[NBLUG/talk] Editing .avi files - Flip Video Camera

[Dave Sisley]

Hey, Luggers:

I just bought my son a Flip Video Camera for his birthday, and I need 
some help setting him up with a film editor.  The camera saves video as 
.avi files and we are having trouble opening them with the various 
editors I have installed.  The errors seem different, depending on which 
editor I use

    * kino
          o complains that the file is not a DV file and asks to import
            it.  The new file will play, but is missing a good chunk of
            the video (it only plays a few seconds of the whole thing)
    * cinelerra - won't show any of the video, displays error messages:
          o 'virutal int FileMOV::read_frame(VFRAME*):
            quicktime_read_frame/quicktime_decode_video failed, result:'
            [and that's it... no 'result']
          o If I launch it from the command line, I get the same message
            in a gui popup as you see above, but the console shows the
            following:
                + new_acodec: couldn't find codec for "
" [this is
                  printed out 3x, and that unreadable character looks
                  like a weird capital D in my terminal screen]
    * avidemux
          o complains that no audio decoder is found and will play the
            video with no sound


I looked at the product info page for the camera 
<http://www.theflip.com/products.shtml>, and it says that it features 
'MPEG-4 recorded video files saved in AVI format'.

The ultimate goal is to be able to edit videos and convert them if 
necessary for posting on our webserver.  Can someone point me in the 
right direction as to how to install the proper backend stuff that will 
get one of the listed apps  to work (or please feel free to suggest 
another...)?  Or do I need to dig into the AVI format that this camera 
puts out in order to tell the application how to play it?

Thanks in advance,

-dave

-- 
Dave Sisley
dsisley at sonic.net
roth-sisley.net