John McGowan's AVI Overview

			     AVI Overview
		      by John F. McGowan, Ph.D.
                      (c) 1996-2004, John F. McGowan
                      http://www.jmcgowan.com/

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      Petrana Voice Commands for DVD  
      Voice control of DVD player software for the disabled and users of Home Theater Systems 
      that use a PC as the DVD player.

What is in this Overview? - Overview of Video for Windows, DirectShow (ActiveMovie), and AVI What is AVI? Disclaimer How to Get the AVI Overview WHAT'S NEW About the Author Brief Table of Contents Most Common AVI Question: What does "could not find vids:xxxx ..." error mean? UTILITIES, SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION, AUTHORING, ETC. Installation, Configuration, and Other Issues AVI and the WORLDWIDE WEB Audio and Video Codecs Troubleshooting AVI Business and Economics of AVI PROGRAMMING/TECHNICAL TOPICS Microsoft Windows Video Programming Multimedia Technical Information Microsoft Windows Device Drivers Glossary Chronology Detailed Table of Contents Most Common AVI Question: What does "could not find vids:xxxx ..." error mean? UTILITIES, SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION, AUTHORING, ETC. - How to play an AVI file? - DOS - Windows - Macintosh - Unix - VAX/VMS - Amiga - OS/2 - Atari - How to convert AVI to various audio/video formats. - MPEG (.MPG Files) - QuickTime (.MOV or .MooV) - Animated GIFs (GIF89a) - Microsoft ASF (Active Streaming Format) - Sequence of Still Images in Separate Files - Smacker (.SMK Files) - RealNetworks RealMedia Streaming Format (.RM Files) - How to convert other audio/video formats to AVI - QuickTime (.MOV or .MooV) - Sequence of Still Images in Separate Files - Autodesk Animation (FLI or FLC) - MPEG (.MPG) - Animated GIF (.GIF) - Real Media (.RM) - Real Video - Real Audio (.RA) - How to Convert a Sequence of Still Images in One Format to a Sequence in Another Format - Authoring AVI Files CREATING AVI FILES - How to capture screen to AVI files - Multimedia Authoring Tools to Create AVI Files - NewTek LightWave - Caligari TrueSpace - Fractal Design Ray Dream Studio - CorelMOVE - Macromedia (or MacroMind) Director - How to import AVI files into Lightwave - How to create AVI files from analog video (Video Capture Cards) - From VHS tapes and video cameras - From Hi8 tapes and video cameras - Video Capture under Video for Windows - Video Capture Cards - Video Capture through PC Parallel Port - What to do about horizontal tearing in the video? - Hard Drive Video Capture Issues - Video Capture Cards with Windows NT Drivers - How to create AVI files from Television - How to Create Morph Effects for AVI Files - How to compress the audio sound track in AVI files MODIFYING AND EDITING AVI FILES - How to change frame rate of AVI files - How to crop an AVI file - How to edit AVI files - VidEdit - Personal AVI Editor - MGI VideoWave - Corel Lumiere Suite for 32-bit Windows - Ulead Media Studio Pro - Adobe Premiere - in:sync SpeedRazor - Asymetrix Digital Video Producer (DVP) - Fast Movie Processor - Peck's Power Join - How to compress the audio sound track in AVI files - How to create NTSC (or PAL) Safe AVI - The Phantom Final Frame when Viewing an AVI - Binary File Editors for Viewing and Editing AVI - RIFF and AVI Parser/Viewers - John McGowan's VidTrace - Microsoft RIFFWALK - Bill Luken's RIFFSCAN - Editing and converting WAV files - CoolEdit - GoldWave - Macromedia SoundEdit - in:sync Speed Razor - Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge - Editing and converting Sound Files on Macintosh MISCELLANEOUS AUTHORING QUESTIONS - How to output AVI files to videotape - Size limits on AVI files - How to get around 2 GB AVI Files Size Limit - How to Fix Problem with AVI files from CorelMove 4.0 - What is Type 1 DV AVI? - What is Type 2 DV AVI? Installation, Configuration, and Other Issues INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION - Where to get the 16-bit Video for Windows for Windows 3.x - Reinstalling Microsoft's Video-for-Windows in Windows 95 - How to get ActiveMovie 1.0 - Installing and configuring AVI Codecs in Windows NT 4.0 - How to give AVI files a different extension in Windows 3.1 - How AVI Files are Handled in Windows 95 INFORMATION SOURCES - Bibliography of sources of information on Video for Windows and AVI - Internet Newsgroups with Information on AVI and Video - Where to find information on digital audio and video standards other than AVI. MISCELLANEOUS QUESTIONS - PC Video Card and Video Chips - Video Cards with Windows NT Drivers - How to embed an AVI file in a Microsoft Word Document - Microsoft's Changing Names - Answers to miscellaneous other frequently asked questions about AVI - AVI and Your Health (Eye Strain) AVI and the WORLDWIDE WEB - Effective use of video on a Web page - How to embed an AVI file in a Web page - Configuring Netscape Navigator 3.0x to Display AVI Files - Netscape Navigator Plug-ins to play AVI - Configuring Internet Explorer 3.0x to Display AVI Files - Sending AVI by E-Mail or Network News Postings - How to encrypt AVI