How to Convert .file Files for Android Video Playback?

[I-Love-Maths2]

I have downloaded some videos of the format .file
They will play fine in windows media player and vlc, but i don't think they work on android
Is there any way to convert them to mp4 or any other video formats

 

[rokytnji]

You can try a online converter. I don't know because I only use Windows to tune motorcycles. Everything else. I use Linux.

https://video.online-convert.com/convert-video-for-android

Here is a app you can try. I cannot say what it does as I don't use it. Any video conversion. I do using Linux instead of my phone. Video conversion is very resource heavy on computer hardware.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=roman10.media.converter&hl=en_US

Edit: Forgot you can use Windows to do this also.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/video-converter-any-format/9nblggh5xr4w

 

[CWatters]

There is a version of VLC for Android if that helps.

 

[I-Love-Maths2]

ok I will see what I can do

 

[I-Love-Maths2]

Sorry none of those worked
Video converters don't work because it doesn't recognize .file as a video format

 

[BvU]

Yeah. Time to desccribe what and how you downloaded. Seems thte extension got lost in the process: .file is a generic meaningless extension.

 

[rokytnji]

Probably a Proprietary DRM issue then.

 

[russ_watters]

Sorry none of those worked
Video converters don't work because it doesn't recognize .file as a video format

Try changing it to .avi and see if that helps.

 

[I-Love-Maths2]

how would i change a file to an avi
downloaded from some sort of media player
go onto 1001crash.com and that will give you an example
but the videos i downloaded are literally files

 

[rokytnji]

"go onto 1001crash.com and that will give you an example"

Ok. I did just that. Here is my downloaded file I got from there.

harry@biker:~/Downloads
$ ls
ATR72_trans.mp4
harry@biker:~/Downloads

I used save as in my browser window inside of their media player that opened on the view video link.

 

[robphy]

Possibly helpful:
http://www.headbands.com/gspot/ "codec information appliance"
https://handbrake.fr/ "open source video transcoder"

 

[I-Love-Maths2]

actually i downloaded the video from proxfree.com
as you can guess that is a proxy and i was on youtube
you can only download the videos if you are on chrome as far as i am aware

 

[CWatters]

If VLC will play it then load it into VLC and see what format VLC thinks it is. I'm sure VLC will tell you the encoding. If it thinks it's an avi then just edit the file extension from .file to .avi and try the converters again.

 

[russ_watters]

View attachment 225721
how would i change a file to an avi

You can change the file extension of any file by clicking it twice, slowly or by right clicking and clicking "rename"...assuming the file extension is visible in the name. If it isn't, enable it in Windows explorer (how exactly you do that depends on which version of windows you have... but generally it is in the "view" menu).

 

[StevieTNZ]

You can change the file extension of any file by clicking it twice, slowly or by right clicking and clicking "rename"...assuming the file extension is visible in the name. If it isn't, enable it in Windows explorer (how exactly you do that depends on which version of windows you have... but generally it is in the "view" menu).

Surely you can't do that. I just tested. I wrote test in Notepad++, saved it as .txt. I then went to the folder it is saved in and changed the file extension from .txt to .pdf. I then tried to open the file in Adobe Reader, getting this error:

 

[robphy]

Surely you can't do that. I just tested. I wrote test in Notepad++, saved it as .txt. I then went to the folder it is saved in and changed the file extension from .txt to .pdf. I then tried to open the file in Adobe Reader, getting this error:
View attachment 225751

I think the point @russ_watters is making is that the movie called MyMovie.file might actually be an .avi-format file.
So, the suggestion is: rename it to MyMovie.avi .
This doesn't change the contents or the format of the file...
but it makes it recognizable by a movie player expecting .avi-format files to have an extension .avi.

(Some movie players might be able to determine the movie-format regardless of the file extension... but most don't.)

 

[russ_watters]

I think the point @russ_watters is making is that the movie called MyMovie.file might actually be an .avi-format file.
So, the suggestion is: rename it to MyMovie.avi .
This doesn't change the contents or the format of the file...
but it makes it recognizable by a movie player expecting .avi-format files to have an extension .avi.

(Some movie players might be able to determine the movie-format regardless of the file extension... but most don't.)

Right. And more to the point, .avi is a generic video package file, not a video format in and of itself, so a player like Windows Media Player will try to determine what it actually is and open it with the appropriate decoder. With the the .file extension, many players will refuse to try or just ignore the file (not show it exists in the folder).

I just tested this in the opposite direction, renaming a known good avi to .file; when I then dragged and dropped it into windows media player, the player simply ignored me.

 

[StevieTNZ]

Something new I've learned today!

 

[CWatters]

Sorry if you have heard this before but... Several people are credited with saying...

"The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from".

This is particularly true about video files, codecs etc.

 

[glappkaeft]

There is also this xkcd that summarizes the problem succinctly.

https://xkcd.com/927/

 

[waternohitter]

There are many available online converters. You can convert jpg to pdf, gif to mp4, mp4 to mov. etc.

 

[newjerseyrunner]

Just to be clear, VLC knows absolutely nothing about file formats. It's it codecs that do everything. If it works for you with VLC on one machine, and not another, that means you need to add the correct plugin for VLC.

What does the file actually look like? Can you open it in a text editor like Notepad and show us the first couple of characters? It'll mostly look like junk to you, but I'll probably be able to identify the format from it. My guess is that a ".file" is actually a container for different stuff inside.