Using Windows Media 10 (though the problem affects Media Player Classic too).

Codec pack is the Combined Community Codec Pack.

Anime is stored on an external hard drive.

About 10GB of videos.

Problem:

This is a problem thats only started a few days ago, a week ago all my AVIs ran perfectly. Past few days the image sometimes go distorted. Subtitles go blurred i.e. unreadable and the general image gets smeared. All boxy too.

Occasionally when accessing the folder they're in I get an "AVI: Index not found" Error which crashes Windows Explorer. In fact WE has been crashing lots the past few days. Sometimes when I open the file I get a "Cannot play this file" error.

Recently installed stuff:

Deep Burn Pro DVD writing software.
Last Windows auto-update (no IE7 cause I hated the look of it)

I've done virus scans (AVG Free, fully up to date) and spyware scans, found a few spyware (now deleted) but I doubt they were the kind to disrupt AVI's

Any ideas? I don't wanna go down the System Restore or re-install Windows route just yet.

Windows Media Player is often the source of pain, especially if you are watching AVI's of dubious internet origin . VLC might work for you. Purchase the videos you enjoy in DVD format. If you have already purchased them, re-rip them to your hard drive with different software.

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quote:

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Originally posted by skynes:
Any ideas? I don't wanna go down the System Restore or re-install Windows route just yet.

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I agree with steveth45, try playing the videos in VLC or re-ripping them with a different program.

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Virus scan and Spyware scan comes up clean.

Hard drive has been defragged.

Tried VLC.

Still got the problem.

"Purchase the videos you enjoy in DVD format. If you have already purchased them, re-rip them to your hard drive with different software."

Japanese fansub, not available aaanywhere in the west. It was all running perfectly for a while, now it's all just keeled over and died.

--clint

If you really feel like digging into your codec situation, a tool that I recommend downloading is VirtualDub -- it's a multi-purpose tool that was created for editing/subtitling videos, but it has a good menu interface to see what codecs are on your system, and (I believe) what codecs a particular video file is asking for.

--clint

However, I scanned through the AVI frame by frame and my weird problem is actually on the frames!

Does this use the Codec to show the file frame by frame? Or have frames become corrupt, thus making this problem?

I did move the entire folder (all 10GB) from one Hard drive to another when the first was getting full... would that cause this?

[This message has been edited by skynes (edited February 07, 2007).]

Edit: I re-downloaded one of them and it ran PERFECTLY. I copied it to my external hard drive and immediately had problems with it... the same problems I've been having. So I checked the original file on my desktop again (I put a copy into the external) and it was perfect. Deleted the copy and put another one there, again problems.

So it seems I have a botched external hard drive...

[This message has been edited by skynes (edited February 07, 2007).]

I've tried formatting it, but I get an error of "Windows was unable to format the drive"

--clint

You say that explorer seems to crash a lot.. That happens when windows begins to get old. Or it might be the PC itself, getting old. Im not realy sure which, because I have a dual boot system. My new Kubuntu partition (on a very old hard drive) runs far better than windows. (on a slightly newer hard drive) I have had to restore windows multiple times, but it crashes just as often.

Im not realy sure whether this is because Linux is more stable, or the age of the operating system.

Also:

quote:

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Last Windows auto-update (no IE7 cause I hated the look of it)

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This gives the idea that you use internet explorer. Thats the most common source of spyware, viruses, and whatever malware there is floating around on the internet.

If your into torrents (and where else can you get decent fansubs? ) you should always check the comments and make sure nobody is complaining about attached malware.

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[This message has been edited by Goop2 (edited February 10, 2007).]

Ive disconnected the drive, since then I haven't had a problem with explorer crashing or corrupted AVIs.

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A newbie is a person who is new to something, and possibly enjoys being creative.

I did try it in a friends PC (which would prolly be high spec as he has more PC bits than most stores) and we had the same 'cannot format' error.

I've arranged for it to be returned to where I bought it and get a replacement.