AVI-Mux GUI

Alexander Noé, November 28, 2009

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This section will provide answers to questions often asked, either on forums or via email.

Q1: Sometimes, it doesn't let me select AVI output. Why?
A: This is intentional and happens when you are using streams that AVI-Mux GUI cannot put into AVI. For example, this included MPEG Layer 1/2 audio until v1.17 (1.17.1 and later are able to mux MP2 CBR into AVI) and includes Vorbis audio.

Q2: Why does my hardware MPEG4 player not read AVI files muxed with AVI-Mux GUI?
A: This happens when you use features your player doesn't support, like rec-list, Open-DML, or subtitles. Load a profile from the profile folder in your AVI-Mux GUI directory (profiles are opened like any other media file) and avoid using stream types or codecs your player can't handle. Subtitles as well as AAC audio are most likely among those.

Q3: Why does Windows Media Player not play a file made with 1.17.x, or why does an AVI file created with 1.17.x not work, whereas one created with 1.16.11 does?
A: AVI-Mux GUI 1.17 introduces a feature to track down lazy coders: AVI files will, per default, have some junk before the first header, which is perfectly allowed and spec compliant, but might break a few programs. If this happens, disable "add JUNK..." in settings -> output -> AVI -> page 2, and file a bug report to the author of the program that failed on such a file.

Originally, I only wanted to break programs that damage AVI files when trying to modify their headers (like AVIfrate), I did never expect that Microsoft's own AVI splitter rejects such files, but it does. I've been asked if I broke that splitter intentionally: No, i didn't, but I can perfectly live with the fact that this setting breaks this splitter unintentionally...

Q4: Why are all audio streams played at the same time?
A: Don't use players that do not support AVI files properly (this includes Windows Mediaplayer). Mediaplayer Classic and TCMP are examples of players that do support AVI files.

Q5: GSpot, ABCTagEditor, AviFiXP or DivFix report errors in files made by AVI-Mux GUI. Are the files broken?
A: Of course, I cannot promise that the AVI writing code of AVI-Mux GUI is free of bugs, but it has been quite some time ago that a file created by AVI-Mux GUI was indeed found to be broken. The tools mentioned above have been written by people who only tested their stuff with NanDub-made files, mainly because those were the "fanciest" files available when those tools have been written, and who do not add such features to their software. In most cases, the reason for those tools to report problems in files made with AVI-Mux GUI is that those tools don't support rec lists and/or Open-DML, not to speak of low-overhead-style Open-DML files.

Q6: How can I view subtitles muxed into AVI or MKV files?
A: If it doesn't work as expected, use MediaPlayer Classic, go to view->options->playback->output and select VMR9.

Q7: Why is the settings window cropped?
A: This is an issue that seems to occur rarely, but extremely annoying. According to a user of AVI-Mux GUI, it seems to occur when the Windows default font size was changed. You can fix it by editting the file gui.amg.xml and changing the height setting under in the settings_window tag. When opening the file in NotePad or something you'll see what that means. Once this is done, the size will always be read from the file, so you only have to do it once until you delete that file.

Q8: Why does AVI-Mux GUI crash on Windows Vista?
A: AVI-Mux GUI used to check the windows version, so that it can warn users of Windows 9x/ME that it won't work. This check doesn't take into account Windows Vista, which leaves a pointer uninitialized and causes a crash during initialisation. You must enable the compatibility mode and set it to Windows XP SP2 in order to run AVI-Mux GUI on Windows Vista.

Q9: Why does AVI-Mux GUI not support Drag&Drop on Windows 7 with compatibility mode?
A: I have absolutely no idea...