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Is there a way to watch .NSV files with OS X?

E

ebally

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 18, 2004
124
0
London, UK
I have a few video files in the NSV file format which refuse to play on the Mac. I get sound, but no visual.

I've tried playing them in VLC player and MPlayer, but still no luck.

Does anyone have any helpful suggestions?
 
Wow, that's an obscure streamning video format. The only thing I could find on it indicated that the default video format is the now semi-open-source VP3 (which VLC supports), but that it can use any video or audio format.

If VLC opens the file and plays the audio, that means it knows what to do with the NSV file format, but either doesn't recognize the video codec, doesn't support video playback from that file type, or there's something wrong with the file.

Open up the Get Info pane in VLC and see what it says the video format is--if it is there, and is something VLC doesn't play (VP6, say), that's your reason, and it won't work until VLC or whatever adds support for that format. If no video is listed, perhaps it's an audio-only stream or there's something wrong with it. If the listed video format is something VLC should support, perhaps support for the NSV format just isn't complete yet.

In any of the above cases you're probably out of luck, as between VLC and MPlayer you can play basically any format for which a Mac-compatible codec exists on the Mac, with the sole exception of a couple of Windows Media codecs.
 
mduser63 said:
What software do you use to play .nsv files under Windows?
Click to expand...

VLC or Wimamp.

I've just found out that the videos is question are coded in the VP6 format if that helps?
 
ebally said:
I've just found out that the videos is question are coded in the VP6 format if that helps?
Click to expand...

VP6 doesn't have any Mac support as far as I know... It's pretty much a Windows-only format.
 
dubbz said:
VP6 doesn't have any Mac support as far as I know... It's pretty much a Windows-only format.
Click to expand...

I was talking to a friend, and he swears blind that there was VP6 support in an older version of VLC on the Mac. But it was latter taken out.
 
ebally said:
I was talking to a friend, and he swears blind that there was VP6 support in an older version of VLC on the Mac. But it was latter taken out.
Click to expand...

Hmm... that sounds odd. I don't think anyone's actually reverse engineered it yet. Maybe he's thinking about VP3?

Searched in various changelogs, but nothing turned up except for vp3/theora.
 
No, I ran into a VP6 coded file a while back, and after a whole mess of searching I'm 98% certain there has never been a VP6 codec on any platform but Windows. It's from a small company, it's a new codec, and although they opensourced VP3 (which is why VLC supports it just fine), they have done no such thing for VP6 and nobody has reverse engineered it yet that I've heard anything about.

Ironically, they actually do have a cross-platform Java-based (or is it Flash?) decoder for that codec so you can embed movies using it--there's a demo on their site. But there's no way I could find to feed it an external file, so it's worthless to the average person.
 
NSV is NullSoftVideo. it's a winamp proprietary format for streaming video. you likely won't see support elsewhere. who knows though.
 
DXoverDY said:
NSV is NullSoftVideo. it's a winamp proprietary format for streaming video. you likely won't see support elsewhere. who knows though.
Click to expand...
Actually, apparently ffmpeg knows how to handle them, and MPlayer claims support for all but the newest ones from the Winamp site. That said, they apparently often use VP6 video and whatever VLB audio is, and since almost nothing can decode either of those proprietary codecs, it doesn't much matter if the container formats are supported as nothing will play what's in them.
 
VP3 and NSV

Hi,

I have been struggling with the same problem for ages and no one has a clue.

Makosuke, you said that VP3 is supported by VLC. but I have proff to the contrary.

Take a look at the following screens:

VP3 for Windows

vp3windows.jpg


VP3 for Mac

vp3mac.jpg


Can you please tell me why VP3 which is an open source codec is not supported on a Mac.

The closest I have come to getting this to work correctly is when I installed NicePlayer and added the Xine Plugin for NicePlayer. In that case I get the audio and video fine but they are out of sync.

Regards
Harshey
 
Yeahh same problem here. It just won't play in VLC. The sounds don't work, and the pictures are just choppy.
 
Hmm... how interesting. I found a demo file, and indeed the current VLC version seems to have issues with the VP3 codec. Weird since it's open source and has been for a while. I wonder if it's a bug...?

The irony is, there's an officially supported QuickTime plugin that works just fine for VP3.2 video, but of course QT can't handle NSV files so you can't get to the video to play it. If you want it, it's the first thing on the QuickTime Components page:

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/resources/components.html

...and it worked just fine on 10.4.3, latest QT7, with their Windows demo file (all the Mac demo trailers are broken links).
 
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