FLV troubles

what's the secret on playing FLVs? VLC gets around 1/3 of the way thru and then sputters to a stop. same if i try opening via firefox.

WMP, Real, etc. won't attempt them in the first place. nor will IE, i guess -- rather a surprise!** -- as it punts it back to my default, VLC (which then fizzles, of course).

i am DLing a dedicated FLV player as i type ("FLV Player"; first one which came up), but i'm skeptical this will be any better. and even if it IS, what's the deal with VLC and the rest of them? what do y'all NORMALLY use to watch FLVs?


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** flash plays ok when i'm visiting a site using IE, so why won't "open with IE" work on local FLVs, same as FF does?

 

K-Lite Mega Codec Pack

 

ok, i'm unclear on codecs -- what do i DO with them? unzip and dump into my VLC folder?

besdes, my VLC is the latest version. shouldn't the codecs be up to date in the first place?

anyway, i'm DLing as i type. give me an hour (dialup)....

:major

PS: i don't recall this problem on my old PC, even with an earlier version of VLC. is VLC going backwards, or did i manually update the codecs like this at some point and simply forget? the term "FFDshow" comes to mind.

PS2: "FLV Player" that i DLed was no better than VLC, fwiw. fizzle at 1/3.

 

Can't help with VLC, I've never had much luck with it. If I'm not mistaken though, it is self contained, doesn't rely on external codecs. Although that may have changed since the last time I tried it.

With K-Lite, just run the installer that you are downloading and take the defaults for the codecs. It will ask if you want to make Media Player Classic(which is incluced in the d/l) the default player though and for the time being that's what I would do. You can change it later, if you like, to something like WMP.

 

there was a time when VLC was "geek chic" -- the player of choice on boards like this. what the hell happened?

2-3 years back the common opinion was that VLC could "play anything". i definitely don't feel like that now.

only in the past year or so have i sporatically -- and reluctantly -- dusted off my WMP, etc.

 

VLC seems to work well for most folks, but there are a few of us that it doesn't. Think that's the way it is for all good applications.

A few years back I installed VLC and it worked great for a little over a week. Then it stop playing the video, only audio would play. I tried uninstalling/reinstalling. Uninstalled it, waited until a new version came out, installed new version, same thing.

Uninstalled VLC, installed K-Lite and haven't had a problem since.

I figure I must have installed something else shortly after VLC that caused a conflict, although I've no idea what it might have been.

 

VLC works great for me, used to use KMPlayer, but not recently. With a decent codec pack WMP will play almost anything. I use KLite found in Multimedia here with the MajorGeeks. Also apply the updates as they become available.You may have to tell Windows to open the flv file with WMP. You might want to uninstall VLC with Revo Uninstaller and be sure to delete all preferences etc. then reinstall it.

 

hoo boy, K-Lite no better. i've tried all the various players, various settings, etc.

i suppose the clips may be CORRUPTED (partials), which wouldn't surprise me given the troubles i have DLing stuff over dialup. but wouldn't the lengths reflect this?

that is, they're freezing/sputtering out at 27 sec, say, of a clip reading "1:30". with the slider about 1/3 of the way across.

same in every player. if they were partials, wouldn't most players just view them as 27 sec long clips, showing the end as 0:27/0:27 instead of 0:27/1:30?

 

Seems strange that multiple clips being viewed with "various players" all stop at roughly the same point, about a third of the way through.

If the download is interrupted and then continued by the downloader in use, that could be where the corruption is occurring. The source of the download or your connection to that source might also be the problem. Since you're on dial-up, this is quite possible.

With the exception of WMP, are you uninstalling all of these players before you install the next? Or are you piling them one on top of the other?

Did you try Bugballou's suggestion?

 

VLC's been uninstalled and reinstalled multiple times. in fact, this is a new version just installed last week. preferences, caches, etc. wiped clean in between.

i tried rolling back to previous version, but no diff. and i must repeat that VLC works fine on all OTHER filetypes...and that all other players seem to act similarly on THESE clips.

i am of the impression the clips must be corrupted. but even if the downloader hiccuped midstream, what would cause a player to misinterpret the length PRESENTED to it in the here and now? i used to see this on AVI partials years ago (like 2005), but not lately. and i don't recall it on other filetypes. for 5-6 years now, every corrupted/partial clip i've attempted has at least "matched", i.e. "0:27/0:27" in my previous example.

wish i had more FLV clips to determine whether it's just these 2 clips or *ALL* FLV clips. lotta work to DL a bunch more.....

 

Don't think the players are misinterpreting the length. The files were downloaded in their entirety but are corrupt.

"i must repeat that VLC works fine on all OTHER filetypes" Sorry, some how I managed to miss where that was established.:-o

 

um...the OP? the entire thread? the thread title abt FLV specifically?

aniwe...i just noticed that another FLV i have plays fine in all players, but only VLC displays the correct length. that is, the clip seems to be 12:47 long -- which i trust b/c the contents wrap up cleanly at that very point -- and plays exactly to 12:47 in all the major players. and yet WMP for example reads total length as 1:31:48 and shows the slider as only about 1/8 of the way across when it ends.

this is basically the same as the 2 clips mentioned earlier, except that, in those cases, i concluded the clips were being truncated.

perhaps i concluded wrong -- who knows, maybe they too were playing to completion, but displaying a bloated clip length as well?

any new thoughts/theories in light of this new info?

i should note, btw, that in those cases VLC was just as bad. here in this current clip, VLC gets everything right, but the other players all stumble.

 

Sounds like you have a corrupt download if I've read this thread correctly.

 

Can you give a link to a video that definitely stops at 1/3 so we can try to view it online and download it.

 

I never have trouble with VLC playing anything. This includes non-extracted .rar media . AND .flv .

 

this is that last one which plays to completion but LOOKS like it's much longer in WMP:

http://www-tc.pbs.org/newshour/video/2008/01/18/20080118_2_fallon.flv

the 2 earlier ones were DLed long ago; i dunno if i can find links at this point.

can i UPLOAD something 10 or 20M here?

 

Strange, it wants Irfan view to run!:eek I'm not going any further for my own safety. I never seen such dedication to someone's application.

 

That's odd augiedoggie, it opened straight away in MPC for me.

WMP says it's 12:47 in length. The file is 31.6MB in size.

 

It instantly opened in FF for me. Ill download it and see what happens.

 

Plays fine to 12:47 with VLC 1.1.11 .
I did skip forward with the progression tab, but it played fine all the way to the end.
Win 7 64

 

Exactly the same for me, the timer was accurate.
XP SP3

 

children, children! i STIPULATED that vlc displays the correct time, at least for this clip. that is the "control case" -- no need to test!

the question is whether *OTHER* players do as well.

with the exception of plastidust, everyone is reinventing the wheel here!