why can't quicktime play avi files???

[clubmedia]

how can the best little movie player out not support this feature? talk about turning people away from quicktime... i know i have seen the quicktime to avi converter but should that really be necessary?

[Backtothemac]

The only AVI files that I cannot play with quicktime are the ones that are Divx encoded. Normal AVI files should work with QE 5.0 and will work with 6.0. All you have to do is download the Divx 1.19 installer from Apple, and boom. There you go.

Easy as that.

[clubmedia]

just what i was hoping for!!! a simple solution

[britboy]

Except of course avi's with wma or ac3 sound cannot be converted that way. They take a little longer.

Still, nothing that minor is going to stop me from using quicktime. It's the best media player out there by a long shot, in terms of functionality, ease of use, and not annoying you with requests to upgrade to the pro version every five minutes (i did that anyway, but that's not the point :p)

[ArtMan617]

If you're looking to "supersize" your .avi files somewhat, you could also try converting them to 3ivX format, which is faster and has better resolution...soon it should become the standard for streaming video because you can get near DVD quality for the same bandwidth it takes to stream video now. Check it out at 3ivX.com (http://www.3ivX.com) . Happy video watching!

-ArtMan617

Note: This is both OS 9 and OS X compatible

[Unix Is Easy?]

Originally posted by britboy
Still, nothing that minor is going to stop me from using quicktime. It's the best media player out there by a long shot, in terms of functionality, ease of use, and not annoying you with requests to upgrade to the pro version every five minutes (i did that anyway, but that's not the point :p)

Windows Media Player has nothing on Quicktime. Even on Windows it's great, I use it as my only player. Best thing is, this is the only program that hasn't "caused" a lockup or crash :D

Once Quicktime 6 is out I can dump my Divx player. That is, if Apple releases QT6 for Windows. Why hasn't Apple released a Linux version?

[Unix Is Easy?]

I should also note Realplayer. This program is so bad on Unix and Windows that I refuse to even accept it's existence. How bad/good is it on the Mac?

[clubmedia]

yeah i am not a fan of realplayer at all. it is a waste of time in my eyes. bad quality is all i remember from it. on a mac it sucks...

[Hemingray]

Originally posted by Unix Is Easy?
I should also note Realplayer. This program is so bad on Unix and Windows that I refuse to even accept it's existence. How bad/good is it on the Mac?

RealPlayer is EVIL, through and through. It's as bad on a Mac (if not worse, if that is possible) as the other platforms. Oh, and RealPlayer doesn't even exist for Mac OS X as of yet. Surprise surprise! (I consider it somewhat of a blessing. ;) )

[britboy]

Originally posted by Unix Is Easy?
I should also note Realplayer. This program is so bad on Unix and Windows that I refuse to even accept it's existence. How bad/good is it on the Mac?


It's no better on the mac than it is on any other platform. As hemingray mentioned, it's not yet available for OS X, meaning you have to boot up classic if you want to use it. If you do get it running, it pesters you immediately to send your reg info, then tells you about their latest offers, finally allowing you to play some sub-standard media. When you go to quit, it again asks you to send them info, and takes about 15 seconds to quit (which makes me think it's connecting to real, sending them data about my computer). I've deleted it... can't stand it.

[iGav]

Originally posted by britboy



It's no better on the mac than it is on any other platform. As hemingray mentioned, it's not yet available for OS X, meaning you have to boot up classic if you want to use it. If you do get it running, it pesters you immediately to send your reg info, then tells you about their latest offers, finally allowing you to play some sub-standard media. When you go to quit, it again asks you to send them info, and takes about 15 seconds to quit (which makes me think it's connecting to real, sending them data about my computer). I've deleted it... can't stand it.

Heh heh.... Real is pedalling second rate technology...... it really dows suck..... and has the least elegant interface I think I've ever seen...... in other words it's total sh*te........ ;)

[chmorley]

Not exactly on the topic of Quicktime, but VideoLAN Client runs pretty much all .avi files, and it's free. Worth a try, for sure. You can find it at VersionTracker.

Looking forward to this functionality being built in to QT 6, though.

Chris

[britboy]

Originally posted by chmorley
Not exactly on the topic of Quicktime, but VideoLAN Client runs pretty much all .avi files, and it's free. Worth a try, for sure. You can find it at VersionTracker.

Looking forward to this functionality being built in to QT 6, though.

Chris


Don't forget to mention that it plays MPEG-2 content too, which quicktime doesn't at the moment ;)

Why not just provide a link to the latest version, from the source? :p

http://www.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/0.4.0/macosx/vlc-0.4.0.dmg

[macabre]

I may be posting prematurely (i have not tried the quicktime update), but I have been trying to convert divx.avi files for the last couple of days with several conversion utilities, without any success. A friend? who owns a PeesaCrap gave me a movie that I REALLY want to watch. I am entirely on osx, so I need a solution that will work with it. I heard somewhere that there are certain avi files that will work only on intel chips. I also would like to convert them to mpeg so I can burn a vcd. Any help with the above is greatly appreciated.

[britboy]

Originally posted by macabre
I heard somewhere that there are certain avi files that will work only on intel chips.


Who told you that??? That's the first i've heard of media being limited to one specific chip. I doubt it's true.

