Reason(s) SMPlayer can't play damaged files if others can

[brittney24]

I'm curious why SMP seems to completely stall on some slightly damaged vids, missing frames, etc. When some other players play SOME of the same damaged files.

I'm guessing it's the core ability of mplayer & perhaps its basic design doesn't handle mildly damaged files (still playable by some others).
Other than this issue, I think SMP is pretty outstanding.

If they're heavily damage, not a big deal. For some files SMP won't even start, in some players the "visible" damage / defects seem pretty minimal.
Just wondered what the main difference is? I've seen several statements about this, so I guess it's not just me imagining it.

Thanks.

[rvm]

An ancient version of mplayer (I think 1.0rc1) worked very good with damaged or half downloaded avi files but newer versions don't work very well with these files (it's something I missed). It may work better by using the lavf demuxer (you can enable it by adding -demuxer lavf in the options in preferences -> advanced).

[brittney24]

OK, I'll try that. I'm no where near an expert on what other players do / don't do, when they encounter damaged, or partly downloaded files (it's certainly not only .avi). AfAIK, one like VLC chooses the best demuxer based on the file. Don't know that any of them automatically try another, if that one doesn't work.

I guess it could be done - not sure they do.

May be some other players are a bit better playing damaged / partial files of CERTAIN formats. Never studied it that closely.