Files - MIME types of AVI - Configuring Web Servers to Handle AVI Files - Apache - CERN (or W3C) - NCSA HTTPd - Microsoft Internet Information Server 3.0 - Netscape Enterprise Server 3.0 - AVI and Java - AVI and VRML - AVI and NetShow - Converting AVI to Microsoft Active Streaming Format (ASF) Files - Sources of AVI Video Clips on the Web - Low Bit Rate AVI for the Web REAL-TIME OR STREAMING VIDEO OVER IP NETWORKS - Limitations of AVI and Video for Windows over Networks - NetShow - Microsoft's Changing Names - Internet Video Standards and Pseudo-Standards AUDIO and VIDEO CODECS - Video for Windows compressors and decompressors WHAT THEY ARE, WHERE TO GET THEM, WHICH WORK BEST! - The Old Guard - Full Frames (Uncompressed) - Color Formats - Intel Real Time Video 2.1 (Indeo 2.1?) (RT21) - Indeo 3.2/3.1 - Microsoft Run Length Encoding - Microsoft Video 1 - Cinepak - Motion JPEG - Editable MPEG - The New Wave - VDOWave (VDOLive) - Indeo Video Interactive (Indeo 4.1) - Indeo Video Interactive (Indeo 5.x) - ClearVideo (aka RealVideo) - SFM (Surface Fitting Method) - QPEG - H.261 - H.263 - Microsoft H.263 (M263) - Vivo Software H.263 - Intel I263 H.263 (I263) - Shannon Communication Systems (SCS) H.263+ - Telenor R&D H.263 - Xirlink H.263 Video Codec (X263) - MPEG-4 - Microsoft MPEG-4 Version 3 (MP43) - Microsoft MPEG-4 Version 2 (MP42) - Microsoft MPEG-4 Version 1 (MPG4) - DivX MPEG-4 (DIV3) - DivX MPEG-4 (DIV4) - AngelPotion MPEG-4 (AP41) - Lightning Strike (Infinop) - Aware Motion Wavelets Video Codec - VxTreme Video Codecs NOT Available for AVI - Sorenson Video - Which AVI video codec is best? - Performance of the AVI Codecs A table with typical compression ratios of Video for Windows codecs. - Which Video for Windows codecs are supported by QuickTime on the Apple Macintosh? - How to determine which codecs are installed - How to determine which codec was used to compress an AVI file - Microsoft Four Character Codes (FOURCC) - Microsoft GUIDs for Video for Windows Codecs - Color Formats - Video Compression Technologies Run Length Encoding Vector Quantization Discrete Cosine Transform Discrete Wavelet Transform Contour-Based Image Coding Frame Differencing Motion Compensation - Audio Codecs - How to determine which Audio Codecs are Installed Troubleshooting AVI - Why can't I play my AVI file? - Why does AVI file freeze when playing back from CD or DVD Player? GLOSSARY CHRONOLOGY PROGRAMMING/TECHNICAL TOPICS MICROSOFT WINDOWS PROGRAMMING THE OLD REGIME - Windows Multimedia System - Video for Windows - Wave (Waveform Audio) - AVI file format - RIFF Files - Original AVI File Format - OpenDML AVI File Format Extensions - Where to get the exact specification of AVI? - AVI and Windows Bitmaps (DDB, DIB, ...) THE NEW WAVE - ActiveMovie - GUID's and AVI - DirectShow (ActiveMovie 2.0) - DirectDraw - MMX - ActiveX - Microsoft's Changing Names - What is Type 1 DV AVI? - What is Type 2 DV AVI? HOW TO PROGRAM IN WINDOWS - Playing an AVI file within a Windows Application - Reading and Writing an AVI file within a Windows Application USEFUL INFORMATION FOR AVI AND VIDEO PROGRAMMING (NOT WINDOWS) SOURCE CODE - Where to get C source code for an AVI Player Including Many Codecs - Where to get C source code for a JPEG Encoder or Decoder - Where to get C source code for an H.263 Video Encoder or Decoder - Where to get C source code for an MPEG Video Encoder or Decoder - Where to get C/C++ Source Code for Wavelet Image Compression TECHNICAL INFORMATION - Where to get an explanation of Color, Color Spaces, Gamma and All That - Where to get Detailed Information on Graphics File Formats? - Where to get Detailed Information on Audio File Formats? USEFUL INFORMATION FOR NETWORKED VIDEO PROGRAMMING - Internet Video Standards - MIME - RTP (Real Time Protocol) - RSVP (Resource Reservation Protocol) - IP Multicast - UDP (User Datagram Protocol) WINDOWS DEVICE DRIVERS AND VIDEO - What is a driver? - GDI Device Drivers - DirectDraw Hardware Abstraction Layer - Virtual Device Drivers - Windows NT Driver Model - Win32 Driver Model (WDM) - Setup Information Files Awards Credits ABOUT THE AUTHOR John F. McGowan, Ph.D. is President of the Research and Development Division of GFT Group Incorporated, a private research and development company. Dr. McGowan is the creator of Petrana. Petrana is an artificial personal assistant who talks to the computer user in spoken English and operates computer applications for the user easily, comfortably, and enjoyably, giving the user free use of his or her hands and freedom of movement. Petrana Voice Commands for DVD Voice control of DVD player software for the disabled and users of Home Theater Systems that use a PC as the DVD player. Dr. McGowan was a project manager and key contributor for CompCore Multimedia's SoftDVD product, one of the first Microsoft Windows DVD players, as well as other CompCore products. He has developed software implementations of image quality metrics, perceptual optimization of JPEG image compression, and video quality metrics for NASA. He has contributed to the conceptual design of systems for televising missions to Mars for NASA.

