Need help with video files

[BennyB]

Ok, not really anything to do with freediving, but i'm at my wits end here....

I have a Sony DCR-SR40 Handycam and have plenty of movie files on my computer from this camera (it records in MPEG 2 format I believe). When I replay them my computer plays them with Windows Media Player 11. I had no problems previously, but I must have done something in the last few weeks as now I have no sound with any of these files. It's doing my head in as i'm not in the slightest way tekky when it comes to computers.

Any DB gurus out there know what I can do?

Cheers,
Ben

 

[Huw]

Sorry mate, nothing springs to mind, but i'm fairly sure that trux knows a thing or two about computers. Perhaps if he doesnt pick up on this thread you could drop him a pm.

Huw.

 

[trux]

Well, first of all I'd try playing the files on another computer to see if the problem is with the files or in the computer. When you find it works well on another computer, then you'll need to eliminate other possibilities on your PC - the player, diverse settings, sound card, etc. First of all I'd try some alternative player - there are plenty of them available on the net.

And of course, make sure your speakers are on, and that the volume is turned up (both hardware and software) (just kidding, I am sure you verified that)

 

[Lockedin]

And of course, make sure your speakers are on, and that the volume is turned up (both hardware and software) (just kidding, I am sure you verified that)

What he said.

Also, try playing other videos (similar and / or different formats), on your computer. If they have ALL lost audio, I tend to think more toward the hardware, or general settings. If some (generally one) audio format(s) / player(s) don't work and others do; Maybe the settings / preferences in the player need to be adjusted, or have gone corrupt.

Another idea might be to find a forum, and post a question. A lot of the bigger (Sony - I think for you) names have their own forums, and the moderators are often techs.

Are you on Win. or Mac (which OS). Which player is misbehaving? Have you done any updates / or upgrades recently?

Rick

Forum posts matching "DCR-SR40" - CNET Forums

 

[BennyB]

Thanks for the replies and links so far. I use a PC laptop (Asus W3) and like I said they played fine on Windows Media Player 11 a few weeks ago but no sound now - volume is turned on and all that. I tried it in Windows Media Player Classic and there was sound, I also played in the Sony camera editing software - yesterday it didn't have sound but there was an option to convert audio format, which said "The movie audio format will be converted from Dolby Digital to MPEG Audio and be saved to a different movie." I did this to a file and sure enough it played fine afterwards. I'm not about to do this to a few hundred files however!

So with that in mind do you think it could be something to do with a codec? I understand virtually nothing about codecs except that they determine what files I can play.

Cheers,
Ben

 

[Jorg]

go to VideoLAN - Free Software and Open Source video streaming solution for every OS! and install this player. It should for sure work with this one, even strangest codecs and files are supported. You can also install GSpot Codec Information Appliance to see which codecs are used in your media files so you can troubleshout more correctly..

 

[wet]

microphone is on while recording?

 

[BennyB]

Yep, sound was on and indeed I could hear it in Media Player up until a few weeks ago.

Jorg - thanks for that, I can hear the sound now. Still don't know why audio won't play in Win Media Player anymore but at least I can hear it.

Cheers,
Ben

 

[trux]

Jorg - thanks for that, I can hear the sound now. Still don't know why audio won't play in Win Media Player anymore but at least I can hear it.

It may be some missing audio codecs in your WMP11. The WMP v11 was officially released only couple of weeks ago, so possibly you could hear it before with the v10, not really with v11. Or the audio codecs got corrupted or overwritten. There are tools available for analyzing audio/video files and will tell you what codecs you need. For example GSpot or Sherlock and many others.

 

[sanso]

go to VideoLAN - Free Software and Open Source video streaming solution for every OS! and install this player. It should for sure work with this one, even strangest codecs and files are supported. ....

I second that. If vlc doesn't play it it's most likely not a video.
Free software just rocks big time. Yay!

 

[BennyB]

Thanks for the advice guys. I installed a codec pack called K-Lite and it works fine now.

Although VLC looks good, the other issue is that I needed to use Windows Movie Maker, and it doesn't work if Media Player doesn't work. With the K-Lite codec they're both working now.

Cheers,
Ben