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Video playback on a 286? - here's how to do it

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Reply 80 of 84, by theelf

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guys, discover this GREAT video editor "AVIEDIT" work well in windows XP and generate compatible AVI with VFM, even first one for 286

For my 286 25mhz, i can have fullscreen smoth video at 288x192 12fps 11khz PCM sound and 200k data rate using msvideo 1. The trick is to select interleave every frame

Upload here!

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The attachment aviedit.zip is no longer available

Reply 81 of 84, by theelf

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Here is the ffmpeg command i use for create AVI that can work with aviedit, need virtualdub in same directory

ffmpeg -i in.mkv -vf "subtitles=in.mkv,scale=272:176,fps=12,eq=brightness=-0.05:contrast=1.05,palettegen" palette.png

ffmpeg -i in.mkv -i palette.png -filter_complex "subtitles=in.mkv,scale=272:176,fps=12,eq=brightness=-0.1:contrast=1.1[vid];[vid][1:v]paletteuse=dither=bayer" -pix_fmt pal8 -c:v rawvideo -af "aformat=sample_fmts=s16,aresample=11025:dither_method=shibata" -ac 1 -c:a pcm_u8 out.avi

virtualdub /s rawavi.vdscript /p out.avi raw.avi /r /x

Attach the virtualdub project

The attachment rawavi.zip is no longer available

Is more or less automatic, i can convert a MKV with subtittles to 286 without much interaction, most are automatic. I already made a lot of content to play in my 286. Is amazing, one of my childhood dreams

Reply 82 of 84, by Jo22

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Thank you very much! ^^

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 83 of 84, by SSTV2

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theelf wrote on 2026-02-23, 17:07:
Here is the ffmpeg command i use for create AVI that can work with aviedit, need virtualdub in same directory […]
Show full quote

Here is the ffmpeg command i use for create AVI that can work with aviedit, need virtualdub in same directory

ffmpeg -i in.mkv -vf "subtitles=in.mkv,scale=272:176,fps=12,eq=brightness=-0.05:contrast=1.05,palettegen" palette.png

ffmpeg -i in.mkv -i palette.png -filter_complex "subtitles=in.mkv,scale=272:176,fps=12,eq=brightness=-0.1:contrast=1.1[vid];[vid][1:v]paletteuse=dither=bayer" -pix_fmt pal8 -c:v rawvideo -af "aformat=sample_fmts=s16,aresample=11025:dither_method=shibata" -ac 1 -c:a pcm_u8 out.avi

virtualdub /s rawavi.vdscript /p out.avi raw.avi /r /x

Attach the virtualdub project

The attachment rawavi.zip is no longer available

Is more or less automatic, i can convert a MKV with subtittles to 286 without much interaction, most are automatic. I already made a lot of content to play in my 286. Is amazing, one of my childhood dreams

Thanks for the guide! I've been planning to tinker with Video for Windows on 286/386 PCs and modern video format conversion for a while now, but I never took the time to figure out how to do it.

I noticed that Aviedit doesn't accept uncompressed AVI files processed by Ffmpeg directly, but only after you run the AVI file through VirtualDub. Is there a way to configure Ffmpeg so that VDub could be skipped entirely?

I've added two more variables to the video filter for the Ffmpeg - "saturation" for additional color correction and "bayer_scale", which eliminates crosshatch effect entirely if set to 5, default is 2 if unspecified (range 0-5).

Example AVI: Compressor - MS Video 1, quality 75%, key frame every 2s (30 frames), interleave every sec (15 frames), data rate not specified (automatic).

Batch file for it:

ffmpeg -i RML720p.mp4 -i RMLpalette.png -filter_complex "crop=iw-200:ih-0,scale=160:120,fps=15,eq=brightness=0.0:saturation=1.0:contrast=1.1[vid];[vid][1:v]paletteuse=dither=bayer:bayer_scale=5" -c:v rawvideo -pix_fmt pal8 -c:a pcm_u8 -ar 22050 -ac 1 RML120b0.0s1c1.1b5.avi

Works fine in full screen mode, but video lags behind by about 25% if played in a window, need to select frame skipping in video player's configuration to fix this.

Tested on a 286 12.5MHz 0WS, 1MB RAM, ET4000 1MB, Win3.1 640x480 256color.

The attachment R2753015.zip is no longer available

Reply 84 of 84, by theelf

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SSTV2 wrote on 2026-05-19, 20:36:
Thanks for the guide! I've been planning to tinker with Video for Windows on 286/386 PCs and modern video format conversion for […]
Show full quote
theelf wrote on 2026-02-23, 17:07:
Here is the ffmpeg command i use for create AVI that can work with aviedit, need virtualdub in same directory […]
Show full quote

Here is the ffmpeg command i use for create AVI that can work with aviedit, need virtualdub in same directory

ffmpeg -i in.mkv -vf "subtitles=in.mkv,scale=272:176,fps=12,eq=brightness=-0.05:contrast=1.05,palettegen" palette.png

ffmpeg -i in.mkv -i palette.png -filter_complex "subtitles=in.mkv,scale=272:176,fps=12,eq=brightness=-0.1:contrast=1.1[vid];[vid][1:v]paletteuse=dither=bayer" -pix_fmt pal8 -c:v rawvideo -af "aformat=sample_fmts=s16,aresample=11025:dither_method=shibata" -ac 1 -c:a pcm_u8 out.avi

virtualdub /s rawavi.vdscript /p out.avi raw.avi /r /x

Attach the virtualdub project

The attachment rawavi.zip is no longer available

Is more or less automatic, i can convert a MKV with subtittles to 286 without much interaction, most are automatic. I already made a lot of content to play in my 286. Is amazing, one of my childhood dreams

Thanks for the guide! I've been planning to tinker with Video for Windows on 286/386 PCs and modern video format conversion for a while now, but I never took the time to figure out how to do it.

I noticed that Aviedit doesn't accept uncompressed AVI files processed by Ffmpeg directly, but only after you run the AVI file through VirtualDub. Is there a way to configure Ffmpeg so that VDub could be skipped entirely?

I've added two more variables to the video filter for the Ffmpeg - "saturation" for additional color correction and "bayer_scale", which eliminates crosshatch effect entirely if set to 5, default is 2 if unspecified (range 0-5).

Example AVI: Compressor - MS Video 1, quality 75%, key frame every 2s (30 frames), interleave every sec (15 frames), data rate not specified (automatic).

Batch file for it:

ffmpeg -i RML720p.mp4 -i RMLpalette.png -filter_complex "crop=iw-200:ih-0,scale=160:120,fps=15,eq=brightness=0.0:saturation=1.0:contrast=1.1[vid];[vid][1:v]paletteuse=dither=bayer:bayer_scale=5" -c:v rawvideo -pix_fmt pal8 -c:a pcm_u8 -ar 22050 -ac 1 RML120b0.0s1c1.1b5.avi

Works fine in full screen mode, but video lags behind by about 25% if played in a window, need to select frame skipping in video player's configuration to fix this.

Tested on a 286 12.5MHz 0WS, 1MB RAM, ET4000 1MB, Win3.1 640x480 256color.

The attachment R2753015.zip is no longer available

Thanks for testing it and for the extra parameters! I will definitely try saturation and bayer_scale, the crosshatch reduction sounds interesting, anyways i like it jaja

About VirtualDub, unfortunately no, I never managed to find a way to generate an AVI with Ffmpeg that Aviedit accepts directly. I tried different combinations and formats, but in the end I always had to pass it through VirtualDub first. So as far as I know there is no way around it.

Actually I would love to find a replacement for Aviedit too. One problem I have with it is that it tends to hang with longer videos, somewhere around 24-25 minutes approximately. I know Adobe Premiere works fine, but it is a bit of a pain for this kind of quick conversion workflow.

About video playback in a window, I tested quite a few cards: ET4000, Trident 9000, Trident 8900D, WD, etc. The only one where the Windows drivers really seem to work properly in windowed playback is Cirrus Logic. Specifically I have a CL5424 1MB and it works perfectly in Windows 3.1.