[Agent5556]

For some reason I can never get AVIs to play on my mac. Everytime I try it never works. I have tons of videos that I have transfered over from my old PC that I never had problems playing. They are taking up tons of space on my mac right now and I just need to find out if there is a way to play them or should I just delete them and move on. The thing thats really a bother here is that some of the videos I have I can no longer even get on VHS...outdated or out of print?? Ouicktime always brings me to another page for some plug in, but nothing ever says that its AVI specific. Can anyone help me out here?

[Chuckit]

Try installing Perian.

[Agent5556]

Very nice as of right now it opens all of the AVI I have...all but one, the movie RAD. Thanks for the quick fix. If you didn't answer up...I would hav trashed everything. Thanks

[mpancha]

You can also use VLC player (VLC media player - Overview) it will pretty much play anything you throw at it. The interface leaves a lot to be desired, but its functionality is amazing.

[JonoMarshall]

You can open most videos on a Mac using VLC, if you open a video file and click Window -> Information you can find out the Video/Audio containers and devise a better playback method/reason for it not working from there.

[JonoMarshall]

Beaten, doh.

[real]

Originally Posted by Agent5556 

Very nice as of right now it opens all of the AVI I have...all but one, the movie RAD. Thanks for the quick fix. If you didn't answer up...I would hav trashed everything. Thanks

RAD The Movie Awesome! sorry to hijack.

[Naplander]

It still baffles me why Apple doesn't include this functionality in QuickTime....

[hab]

Probably because they would have to pay Microsoft to include it and they do not want to feed the beast ...

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by hab 

Probably because they would have to pay Microsoft to include it and they do not want to feed the beast ...

Why would they have to pay Microsoft for DIVX?

[Cadaver]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Why would they have to pay Microsoft for DIVX?

DIVX ≠ AVI.

AVI is a Microsoft codec/format.
DIVX uses the AVI file structure, and uses the extension .avi, but its an independent codec based loosely on AVI. There are free DIVX codecs for the Mac which hook in to Quicktime and will play your DIVX AVIs.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Cadaver 

DIVX ≠ AVI.

AVI is a Microsoft codec/format.

Yes, and I bet none of his files were actually in that format. Almost no "AVI" files are in the format the extension was originally used for. They're all XVID or DIVX or MPEG4 or whatever other format the encoder decided to use and slap an AVI extension on there. The the question of "Why doesn't Apple include this functionality?" doesn't really involve Microsoft technology.

[voodoo]

AVI is a container format. Not a codec. I guess one can compare it to a VHS cassette. A container with certain limitations. What is in the container is the codec.

An app can read the container, but it may not understand what it is reading. QuickTime can read the AVI container, but not all codecs used in that container.

Adding a DivX plugin to QT gives it the ability to read and understand most of the AVIs out there today.

V

[analogika]

DivX is, IIRC, based off a codec that Microsoft released years ago as their suggestion for the new mpeg-4 video standard.

The standards commission chose Apple's QuickTime instead, and Microsoft retracted their code.

Various versions of DivX have been developed around this no-longer-existant code since then, but Apple has two problems with this:

1) It gives them far less clout in arguing with movie studios for a movie or TV-series purchase/rental online store if they officially support a codec used almost *exclusively* for pirating video content.

2) There are a number of different DivX codecs around, and due to their tie-in with the original Microsoft codec, some of them are of at least questionable legality.

At least, that is my understanding of the situation.

Simply installing VLC or the perian.org codec is a very quick solution.

Windows doesn't play DivX out of the box, either, btw.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by analogika 

1) It gives them far less clout in arguing with movie studios for a movie or TV-series purchase/rental online store if they officially support a codec used almost *exclusively* for pirating video content.

Mhmmm a beautiful Politically Correct explaination, but Apple supports MP3 for audio - a format with exactly the same 'stigma' as DivX. I'd say Apple has immense 'clout' over the music industry. It did even back when all they offered was iTunes with no music store and then muscled the music industry into accepting Apple's terms on how to make an on-line music store all the while supporting and promoting Rip-Mix-Burn. All it needed was 'share' in the end, but that would have been over the top.