Dr. McGowan offers the following services in the area of computational algorithms, especially for image and video processing:

Market Analysis and Product Definition
Technology Assessment
Project Management
Business Analysis of Technical Standards
Algorithm Research and Development
Algorithms for Nanotechnology and Biotechnology

These services are described in detail at John McGowan's Services Offered

Disclaimer

In no event shall John McGowan, GFT Group Inc., or other contributors be liable for direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use or inability to use information, softwares, bitstreams and other data found on or referenced by the AVI Graphics Overview. By providing links to other sites, the author does not guarantee, approve or endorse the information or products available at these sites, nor does a link indicate any association with or endorsement by the linked site to the author. Permission to copy and distribute this document for non-commercial use is granted so long as the title, author's name, the Universal Resource Locator (URL) of the AVI Overview, and this disclaimer are retained. Any additions or modifications made to the original should be clearly marked as such. The author welcomes and encourages suggested changes and additions to the overview. Contributors will be credited. Return to Top

How to Get the AVI Overview

The AVI Overview is available at: http://www.jmcgowan.com/avi.html If you are in a Web Browser such as Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator, you can save a copy of the page you are viewing to your local hard disk as an HTML File. In Internet Explorer, Select File | Save As... In Netscape Navigator, Select File | Save As... Return to Top

What is AVI?

AVI stands for Audio Video Interleave. It is a special case of the RIFF (Resource Interchange File Format). AVI is defined by Microsoft. AVI is the most common format for audio/video data on the PC. AVI is an example of a de facto (by fact) standard. Return to Top

Most Common AVI Question: What does "could not find vids:xxxx ..." error mean?

