Video converting for Knoppix

[roxana]

How to convert AVI as i can watch on my Knoppix live CD?
Thank you.

[krishna.murphy]

Actually, you don't have to convert it. AVI format is supported for video playback on Knoppix.

Cheers!
Krishna

[fadirocks]

1. I would use the DVD over the CD ...much better
2. if you installed then you need to the stable updates for Gnome MPlayer to behave better
3. If you don't want to the updates just make sure to switch form Compiz to Metacity the video will play better without the annoying animation

[Harry Kuhman]

Actually, you don't have to convert it. AVI format is supported for video playback on Knoppix.

Cheers!
Krishna

The qriginal poster should try playing the AVI file, but it may work or might not. The issue is that the AVI extension is pretty meaningless, it is a catch-all extension that Microsoft used for many different encoding formats. When a file with an AVI extension is played on any system, the OS looks inside the file and determines which codec to use to decode and play it. If that codec is available on the system then all is usually good, but often you may find that the system needs a codec that it does not have to play the file. Sometimes it can be hard or imposiable to find a codec for a Linux system (it can even be tricky for Windows systems). So it all really depends on the source of the AVI file and what it was encoded with.

[krishna.murphy]

I see - thanks for the info! So, transcoding (conversion to another codec/video standard) would require the same codec that would play whatever it was, right?

Cheers!
Krishna

[Harry Kuhman]

Right, converting video requires the codec that can read the source as well as a codec for whatever format that one wants to translate the video into. And, of course, some software to do the converting. Sometimes the codec is built into a player, but in many cases it is a separate piece of code. There are many common formats used, but there are also some strange non-typical ones (for example, a user may have a codec for his video camera that was installed with the camera software and such videos may not play on other systems).

And it seems worth mentioning, in some cases I had seen video posted in newsgroups that required very strange codecs be installed, and I decided against installing things that I didn't have and only needed for a particular video. In some cases this was just some encoder wanting to play with different and unusual technology, but in other I found that telling people to install a new codec was an attempt to sneak malware into their system. So even with Linux I would be vigilant about accepting a codec from strangers this way.