After reinstalling Windows, I can't use H264 AVIs

Sleepydragn1 wrote on 7/17/2013, 6:17 PM

[SOLVED]

A while back I re-encoded a large number of large .mkv files into .avi files using the H264 codec. This worked fine, and I was working on a project using those files within Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 10 for quite a while before I bought a solid state drive and reinstalled Windows 7. I reinstalled Vegas Movie Studio along with Windows, and now suddenly I cannot use the video streams in those files. From my (very basic) understanding, the H264 codec that the videos use should work by default in Vegas Movie Studio.

If I try to import the .avi files, it simply only shows the audio streams and refuses to acknowledge that there is a video stream whatsoever. If I try to use one of the files to "Match media settings" when creating a new project, Vegas simply tells me that "Match media settings uses video settings from a media file. The selected file contains no video. Please choose another." The video files themselves work absolutely fine in Windows Media Player and VLC, showing that they're still fully functional files. Other media files work fine, although I haven't tried any other AVIs encoded in H264 besides the files I re-encoded myself.

I've tried removing the already existing associated .sfk files hoping that would fix the problem, and it did not. I've tried moving the files around to another drive since the drive they're located on was recently remounted internally, and that didn't work either. I've also tried reinstalling Vegas Movie Studio, hoping that would fix it, and it did nothing beneficial.

To be fair, I've had to to a lot of tweaking and working around with codecs and Vegas Movie Studio in the past, and I fear that by reinstalling Windows 7 I've lost something along the way that allowed me to use them.

Listed below are the media files' properties according to Vegas Movie Studio:

General
Name: [redacted]
Folder: [redacted]
Type: Video for Windows
Size: 519.11 MB (531,571,050 bytes)
Created: Saturday, September 01, 2012, 1:54:30 AM
Modified: Saturday, February 02, 2013, 10:09:24 AM
Accessed: Saturday, February 02, 2013, 10:09:22 AM
Attributes: Archive

Streams
Video: 00:22:00.945, 23.976 fps, 1280x720x24, H264
Audio: 00:22:00.936, 320 kBit/s, 48,000 Hz, Stereo, MPEG Layer-3

Summary
Software: Lavf54.61.104

ACID information
ACID chunk: no
Stretch chunk: no
Stretch list: no
Stretch info2: no
Beat markers: no
Detected beats: no

Other metadata
Regions/markers: no
Command markers: no

Media manager
Media tags: no

Plug-In
Name: aviplug.dll
Folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\Sony\Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 10.0\FileIO Plug-Ins\aviplug
Format: Video for Windows
Version: Version 1.2 (Build 11708)
Company: Sony Creative Software Inc.

I've tried researching the problem myself, but I've come up with nothing so far.

Any help would be appreciated.

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 7/17/2013, 7:26 PM

You'll need to download and install the x264vfw codec from Sourceforge. You probably had it on your system before the reinstall.

It is available in 32- and 64-bit versions for your OS.

Sleepydragn1 wrote on 7/17/2013, 8:02 PM

Thank you, everything is working fine now. I must have installed the codec as part of a pack or another program back when I was still using my last Windows installation.

I really appreciate the assist.

musicvid10 wrote on 7/17/2013, 10:14 PM

Glad you got it working!

Now that you've got a fresh OS running, I don't recommend installing any codec "packs," except as needed from their original producers. Check with the Pro forum if any questions.