Missing file extensions

jlrieu

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Jan 10, 2011
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I hope somebody can help me. I recently received some Family Home Movies vid files from a relative. The files are missing the file extensions and my family member, who is not computer literate, cannot tell me what they were as her files have the same problem. I have already unhidden the file extensions in the folder and can see extensions for other files. Is there a way to find out what the file extension should be?

Thanks in Advance

Jean Luc
 
Try Irfanview. It is free.

It can play a video file that has a missing/wrong file extension, and will warn you of such just before playing the file. If the video file cannot be played, it will also inform you of the codec in use and that it cannot find that codec in your computer.

After installing Irfanview, right-click your video file and select "Open" and in the dialog box that appears, choose Irfanview (or it may show I_View32.exe).

You may need to browse to find Irfanview in Program Files/I-View/I_view32.exe

 

jlrieu

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Jan 10, 2011
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Thank you so much for this. I found and installed Irfanview, but it was unable to give me what the file extension or codec should be, it told me that the file header info was missing or corrupt. There must be a way to figure out what the extension should be, i can't believe with all the great minds in the software industry that somebody has not run into this before and figured out a solution....alas...my search continues.
 
Sorry I_View didn't help. It won't name the video file extension, but will usually play after giving the warning.

Perhaps you should just rename one to filename.AVI or .MPG, .MOV.... etc and see what they really should be, unless they didn't get transferred correctly and are now corrupt and unable to be played at all.
 

jlrieu

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Jan 10, 2011
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Thanks again for the response, unfortunately, they did not play after the warning. I have tried renaming with the most popular extensions with no luck, and upon doing some research, i found that there are literally hundreds of video file extensions, i really am dreading trying them all, assuming of course the list i saw was complete. Perhaps there is a way to look at the code in the file, don't know if this is possible, but i would imagine there would be some sort of reference embedded somewhere in there...i am so frustrated with this. I honestly appreciate the assistance you have rendered.