BPCM Codec for Mac

zali0n · Nov 29, 2009, 11:50 AM

Hey everyone, a simple question. I'm trying to play a .mpg on my Mac. The video is fine but the audio will either not play in QT or will be an awful buzzing in VLC. After looking at the media properties in VLC it states that the audio codec is BPCM. Does anyone know where I can find this?

Makosuke · Nov 29, 2009, 04:30 PM

I've never heard of that abbreviation before, and Google indicates that it's certainly not common (your post is now the top hit), but presumably it's talking about binary (or some other B) PCM, which is basically an uncompressed audio stream. VLC should know how to play that, though, and I've frankly never heard of an MPEG file with PCM audio outside of the files directly off a DVD--was that the source of it?

The only thing I can think of is that maybe it got copied from a DVD somehow and is actually a compressed track in another format (AC3, maybe) that ended up with the wrong identifying marker. VLCs terrible noises would be the symptom of that--it's trying to play the audio using the wrong codec, which results in total garbage.

No useful suggestions other than maybe to try a third video player. This one is your best bet:
http://mplayerosx.sttz.ch/

...but if it doesn't work, either, I'll have to go with "bad file". You might be able to dig up an MPEG demuxer and split the file into audio and video components, then figure out what format the audio portion is in, fix it, and re-mux it, but that may or may not work and it'd have to be pretty important to be worth it.

ricof · Nov 29, 2009, 10:44 PM

Try Perian, a quicktime plugin

http://www.perian.org/

Hope this helps

Nov 29, 2009, 11:50 AM	#1
zali0n macrumors regular Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Kent, UK	BPCM Codec for Mac Hey everyone, a simple question. I'm trying to play a .mpg on my Mac. The video is fine but the audio will either not play in QT or will be an awful buzzing in VLC. After looking at the media properties in VLC it states that the audio codec is BPCM. Does anyone know where I can find this?

Nov 29, 2009, 10:44 PM	#3
ricof macrumors member Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: The Garden of England	Try Perian, a quicktime plugin http://www.perian.org/ Hope this helps __________________ 13" Unibody MBP, 2.26 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 160GB HDD, OSX 10.6.2/XP Pro SP3 16 GB iPod nano (w/video camera) 20GB iPod 3rd Gen

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version Email this Page	Search this Thread: Advanced Search
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

Nov 29, 2009, 04:30 PM	#2
Makosuke macrumors 68040 Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: The Cool Part of CA, USA	I've never heard of that abbreviation before, and Google indicates that it's certainly not common (your post is now the top hit), but presumably it's talking about binary (or some other B) PCM, which is basically an uncompressed audio stream. VLC should know how to play that, though, and I've frankly never heard of an MPEG file with PCM audio outside of the files directly off a DVD--was that the source of it? The only thing I can think of is that maybe it got copied from a DVD somehow and is actually a compressed track in another format (AC3, maybe) that ended up with the wrong identifying marker. VLCs terrible noises would be the symptom of that--it's trying to play the audio using the wrong codec, which results in total garbage. No useful suggestions other than maybe to try a third video player. This one is your best bet: http://mplayerosx.sttz.ch/ ...but if it doesn't work, either, I'll have to go with "bad file". You might be able to dig up an MPEG demuxer and split the file into audio and video components, then figure out what format the audio portion is in, fix it, and re-mux it, but that may or may not work and it'd have to be pretty important to be worth it.