This is the most common question that I get about AVI files (12/18/98). When Video for Windows cannot find the video compressor decompressor or codec used to encode an AVI file, Video for Windows pops up a message box with this error message. ".. could not find vids:xxxx ..." where "xxxx" is an inscrutable sequence of four letters and digits such as "i263" or "iv50". vids is the four character code for the video stream in an AVI file. xxxx is the unique four character code used to identify the video codec used to compress the video stream in the AVI file. In particular, I receive many questions about two video codecs from Intel: "... could not find vids:i263 ..." I263 is the four character code for Intel's implementation of the H.263 video standard. The Video for Windows drivers for this codec can be downloaded from the Intel Web site. As of March 8, 2000 the I263 video codec can be found at: http://support.intel.com/support/createshare/camerapack/CODINSTL.HTM To get the Intel I263 video codec, download the codec installer CODINSTL.EXE from the Intel web page. CODINSTL.EXE installs I263_32.DRV, the I263 video codec, and other Intel video codecs. "... could not find vids:iv50 ..." IV50 is the four character code for Intel Indeo Video 5.x, also available from the Intel Web site. IV50 is used by Indeo 5.0, 5.06, and 5.10. and a video codec from Microsoft: "... could not find vids:mp42 ..." MP42 is the four character code for the Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec Version 2 (MPG4 is the four character code for Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec Version 1). This codec is included in the Windows Media Tools, formerly NetShow Tools, available, as of October 25, 1999, at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/ "... could not find vids:mp43 ..." MP43 is the four character code for the Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec Version 3 (MPG4 is the four character code for Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec Version 1). This codec is included in the Windows Media Tools, formerly NetShow Tools, available, as of October 25, 1999, at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/ "... could not find vids:div3 ..." "... could not find vids:div4 ..." DIV3 and DIV4 are the four character codes for DivX Networks implementations of the ISO MPEG-4 digital video and multimedia standard. As of March 30, 2002, DivX can be downloaded from the DivX Networks web site: http://www.divx.com/ and a video codec from Aware Inc.: "... could not find vids:mwv1 ..." MWV1 is the four character code used by Aware Inc.'s Motion Wavelets Video Codec. As of March 10, 2000, this four character code was not registered with Microsoft according to the list of registered four character codes at the Microsoft web site. Aware Inc. Home Page: http://www.aware.com/ Aware MotionWavelets Video Codec Page: http://www.aware.com/telechoice/products/compression/motionwavelets.htm The AVI Overview contains extensive information on four character codes. Link to Section on Four Character Codes Return to Top

Awards

On March 23, 1998 the AVI Overview received the PC Webopaedia Outstanding Page Award.

On February 4, 1999 was selected as a HotCool SuperSite.

Credits

The following people have contributed ideas, suggestions, criticisms, and information to the AVI Overview: John Avis (information on Video for DOS) Jens Mutschke Q-Team Dr. Knabe GmbH John Whelan Dublin City University Victor Rutman Netvision Wolfgang Hesseler QuickView for DOS Marcus Moenig MainConcept Dave Wilson Rockwell/Brooktree Steve P. (no full last name, information on CorelMove 4.0) Dennis Strauch Tom Harding Practice Corporation Alexander Grigoriev Michael Caracena AVI Constructor Ashley Jacobs Mystech Associates Bernd Schoenes WashDC@aol.com (information on BinHex and AVI) Kevin McKinnon Dowco Computer Systems (info on IFF file format and RIFF) Tom Lane (Independent JPEG Group) Cindy Fuhrman Techsmith Corporation Timothy Barr (information on Premiere AVI to GIF89a plug-in) Chris Coppess (information on Microsoft MPEG-4 and NetShow) David Gartner Public Relations Manager, Equilibrium jim@shansys.com (information on Shannon Communications Systems H.263+ AVI Codec) Susan Stearman Ligos Technology Inc. (LSX-MPEG Encoder) Guillaume de Balliencourt Morgan Multimedia (Software M-JPEG Decoder) Paula Clark (information on Woldo's Video Player and other tools) Laszlo (information on MooVId and PIV-MooVId Amiga AVI/MOV players) Bill Luken (information on RIFFSCAN and QTSCAN) Serguei Grigoriev (information on MainConcept Motion JPEG Codec) Ron Gery Gamani Productions/GIF Movie Gear Sam Jobes (information on DV Video Data and AVI) Benjamin Gandon (information on AVI Players for Atari) Return to Top NOTE: Suggestions, additions, and corrections are welcome. Please send to

jmcgowan11@earthlink.net