6 Jan
2021
6 Jan
'21
6:05 p.m.
On Wednesday 06 January 2021 08:05:25 Michael via tde-users wrote:
On Wednesday 06 January 2021 02:59:33 am William
Morder via tde-users wrote:
Overnight, it suddenly occurred to me: when I downloaded mp4 videos from
YouTube, I remembered that they were all pixelated and impossible to watch.
My other mp4s, from other sources, played just fine. So I hung onto the
videos, but couldn't watch them. Then when I upgraded (when moving from
the 'buntus to Debian, then later to Devuan), I discovered that suddenly all
those unwatchable YouTube mp4s played just fine again.
And it didn't matter what player I used, because it was the fact that I used
an older distro that was causing the problem.
Bill
On Tuesday 05 January 2021 23:58:20 deloptes via
tde-users wrote:
Bill is right. For whatever reason updates to software players using
codecs do sometimes 'break' the ability to play existing (older) files.
I've experienced this multiple times (100s probably) since the '90s (and my
mother has lost some family videos to this phenomenon).
I've experience all of these situations:
- Software no longer includes the older codec and you can hunt down and
re-install the codec manually and it will play again.
- Software no longer includes the older codec and you can hunt down and
re-install the codec manually and it still will NOT play.
- Software claims to have the codec, but, while newer created files will
play correctly, older created files will NOT play.
Add in a bunch of situations to the above of mangled playing of older files
(think old VHS playbacks).
Bit rot is probably responsible for some of it, but I’ve experienced cases
(saved one of mom’s holiday videos) where copying the file to an ‘old’
machine (was literally stuck in a closet and hadn’t been updated in 5+
years) allowed the file to play ‘fine’ and was also able to convert the
file to another format which then played correctly on the ‘new’ machine.
My rule of thumb is to convert any codec using file that I care about into
3 different formats for archiving.
HTH,
Michael William Morder via tde-users wrote:
Hmmm, well, I remember it happening in the past, back when I was still
running KDE3, and resisted upgrading. However, that was many years ago,
so my memory is a little fuzzy. Eventually, though, even if you stay off the
Internet, the media
players your unsupported Stretch and/or Wheezy systems will stop
playing some formats, because they keep changing things. And like I
said,
Buster/Beowulf will be supported for years to come. So -- when things
in your life get more bearable -- consider upgrading your system.
I must disagree - no one is changing the standards. At least I am not
aware of things changing in already released formats. What may not work
are new formats where you may not have the new codec.