Having trouble with Quicktime

Try VLC. It's a much better standalone player.

Otherwise, use the Flip4Mac (for WMVs) and DivX (for most AVIs) plugins.

Nice quote

Here's a quote from the DivX plugin website:

"Sure, finding and collecting DivX videos is fun, but we're guessing that you actually want to watch those videos. Fortunately, with DivX 6 for Mac, you can use QuickTime or any application that supports QuickTime playback to watch any DivX video on your Mac, whether that video was created by a soulless, PC-using drone or a cultured Mac aesthete like yourself."

(Bold added by me)

Tongue-in-cheek or serious?

Ahh, sorry, I didn't see the iMac in your signature. I don't have an Intel Mac so I don't know how well it works, but maybe try one of these nightly builds you mentioned. Good luck.

Download and install the latest DivX for intel mac beta codec here:

http://labs.divx.com/LatestMacCodec

Then try opening your AVI file in Quicktime and see if that does the trick.

For WMV files, you need to download the latest Flip4Mac component from their site, then open your installer under Rosetta, then unpack the Flip4Mac .pkg file. This will allow the non-universal F4M component to install correctly on your intel machine. It's a work-around, but you might as well do it, as the F4M component for intel isn't even in the small session beta testing phase yet, so it's going to be a while.

Another alternative is to simply convert those WMV files into a format suitable for playback in Quicktime. To do this, I use the free, universal and fast iSquint program. You can download it here:

http://www.isquint.org/

Finally, as an alternative player to Quicktime, I can confirm that the latest nightly build for VLC that Mad Jew suggested works very well on my intel machine - much more stable than say, the uni beta of MPlayer.

This isn't a flaw with Quicktime, VLCD, WMP, what ever.

Some AVI files have special "characteristics" and are designed to work with special pay or advertising services. Some of these codecs are not available for general use.

Below will explain why there is no universal decoder for AVI files.

AVI = Audio Video Interleave file format, it's really an envelope for stuffing audio and video in together with as far as I know, no other standards*. The codecs needed to decode and AVI file, are actually the important part of the media player, and normal are some sort of plug-in. Technically, any audio/video file could be made AVI, and it should be easy to turn any AVI file into its native format by decompressing* the file and by removing the header and footer. In the header it states that it is an AVI file with a string of hex, then in it states the decompression routine/codec needed, then information needed by the decoder, and then the rest of the media data should follow.

There is also no guarantee as to the content of the file that is it could contain a text file, an exe, or something other than audio and video information. Hey, it’s already told the computer that it is a media file, so what’s to worry. So a tricky little person could design a codec...better yet a codec and a special player. This player uses the codec to play the AVI files and display advertising, guarantee your age, or delete the file afterwards- what ever. This could be good for both you and the company. They could even send statistics back to some company that could better target you, though the email your provided – adware. Or worse yet, they could build up trust with anybody using the codec and player, and then one day, it gets a movie that contains a bit of malicious code that the player executes while a person watches some interesting content.

All of this aside, the AVI idea is really noble. It allows technology and compression technologies to move forward and it allows information about how to decode (and to get the decoder) the file to be included in the media. It allows enterprising programmers to utilize the format as part of a content delivery system that can incorporate DRM or features to insure its content is what the creator intended. It also allows irritating little nits to use social engineering in conjunction with software to screw with people’s information and data.

Trust me, at some point, this kind of trick will affect OSX users in mass. For now, this kind of social and software engineering is targeted at Windows users.

(*I don’t think it provides for any compression needs)

Note: I'm lazy I wrote most of the above on thisthread.