Hi

I want to watch a TV show I missed (Underbelly) and downloaded the file which was in AVI format.

I've tried playing the file with about 6 different players (Kaffeine, Mplayer, Kplayer, VLC etc) and they all play perfectly .... for 4 seconds and then abruptly stop. Why?

Thanks in advance guys.

When you tried mplayer, could you give me the whole output? (I suppose here that you used command line)

Here is the output;

file:///home/vmelville/Documents/Movies/Underbelly.S01E06.HDTV.XviD-BiA.a

V.XviD-BiA.avi
MPlayer 2:1.0~rc1-0ubuntu9.1 (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz (Family: 15, Model: 4, Stepping: 1)
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
Can't open joystick device /dev/input/js0: No such file or directory
Can't init input joystick
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.

Playing /home/vmelville/Documents/Movies/Underbelly.S01E06.HDTV.XviD-BiA.avi.
AVI file format detected.
VIDEO: [XVID] 624x352 12bpp 25.000 fps 1029.0 kbps (125.6 kbyte/s)
Clip info:
Software: VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.2 (build 2540/release)
open: No such file or directory
[MGA] Couldn't open: /dev/mga_vid
open: No such file or directory
[MGA] Couldn't open: /dev/mga_vid
[VO_TDFXFB] Can't open /dev/fb0: Permission denied.
[VO_3DFX] Unable to open /dev/3dfx.
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Selected video codec: [ffodivx] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-4)
==========================================================================
==========================================================================
Forced audio codec: mad
Opening audio decoder: [libmad] libmad mpeg audio decoder
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 128.0 kbit/8.33% (ratio: 16000->192000)
Selected audio codec: [mad] afm: libmad (libMAD MPEG layer 1-2-3)
==========================================================================
Could not open/initialize audio device -> no sound.
Audio: no sound
Starting playback...
VDec: vo config request - 624 x 352 (preferred colorspace: Planar YV12)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is 1.77:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
VO: [xv] 624x352 => 624x352 Planar YV12
Seek failed4/124 21% 0% 0.0% 0 0
V: 4.9 124/124 21% 0% 0.0% 0 0

Exiting... (End of file)

The sound problem is new, was working fine before and still is other players, eg Kaffeine

I managed to fix the permission problem opening the fb0 directory with chmod oug=rw

hmm... I really don't understand the problem here

Normally I would suggest that you play the file using this command:
$mplayer -identify filename

Try this, btw (using wine, or if you have access to MS Windows):

http://www.divx-digest.com/software/avifix.html

I think I know where the problem is. For some reason I have the same problem but I never solved it. So, here you are simple solution: When the video stops then just press "pause or play button" again. This will start the video where it stopped.
I hope it works for you, because it works for me perfectly.

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

Here is the output from mplayer -identify filename

vmelville@tpcc:~/Documents/Movies$ mplayer -identify Underbelly.1x07.Wise_Monkeys.HDTV_XviD-FoV.avi
MPlayer 2:1.0~rc1-0ubuntu9.1 (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz (Family: 15, Model: 4, Stepping: 1)
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
Can't open joystick device /dev/input/js0: No such file or directory
Can't init input joystick
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.

Playing Underbelly.1x07.Wise_Monkeys.HDTV_XviD-FoV.avi.
AVI file format detected.
ID_VIDEO_ID=0
ID_AUDIO_ID=1
VIDEO: [XVID] 640x368 16bpp 25.000 fps 969.2 kbps (118.3 kbyte/s)
Clip info:
Software: Nandub v1.0rc2
ID_CLIP_INFO_NAME0=Software
ID_CLIP_INFO_VALUE0=Nandub v1.0rc2
ID_CLIP_INFO_N=1
ID_FILENAME=Underbelly.1x07.Wise_Monkeys.HDTV_XviD-FoV.avi
ID_DEMUXER=avi
ID_VIDEO_FORMAT=XVID
ID_VIDEO_BITRATE=969192
ID_VIDEO_WIDTH=640
ID_VIDEO_HEIGHT=368
ID_VIDEO_FPS=25.000
ID_VIDEO_ASPECT=0.0000
ID_AUDIO_FORMAT=85
ID_AUDIO_BITRATE=132152
ID_AUDIO_RATE=0
ID_AUDIO_NCH=0
ID_LENGTH=2666.48
open: No such file or directory
[MGA] Couldn't open: /dev/mga_vid
open: No such file or directory
[MGA] Couldn't open: /dev/mga_vid
[VO_TDFXFB] Can't open /dev/fb0: Permission denied.
[VO_3DFX] Unable to open /dev/3dfx.
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Selected video codec: [ffodivx] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-4)
==========================================================================
ID_VIDEO_CODEC=ffodivx
==========================================================================
Forced audio codec: mad
Opening audio decoder: [libmad] libmad mpeg audio decoder
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 128.0 kbit/8.33% (ratio: 16000->192000)
ID_AUDIO_BITRATE=128000
ID_AUDIO_RATE=48000
ID_AUDIO_NCH=2
Selected audio codec: [mad] afm: libmad (libMAD MPEG layer 1-2-3)
==========================================================================
Could not open/initialize audio device -> no sound.
Audio: no sound
Starting playback...
VDec: vo config request - 640 x 368 (preferred colorspace: Planar YV12)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is 1.74:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
ID_VIDEO_ASPECT=1.7391
VO: [xv] 640x368 => 640x368 Planar YV12
V: 1.4 36/ 36 49% 0% 0.0% 0 0

Exiting... (End of file)


Pausing doesn't work. If I hit play it just starts again.

BTW my mplayer doesn't actually have an interface. It is just a box with the word "mplayer" written inside. The only way to use it is to right click on the box which brings up a menu. From there I can open files, at least momentarily. Is this normal?

For some reason it is having permission trouble opening /dev/fb0 again. Can't understand this either, I changed the permissions yesterday!