Video Codec Expert Help Needed

Factual Questions
1

This is a very specific techie question, but maybe someone can point me in the right direction.

Many years ago I copied some home videos into AVIs on my computer. I borrowed a video capture card to do it, as they were rare and expensive things then. Unfortunately, unknown to me, I had foolishly selected a coding for the AVIs that relied on hardware decompression. :smack: So basically without the card you can’t play the AVIs.

I’d really like to see those videos again (the orginal tapes are long dead). So what I need is a way of translating the codec into something I can read. What I’ve established so far is that the compression used is BW10, as created by DataTranslation for their “Broadway” video capture card.

Plenty of Googling suggests that a decoder is out there somewhere, but I can’t find it. All leads have turned into dead ends. So, do any dopers have any ideas where I could find such a thing, or any other solution to my problem?

2

It might be cheaper and easier to get the original video capture card used off eBay, as it’s probably dirt cheap by now.

Here’s one in the box that went unsold as of 3 days ago. Contact the seller and make him a deal. You can then re-encode and save to a more flexible format.

3

For fear of linking to a potentially porn-related site, I won’t actually link to it, but google ‘ABME FAQ’. I just read it for the very detailed codec section, I swear!

4

Thanks astro & Brutus. Fortunately this was one of those problems that presents a solution after you admit defeat and ask for help. :slight_smile:

Further intensive Googling revealed a software copy of the codec. A very slow download, trickled down byte by byte from where-ever it was coming from, did the trick.

It’s good to see those videos again!