Why Is This?

[telecom69]

Hi,I downloaded some buffy episodes from verifieds,all fine,burned them to cd-r fine,now then, they will play on conventional dvd player but not on the computer does anybady know why this is?.... :(

[N£MO]

It sounds as though you might need to get the correct codec...try seeing what format they are..i.e MPEG4,DIVX and searching on google for the codec that corresponds to the format of the buffy episode you have.....hope that helps

[Ardor]

hmm, try this to identify the codec and then search for it on the web:

Here is the way...

Open WordPad (or possibly Word2000, it worked for me).

Drag your AVI file onto the window of WordPad (or Word).

You'll see a message saying "vids:xxxx not found..." where xxxx is the codec used in the file!

Note: Do not open your AVI file from File>Open or using Open icon in the toolbar. Just drag it. That's the trick.

[VB]

To play a VCD on your pc you need for example PowerDVD or another player that supports VCD.

[Alexusa67]

When you convert the file to VCD your problem isn't a codec. If you can't play DVDs in your computer you won't be able to play that movie there.
Try burning two movies. A data CD-R with the AVI or MPEG so you can watch it in your computer, and a VCD so you can play in in your DVD player.

[gumbydancin]

Originally posted by Alexusa67@24 January 2003 - 06:04
When you convert the file to VCD your problem isn't a codec. If you can't play DVDs in your computer you won't be able to play that movie there.
Try burning two movies. A data CD-R with the AVI or MPEG so you can watch it in your computer, and a VCD so you can play in in your DVD player.
alexusa67 - Well, that whole statement is just misleading and wrong.

As Paul said you don't have to be able to play dvds on your pc to watch a vcd on it. Get powerdvd and watch away.

[Alexusa67]

I guess that's right. Power DVD allows you to watch DVDs or VCDs, and since the VCD would be burned in a CD-R there would be no need for a DVD player to be installed. I thought what he wanted to do was to open the VCD as he would a regular AVI or MPEG, so I was making sure he knew the difference.
My Bad :blink:

[telecom69]

;) Okay guys and gals? thanks to you all for your input to this problem,you see the computer will play commercialy available cd's ok,it just wouldnt play these particular Buffy files I downloaded from Kazaalite,Im in the process of downloading this powerdvd at the moment,hoping that will solve the problem,when if it eventually downloads lol, once again thanks to you all for your help,Ill keep you informed .....

[Alexusa67]

I believe there is little chance the downloads are VCDs already. So you are back to square one and your problem is codecs.

[ProwL418]

Originally posted by Paul@23 January 2003 - 14:52
To play a VCD on your pc you need for example PowerDVD or another player that supports VCD.
to play a vcd on your pc you do not need anything but the ability to play a mpg1 codec, which most everyone in the universe will be able to play just open the mpg folder on the vcd and open the .dat file with your favorite media player that supports most codecs

[telecom69]

Okay people nice to see the interest in this,I have now got Power DVD downloaded and working,and in about 4 hours time,hope to be trying one of the buffy cd's in it,wish I had time now but more things pressing,so watch this space .....thanks again to everyone for their help so far ;)

[Nobody1234]

ProwL418 is right.
To watch a VCD on your computer do the following:

Put the VCD disk into your computer.
Explore the contents of the CD.
Look for a folder called 'MPEGAV'
Inside that folder you will find a *.DAT file.
Right click on it and select 'Open With' - Select a program from the list.
Choose 'Windows Media Player' or some other player if you prefer.

Your movie or show will now play.

[telecom69]

Well people we go right back to the beginning of the thread to find it was Paul who suggested Power DVD as being the answer,and so it was,thanks Paul, dont go away tho just yet,another problem has a risen in that the previous files were mpg's,and now all of a sudden the remainder are in avi format which my burner Nero says is an unsupported format so I now cant even burn the ones I have left in shared folder,so Im asking once more for help,how do I get out of this one? <_<

thanks go to all for your help ........

[ProwL418]

i think maybe the help section at http://www.vcdhelp.com will walk you through step by step on how to convert all those files into anything you want, and provides links to all the software youll need (freeware even)

[telecom69]

Thanks for the link,there is a lot in there to look at will try to sort something today but not holding my breath lol, tried all sorts of ways and the answer always comes up the same unsupported,cant open,so at the moment Im struggling a bit :( will keep you informed tho' and thanks again for your help all.....

[telecom69]

Hi Update, I finally got Nero to "support" the files by downloading DivX encoder,and asked it to burn,which it started to do,saying words like encoding files,the problem is two hours later it appeared to be still doing that lol, no sign of any burning whatsoever,lol, both the progress bars in Nero were blacked out and I waited,and waited,and waited,nothing no more instructions or anything else lol, how long is it supposed to take to encode?nearly giving up on this lol :rolleyes:

[ProwL418]

well, i think your first mistake is trying to encode a file using nero
i dont think you could find much software that encodes as Slow as nero
and if you have services running in the background that take up much memory
your in for a long hall
there is a whole list of encoders and walkthroughs at http://www.vcdhelp.com
my personal favorite tools for encoding
are TMPGEnc and VirtualDub
fast and easy, these will be choice for your situation.
The only time i ever try to use nero to encode is if i do not encode my files right when i convert to mpeg1
with TMPGEnc, and then i go to burn a video cd with nero, and when it is analyzed it says its not the right kind of file, you can choose to burn anyway (you have made an XVCD) or try to encode to vcd with Nero, which will (as you have found) quite a long time. I will take this moment to tell you that not many players will play xvcd's but you can check and see what your player will read at (again) http://www.vcdhelp.com
if you insist on encoding with nero, free up every program you can, and leave your pc alone for awhile while encoding. again, hope this helps, and g00d luck experimenting.

[telecom69]

Hi prowL,and thanks for all your help on this,I agree it was a mistake to use Nero for the encoding but I didnt know any better,Im new to this downloading of video stuff and still learning,but getting there slowly,at the moment I found this Kazaa related site called snipples and in there I found the same files in mpg format so at the moment Im happy :D I will take time to have a good look in the site you have given me however and see what can help me for future reference,once again thanks so much for all you help and advice,much appreciated,take care and good luck for the future ;) ...Bob