Picture without sound

[Erkki]

Hello! I have lots of differently encoded video files (mostly avi format, mp3 sound). I'd like to be able to play them all on winamp. Sometimes when playing a video, there's picture but no sound. I believe that I have necessary codecs, because when I restart the player, the video plays fine. But this time some previously worked videos have no sound. How could I get them all to work without having to restart winamp all the time?

[MrSinatra]

I don't understand you.

do you always get the video, and sometimes get audio, while other times no audio?

[Erkki]

Yes, video always works, and for some files, audio doesn't always work. However, If I restart the program, the video that didn't play audio before, works now perfectly. Some ofher videos that worked before the restart, may not work after (no audio, video is fine). It feels like the program has a different setup on each restart.

[MrSinatra]

have you tried the latest beta of winamp?

[Batter Pudding]

Get a copy MediaInfo and install it. This will allow you to interrogate each video file in turn and find out exactly what is inside that AVI or MP4 container. Maybe a pattern can be spotted.

The main project and stand alone application:
http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en

A rather nifty little Context Menu plugin for Windows Explorer:
http://mediatab.mediaarea.net/

[MrSinatra]

good one to know. gspot I have heard of too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSpot

[Batter Pudding]

Notice the Wiki article says that GSpot was discontinued in 2007.

I initially found MediaInfo via K-Lite's codec pack. So simple and so useful. And still being kept up to date. Has solved many puzzles for me. Including when someone has used the wrong file extension. Or if I want to know if a video really has a 5.1 soundtrack or not.

[MrSinatra]

well, right, I know, I posted it. I just added it as another tool for the toolbox.

here's another:

http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

I haven't used it in years, mainly b/c I do very little with videos, but it is a fantastic app, with some great ID abilities. kind of a cuetools for videos.

[Erkki]

Thanks for the replies!

This is from MediaInfo:

Audio
ID :1
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Mode : Joint stereo
Mode extension : MS Stereo
Codec ID : 55
Codec ID/Hint : MP3

All the files have similar info; those that work always and those that sometimes don't work. However, all videos that sometimes don't work have a sampling rate 48 khz. Some videos with that high sampling rate work fine though.

[Erkki]

Thanks for the replies!

This is from MediaInfo:

Audio
ID :1
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Mode : Joint stereo
Mode extension : MS Stereo
Codec ID : 55
Codec ID/Hint : MP3

All the files have similar info; those that work always and those that sometimes don't work. However, all videos that sometimes don't work have a sampling rate 48 khz. Some videos with that high sampling rate work fine though.

[Batter Pudding]

I meant to use MediaInfo to see if you can spot the difference between good and bad videos. Once you can consistently locate which are the bad ones, post a (non-copyright) video to somewhere like wetransfer.com or sendspace.com so we can have a look and see if someone can reproduce your issue.

Where are these videos from? Are we talking legally sourced? Video Camera? Your own rips? Or randomly sourced via the Internet? I am not going to preach legalese at you, but some of the videos on the pirate sites are of varying quality.

Have you tried playing these videos in Windows Media Player? What happens?

Have you tried VLC? That comes with its own built in Codecs. (Codecs being the routines that make sense of what type of video you have and plays it back correctly)

(I suggest these alternatives mainly to be able to make sure the source videos are okay... most of this should play okay in Winamp)

[Erkki]

MediaInfo shows similar details for working and not working videos. Most of the videos that don't work are from a friend, I don't know how he got them. However, some of them are from karaoke dvds (should be good quality), ripped with handbrake. Media player and vlc player play all the videos fine. The strange thing is that vlc plays those videos too after restart.

[MrSinatra]

at this point, the easiest thing would probably be to post a couple example videos online and see if anyone can reproduce your results.

[Batter Pudding]

XP, Vista, Windows 7, 8?
What other media players do you have installed?
Do you have Codec Packs?

Example video is certainly needed. Stick it on sendspace.com or wetransfer.com (If using the latter, click the button to swap from email to url). Post the URL here.

Also let us know if the example works okay in VLC.

Please try to avoid posting copyright material as we can't assist you to do anything illegal.

[Batter Pudding]

Originally Posted by Erkki

Media player and vlc player play all the videos fine. The strange thing is that vlc plays those videos too after restart.

What does the sentence in Blue mean? Are you saying that the videos will not play in VLC unless you restart VLC? Is this the latest version of VLC? If yes, then you have duff videos if VLC is also having problems.

