[HPFGU-OTChatter] A computer video software question.

[Przemyslaw Plaskowicki]

Kathryn Cawte wrote:

>And now we've resolved Iggy's problem (which I totally sympathise with since
>it was one I had a few months ago - fortunately the files I had were from a
>site that helpfully explained the different codecs and gave links), let's go
>back to the other part of his question - *Does* anyone know of a free (or
>cheap) converter program for changing .avi to .mpg?  I'd be interested in
>finding one and totally failed at Tucows and Download.com - which implies
>I'm either not looking in the right place (fairly likely) or there isn't
>one.
>  
>
You really don't want to convert .avi to .mpg unless the file in 
question is relatively small -- I mean if it is not some pirated movie 
;-). Created mpgs will be huge and you might expirience serious 
degradation of quality. [But this is outside my usual area of expertise, 
so I might be wrong].
There are plenty of tools which do want to achieve. You just need to 
know what we geeks would call such program. Try do a Google search for: 
avi2mpeg or avi2mpg ;-). First hit is: http://www.ush.de/avi2mpeg.htm
[As a side note: yes, program converting doc to rtf would be doc2rtf, 
and there are txt2html, ps2pdf, dos2unix etc..]

>My favourite video player is Power DVD and for some reason even on files it
>has played before some days it just decides that .avi files annoy it and
>freezes. Resetting my computer three times in a row is irritating and time
>consuming and makes me wish I hadn't assigned a sound file for the start up
>sound since any file gets irritating when heard repeatedly - even if it does
>show how much I *really* wanted to watch the file and how much I prefer
>Power DVD to Windows Media Player (no, before anyone asks there is no real
>concrete reason for that - I just do).
>  
>
Most players are just Windows Media Players embedded within different 
skin and I suspect it is the same is with Power DVD -- you can easily 
check if this is an issue if same problems appears within WMP. You might 
want to check some different player -- namely this  
http://www.divx.com/divx/player/index.php from divx.com as this bypass 
WMP to watch offending movie. Such problems as yours usually occurs when 
there are too many codecs installed, and some of them doesn't like the 
others. If you can, try uninstalling those codecs, and give a try those 
I recommended earlier. If you can not uninstall those, I am afraid the 
problem is too complicated to be solved remotely.

>So are there any good programs that do that out there?
>  
>
Hope that helps,


-- 
Przemyslaw 'Pshemekan' Plaskowicki -- Resident OT-Chatter Computer Specialist ;-)
Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience. (James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791)