Cant Play the DAT files using Mplayer
 

Hi ,

I've Installed the Mplayer with gui. when I try to open the dat file using I get the error message "SEEK FAILED". Can I play these files using Mplayer . if so please reply

bye

zain

I don't think you can. Are you getting these from some P2P software? If so look and see if there is a preview or export option.

I think you're trying to watch a vcd movie (mpeg1), right? You should open the DAT file just like opening a vcd in mplayer.

I installed mplayer . I can play mp3 ,wav etc. but when I try to play the VCD (dat file) using gmplayer(gui version of mplayer) I get the message seek failed. If try to open the file using the command line option I get a message as below



[root@localhost mpegav]# mplayer -vo vesa /media/cdrom/mpegav/avseq01.dat
MPlayer 1.0pre7try2-3.4.2 (C) 2000-2005 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel (Family: 8, Stepping: 1)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 SSE SSE2


Playing /media/cdrom/mpegav/avseq01.dat.
Seek failed


Exiting... (End of file)

------------ I FOUND THIS IN THE MPLAYER DOCUMENTATION

Under Linux you cannot copy or play such files (they contain garbage). Under Windows it is possible as its iso9660 driver emulates the raw reading of tracks in this file. To play a .DAT file you need the kernel driver which can be found in the Linux version of PowerDVD. It has a modified iso9660 filesystem
(vcdfs/isofs-2.4.X.o) driver, which is able to emulate the raw tracks through this shadow .DAT file.

-------------------------------------

If any one has played it your suggestions are welcome

Hi Zainma, you can very well play VCD's using mplayer. Give this a shot :
or simply type mplayer vcd:// (ommiting the track no.)
You cannot however copy these files just out of the window. They are in the form of tracks, in such a format that the VCD player can understand and play them. For your system they contain garbage as the documentation says. To copy them you'll have to rip the mpeg's off the VCD. For this you can use any VCD ripping software. Some popular ones are VCDIMAGER and GRIP (I forgot the exact name of this one).

Hope this helps!

well if we have the option of copyin' them on our hard disk and then playing it,
then i'd say copying and renaming the extension from .dat to .mpg simply works gr8
its not difficult and doesnt need any other modifications as such

i m using currently te same thing and yah mplayer cant play the .dat tracks directly from vcd yet this solution can work out till we actually learn to stage doin' that modification which isnt' so easy for newbies.

What you have on the hardisk are the mpegs. Linux does not care about filename extensions and neither does mplayer. So a .DAT on the hardisk is same as a .mpeg file or a .txt (as long as they are originally mpeg files). Try playing a .mpeg file with mplayer, then rename it to a .DAT file or a .txt file and play it again with mplayer. You won't have any problems. Mplayer would automatically detect the mpeg-file format (regardless of the filename-extension).
So renaming a .DAT to a .mpeg won't do any good. If you have it on the disk, it's most probably in the mpeg file format and you won't have any problems in playing it.
Simply copying a VCD won't work out of the box ... (read my earlier post).
Also mplayer can play a VCD quite easily. REMEMBER here that when working with a VCD we are not trying to play the individual files, we are trying to play individual tracks.
So something like mplayer /mnt/cdrom/AVSEQ01.DAT won't work. Heck! mplayer won't even recognize that file and either give you "seek failed" or "End of File" or "I/O Error" or something similar. You'll get similar errors when you try to right-click copy and right-click paste the individual AVSEQ??.DAT files from the VCD.
However something like mplayer vcd:// should work perfectly fine. (use mplayer vcd://<track no.> to play a particular track).

I tried using the mplayer vcd:// --cdrom-device /media/cdrom. then I got the message below.


