AVI with MJPEG compression

Veasna wrote on 11/21/2001, 3:08 PM
I have some AVI files produced by a Fuji digital camera using MJPEG compression. Somehow, neither Vegas Video 2.0 nor 3.0 was able to parse/read the video stream. I got the usual: Video: Stream attributes could not be determined. I was able to play these kind of AVI files on my Windows Media Player (version 7.x). With this error, I cannot drop this kind of video clips and edit in Vegas Video.

Any help to this problem is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
-Veasna

Comments

kkolbo wrote on 11/21/2001, 8:01 PM
You will probably need to transcode (translate) the files with a freeware program like VirtualDub or TMPGEnc.
Chienworks wrote on 11/21/2001, 8:35 PM
This may be a stupid idea, but it's simple and easy enough to be worth a
shot:

If the files are compressed with MJPEG, then they are probably MPEG
files and not AVI files. Try renaming them with .mpg as the extension
instead of .avi, then see if you can drop them into Vegas. If not, change
them back. The worst that will happen is that you lose a minute of your
time.
Veasna wrote on 11/29/2001, 1:21 PM
Thanks for the suggestions. I've tried the renaming, but VV3 still could not read it and gave out the same message. I tried by installinga a demo of Morgan MJPEG codec and VV3 was able to read and identify the video stream as a Morgan MJPEG stream.

I still would like to see if our SF folks can help out with this problem.

Thanks,
-Veasna
iHaTePiNk wrote on 7/8/2003, 1:48 AM
Veasna, i have the exact same problem! i've been searching hi and lo for the answer. i also record avi files with a fuji digicam. i was using VF 1.0 in win98 (NOT win98 SE) perfectly fine. then i bought a new laptop with winXP on it and all of a sudden i experienced the exact same problems you have been having. doesn't work in Vegas Video nor Adobe Premiere. It DOES work however in Microsoft's own Movie Maker 2 ... but I don't wanna use that! I want my VF!

SF cust support's reply to me: "Thanks for writing. It is likely a matter of a missing codec. Where were these AVI files created? If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us by e-mail or call any of our customer service reps ... "

Thanks for the "help", SF ...
PeterWright wrote on 7/8/2003, 3:02 AM
I had a similar problem with some MJPEG avis created with a miro dc30+ which is no longer in the PC. The video was black screen.

All I had to do was reinstall the old miro drivers, which put the necessary codec back wherever codecs live, and Vegas could read the video again. This was despite the fact that the drivers have been stated not to work in XP - I didn't care about that, I just wanted the codec to be available to Vegas.

I presume there are some sort of drivers with the Fuji ....?
Former user wrote on 7/8/2003, 7:25 AM
Have you tried downloading the available MJPEG decoders from the web. YOu have a choice of PICVIDEO, which I believe is free, or Mainconcept, when is a minmal cost amd Morgan video which cost something also.

By the way, MJPEG and MPEG are different beasts. MJPEG is Motion JPEG encoding similar to the JPEG compression used for stills.

Dave T2
swampler wrote on 7/8/2003, 7:36 AM
MJPEG and MPEG are not the same. Pinnacle's analog card (DC10+) captures to MJPEG encoded AVI files.

Supposedly the MJPEG codec isn't standardized between different company's implementation, so it may be difficult to find the one that works for your file.
newbie123 wrote on 7/8/2003, 7:47 AM
i had the exact same problem. I was using the iomega buz (insert laugh here), but i worked under win98 and it was all i had at the time.

My problem was the same. the buz captured the video to a mjpeg. I had vegas installed on a seperate partition with win2k (buz had no drivers for win2k so the 98 was all i had). My problem was solved when i installed the morgan codec. Vegas was suddenly able to read the files with no problems.

It would seem that vegas either doesn't ship with or have a codec for the mjpec format. if it does, i couldn't figure out how to turn it on. but the morgan solution worked for me.

dgg in ottawa
SonyEPM wrote on 7/8/2003, 9:03 AM
Free MJPEG codecs: http://www.matrox.com/video/support/ds/software/codec/home.cfm
mikkie wrote on 7/8/2003, 10:35 AM
Please search the forum and the web for poss prob. if using the matrox stuff, & if using xp, create a restore point before install & ideally do a backup. Then check everything video on your PC after install to check for prob.

Don't have one of the cameras or files to play with, so these are only guesses might or might not want to bother with...

If wmplayer can play the files, might be possible to change the fourcc in the header for the avi, telling whatever prog which decoder to use. Might also be able to use gspot to tell which codec is used for playback, and tell vegas to use the same thing via the registry. Should be able to use avisynth as well to serve the file to vegas.
RBartlett wrote on 7/8/2003, 11:12 AM
The Matrox DigiSuite standalone codecs that SonicEPM points to seem OK from my testing.
The standalone RT2x00 ones were indeed poor and climbed in by way of installing things not quite codec related (filter graph insertion on other codecs). I think but am not sure that Matrox have got themselves a bad name through their work on them. Matrox have only had these on general release for the last few months. The reputation of Matrox standalone codecs being a problem started off long before that (RT series - think).

I can vouch that the PICvideo codec jpg.com is fine. I demo'd Morgan2000's also, but found it no better.

Matrox MJPEG also give you lossless 4:2:2 encoding of your source - which can be handy for CG or uncompressed sources.
mikkie wrote on 7/8/2003, 11:36 AM
FWIW, installing the codec pack last month I think for testing, had a few problems, well more then a few actually, but that's another story for another time. Codecs are probably fine and good in the majority of situations for the majority of users, but I had enough prob. testing them that my conscience makes me warn others. [the dude with the horns on my other shoulder whispers Alfred E. Neuman quotes]

The mjpeg codec took over - resinstalling picvid helped, but nothing ever went back 100% - still some matrox stuff in the registry I can't find, & that was after uninstall.

The dv codec is partially vfw compatible, which is cool. However, set as the default by the install in xp pro sp1, access to the more generic MS version went away. This caused prob in some apps as they weren't compatible with the matrox version. Had prob with some stuff sofo dv encoded, as other apps looked for stuff in the encoded file that wasn't there, but which the matrox codec looked for.

Just a couple of the prob, and some were no doubt caused by other software on my system. The codecs themselves were cool, & I think personally that the prob was these matrox codecs are made up of older code, minimally patched as required for use with xp sp1, wdm, and so on... [matrox hasn't had the assets they once had to pour into this stuff IMO]