5 ms·

> It plays literally everything In the ten or so years I've used it, I've only come across one file that VLC wouldn't play (excluded DRMed files) - a (possibly

> It plays literally everything In the ten or so years I've used it, I've only come across one file that VLC wouldn't play (excluded DRMed files) - a (possibly malformed) 24hr long MP4 I recorded a few years ago. Pretty much everything chokes on it (VLC crashes straight away), though oddly enough Windows Media Player handles it fine until you try to seek to a different time. I've dabbled with other media players/codecs in the past, but usually end up back at VLC not long after due to its versatility. Impressive stuff.

projct 11y ago
you might be able to reindex or remux this file (save to a new file in the process) to fix it, by the way.
- stordoff 11y ago
  I tried that at the time, but all of the tools I tried either crashed or only recognised the audio track (tried ffmpeg, QuickTime in OS X and Windows, Handbrake, VirtualDub, MKVToolnix, and mpegstreamclip plus a few others; mostly ffmpeg-based stuff crashed AFAICT - most of the others either errored out or just listed the audio track). I ended up recovering most of the footage by re-recording the screen whilst it was playing in Windows Media Player. Not ideal, but it was a low-ish quality capture of a webstream anyway, so any quality loss wasn't particularly important.
NamTaf 11y ago
I recently used this amazing little utility: http://slydiman.me/eng/mmedia/recover_mp4.htm http://slydiman.me/eng/mmedia/recover_mp4.htm It helped me recover some GoPro footage that went corrupt. You feed it a known good video from the same camera/same settings and then it basically uses the structure of the good footage to rebuild the bad footage. It worked a treat after I found a good file for it. Have a look at it, you may find it helps you out.
- stordoff 11y ago
  I don't currently have access to the drives it is stored on, but I'll give it a go next time I do. Thanks for the suggestion.
greggman 11y ago
I have quite a few files VLC doesn't play that MPlayer does. I use VLC as my main viewer but I get a file that doesn't work I try MPlayer.
- jbk 11y ago
  Please share them with us :)
  - jzelinskie 11y ago
    Lots of modern anime rips have had corruption issues with VLC in the past[0]. It's actually become a meme in those communities[1]. As x264 and 10bit encodings became ubiquitous, I think VLC's support also became fairly sufficient. However, the anime community is known for being early adopters of new encoding strategies. I believe it would benefit the development of VLC if some developers could check out what those encoders are doing every so often. It seems like they're always a few years ahead of how everyone else is encoding. [0]: http://i38.tinypic.com/34gkavn.jpg http://i38.tinypic.com/34gkavn.jpg [1]: http://i.imgur.com/RWIAe.jpg http://i.imgur.com/RWIAe.jpg
    - lmm 11y ago
      One big change was VLC switching to use mplayer's libass rather than their own (buggy, quite likely to the extent of allowing remote code execution) ass parser. These days VLC mostly seems alright, though it'll take a while for it to gain my trust.
  - miahi 11y ago
    Codec not supported: VLC could not decode the format "CFHD" (No description for this codec)
    - jbk 11y ago
      This codec was RE'd 2 weeks ago and was merged in FFmpeg and libavcodec this weekend, by a member of the VideoLAN non-profit organization. Expect it in VLC soon.
stephancoral 11y ago
My dad's friend is a lawyer in Boston and I remember he had a big case and needed to review some of the evidence urgently - it was security cam footage. However he had no idea how to play the video file, it was in some obscure format. Nothing but VLC worked. I'm pretty sure he ended up winning the case.
lmm 11y ago
What bothers me are the crashes. A crash probably translates into an arbitrary code execution when a malicious file exploits it. I've seen files that mplayer won't play that VLC will (though I've seen more of the opposite), but when mplayer can't parse a file it tends to simply not play it rather than crashing. So I'm not going to use VLC on files from the untrusted internet.

projct 11y ago

you might be able to reindex or remux this file (save to a new file in the process) to fix it, by the way.

stordoff 11y ago
I tried that at the time, but all of the tools I tried either crashed or only recognised the audio track (tried ffmpeg, QuickTime in OS X and Windows, Handbrake, VirtualDub, MKVToolnix, and mpegstreamclip plus a few others; mostly ffmpeg-based stuff crashed AFAICT - most of the others either errored out or just listed the audio track). I ended up recovering most of the footage by re-recording the screen whilst it was playing in Windows Media Player. Not ideal, but it was a low-ish quality capture of a webstream anyway, so any quality loss wasn't particularly important.

NamTaf 11y ago

I recently used this amazing little utility: http://slydiman.me/eng/mmedia/recover_mp4.htm http://slydiman.me/eng/mmedia/recover_mp4.htm It helped me recover some GoPro footage that went corrupt. You feed it a known good video from the same camera/same settings and then it basically uses the structure of the good footage to rebuild the bad footage. It worked a treat after I found a good file for it. Have a look at it, you may find it helps you out.

stordoff 11y ago
I don't currently have access to the drives it is stored on, but I'll give it a go next time I do. Thanks for the suggestion.

greggman 11y ago

I have quite a few files VLC doesn't play that MPlayer does. I use VLC as my main viewer but I get a file that doesn't work I try MPlayer.

jbk 11y ago
Please share them with us :)
- jzelinskie 11y ago
  Lots of modern anime rips have had corruption issues with VLC in the past[0]. It's actually become a meme in those communities[1]. As x264 and 10bit encodings became ubiquitous, I think VLC's support also became fairly sufficient. However, the anime community is known for being early adopters of new encoding strategies. I believe it would benefit the development of VLC if some developers could check out what those encoders are doing every so often. It seems like they're always a few years ahead of how everyone else is encoding. [0]: http://i38.tinypic.com/34gkavn.jpg http://i38.tinypic.com/34gkavn.jpg [1]: http://i.imgur.com/RWIAe.jpg http://i.imgur.com/RWIAe.jpg
  - lmm 11y ago
    One big change was VLC switching to use mplayer's libass rather than their own (buggy, quite likely to the extent of allowing remote code execution) ass parser. These days VLC mostly seems alright, though it'll take a while for it to gain my trust.
- miahi 11y ago
  Codec not supported: VLC could not decode the format "CFHD" (No description for this codec)
  - jbk 11y ago
    This codec was RE'd 2 weeks ago and was merged in FFmpeg and libavcodec this weekend, by a member of the VideoLAN non-profit organization. Expect it in VLC soon.

stephancoral 11y ago

My dad's friend is a lawyer in Boston and I remember he had a big case and needed to review some of the evidence urgently - it was security cam footage. However he had no idea how to play the video file, it was in some obscure format. Nothing but VLC worked. I'm pretty sure he ended up winning the case.

lmm 11y ago

What bothers me are the crashes. A crash probably translates into an arbitrary code execution when a malicious file exploits it. I've seen files that mplayer won't play that VLC will (though I've seen more of the opposite), but when mplayer can't parse a file it tends to simply not play it rather than crashing. So I'm not going to use VLC on files from the untrusted internet.