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sportsfan1234

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 28, 2010
79
0
I can't open WMV's or AVI's on my Mac. I have VLC, Flip4Mac, DivX Players and MPlayer OSX 2 all downloaded and usually I don't have a problem. However, I keep getting a message now when I try to open a WMV or AVI that "The movie is not in a format that Quicktime player understands- you may need to install additional software to open this type of file." not matter which player I try to open it with. My software for my MPB is all current and up to date. What is the problem? Can anyone please help me ???
 
If it truly IS a WMV or AVI file you should be able to Ctrl-Click on it and select Opening Preferences.. I use VLC since it is almost always faster and more friendly for me.. You can 'ALWAYS Open With' once you've done this.. I hope..
 
I had that problem too.

Google "perian". It contain codecs for pretty much anything in QuickTime.
 
You can also try MPlayer Extended, between VLC and MPlayer you should be covered, no need for divx player :)
 
I can't open WMV's or AVI's on my Mac. I have VLC, Flip4Mac, DivX Players and MPlayer OSX 2 all downloaded and usually I don't have a problem. However, I keep getting a message now when I try to open a WMV or AVI that "The movie is not in a format that Quicktime player understands- you may need to install additional software to open this type of file." not matter which player I try to open it with. My software for my MPB is all current and up to date. What is the problem? Can anyone please help me ???

You might need to get a PC to open that file. Flip4Mac worked well for me but sometimes I get the same error message as well.
 
I can't open WMV's or AVI's on my Mac. I have VLC, Flip4Mac, DivX Players and MPlayer OSX 2 all downloaded and usually I don't have a problem. However, I keep getting a message now when I try to open a WMV or AVI that "The movie is not in a format that Quicktime player understands- you may need to install additional software to open this type of file." not matter which player I try to open it with. My software for my MPB is all current and up to date. What is the problem? Can anyone please help me ???

If you can't play .wmv and .avi files via VLC Player, use VideoSpec (I prefer that, though it hasn't been updated since 11/2009), MediaInfo Mac (10/2010) or MediaInfo (4/2011, there is a Mac OS X version to download, VideoSpec and MediaInfo Mac are using the same library as MediaInfo) to analyse the files and report back.

 
this, just having VLC installed doesnt make QUciktime work any different, VLC is its own video player

No joke. That's what I was saying. "Open it in VLC, not QT". I have up on codecs years ago, and now I just use VLC for everything that doesn't work natively in QT. It's so much easier. One piece of software to deal with instead of many.
 
No joke. That's what I was saying. "Open it in VLC, not QT". I have up on codecs years ago, and now I just use VLC for everything that doesn't work natively in QT. It's so much easier. One piece of software to deal with instead of many.

yup, the OP is a tad confusing, his error has the word Qucktime in it so that would only mean he tried to open it in quick time, but the also says hes tried every media player, unless he thinks if he downloads a movie the file will automatically open the media player that works just by clicking the file
 
yup, the OP is a tad confusing, his error has the word Qucktime in it so that would only mean he tried to open it in quick time, but the also says hes tried every media player, unless he thinks if he downloads a movie the file will automatically open the media player that works just by clicking the file

ur are 100% correct he has just clicked and assumed god would send jesus into his laptop, and he himself would grace his intelligence and ctrl click to select player preferences..... i mean i know they say you cant teach an old dog new tricks but honestly its just getting more and more insane the worlds either getting dumber, or im just getting too use to being basically knowledgable..
 
yup, the OP is a tad confusing, his error has the word Qucktime in it so that would only mean he tried to open it in quick time, but the also says hes tried every media player, unless he thinks if he downloads a movie the file will automatically open the media player that works just by clicking the file

Yeah, good point. He does contradict himself.
 
Early in my Mac days I had issues with downloaded video files.

I installed VLC and a few others, but after a while I got tired trying to keep track of it all.

Now I just use HANDBRAKE to convert all video files to OSX compatible formats. So far it has worked fine for me with one odd glitch, but even that is overcome with a minor edit.
 
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