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Steven1621

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 10, 2003
796
0
Connecticut
i was given a bunch of AVI files from a friend that i have been unable to view on my mac. does anyone know of a codec that would allow me to use these files? i am running panther, FYI
 
Nermal said:
Or 3ivx, to play them in QuickTime.

vlc still plays more and its free. qt is free also but you have to pay 30$ for qt pro just to use fullscreen. its easier just to go with vlc. mplayer is ok but nothing like vlc. keep mplayer around also. it will normally play the odd thing vlc won't.
 
From my experiences.

VLC works better and is prettier.
Mplayer plays more formats correctly and is faster.
 
blue&whiteman said:
vlc still plays more and its free. qt is free also but you have to pay 30$ for qt pro just to use fullscreen. its easier just to go with vlc. mplayer is ok but nothing like vlc. keep mplayer around also. it will normally play the odd thing vlc won't.

Apple provides a free script to "Present" a QT file
http://www.apple.com/applescript/quicktime/

I've gotten QT set up where it'll play any file, as long as it isn't corrupted. That's what VLC and Mplayer are for.

I generally try and keep my media player I use down to a minimum.
 
7on said:
Apple provides a free script to "Present" a QT file
http://www.apple.com/applescript/quicktime/

I've gotten QT set up where it'll play any file, as long as it isn't corrupted. That's what VLC and Mplayer are for.

I generally try and keep my media player I use down to a minimum.

the only time I really use quicktime is to watch the live mac world keynotes.

I have qt, vlc and mplayer on my drive. thats it. I use vlc 99% of the time.
 
Gotta add in my vote for VLC as well! I can never say enough about VLC, I absolutely love it and I have never run across a file that I couldn't play using VLC. And it's free! MPlayer, QT w/ proper codecs, etc. will all do the trick, but VLC has always been my number one choice. :cool:
 
seamuskrat said:
How can you convert an AVI to another format like MPEG2 or MPEG4 or MVOV?

Well, AVI is just a wrapper. Most of the time you can change the extension to .MOV and noone's the wiser. MVOV, I've never head of ;P
To convert MPEG2 you need a $20(?) plugin from Apple (due to the license cost). MPEG4 is free to convert through iMovie. Oh yeah, you can freely convert MPEG2 with iDVD, but it can only output to .VOB files. Cost wise it might be beneficial to buy the MPEG2 plugin if you don't do DVD work (though I'd suggest MPEG4 for anything other than DVD). Don't worry about following ISMA standards. As long as it ends with .MOV quicktime will play it (.MP4 files that do not follow ISMA standards will not play on Windows, they have to be renamed to .MOV for some reason).
 
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