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mkn · May 30, 2001, 10:47 AM

Does anyone know of an application that allows one to play .m2v files off a hard disk? .m2v is the file format for the video track on DVDs. I know that DVD player 2.3 and higher should do this. Unfortunately, I have a Lombard PBG3, and the installers will not allow any DVD player above 1.3 to be installed on this computer.

May 30, 2001, 06:18 PM

A .m2v file is MPEG2 encoded, so you have to decode it into .mov. Sparkle had a very old and slow decoder, but the new MacMPEG2Decoder is about twice as fast and works very well. Be aware that the decoded file will be three times as large as the encoded, file. You may want to compress it with Sorenson or Motion JPEG A (Best).

mkn · May 30, 2001, 06:49 PM

I may be incorrect on this one, but it was my understanding that DVDs use a modified MPEG2 format, which is .m2v. Otherwise, wouldn't the file type just be .mp2? Also, if it were just MPEG2, Quicktime, would be able to play these files, which it is not.