[root@localhost mpegav]# mplayer vcd:// --cdrom-device /media/cdrom
MPlayer 1.0pre7try2-3.4.2 (C) 2000-2005 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel (Family: 8, Stepping: 1)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 SSE SSE2


Playing vcd://.
CD-ROM Device '/dev/cdrom' not found.
Failed to open vcd://

Playing /media/cdrom.
Win32 LoadLibrary failed to load: avisynth.dll, /usr/local/lib/codecs/avisynth.dll, /usr/lib/win32/avisynth.dll, /usr/local/lib/win32/avisynth.dll
Seek failed


Where Can I find this avisynth.dll. I downloaded all-20050412.tar.bz2, essential-20050412.tar.bz2 and
win32codecs-essential-20040703.tar.bz2 from the mplayer site. but this particular dll is missing.

I tried to copy the file from CD to hardisk using VCDGEAR
vcdgear -dat2mpg avdseq01.dat /u01/media/film.mpg.
but this command is hanging .

Waiting for some other tips

Hi, I don't know why this problem is occuring. I've been using the all-20050412.tar.bz2 codecs pack from the mplayer site and haven't had much problems. I can play avi, wmv, realmedia and a couple of other formats without any problems. Also there was no avisynth.dll in the all-20050412.tar.bz2 codecs pack that I have downloaded from the mplayer site.
But it seems that many people are having problems with this. Just google or search these forums for avisynth.dll.
Take a look at this and this . They discuss the same problem as you are facing.
You can download avisynth from here. Also you can visit the Avisynth HomePage I haven't tried it myself. The SourceForge.net page says :
Avisynth is a scripting language and a collection of filters for simple (and not so simple!) non-linear video editing tasks. It frameserves video to applications.. Maybe you'll have to search around for avisynth.dll from amongst the package you download.

As far as ripping the VCD is concerned, I have never used VCDGEAR. But I have used VCDIMAGER and it works fine. If you can, download VCDIMAGER and then try to rip the VCD. I think the command for that is vcdxrip (or something like that, I haven't used it for a long time now).

Hope this helps!

Hi Zainma, visit this thread. Read post #22.
Go to the SourceForge download page of AviSynth and from there select the package AviSynth 2.0. Then on the next page click on release 2.0.5 and select avisynth_205_dll.zip for download. Extract the downloaded zip file and you'll find avisynth.dll there. I myself tried the above and got the dll.
Hope this helps!

I downloaded AVISYNTH.DLL from the site. though I tried it before it was not the correct version I suppose. I put the avisynth.dll in the proper directory and tried to run the file . I got the message as below

root@localhost MPEGAV]# mplayer vcd://2 -cdrom-device /media/cdrom
MPlayer 1.0pre7try2-3.4.2 (C) 2000-2005 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel (Family: 8, Stepping: 1)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 SSE SSE2


Playing vcd://2.
read CDROM toc header: Inappropriate ioctl for device
Failed to get cd toc
Failed to open vcd://2


Exiting... (End of file)



If tried on GMPLAYER i got seek failed error.

After this I tried to copy the DAT file ( I TRIED THE DAT FILE FROM DIFFERENT VCDS) using VCDGEAR

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[root@localhost MPEGAV]# vcdgear16_static -dat2mpg AVSEQ01.DAT /root/Desktop/avseq01.mpg

VCDGear v1.6e build 111301 coded by Dracore (vcdgear@hotmail.com)

VCD DAT source --> AVSEQ01.DAT
MPEG destination --> /root/Desktop/avseq01.mpg
Conversion method --> dat2mpg


WARNING: Specified DAT file has an invalid DAT signature.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


AFTER THIS MESSGE ITS JUST HANGING.

thanx in advance for ur patience.

Hi, seems like there is a problem either with the media or with the cd-rom itself or maybe it is referencing the wrong device. I haven't tried VCDGEAR. Also we've got examinations this entire week otherwise I could have downloaded VCDGEAR and tried it myself. Sorry, I can't be of more help as far as VCDGEAR is concerned. I'll again suggest using VCDIMAGER. You can find it here . Click on the plus sign against releases 1-rc1 or 1-rc0 or 1-beta12 of package xine-vcdx. The menu will expand and you'll find VCDIMAGER there. You can also go to the VCDIMAGER homepage and download it from there. Try using it and tell us if it works or not.