Created in early 2004, UNEASYsilence aims to deliver daily coverage of offbeat & generally geeky news. Subscribe via RSS or Email.

READING single

Google repackages .avi video files unplayable for WMP

Posted in AV, Tech by Derek at 6:43 pm
closeThis post was published 3 years 2 months 1 day ago and its content may not be valid anymore.

Something about this just makes me laugh. Apparently Google Video files (.gvi) are nothing more than repackaged .avi files which can not be played back in Windows Media Player.

Turns out that Google Video’s downloads, called .gvi files, are just standard .avi files that have been altered to be unplayable in Windows Media Player. When you click in Google Video to download a video to Windows/Mac, you download a .gvp bookmark, which loads Google Video Player and downloads the appropriate .gvi file (opening the .gvp in a text editor will reveal the URL of the .gvi, if you don’t want to install the Video Player).

Anything that goes against the mainstream – like the .gvi files being unplayable .avi’s for WMP – is enough to make me point and laugh at the ridiculous player.

4 Responses to “Google repackages .avi video files unplayable for WMP”

  1. Mark says:
    9/22/2006 at 7:34 pm

    mediaplayer? Just play the files in videolan, problem solved ;)

    http://www.videolan.org/

  2. Mitko says:
    9/23/2006 at 1:28 pm

    thanks for all the useful video donwloaders websites! :)

  3. larfus says:
    9/24/2006 at 5:58 pm

    Mark I agree I have used the VLC media player for awhile and I have never had a problem playing anything.

  4. Deewa says:
    10/13/2006 at 2:29 pm

    hey mark thank you so muh now i can watch all my avi files. thank you. i really appreciate it.

Additional comments powered by BackType