What could be causing this?

[Mangatang]

I host several .mpg videos on my website. Several of these (about 1-2 minutes in length, about 10 MB in size) seem to have problems when people download them.

When the click on the link to view the video, they only get a portion of the entire video. For example, one video is 1 min. 55 sec. long. When they download and watch the video, it shows up in Media Player as only 1:13 long. So they watch it, and never know that they are missing the end of it.

Now, if they go out of there way to save the file to their hard drive, and open it from there, the entire video is then viewable.

What could be causing this problem?

Here's a little back ground about the video files. I take raw .avi files from my video camera, then compress and convert them to .mpg using TMPGEnc. The compressed .mpg files play fine from my hard drive. The problem only occurs when they are downloaded (and not everyone experiences the problem every time).

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[jmet]

If you right click on the mpeg files, and click "Save Target As" and saved them to your hard drive first, can you watch them in full then?

[Mangatang]

Yes, if you save them first, then reopen them, then you can see the entire video. I guess I could just add instructions on my website to do that for the larger videos, but I would rather them just be able to click the link and watch the video.

[jmet]

If they work that way, then the problem is not on your end (websites end).

When you click on them, do you experience the same problem as them?

[Mangatang]

On one of my computers I do have the same problem as them. The other, plays the entire video the first try.

[jmet]

Using the same software (same version to) on all PC's?

[Mangatang]

No, one computer opens it in Media Player (the one that truncates the video), and the other is opened in QuickTime. I assume though, that most people will be opening it with Media Player.

[jmet]

It all has to with what program is associated with what file extension. I think that is your problem. Try using the same software when trying to play after clicking on the link.

You will have to set program to match the file extensions in IE (or whatever browser you use).

[Mangatang]

Yeah, but the problem is that my viewers won't know to do this. I don't want them clicking the link, watching an incomplete video, and thinking that's the end of it. I a lot of time in filming and editing to make these videos the way I want them, only to have it truncated by the veiwer's video player.

There must be a root cause to this problem. I have opened other .mpg files from other sites, which never get truncated. I want to know the cause of this problem so I can fix it for good.

Is it something I'm doing with the editing? I'm joining .avi files together using Virtual Dub to cut the clips to length, then I use MS Movie maker to join the clips together and add music, then I use TMPGEn to compress, deinterlace, and convert to .mpg format. There's got to be something that I'm doing wrong to cause this problem.

[Mangatang]

Ignore this post. I just need to get 10 posts, so that I can PM someone.

[Mangatang]

Ignore this post. I just need to get 10 posts, so that I can PM someone.

[Mangatang]

Ignore this post.

[Mangatang]

Here's # 9.

[Mangatang]

Last one. Sorry for all that.