General

Thanks so much, I've learned a lot from that post... and from all your replies to my numerous threads relating to video editing and conversion. I've been a Basiler for over 6 years now and I've quit MS even before then. It's amazing how people like you and Mindstormer have contributed and, in your case, continue to contribute so much in the Tech category of an auction site for a game.

[quote=immortal192]By the way, have you used SUPER (video converter) on Windows 8?[/quote]
I've used SUPER before, but only on Windows XP (probably won't make a real difference though).

It's been able to handle files that nothing else would touch, specifically video files taken with a Panasonic Lumina camera saved in MJPEG format (.mov), which my players would play, but nothing would convert into a more standard (and more compressed) format until I found SUPER, which did a great job of converting it to .avi.
I don't like the interface on SUPER very well though, so I usually use FormatFactory for just about everything that it can handle.

A lot of the problems you'll run into may be related to tweaking the codec settings, either from within the converter program you're using or by going directly into the codec settings. A lot of people like to mess around with the settings when they create videos and upload them to the world, which sometimes can cause problems later on for other people. (One example was when the Phillips DVP-642 DVD player came out, with the ability to play DivX .avi files directly (not on a computer, hooked up to a TV set). People for some unknown reason used to like to mess with the DivX settings and use the "quarter pixel" (or QPEL) setting (which produced absolutely no visible improvement in the video quality), and which the DVP-642 would not play. I finally found a dedicated program called "AVIRecomp" to re-code the files using the same settings as the original... without the QPEL.)

This kind of thing can have other effects, including the slow indexing you mentioned. Some settings (and bad conversions) can make the indexing (forward or reverse) take a long time, or just fail completely, often just locking up the player. Transcoding can sometimes fix that problem, and some programs have a specific "re-index" feature to help solve those issues. I use VirtualDub when working with .avi files usually, and that has a re-index feature that sometimes can save a broken video file.

I'm not sure how SUPER does format conversion without re-rendering the frames, because when you go from one format to another it usually requires the video data to be fully uncomressed with one codec and recompressed with the other. Maybe if the formats are closely related it's possible to just copy the frames without re-rendering.

I wish my knowledge of this stuff was broader... I usually just go "in-depth" when I run into a problem and have to spend time getting something specific to work.
And of course, nothing in the field is static for very long.. the only thing that stays the same is that things are bound to change, usually just as you figure it out finally.

I found out that MediaMonkey actually has their own codec pack and installed it. I can now open the file correctly, but there is a significant delay/lag (2-6 seconds) every time I want to view the video at a different time (dragging the time to a different point). I'm guessing the codec pack creates more work to process the video, because videos that are internally supported by MediaMonkey (playable with the installation of additional codecs) can be played instantaneously.

I'm going to try to convert the mp4 file to another mp4 file as you've said to see whether MediaMonkey can internally support it to remove this lag issue. I'm guessing I'm going to have to sacrifice video quality for a smooth playback by converting an mp4 file of one codec to an mp4 of another codec.

I actually want to get into the nitty gritty of codecs and find out which codecs are most ideal for my iPod touch, computer, and Android device and convert my entire media library into a format with codecs that are internally supported... I really dislike having to experience the 2 to 6 seconds delay whenever I want to jump from one part of the video to another.

Now I have to find out what all my media player's internally supported codecs are as well and find a way to view/manage the codecs of my entire media library.

By the way, have you used SUPER (video converter) on Windows 8? I tried using this application because it was able to "convert videos without transcoding," which is a feature very few converters have (and I'm guessing it means without sacrificing video quality at all? I'm confused because if that's the case, it seems like it should be a "must-have" feature for all converters, especially for people experiencing my problems. Anyway, SUPER is very buggy when I tried it out--videos would often not process completely and would freeze. I would use the same settings on Freemake Video Converter and it would work. It's a shame because "convert videos without transcoding" seems like a very enticing feature and SUPER is most likely the most customizable and compatible of any video converters.

Codecs are somewhat equivalent to "drivers" for computer devices (another not very well understood type of thing, unfortunately).

A media player usually doesn't have all the software code in it that will tell it how to open, read, decode, decompress and display every different type of video "container" file format in use today, and which may be added in the future. Instead it makes use of "codecs", a file which tells the video player how to do all that processing on the video file in order to figure out how to display the content of the video file. The "COmpressor/DECompressor" file is specifically written for each type of video file format and can be changed or added to as the video file formats evolve, without having to change the video player program itself.

This extends the flexibility of a video player program because it means you don't have to update all the players in the world when a video format changes or a new one is added, you just release a new or updated codec file.
Unfortunately this also means you have to keep the codecs for your player current to be sure it will be able to play all the video formats you want to play.

Because of the added step of having to locate separate codecs, some players have "regressed" a bit and started including more codecs internally so they can play more formats directly, and make things simpler for the end user.
This is more convenient, but it can result in the player not being able to play video files using formats the player doesn't fully support internally.
This sounds like what's happening with your MediaMonkey program.

I've never used MediaMonkey myself, but the first thing would be to check to be sure you have the most recent version installed. They may have released a newer version that supports the MP4 variant you're having problems with.

If it's up to date, the next thing would be to search out a codec that will support the MP4 video file in MediaMonkey. As you indicated, there are multi-codec packages like K-Lite Codec Pack available that contain a lot of different codecs, and which are updated regularly to make sure they include the most recent versions of the codecs.
I think I'd try installing the most recent K-Lite pack and see if that helps. You can always uninstall it if it doesn't seem to help, or if it causes any problems.
I'm not sure if the Basic K-Lite pack includes MP4, but it probably should. (The higher level pack you download, the more codecs and optional programs are included).
Also there are a lot of settings you can change to enable or disable individual codecs to try to find the one that will let the player play the format you're looking for, in addition to just the default installation settings when you install the K-Lite pack.

Finally you could try manually converting the video files that don't play, either to a format MediaMonkey can play, or perhaps experiment with converting MP4 --> MP4, hoping that it will convert to a format more suited to what MediaMonkey can play.

To do that, I'd use something like "FormatFactory", use the option "All to MP4" and try letting it convert one file (as an experiment) to its standard MP4 codec format and see if that plays. If that doesn't work, you can go into the Video settings in FormatFactory and change the codec used to recompress the file, looking for one that will work with MediaMonkey.
Once you find a setup that works, you can just load all the files into FormatFactory and it will convert them all at one time.