How do I loop an AVI video?

October 26, 2006 9:24 AM

What video player will allow me to loop a specific section of an AVI video?

I've downloaded a few guitar instruction videos to my PC (Windows) and they're in AVI or DIVX format. I have to continually repeat small sections to catch what the guitarist is doing and sliding that little reverse bar on Windows Media Player is just not working well for me. Is there a player that will allow me to set a start and end point and have the section play in a continual loop?

posted by gfrobe to technology (9 comments total)

This should be a playback option in the software. If it's not, try another player.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 9:59 AM on October 26, 2006

That's my question. I'm asking if anyone knows a player with the option to do this. I can't find one.
posted by gfrobe at 10:07 AM on October 26, 2006

Quicktime will allow you to do this. Although I have Quicktime Pro; I'm uncertain whether looping and setting start and end points is part of the free version. Anyone?
posted by Robot Johnny at 10:21 AM on October 26, 2006

Winamp will do it, I'm pretty sure.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 10:46 AM on October 26, 2006

looping tracks with mplayer

i think for QT to loop you need QT pro.

the next part of the solution is to get mplayer to start and stop at the right places. this is a little messed up, as mplayer isnt very refined. you can use an "edit decision list", or you can give -ss (start position in seconds) and -frames (number of frames to play)

to use an edl, you run mplayer with -edlout file.edl and when you hit the point where you want to start, press i. then at the end of the section, press i again, then press q to quit mplayer. then mplayer -edl file.edl and it will only play the portion between the two edit points you made.
posted by joeblough at 10:48 AM on October 26, 2006

Thanks for the tips. I've looked at QT Pro and it only loops the entire movie not specified sections. I'll look into Winamp and mplayer but that mplayer looks very complicated. I was hoping for something simple that allows me to just pause the video and click "start here" and then pause again and send "end here". Lots of audio editors and players do this.
posted by gfrobe at 11:39 AM on October 26, 2006

I've looked at QT Pro and it only loops the entire movie not specified sections.

What you want to do is select both "Loop" and "Play Selection Only" to get the result you want.
posted by jjg at 12:00 PM on October 26, 2006

jjg is right, and that's going to be way easier than mplayer.

i like to do things the hard way :)
posted by joeblough at 12:02 PM on October 26, 2006

Thanks everyone. That works great.
posted by gfrobe at 12:46 PM on October 26, 2006