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bigsmoke07 · Oct 9, 2002, 08:06 AM

There are many movies out there I would like to see, where mp doesn't have the correct codecs?

Is there a workaround, or an update I'm missing. I don't remember the mac version of WMP being so far behind like this before...

fulmer · Oct 9, 2002, 01:05 PM

it's been crappy for as long as I can remember.

what types of files are you trying to play? there are codecs out there for quicktime to play a lot of .avi files, and with the right ones qt 5/6 handles divx pretty decently.

el chupacabra · Oct 9, 2002, 01:48 PM

Will MS ever upgrade media player?

Hopefully not, its shity on windows and even shittyer on the mac....lack of upgrading will help opress their market share......for something better than windows media format.............like mpeg-1

bradoesch · Oct 9, 2002, 06:09 PM

If you've having trouble playing your movies in QuickTime and they are DivX moves you could try using DivX Doctor to remedy your movies. Might help.

Brad

voodoo · Oct 10, 2002, 05:19 PM

Originally posted by bradoesch:
If you've having trouble playing your movies in QuickTime and they are DivX moves you could try using DivX Doctor to remedy your movies. Might help.

Brad

or you could skip DivX doctor and other sucky apps like that (it hasn't been updated in a frickin year!) and use VideoLAN client (currently at 0.4.4) - It is infinetely better than anything I know of on the Mac.

Note, that vlc does not play QuickTime movies. I don't know about WiMP flicks, but unless somebody reverse engineered the WiMP codec it won't.

It does however, play VCDs and DVDs.

OwlBoy · Oct 10, 2002, 06:49 PM

heh, VLC I don't agree that "infinetely better than anything I know of on the Mac." ...

Also, just a note... It played all the types of MPEG video / audio, thats about it, for what you guys might run into.

-Owl

voodoo · Oct 19, 2002, 12:54 PM

Originally posted by OwlBoy:
heh, VLC I don't agree that "infinetely better than anything I know of on the Mac." ...

Also, just a note... It played all the types of MPEG video / audio, thats about it, for what you guys might run into.

-Owl

Oh? If you know of a better player then PLEASE tell me.

Of the players I have seen on the Mac, vlc IS a generation better then the rest. It play ANYTHING and is about 1.5MB is size. Simple, effective and FAST.

I am waiting

lucylawless · Oct 19, 2002, 05:47 PM

well, "better" is not the same as "supports more codecs."

Interface: Even with it's various interface SNAFU's, Quicktime Player is a superior application than VLC. the UI is better, easier to learn and to use, the app crashes less frequently, and it's better integrated with the OS and other apps. You can scrub through a movie in QT (not in VLC), and it's possible to add functionality to QT without actually changing the code (install 3rd party codecs). QT also works in OS 9...

Movie Quality: This is the big one for me. VLC doesn't use post-filters for mpeg-4 content. that means 99.9% of the movies you already have will just plain look better when played with the divx or 3ivx qt codecs. And the mp3 playback in VLC is unusable. it pops at regular intervals. even playing a dvd the audio quality is sub-par and the volume is too low for some reason. When you use the software to raise the volume you get static.

Codecs supported: Ok, VLC supports some codecs that QT doesn't, like mp3 in an AVI container. And possibly WMV (not WMA). And VCD's and demuxed MPEG-2. But there are formats that QT plays and VLC doesn't. And most of all, MPlayer kills VLC when it comes to compatability, but MPlayer's UI is even worse than VLC, so I don't even have it installed.

and just because a program (DD2) hasn't been updated in a while, that might mean that it already does what it has to do. I might point out that it lets you play wma avi's while VLC does not....

Justin W. Williams · Oct 19, 2002, 05:54 PM

Originally posted by el chupacabra:

Hopefully not, its shity on windows and even shittyer on the mac....lack of upgrading will help opress their market share......for something better than windows media format.............like mpeg-1

Not until they lose that 95+% market share.

voodoo · Oct 19, 2002, 09:45 PM

Originally posted by lucylawless:
well, "better" is not the same as "supports more codecs."

Interface: Even with it's various interface SNAFU's, Quicktime Player is a superior application than VLC. the UI is better, easier to learn and to use, the app crashes less frequently, and it's better integrated with the OS and other apps. You can scrub through a movie in QT (not in VLC), and it's possible to add functionality to QT without actually changing the code (install 3rd party codecs). QT also works in OS 9...

Movie Quality: This is the big one for me. VLC doesn't use post-filters for mpeg-4 content. that means 99.9% of the movies you already have will just plain look better when played with the divx or 3ivx qt codecs. And the mp3 playback in VLC is unusable. it pops at regular intervals. even playing a dvd the audio quality is sub-par and the volume is too low for some reason. When you use the software to raise the volume you get static.

Codecs supported: Ok, VLC supports some codecs that QT doesn't, like mp3 in an AVI container. And possibly WMV (not WMA). And VCD's and demuxed MPEG-2. But there are formats that QT plays and VLC doesn't. And most of all, MPlayer kills VLC when it comes to compatability, but MPlayer's UI is even worse than VLC, so I don't even have it installed.

and just because a program (DD2) hasn't been updated in a while, that might mean that it already does what it has to do. I might point out that it lets you play wma avi's while VLC does not....

Fine. These are all good arguments and all true. But you don't seem to think it's important that you HAVE to 'doctor' avis to watch them it QT. I don't want to go through the tedious and time consumeing process that you have to when using DivxDoctor. I like vlc because I can open an avi and press play. And it plays. Simple.

The files that are doctored are not compateble with Windows unless they have the 3ivx plugin as well, and nobody of my friends has it. They havn't even heard of 3ivx.

vlc plays WMV but not VMA true, but DivxDoctor does not 'doctor' VMA files on OS X either. Since I don't use OS9, I can't play WMA avis. Though **** but I can't be bothered to run classic just to watch WMA coded avis. This is why I commented on DivxDoctor not being updated in a year. It is no better.

A good player plays. A bad player doesn't. QT can'd really play avis without doctoring, so it can't really play avis.

As for the interface, vlc has a VERY simple interface. They don't come more simple than that. It may be ugly but it is simple.

I use iTunes to play my mp3s so it doesn't matter how well (or not) vlc plays mp3 in my mind.

There are a few avis I have that play after being doctored in QT, but only at about 20fps (after audio has been decompressed) while vls plays them at full speed with compressed audio. So it is faster as well.

vlc also plays avis that Divx Doctor claims is damaged (they have a few seconds of corrupted video) and will not doctor.

So all in all, vlc is a is the best player out there.

PS I use AppleDVD Player for DVDs, so I only need vlc for avis, and it excells at that.

lucylawless · Oct 19, 2002, 09:59 PM

I agree that DD2 takes a while, but if you set it to make reference movies and automatically start when you add a movie, it doesn't take too long.

also granted that my machine is fast enough to play any movie any which way, I don't know which software is faster or slower at playing which movies.

On the other hand, even on the fastest machines, VLC really stumbles on normal, non-corrupt avi's with mp3 audio (most avis these days). the audio skips and pops are almost as bad as the first days of divx with the Divx Player 1.0b6 and WMP 6.3 or whatever, where it was just embarassing to have a mac.

You're right that it's the best player for laptops that don't have the power to play in quicktime at full speed. I suppose proper framerates are higher priority than audio quality. But it's just not fair to say VLC is infinitely better than the alternatives; just that it's lighter and faster, at the expense of quality.