Issues Encoding WMV – Vids won’t fast forward or rewind
 

For some reason, my viewers aren’t able to fast forward or rewind the WMV videos that I’m encoding. I’m using Sorensen Sqeeze 4 and using the WM Video V9 codec.

I found some posts where users are complaining that they’ve been experiencing these same issues: http://www.moviecodec.com/topics/2758p1.html. Seems like there’s a post-production solution offered by MS to correct this issue, but does anyone know what I can do to avoid this problem from the start?

Thanks!

- A

apparently the video wasn’t "indexed" during encoding. Not sure what that means or how you do that while encoding

btw this is something that is only happening after downloading the videos from the website. the original videos work just fine before they're uploaded to the server...wonder if it has to do with the way my CMS (content management system) is processing/loading the vids

Can you compare the original to the downloaded versions? the CMS may be stripping keyframes or something. I ahve tools at work to rip apart WM files and see their guts, so to speak. If you can give me access, I can take a look.

Also, what media player are they using to play back the file, if you know?

--Andy P

We have the same issue with wmv files. They will not fast forward or rewind while the file is streaming. When it's fully downloaded, they will.

The free Microsoft "Windows Media Encoder" software will let you open and index a wmv file if you want to see if that helps. There's no re-encoding. It's almost instant.

thanks vito! i tried playing around with the WM Encoder but it's not instant for me...the program is re-encoding the entire vid. what settings do you use? can you guide me through it? thanks

When you install Windows Media Encoder, it installs a few utilities as well. One of them is called "Windows Media File Editor". Open your file with that and choose 'save and index' from the file menu.

thanks vito! i tried this with the corrupt files and it's saying that they can't be saved. hump!

i actually think this may be a simple problem...i don't think the files (the corrupt ones) were uploaded properly using FTP. i'm noticing a discrepancy with the file size of the original vid on my comp and the file size of the same vid on the server

They should be identical. Try re-uploading it.

Just a guess here, due to not really wanting to see the content of your video per the linked discussion ... but it might be to do with the fact that the video is being played (downloaded) from a HTTP server and not streamed from a proper streaming server.

Also, streaming servers can have content controls to prevent shuttling through a video with the slide controller ... such as forcing people to watch the advertising.

Andrew

;) that would make total sense...should i speak to my host or my CMS about this issue? who would control this aspect of my site?

thanks everyone...this is all really appreciated!