If you have the latest version of toast titanium, you'll have an mpeg export option within iMovie, and quicktime pro (if you haven't gone pro, do so now. It's deffinitely worth it). Then just open toast, select 'other', and burn the mpeg files to cd. That solves the VCD part.

For the divx part, have you tried you avi2mov (http://mpeg4.jamby.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=viewsdownload&sid=3)? That works fine for divx files.

[macfreek57]

i've had many problems with this issue
PC friends are always giving my cd's with movies or tv episodes or whatever
most of them say that they had to download the windows media player codec.
now i refuse to use media player because it sucks + microsoft doesn't have a mac version of the codec available.
does anyone know what i need (maybe more than one thing) that would cover all formats supported by the media player codec?

[Backtothemac]

Originally posted by macfreek57
i've had many problems with this issue
PC friends are always giving my cd's with movies or tv episodes or whatever
most of them say that they had to download the windows media player codec.
now i refuse to use media player because it sucks + microsoft doesn't have a mac version of the codec available.
does anyone know what i need (maybe more than one thing) that would cover all formats supported by the media player codec?

Use AVi2MOV. It works very well. In fact I just used it the other day for St......


he,he. Couldn't resist. Anyway go to the OS X webpage, and go under video. It is called divx 1.1.9 I believe.

[macabre]

I installed the divx quicktime update and the movie played, with jumpy audio. avi2mov solved that in about 2 minutes for each part of the movie.

The part about the intel chip limitation I heard from a well respected brain wher I work, however he is not around now and I cant find any verification to back it up.

[iH8Quark]

RealPlayer couldn't possibly be worse. No movie clip control, you have to put in personal info to use it, and they've plastered every free millimeter with marketing B.S. And the quality SUCKS! On top of that, what's up with it downloading all these little annoying and nonsensically named files to my HD?

Down with Real. :o

[iH8Quark]

Sorry for the double post. Quicktime _does_ play avi files. The trouble with avi files is that every company on the planet has their own codec. Indeo 1.1, 2.4 4, 5, and a thousand others. Every brand of webcam has its own codec it seems. But they're all just complete junk, just like everrything else on Windoze. It's a complete cluster ***** of drivers and obsolete codecs.

My guess is that if you tried to play the same avi files you're having trouble with on a Windoze machine, you'd have the same problems (i've done this SO many times). You either have to spend your time hunting and pecking around the internet for the correct codec, or do what I do now....don't play it. QuickTime is not at fault. But I feel your pain. ;)

[cablejump]

Apple is gonna have to make avi's playable on quicktime... I almost downloaded (cringe) windows media player...... :mad:

[AmbitiousLemon]

another good player is the linux mplayer (recently released for osx). dont have to messy with codecs or converting anything. i still prefer the divx doctor route, but its just nice to know there are a lot of different ways to do it.

links:
doctor doctor give me the divx! (http://doctor.3ivx.com/)

woohoo mplayer (http://www.fi.muni.cz/~xpridal/mplayerosx/)

[emagdnimy]

weird how all those "PeesaCrap" machines your friends have just play the movies and your wondering around trying to figure out how to play it. Don't get me wrong, i'm a definite mac fan, but here in my dorm i can't watch any of the movies on the network because quicktime is too lame. i have to use my roomates "PeesaCrap" to browse the 500+ Divx titles and enjoy my evening. a friend down the hall has a newer powermac and he says he can watch them....but damn do i have to fork over 2500 dollars to watch some movies when i'm surrounded by sub $1000 "PeesaCraps"? hmmmm.....weird.

[britboy]

I can guarantee you that those divx files would play just fine on a sub-1k iMac G3.

[emagdnimy]

maybe...but sub 1k imacs suck. just as cheap pc's do. except you might be able to upgrade a pc, so that it doesn't suck as bad.

[AmbitiousLemon]

divx files play perfectly on my g3 333mhz 66mhz bus computer.

the reason your pc friends can play them is they went out and downloaded what they needed to play the files.

if you do the same on your mac you shoudlnt have any problems.

just give it a shot, its not so hard :)

[britboy]

Originally posted by emagdnimy
maybe...but sub 1k imacs suck. just as cheap pc's do. except you might be able to upgrade a pc, so that it doesn't suck as bad.


The difference between a cheap pc and the crt iMac is that with the iMac you're getting good quality parts. It's not a crap computer by any means. Ok, it's not all that upgradeable, but it's cheap n cheerful, and will play those divx's perfectly.

I'd feel much more secure getting a cheap mac than i would getting a cheap wintel.

[emagdnimy]

i'm not watching them on my hard drive...i'm watching them over the network.
try that on your 333 and see what happens.

[emagdnimy]

the imac isn't that horrible. at home i have a 266 blueberry and it still seriously gets the job done. i don't think i could say the same for any 266 pc. or 500 for that matter. but if i'm going to buy a new machine i wouldn't buy an imac again, at least not a crt one. nor would i buy a cheap pc. as you said they seriously turn to crap. i think i'll save the money and buy a fatty tower or something......

[britboy]

Perhaps that's why your having problem then. Have you tried saving them to your hard drive, and then watching them? Is your friend with the powermac watching them from the network drive? Anyway, you have to doctor the file with avi2mov of divxDoctor for them to play with correct sound, so how are you planning to do that over the network?

If it had a 333, i'd try it. Unfortunately i don't. I have a 500, and watching media over the network is no problem at all. It's slightly slower than if the files were on my hard drive, but it still works.