[Erkki]

Oh I have a typo there. I meant that winamp plays videos after restart. Vlc always plays all the videos with sound, no problem.

I have windows xp, and I have winamp, windows media player and vlc player (no other players). I have installed k-lite kodec pack.

I will post a video later when I'm on my other computer. I'm not sure if that will help though, because the problem may be difficult to reproduce. Sometimes the videos play fine. Most videos are copyrighted, as they are from karaoke dvds. What I'm trying to do is to move the songs from dvds on my computer to avoid switching dvds when singing karaoke. I don't believe there's anything illegal in that, as I'm still using them only for my personal purposes.

[Batter Pudding]

Do you have Winamp PRO or the free one?

I am not used to Handbrake, but if you aer ripping to H.264 then you will need the Pro version of Winamp to playback (I think - I've had PRO for so long I forget what extras I have).

What format are you ripping the DVDs to? What settings in Handbrake?

If you check the Winamp Preferences, look at Plugins \ Input and locate the DirectShow Decoder and the MP4 Demuxer. Check the list of extensions in there to work out which one is decoding the video.

Are you sure you don't have any third party Winamp Plugins getting in the way here?


What is confusing me is the inconstancies. You don't seem to be able to narrow it down to something always repeatable on the same file types. This makes it more of a puzzle.

As these are mainly for your own use, have you tried changing settings in Handbrake to rip to a different video type?

[Batter Pudding]

re: Handbrake - I notice this is still in beta. Have you installed and tested the 6th May 2013 0.99 release?

The Changelog mentions many updates to the audio handling.
https://trac.handbrake.fr/milestone/HandBrake%200.9.9

Looks like an interesting project. Was not aware of that one and will probably install it to try it out some point soon.

[Erkki]

I uploaded a couple of videos: here.

I don't think it's about handbrake, because not all of the videos are ripped with handbrake. Also, if the winamp (I have free version) didn't support H.264, I guess those videos wouldn't play at all.

My winamp uses directshow to decode avi (default settings). I'm not sure about 3rd party plugins, but at least I haven't installed any.

I found out that the problem occurs more often with files that haven't been played before with winamp, there are exceptions though. As I said, it's quite difficult to reproduce.

[Batter Pudding]

I am downloading the video and testing it.

Anyone else clicking on that link BE CAREFUL as Sendspace are trying to jam all kinds of crud your way. iLivid junk is popping up from many of those "download" buttons and fake adverts. Watch carefully what is being offered to be saved on your PC!

[Batter Pudding]

Okay - just rattled through those. They all play fine, but then I do have a Winamp Pro install. We need someone without Winamp Pro to test these as well now.

The first video - Agents - is a little odd as it is 640x122.

Other than that, they all playback okay. Silent intros but then kick in the funky music. And no mention on H.264 anywhere so can't see why Pro would not play them.

This PC I am on in a Win7 PC and does have K-Lite's codec pack on it. I'll fire up a new build PC I am testing the Winamp Beta with and see what happens over there as no K-Lite pack yet.

[Batter Pudding]

Quick testing updates:

* My Test PC is a Win 7 PC running the very latest Winamp Beta release.
* This is a fresh install, fully service packed, legal Windows 7 Professional.
* NO other programs installed on the PC except for Winamp Beta, Opera web browser and Adobe Flash.
* NO codec packs installed.
* NO other video playback programs installed (not even VLC).
* Using onboard Intel video card and onboard Realtek audio.
* Connected to AV Amp via HDMI cable.
* Winamp is still unregistered on there. The Free edition without my Pro licence added.

All of your videos have played back first time without troubles. Audio and video.

This test kills off anything Winamp related really. Couldn't find a more basic setup than is currently on that PC. Even down to using crud onboard audio and video.


I can now only assume something is messed up with your codecs on that PC.
* Does Media Player Classic always reliably play back these videos?
* Does Windows Media Play always reliably play back these videos?
* Try uninstalling the K-Lite codec pack. Then try Winamp again.
* Have you ever tried to configure your codecs? Maybe something was left broken after an experiment?

* What is the sound card?
* Are you using the LATEST drivers for your Sound Card?
* Where do you get the drivers for it?


The weirdest thing is your descriptions of these videos "sometimes" working. Or how they work on subsequent plays. The lack of a pattern is the most bizarre part of this.

[Erkki]

Ok, I'll try uninstalling k-lite. Thanks a lot for your time and help!

[MrSinatra]

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=360701