.AVI players

[godsgurl40]

Does anybody know where I can download a good .avi player relatively cheap? My camera ( a Canon a540) records videos in .avi and windows media or quicktime won't play it. Or if you have another option that's great too!

[The Unknown Gomer]

:confused: I play avi files in Windows Media Player all the time. In fact that's my default player for AVI files. Does it give you any sort of error message when it won't play them for you? You might be missing a video codec or something.

Another program to try, and I recommend this one all the time for photos, is IrfanView. It plays video files as well, including AVIs. Might be worth a try.

[Sam!]

.AVI files are not all the same. Different encoding algorithms can be used to create them. For each encoder, there is a proper decoder that must be installed in order for an AVI player to be able to understand the video and properly interpret it. That could be your problem - the wrong "codec" (encoder/decoder set).

[godsgurl40]

It's not that it won't "play"...It will come up and you can view about 3 secs of footage but after that it won't play. The audio cuts out and it is really jumpy. You can't watch a full video.

[The Unknown Gomer]

Are you trying to play back from the memory card (assuming it uses one of those for photo/video storage) or copying them to your hard drive first? Neither of my digital cameras recorded in AVI (my old sony used MPGs, my nikon does them in MOV format) but nether one likes to play them back properly when I try to play from the media (floppy or CF card), they have the same problems that you mention. But they play back perfectly once I've copied them to the hard drive first and access them from there instead.

[godsgurl40]

nope...mine are on my hard drive. They are actually on an external hard drive but I had the same problem even when they were on the hard drive.

[The Unknown Gomer]

:confused: So much for THAT theory. Rats.

Maybe try IrfanView. It's a freebie, so it won't cost you anything if it doesn't work. I've been using it for years as a photo viewer/resizer, and it is pretty handy with different video types as well.

What version of WMP are you trying to use? Maybe that needs an update? (grasping at straws here, now. ;) )

Oh, and have you tried playing the files on a different computer to see if maybe it's a file issue and not a computer issue?

[godsgurl40]

Ok, I think I may be set for now. I downloaded "GOM media player" from downloads.com everyones reviews on it sounded good so I think I will try it for a while. It seems to work very good. The first time looking at a movie it's jumpy but you have to look at it right after it's played all the way through then it plays perfect. Thanks for all your help tho. I think where my fiels are so big it just takes a while to watch them. Thank you unknown gomer & Sam for your input tho. Love ya guys!

Love,
Katie