DRM and AVI files

[P5-133XL]

This is definately outside my field of expertise, so I'll ask...

I have a business customer that has an extensive video collection that is watched over their network and stored on a single server running Windows 2003 Server. At some point, I assume, some form of DRM was installed because they can no longer watch any of the video's with an .AVI extension (other extensions like mpg's work fine) over their network. Further, I can not copy any of the .AVI files from the server to a networked machine (and yes, other extensions copy fine over the network), even if I rename the extension. However, I can watch them from the server itself and I can copy them from place to place on the server. I have been adamently told that nothing has been installed other than the normal Windows updates...

So the 1 million dollar question -- How do I fix this, so that they can watch their .AVI videos over the network?

Do I really need to export the AVI's to another format and if so, what would be a good conversion program.

 

[CougTek]

One of the optional update of WinXP that I noticed (and always avoided to install) was one regarding Windows Media Player DRM, dating January 17th 2006. Maybe you can find it in the "Add/Remove Programs" window and uninstall it (it should be the update #891122). If your customer has only experienced this issue recently, I think this update is installed and has somehow cause the problem.

Otherwise, you could convert the .avi to .wmp and see if you can then move them elsewhere.

 

[Bozo]

I agree with Coug, see if you can uninstall the lates updates, SPs.
Maybe check the security settings in IE?

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[P5-133XL]

I don't see how IE settings would be pertainant: This has nothing to do with the web.

Rather than uninstalling umteen godzillion updates (none of which seem to apply to the specific problem); I think an inplace reinstall would work better.

I'm still waiting for a recomendation as to a AVI -> another standard video format conversion program. The ones that I have googled seem to convert formats but retain the AVI wrapper.

 

[Mercutio]

Nero Recode?
Divx encoder? (.divx)
Quicktime Pro?

 

[CityK]

I have no idea why the avi's stopped working -- check what sort of permissions are set on these files etc etc ...but if you don't want to spend time tracking this annomially down:

re-encoding would be a waste of time & energy (electrical)

what you should do is look to extract the content from the avi container and place it into another appropriate container. Perhaps look into Matroska and mkvmerge for those purposes

 

[sechs]

Matroska has horrible support. I strongly suggest not using it.

Are you able to burn some of these to CD/DVD and play them elsewhere?

 

[P5-133XL]

I have not tried burning a CD with an AVI on it. However, last night I did successfully convert an AVI to a DiVX. Same problem -- The Divx was playable on the server but not accessible over the network.

Tonight, I'm gonna do a inplace reinstall to SP0 from SP1 and see if that helps. That will get rid of all the Windows updates.

PS. I really didn't think it was a problem, but just in case, I did check security -- all files were set with full control for everyone.

PPS. The specific error I get when I try to copy an AVI over the network is: "The specified network name is no longer available".

 

[Sol]

.divx is actually very similar to AVI, the only difference as far as I know is that divx files can work without some header information (like the codec) because it will make some assumptions. So in the end for compatability your divx files would still have an avi header. This would suggest that whatever is messing with the files is using the avi headers to indentify them. I'd try putting the files into another container like CityK suggested... Matroska is a pain until you get it working but it's a nice format and there are free players that will play it right out of the box (VLC, MPlayer)... Ogg is also fine and a little bit easier than matroska. An easier solution would be to zip, rar, tar or archive the files however else you like and copy them to the other computers compressed. This obviously doesn't solve your basic problem of wanting to play them over the network but it's a quick fix, and if people open the archives over the network and then play the file from in the archive they'll get a temporary copy with only a small delay before it starts.

 

[P5-133XL]

By the way, the inplace reinstall solved the problem. I even reapplied all the Windows upgrades one at a time (just to see if I could find the cause) and it still worked...

 

[Jake the Dog]

Glad you got it sorted Mark.

AVI is a relativety simple media container that it doesn't accomadate rights information so I would be more inclined to suggest that the the server's media streaming service had been changed or a global policy enforced that affected the WMS multicast data writer eg: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/serve/firewall.aspx. Out of interest, did other media formats work when AVI's failed to be delivered?

JtD

 

[P5-133XL]

I really am not knowlegable about video formats, containers, or anything in that sphere. That's the reason for asking for help here.

The only other video format on the machine were mpg's and they worked fine. Except when I converted an AVI to DiVX and also when I simply renamed the extension to an mpg. In both of those cases, the file was still not accessible over the network. Do note, this was not simply a streaming media problem because the affected files could even be copied (The name would never be available). Further, it was not a gp issue either because an inplace reinstall should not change global policies or generally effect the registry in ways that are not specific to an install. So, whatever DRM characteristics that exist in GP, registry, or even the file system undoubtly still remain on the server

In the end, I have no idea what the problem was or what caused it. I detected no viruses, or spyware on the machine (and there by didn't remove anything) and the reinstall and re-applying the patches should have restored the OS to the original condition. So, in theory, I should have the same problem, but I didn't. All I can suspect, is that something activated DRM for all AVI files on that server; It was a pain; and now it is gone.

However, I will predict that as DRM progresses, we will be seeing more of such issues.

 

[Bozo]

Don't get used to that in place install...it's not available in Vista.


Bozo :mrgrn: