Unplayable Nikon D5000 movies

[TomMcIn]

I shot 4 movies on my Nikon D5000. Downloaded them to my computer as .AVI files. Two play fine in Quicktime and VLC 2.0.2. The other two fail in DivX, Quicktime and VLC, displaying messages indicating unknown formats. All the movies play with MPlayerX.
One of the problem movies is shared from https://www.dropbox.com/s/r9cjy9y22u1ke3r/DSC_6095.AVI.
Nikon Support says they can play the Dropbox copy but did not say with what program or the codecs they used.
VLC gives a large number of error messages in its logs. I suspect the files are somewhat corrupted on the camera but cannot get this verified.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Indeed. Our AVI demuxer refuses it.

[TomMcIn]

Now that we agree VLC cannot open the file, is there any information I can pass onto Nikon that they should do to make their AVI files more compatible.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Well, I don't think they will ever do anything for that.
We need to see if we can fix this... Please file a bugreport.

[ajmas]

Could you see if Handbrake can convert the file to MPEG-4? It may sound crazy, but I have seen situations where Handbrake managed to convert a file, even if VLC couldn't play it - don't ask me why.

[TomMcIn]

Handbrake converted the reportedly corrupt Nikon D5000 .AVI file to .mp4 and the new .mp4 file opens and plays on both Quicktime and VLC. Non the wiser regarding the reason for the problem but now have a workable solution. Thanks ajmas

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

And this is fixed in the latest VLC. Can you try tomorrow nightly build?

[TomMcIn]

Downloaded version 2.0.3, which may not be the Build version you recommended. V 2.0.3 does not run the original file from the camera but does work quickly with the .mp4 version from Handbrake.

Suspect there is a special source for the latest build version.

Tom

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

No, I mean the 2.1.0-git version

[TomMcIn]

When I dragged the corrupt movie to Version 2.1.0-git displayed a screen titled Broken or missing AVI Index. Clicking either Play as is or Build index then play played the movies fine.

Movies that loaded before loaded with no such display and played fine.

An attempt to convert a corrupted file gave me the options but brought up the warning display then stopped.

V 2.0.3 just went into an endless loop and needed a Forced Quit.

Thanks

Tom

[TomMcIn]

I may not have given VLC enough time when converting to .m4v. However the resulting file is only 37.9MB, down from the .avi file of 815.7MB and it played in QT for 25 seconds instead of 5 minutes and appeared to run fast.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

When I dragged the corrupt movie to Version 2.1.0-git displayed a screen titled Broken or missing AVI Index. Clicking either Play as is or Build index then play played the movies fine.

Cool, so, it is fixed

[cbc1973]

Broken/missing index... This happens for me with every AVI file. I try to play and AVI with VLC on my iMac- "Broken or missing AVI index". I wait for it to build the index, then it will play but I cannot forward or control the video. When I try to search why this is happening all I get is a bunch of ads for video converters, no solution or reason for all the AVI files being broken.