AVI file won`t open - unsupported or damaged

[eVatrik]

I am using Premiere CS5, and did an edit about 5 days ago with .avi files recorded with FRAPS - screen recorder, everything was fine...

When I open that project now, it asks me to find the file because I changed my HDD letter, and when I find it, it says "Unsupported or damaged file"

I don`t know why?

How it worked few days ago?

The same is happening when I try to import that in new project...

The files has just been on hard drive, and I haven˙t touched them...

I can play them only with VLC...

I tried Digital Video Repair, and show like it fixed the file, but I still can`t open it up..

How can it be that the file damages itself?

[Jim_Simon]

Perhaps it's the 'unsupported' option.  What codec was used to create the AVI files?

[Kakashi5608]

I am also having trouble with AVI files. When I import an AVI video into Premiere CS5 only the audio shows up and not the video. I called Adobe support and they said to download the h.264 codec. However, they said they're not authorized to help me download it and I can't find it anywhere. Please help if you can. Thank you. If it matters I'm using a 64-bit desktop and Windows 7 operating system.

[Colin_Brougham]

I called Adobe support and they said to download the h.264 codec. However, they said they're not authorized to help me download it and I can't find it anywhere.

First of all, I'm hoping Todd stops in here; he will make heads roll for this completely misguided recommendation. Any codec you could possibly download to make these files work would be bad news for your system. Premiere has support for H.264, but not when it's wrapped in an AVI.

What is in the AVIs? That can be a lot of different things. Download and use MediaInfo to determine the content of your AVIs; the Text view can be copied and pasted here.

[the_wine_snob]

See this THREAD,and follow the links in Reply #3.

Good luck,

Hunt

[Todd_Kopriva]

Kakashi5608,

Would you give me the case number for this technical support case? I need to follow up on this. As Colin says, the information that you were given is wrong. Colin is steering you in the right direction; the first thing that we need to know is what codec is in the AVI files.

In general, it also helps if you tell us exactly which version of Premiere Pro you're running (5.0.0? 5.0.3?), but in this case I don't know of any bugs fixed in the updates that would cause this behavior, so it's probably not relevant.

[Kakashi5608]

The case number is 187979210. I'm not sure of the exact version of Premiere

I'm running. But all of my adobe programs updated about a week or two ago so

it's probably higher than 5.0.0. Is there any way I can figure out which

codec is in the avi files? Thanks for the help so far and sorry for my late

reply.

[Colin_Brougham]

Please see the link in my post above.

[Kakashi5608]

I went to the link and downloaded MediaInfo. Once I opened my video in

MediaInfo I took a screenshot of the information that appeared. The link is

below.

http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/6049/mediasnapshot.jpg

[Colin_Brougham]

Yep... seen it before

1. Download VLC Media Player and install it.
2. In the folder containing your AVI files, create a new text document called "avi2mp4.bat" (without the quote marks). Be sure it has the .BAT extension.
3. Paste the following into the batch file:

@ECHO OFF
for %%a in (*.avi) do "C:\Program Files (x86)\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc" -I dummy "%%a" --sout=#:file{dst="%%~na".mp4} vlc://quit

4. If VLC is installed in the Program Files folder and not the Program Files (x86) folder, remove the " (x86)" from this line, and save the file.
5. To run the batch, simply double-click it, or you can drag and drop AVI files onto it, and they will be rewrapped as MP4s with the same filename as the original. If you use the drag and drop approach, you can save this file anywhere on your hard drive, and any files dropped onto it will be converted and placed in the same folder as the original.

That's it; the MP4s will (should, anyway) import into Premiere without any further workarounds.

[Kakashi5608]

It still seems to be having problems. I named the text file "avi2mp4.bat"

(without quotes) as you said but I'm still not sure it's a BAT file. Is

there any way I can make sure it is a BAT file? When I do "save as" it gives

me the option for "txt" or "all files".

[Colin_Brougham]

This is the difference:

The icon is different, and the Type will be "Windows Batch File." If you can't see extensions, in an Explorer window go to Tools > Folder Options, click on the View tab, and clear the checkbox that says "Hide extensions for known file types."

You can use a converter, if you want, but the process I'm outlining doesn't actually transcode the files the way a converter will. All it does is rewrap the AVC/AAC streams in a container/codec combo that Premiere is able to use. There will be no quality loss, unlike using a converter.

[Kakashi5608]

I got the wordpad to save as a batch file but when I drag the AVI file onto

it, it doesn't work. Some command prompts show up with error messages but

they disaappear before I can get a good chance to read them. I think I saw

one spot where it said "error could not create chain". Sorry about all this

trouble.

[Kakashi5608]

I forgot to mention, I do have a video converter installed (Any Video

Converter) that can convert files to mp4. Perhaps I should just stick to

using that?

[Sarah Northway]

I had this problem and just had to install Fraps again - it automatically installed the codec I needed then Premiere could once again read the AVI files.

[hiddenp18268515]

If re-installing FRAPS doesn't work for you, try installing FFDShow. This solved the problem on my machine - Premiere CC 2015 is once again reading Fraps AVI files.

[robertw-irl]

I have a similar problem, exported AVIs from Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve, but Adobe Premiere CC (latest update 2015.0.1) gives me "Unsupported or damaged file" error.

@Colin, I created that Batch file and ran it, but got "Mux_mp4 mux error: unsupported codec UYVY in mp4" on the first file.

hiddenp18268515‌ I installed FFDShow and restarted Premiere, but it still wouldn't open the files.

I guess I'll just have to give up on those AVIs and go back to the original MOVs from the camera and grade them again in Premiere.Sigh.

Rob

[hiddenp18268515]

Rob,

The problem we were discussing in this thread was using the FRAPS codec inside an AVI container. If you are exporting an AVI from DaVinci Resolve, then you will need to know which codec is being used to compress the video inside your AVI container. By default Resolve will export using the Cineform codec inside an AVI container. In that case, you will need to install a Cineform reader on your system in order to import the AVI into other programs that don't natively support Cineform.

You can download the Cineform decoder here: Cineform « Neo Player Download

When exporting an AVI from Resolve, you can select the codec to use from this menu: