omgosh

Hey guys, trying to help a friend with a 1997 KA24DE Altima. The car currently will crank, but it will never catch. She says the car was running fine, then one day it just wouldn't turn on. Also that she had a similar problem recently, and her mechanic changed the distributor and the cap/rotor and it fired right up again.

I pulled the plugs, and found that it does get spark. The plugs smell of fuel so I'm assuming that its getting there. You can hear the fuel pump turn on. When you go to crank it, it turns over a couple times just fine then all of a sudden the next turn is real slow. You can hear it in the video below.

So pretty much I'm wondering, what will cause these motors to not start? I figured the crank sensor, so I unplugged it and checked the harness side with a voltmeter and got nothing. Am I supposed to get a reference voltage here? Or do I have to leave the sensor plugged in and check? What else could cause it not to start running? Thanks for the help!

Here's a video of it cranking.
video-2010-03-02-18-37-37.flv video by omgosh - Photobucket

*edit* the battery is brand new, tested 12.5v.