But, it says "MPEG-4" on the box!?

[Rantipole]

I just received a Casio Exilim for Christmas. I like the camera, but am really confused about something.

I can take short movies with the camera. The box said it is MPEG-4 format. BUT, I was required to download an AVI plug-in in order to play the movies on the Mac.

But, isn't Quicktime already a MPEG-4 player? Why on earth did I have to download another plug-in in order to play the movies in AVI? It seems weird.

EDIT: another annoyance: I already had Divx to play AVIs. But that didn't work. I have to use Casio's AVI interpreter. Again, weird.

 

[dazey]

No quicktime is a container file much like a .avi It can contain many types of video or audio tracks. MPEG-4 is included in quicktime up to H.264/AVC profile. QT will play mpeg-4 files but only up to a certain level (there is a level more advanced than quicktime

 

[savar]

No quicktime is a container file much like a .avi It can contain many types of video or audio tracks. MPEG-4 is included in quicktime up to H.264/AVC profile. QT will play mpeg-4 files but only up to a certain level (there is a level more advanced than quicktime

No quicktime is a framework and set of technologies for playing back media on computers (and eventually digital devices in general). The "original" QT format was .mov, which was a container for various codecs available at the time. These days, apple releases everything officially as H.264 codec in an MPEG-4 container.

MPEG-4 itself has compression algorithms, but the actual implementation can very and they're not necessarily compatible. Congrats on finding a format that actually works between your camera and your mac.

 

[Rantipole]

Oh, interesting. I always thought mpeg-4 was a codec in and of itself. Thanks.

Still, who knows why Casio had to have a "special" AVI format, which Divx couldn't read.

 

[Mechcozmo]

See if ffmepgX can read it? Linkety to ffmepgX

This way you can make it.... damn near anything.

 

[markglick]

can't play .avi on mac mini (powerpc)

i just got a casio exilim Z850. i get blank frames in iphoto when i import. I've head that an app called VLC will playback the .avi files when i transfer them to my hard drive. where do i find it? i've been resisting the blackhole of codecs, converters, etc. but that won't get me watching my camera's video output. if someone would please walk me thru setting up my mini to read the .avi file. (even the casio 1.1 converter doesn't play my video well) also do you know why anyone would update the camera's software - casio offers a video upgrade on their website.

 

[Seventy5]

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

VLC is a really handy app. You can use it to convert one file type to another such as .asf (.asf is a Microsoft mpeg4 variant) to something your Mac can read.

Of course, you can also just use it to watch/listen to almost any file type.

I can guarantee it will throw error boxes up at you at some point. Just check the 'Don't tell me again' (or whatever) box when you OK it.

Steve