exact identify of avi/codec

Entree
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I would like to hear if anyone know if theres any chance of anyone knowing of a piece of software that can exactly name which codec a given avi is relating on to work...

my KISS DP-500 player occationally present the FOUR CC-error, but with no other explanation.

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Joined: 20 Nov 2004
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gspot: http://www.headbands.com/gspot
avicodec: http://avicodec.duby.info

BTW, tell us what you’re trying to do. There are also tools for changing fourcc (not advisable if it’s not from the same family of codecs).

Entree
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well, i wanna take a look at those avis i cannot get to work on my DVDplayer, and then change them into another format by “trial and error”...

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I haven’t had a chance to look at the specs of the KISS DP-500, but it appears it’s a DivX-certified player that can also play mp3, ogg Vorbis, and Xvid.

A little bit of background if you’re not up on this: We’re all familiar with DVD’s. That’s the 4.7 GB discs with MPEG-2 movies on them. All standalone DVD players can play those. The trouble is if you want to transfer them over the net it takes forever (4.7 GB is a lot of data!). So people created better codecs (compressor/decompressor) to shrink the files and conserve decent quality. One such codec which is popular today is DivX. The first version (DivX 3) was a stolen codec from Microsoft; it used the fourcc’s DIV3 and DIV4, and was able to shrink the 4.7 GB movie down to 700 MB (good for CD-R and transfer over the net). Because it wasn’t quite legal, the people who hacked it went legal by creating DivX 4 (fourcc DIVX), then later DivX 5 and 6 (fourcc’s DIVX and DX50). That’s the commercial branch. The people who went open source created Xvid (fourcc XVID). One thing to know is Xvid and DivX are both implementations of the MPEG-4, part 2 standard, so even though they’re not exactly the same, they have similarities. There’s other MPEG-4 implementations out there (MP4S, M4S2, 3ivx, etc...) but you don’t need to worry about them.
At one point DivX networks started certifying DVD players as DivX-certified. That meant that in addition to playing normal DVD’s they can also play a data CD with an AVI that is encoded in DivX. This is practical because it saves people the hassle of converting the 700MB movie they downloaded to DVD (a lenghty and tedious process). They can just burn it straight to CD-R. That’s the whole reason for having DivX-certified players.

How do you make movies playable on your DivX-certified player? Well first check the fourcc using gspot or avicodec. If it’s already DIV3 DIV4 DIVX DX50 or XVID, you can just burn a data cd-rw and play it in your drive.
If that doesn’t work, or if the video uses a different codec or container, you may need to convert it using something like NanDub, VirtualDub, or the DivX converter. Get back here if you need more help.

P.S: There’s alternatives to DVD, Xvid, and Xvid. According to the specs, the KISS can also play VCD and SVCD if I read correctly. That’s another option.