PROB: Exported video files (AVI format) larger than 2Gb appear to be unreadable
The information applies to:
- LuxRiot up to 1.2.x and more recent
Symptoms
Large AVI files created by LuxRiot archive export wizard are unreadable and not accepted by media players, such as Windows Media Player, Media Player Classic and other.
Description
Although standard AVI file format allows AVI files to be as large as 4 gigabytes, there is often a problem in handling files that are larger than 2 gigabytes under Microsoft Windows because of issues in AVIFile API (a part of Video for Windows). There are several workarounds/extensions for the problem, briefly explained, for example, in Luke’s Video Guide.
LuxRiot, similiarly to other software, uses AVIFile API to create AVI files. Large files are created without reporting errors but appear to be unreadable by media players. There may be different error messages while trying to open a broken file:
VirtualDub can open the files, however it will start with reconstructing missing index block and show warnings like:
Resolution
LuxRiot currently does not check created file size, nor Windows API reports the moment at which created file becomes unreadable. While exporting video, it is difficult to estimate file size in advance, however if the created file appears to be larger than 2Gb it is required to re-export into two or more separate AVI files of a smaller size to have the exported video readable by media player software.
We will also consider offering an option to automatically start a new file on approaching to 2 Gb size.