Trouble with VideoReader on MAC or with different MATLAB versions

I am trying to read an *.avi file with the following code:

VidObj=VideoReader('074745_CH1_MOT.AVI')

This works fine on my PC in verions R2011a, but we are getting the following error on a MAC running version 2014a.

Error using VideoReader/init (line 457) Failed to initialize internal resources.

Error in VideoReader (line 146) obj.init(fileName);

[Geoff Hayes]

John - what can you say about your avi i.e. how large is it, and what does the following statement return

 mmfileinfo('074745_CH1_MOT.AVI')

Can you play the video outside of MATLAB, say in QuickTime Player?

[Suzanne Cox]

I have the same problem with VideoReader and the same error. mmfileinfo gives the same error: Failed to initialize internal resources

This also is only a problem for me on my mac for any AVI I'm trying to open (~3 MB). It works fine on the PC.

[Ewa Nowara]

Installed gstreamer0.10-tools and gstreamer0.10-plugins-good and it worked for me.

[Tudor Achim]

Thanks @Ewa that did the trick for me as well.

Answer 1

[Jan Ries]

Hi John, hi Suzanne!

I've been having the exact same trouble using VideoReader on Mac. I found out that when I use QuickTime's trim feature to remove even the slightest bit at the beginning of the video and then save it with the same encoding, VideoReader handles it just fine. I'm not sure at this point why that's the case and where that problem comes from – I've had the "failed to initialize" with both mp4 and uncompressed avi files recorded on a Win8 machine as well as h.264 videos coming from Premiere Pro on a Mac.

Hope that helps, Jan.

[Thomas Rapstine]

This work around did not work for me on El Capitan Mac when reading a .mp4 in R2015a.

[Hari]

I am facing the same problem with .avi files only. Found any solution for it?