Play avi - at a loss

[fxljr]

I've been reading for over two days and am now completly confused.
I believe I have done things right and downloaded what I need to view movies.
However, I am new.
I have downloaded two avi movies with Kazaa. Both have two parts. All I get is a black screen and no sound. I've used Media player, DivX player and I have just tried them in Power DVD.
The movie appears to be playing, the time shows and the counter moves, but that's it.
I'm probably missing something simple and hope someone can point me in the right direction.
Thanks for any help,
Frank

[khp]

That sounds like a fake.

To be sure you might try loading the files into virtualdub, select file->'fileinformation' and post what it says.

[fxljr]

Thanks for the response.
Attached is the file info from VirtualDub.

Thanks again

[khp]

It's a fake. It says that all the keyframes are 1132 bytes and all the keyframes are 58 bytes. This can only happen if the video contain the exact same image from start to finish.

But it is a bit strange, according to the info displayed the file should be no more than 9 or 10 MB. I assume this is not the case.

[fxljr]

Thanks for your help.
I'm at a loss as to why someone would take the time and effort to do this.
Is there a way to tell, before taking the time to download, if it is a fake?
Right now I'm downloading... [tmd] 8 mile part1.avi.
I wonder if this will also be a fake!

Again, thanks

[khp]

Originally posted by fxljr
Thanks for your help.
I'm at a loss as to why someone would take the time and effort to do this.

There are several possible explanations. Some people claim that the MPAA put out fakes to discurage pirating of movies, I'am not sure if this is true or not, I don't like conspiracy theories, so I tend to be a bit sceptical.
Another more probable explanation, is that many fileshaering networks require you to share a cirtain amount of data to join the network. So people create fakes to meet their quota.

Originally posted by fxljr

Is there a way to tell, before taking the time to download, if it is a fake?

You can copy the file while the download is in progress, run the copy through divfix to recreate the avifile index and try playing that, or load it into virtualdub. If the Decompressor tag display the word Uncompressed, the file is cirtainly fake.
If the Min/avg/max numbers for key and delta frames are equal, on a range of more than 5000 frames,then the file is cirtainly fake.