Can't Open .avi Files - codec installed

[nope7308]

For some reason, I can't play some .avi files in Quicktime. I'm using Leopard and I have 'Perian' installed. Most of my .avi movies play, but I just downloaded a batch of 10 files and when I try to open them I get the error message:

"The movie could not be opened. The file is not a movie file.

I know the files themselves are fine because they worked on an old PC. For some reason, I just can't get them to work in OS X. Also, I would prefer to use QT over VLC... any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!

 

[kolax]

I've had this with a few .avi files (some were golf tutorial videos off a website) that play fine in VLC but not QuickTime.

I think they might be "incomplete" files - and VLC can play them because VLC streams the content and can continue even when errors crop up in the video wrap.

I didn't find a solution - just had to use VLC player, although I really wanted to use QuickTime so I could use the cursor keys to progress through the video frame by frame (perfect if you are analysing a golf swing!).

 

[cellocello]

I have this problem, but with certain ".mpg" files.

And only .mpgs from a specific single source - everything else plays fine in Quicktime. Must be something in the way they encode their videos.

And yeah, the "workaround" is to play those specific videos in VLC.