately: I'm downloading a video in .avi format and it does play - but only without any sound! Has anyone else ever experienced something like that or does anyone know a solution to such a problem?

I've had similar problems very often, usually it is some codec for audio/video that is outdated, so try to get the most recent ones, especially the latest DivX codec (http://www.divx.com) for DivX-encoded avi's and if that doesn't do the trick, try searching Google for "NIMO codec pack" and get the latest one you can find... If that still doesn't work I'm afraid the problem lies elsewhere.

I already checked the DivX codec before, I have the latest one installed. Will search for the other package, thanks for the suggestion.

After a bit of search, I found a working download (most seemed to be broken...) of the Nimo codec pack and installed it. My normal video player now simply crashes when I'm trying to play the file, but another one plays it fine now - good enough! Thanks a lot

Hmm, strange... Then again, video does all kinds of fishy things to my computer all the time, I'm not an expert in that field myself (nor in any other field).

hehe - as long as I can play the few videos I have at all some way, I'm satisfied. It's not as if I have some player running all the time, just one episode of the Masters of the Universe a week

This conversation brings me to ask, what is this rise of 'DivX'? It seems really fishy to me, and what can you do with it that you can't do without it?

Tuss

After all, it's one of the best codecs to compress videos. The relation between quality and file size is good, so it has become very common.

Is there any 'owner' of this DivX codec? One of the big companies like Microsoft or AOL? If so, I'm waiting for it to become pay-software...

Edited by Mr Creosote at 12:59 on December, 21st 2002

Indeed, the DivX codec, together with it's alternative Xvid, is the only one I know of that can fit a movie on one cd-rom at reasonable quality, causing an epidemic of DVD-rips on the internet, and soon DVD players will have support for playing DivX movies from cd-rom, to the great delight of pirates around the world...

Don't know who 'owns' it, but making it pay-software would indeed be the logical step, once everyone's hooked of course...

According to http://www.divx.com/about/, a company called DivXNetworks Inc owns it. However, we don't get to know who owns this company...

If it is still independent, it should be only a question of time until some giant takes over....

Well, you should know that many porn videos on the web come without sound to save on bandwidth. Er... that's not the kind of video you mean? Ok, sorry then

DivX is indeed property of DivxNetworks which is more of a development group than a company, as they have no lucrative purpouses (yet). It actually started of as a hack of the Microsoft Windows Video codec, but is now 100% original code. The current version is 5.02 and it comes in two flavours: normal, which is free to donwload, and pro which has a couple of added features and that you can either buy for a fee or download free bundled with Gator ad-ware. Divx Networks claims this is the only way they can cover their development costs and that they're making no money out of it, but the move to ad-supported software pissed off quite a few people. Meanwhile, an alternative codec, called Xvid, is being developed by a different group. This is completely free and open-source software, and is likely to remain so. It's not as good as DivX yet, but it shows promise.

The attraction of these codecs is, of course, the fact that, when used properly, they can deliver extremely high-quality video at relatively low bit-rates. Depending on the source material, you can squeeze between one and a half to two hours of high resolution video on a single CD, while retaining almost dvd-like quality.

In this case, it wasn't porn, no

New development: Came back home after two weeks and couldn't play any video anymore! To be exact, I could play them all, but the colours were all wrong - inverted or something. Had to uninstall this codec pack, now it all works again - apart from this one video I installed it for of course. That one didn't work with the pack anymore, too, anyway though...

Sounds like an overlay problem. If it's DivX enconded try this: (assuming you're using WMP 6.4, as you should) open the video, right click, select properties, go to "Advanced" tab, highlight "Divx decoder filter" and click "Properties". Now select "Quality settings" and tick "Overlay Extended Mode". That ought to do the trick.

Er... no. I'm neither using it, nor will or should I. I have better things to do with my private life than to send it to Microsoft.

So sorry, I forgot you were no longer doing the Windows thing. Anyway, it should be about the same for whatever media player you're using. And the reason I mentioned WMP 6.4 was because anything above that is not only worse than 6.4, but has that slightly annoying habit of uploading a very small amount of information to Microsoft's servers which is used purely for statistic and quality control purposes and has absolutely nothing to do with them trying to sell you a bunch of stuff of keeping tabs on what kind of media you like. No really, honest to god, it isn't.

Had the genious idea only to install some new audio codecs and leave the old (working) video codecs untouched. Seems to be working again I don't expect it to work tomorrow though