VLC always crashes

H

hanaya

Registered
I bought my first mac a few months ago, I've got a powerbook G4 15" now. so I'm kind of new.

Every time I try running a .avi file in VLC player, it runs (sound only) for a few seconds, and then I get an error message that says an error has occurred and VLC has stopped unexpectedly.

I'd really like to use VLC.. Is there any way to fix this? Or does someone know what is wrong?
 
I've tried that twice already. And.. As a note, it's one avi file in particular. But this file works with VLC in windows, so it isn't the file.
 
Well, I am not sure, but some times I get lucky with a stubborn AVI file by converting. Try using Fmpegx and covert the file. I usually can convert them to a DIV AVI file and then view it.
 
I downloaded that, and I could get another .avi file that wasn't working in VLC at all to play sound in quicktime. But no sound, and whenever I moved to a different part of the video clip, there is this abrupt static and then silence again.

And that original file I spoke of still does not work. In both quicktime and VLC.
 
The Windows versions of VLC is not exactly the same as the Mac version. For example, the Windows version can play WMV3 (Windows Media Player 9) video, but the Mac version can't.

More info on your system and the file is needed. If this is an AVI using WMV3 video (an unholy combination if ever there was one), then as far as I know there's no way to play it on the Mac, at least not without doing some complicated hit-or-miss conversions. If you can open the AVI in QuickTime Player, select "Show Movie Info" from the Window menu, and see what it says about the audio/video codecs.

You could also try MPlayer. It's like VLC, but...better (IMO). You can also get info on movies in MPlayer, even if they're not playing.
 
I tried two different .avi files.

The one where only the sound wasn't working is Windows Media Video 9 Standard Format.

The other, when I try to open it in quicktime, quicktime unexpectedly errors and shuts down on me.

The one that shuts down quicktime won't playin MPlayer either. The sound works, but no video.
 
The avi file itself is probably corrupt if VLC, mplayer, wmp won't play it.
As powermac said try to convert it. It's your only hope!
 
It works on my PC, so I'm not sure that it's corrupt. It's a file that was created with a video editor called Ulead video studio 8. If that helps at all.
 
jh2112 said:
You can use ffmpegX to convert the file.
Click to expand...
Not if the file uses WMV3. ffmpegX, like VLC and MPlayer, cannot decode WMV3. ffmpegX is based on the same tools as VLC and MPlayer, so in general, if they can't play it, ffmpegX can't convert it.

hanaya said:
I tried two different .avi files.

The one where only the sound wasn't working is Windows Media Video 9 Standard Format.
Click to expand...

Wait...to clarify, you mean that the sound WAS working, and the video was NOT, right? That would be normal. VLC and MPlayer can't play WMV3 (Windows Media Player 9 Video). The only ways to play WMV3 on the Mac are Windows Media Player, which can't play AVIs, and QuickTime Player using Flip4Mac's WMV component, which, again, doesn't play AVIs (at least it didn't last time I checked). Bah.

There is one way to convert it on the Mac, although it doesn't seem completely reliable. That is, oddly enough, with VLC. It doesn't matter that it can't play the video, because we won't be converting the video — we'll just be dumping it into a WMV file. Here's how:

1. Add your AVI to VLC's playlist.
2. In VLC, go to File > Streaming/Exporting Wizard.
3. Select "transcode/save to file" and click Next.
4. Select "Existing Playlist Item" and your AVI from the list, and click Next.
5. Check the "Transcode Audio" box. DO NOT CHECK the "Transcode Video" box. In the audio codec menu, select mp3, and click Next. You might want to change the bitrate, too. Up to you.
6. Select "ASF" (this is another name for the WMV file format), and click Next.
7. Choose a place to save the file, click Next, and then click Finish.
8. Once VLC is done with the conversion, open your ASF file in QuickTime Player (be sure you have Flip4Mac's WMV Player installed).

This method should at least give you proper video. As for the audio...ironically, that's what's given me trouble. Go figure! The audio VLC produced was an octave or two lower than it should have been, which is very odd since VLC plays the audio straight from the source file just fine (I just get no video). I assume this was because I was dealing with an MKV file, though. I hope it will work fine with AVIs, but I've never personally tested it.

Good luck!


As for the file that makes everything crash, if you get info on it in MPlayer, what does it say? What format, codecs, etc?
 
I'm sorry but I can't figure out how to get the file information in MPlayer. The instructions you gave me earlier were for quicktime.
 
Ah, sorry. This should do it:
1. Show the playlist in MPlayer (under Window menu)
2. Drag the file into the playlist.
3. Select the file in the playlist and choose Show Info from the Window menu.

It'll show you the file format, video format, and audio format (for some reason the video format and audio format will be backwards, e.g., 3VMW instead of WMV3).
 
(WMP, Flip4Mac/QT, QT, VLC, MPlayer *ALL* play .avi's. Just not WMV3 in an .avi-container.)
 
You ought to be able to convert the WMV3 one to a usable WMV/ASF file using the steps I listed before.

As for the one using WMV2, I really have no idea why it should cause anything to crash. You could try converting it using ffmpegX, or try using the same method as for the WMV3 file, but I'm not very optimistic about either of those methods.
 
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