How to determine file type?

[PDANEWBIE]

I have a number of files here but I cannot tell what they are. I mean they have the extension avi but I never know how they were made (which codec they use). Is there anything PPC or PC related that will not play these video files but will tell me how they were encoded?

Secondly can I take a PocketPc file burn it to a DVD and play it on a TV. I know the size would be small viewing but would it still look the same? It might be nice to encode a few take them on vacation and pick 1 to watch at my dads house while I am there and burn it to DVD to play on his DVD player.

[Darius Wey]

I have a number of files here but I cannot tell what they are. I mean they have the extension avi but I never know how they were made (which codec they use). Is there anything PPC or PC related that will not play these video files but will tell me how they were encoded?

If they are AVI files, you can run them in BetaPlayer. (http://betaplayer.corecodec.org) From there, you can find out encoding information by selecting File > Media Info. Codecs and all that jazz are listed. :)

Secondly can I take a PocketPc file burn it to a DVD and play it on a TV. I know the size would be small viewing but would it still look the same? It might be nice to encode a few take them on vacation and pick 1 to watch at my dads house while I am there and burn it to DVD to play on his DVD player.

What do you mean by a Pocket PC "file"? Are you referring to a video file? If so, then yes, you can burn it on a DVD (but it must be made as a video DVD, not a data DVD unless your DVD player supports the playback of specific media files burnt in a data DVD format). Secondly, I'm going to assume your video file would be at a 240x320 resolution. This wouldn't look great on a TV, especially your high-end TVs which support much higher resolutions (usually XGA or higher). You'd probably have more joy watching it on the Pocket PC than on the TV.

[PDANEWBIE]

Yeah when I mentioned PPC file I meant basically a video file made for the PPC (not full size).

So in other words it would look alot more blocky? I would have thought it would look the same just in a small box on the TV. Oh well its just a thought I didn't want to also have to pack my DVD collection.

[Darius Wey]

So in other words it would look alot more blocky? I would have thought it would look the same just in a small box on the TV. Oh well its just a thought I didn't want to also have to pack my DVD collection.

If I'm not mistaken, it won't appear as the same size in a small box on the screen. It will stretch to the full size of the screen (unless it's configurable either on the TV or the DVD player), so under such circumstances, you would get the "blocky" effect since you're stretching a low-res video on a higher-res screen.