Download GSpot 2.60 b00

After a silence of almost two years, a preview of what GSpot version 2.60 should be released yesterday. This program can analyze avi, mpeg and vob files and indicates, among other things, which audio and video codecs have been used and whether they are present on the system, the bit rate and the number of frames per second. It can also detect the presence or absence of B-VOP, Qpel, and GMC frames in DivX 5 files to see if a movie is compatible with a hardware DivX player, such as Kiss’s. In addition, GSpot can also provide an overview of all codecs installed on the system. This version has only been tested under Windows 2000 and XP, but there is a good chance that it will run without problems under older Windows versions. New in this release is, among other things, the possibility to download the GOP structure visually display. The full changelog for this release is as follows:

Changes in GSpot version 2.60 b00:

• FLV, MP4, DV1/2 & Raw DV support, more…
• Significantly advanced features for technical users
• Includes unique “Visual GOP Structure” (VGS) subsystem – see screenshots
• This is a pre-release – not all features are tested or complete yet. It may be of more interest to technical users, although anyone interested should feel free to download & try it. It is not at all difficult to “use” (Basically just “File -> Open”), but much of the new information provided is of a rather technical nature. But it may tell you exactly what you need to know. See next note.
• Ironically, some simpler features for casual users, (eg “You need to install codec ‘X’ to play this file…”) are not complete yet. And I am aware that, to a large extent, it is those features that have made GSpot as popular as it is).

This temporary limitation is partially due to the complexities of some of the recently developed multimedia formats and variations thereof. For example, some perfectly valid AVI files now require that you replace Microsoft’s poorly written “AVI Splitter” with a 3rd party one, even though you have the correct actual codec to play the file. These issues will be addressed in a soon to be released FAQ as well as built in detection for such problems (not complete yet).[break]