Originally Posted by analogika 

2) There are a number of different DivX codecs around, and due to their tie-in with the original Microsoft codec, some of them are of at least questionable legality.

The DivX video codec is the MS mpeg4 compatible with mp3 audio slapped on top.

Originally Posted by analogika 

Windows doesn't play DivX out of the box, either, btw.

In most cases, WiMP does play DivX out of the box. Hence the popularity of DivX. It exploited a bug in WiMP that allowed DivX to work. In some cases a plugin is required.

Why does Apple not support DivX? I don't know, but it isn't because Apple is trying to play nice. Apple is not a nice company. They're in it for the money, like everyone. I suspect the reason is in the money and that Apple is of course more concerned with promoting their own format i.e. MPEG4. The real MPEG4.

V

[P]

.avi is indeed a container format. It was developed by MS way back in the dawn of time. When the MPEG4 standard was being developed, MS offered it up for the new standard container format. The working group picked .mov (the Quicktime one) instead, which caused MS to develop .asf to compete.

The MPEG4 licensing work did not go the way MS wanted it to. To try to influence the direction of the standard, they released two "beta" versions, called MS-MPEG4 v1 and v2. These were limited to only work in .asf and with a very low bitrate to prevent movie piracy. The original DivX ;-) (yes, the smiley was part of the name) was a hack to enable using DivX in .avi, because that got around the bitrate limitation. Divx ;-) 2.0 was the same for MS-MPEG4 v2. DivX 3 was an implementation of the actual MPEG4 ASP, not the MS beta-version. Further versions of DivX, as well as Xvid and 3ivX, are also implementations of the MPEG4 ASP.

Oh, yeah, and one more thing: The original .avi had two major limitations: it did not support files over 4 gigs and did not support variable bitrate. MS' implementation did play VBR streams if they were included in .avi, even if that didn't follow the standard. For this reason, many DivX files used VBR MP3 in .avi containers. These movies are non-standard, and Quicktime won't play them at all without an "advanced" avi decoder.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by voodoo 

Mhmmm a beautiful Politically Correct explaination, but Apple supports MP3 for audio - a format with exactly the same 'stigma' as DivX.

No, completely different arena:

mp3 was the de-facto legal standard for ripping commercial CDs and putting them on portable players or storing on computers when Apple came along with iTunes and the iPod.

There IS NO de-facto legal standard for ripping commercial movies, because that ALWAYS involves circumventing copy protection.

Also, apart from content, a hacked video codec exploiting a loophole in Windows Media Player exudes a slightly different aura than an audio compression codec officially licensed from the Fraunhofer Institut.

[badidea]

I could explain it but this is better...

Originally Posted by wikipedia

...
DivX ;-) 3.11 Alpha and later 3.xx versions refers to a hacked version of the Microsoft MPEG-4 Version 3 video codec (which was actually not MPEG-4 compliant), extracted around 1998 by French hacker Jérome Rota (also known as Gej). The Microsoft codec, which originally required that the compressed output be put in an ASF file, was altered to allow other containers such as Audio Video Interleave (AVI). Rota hacked the Microsoft codec because newer versions of the Windows Media Player wouldn't play his video portfolio and résumé that were encoded with it. Instead of re-encoding his portfolio, Rota and German hacker Max Morice [1] decided to reverse engineer the codec, which "took about a week". [2]

From 1998 through 2002, independent enthusiasts within the DVD-ripping community created software tools which dramatically enhanced the quality of video files that the DivX ;-) 3.11 Alpha and later 3.xx versions could produce. One notable tool is Nandub, a modification of the open-source VirtualDub, which features two-pass encoding (termed "Smart Bitrate Control" or SBC) as well as access to internal codec features.
...

DivX - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Audio Video Interleave - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by analogika 

There IS NO de-facto legal standard for ripping commercial movies, because that ALWAYS involves circumventing copy protection.

We don't all live in the US of A.

V

[analogika]

No, but very few of us live in Sweden and Sealand, which, AFAIK, are the only two places in Europe where circumventing copy protection is legal.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by analogika 

No, but very few of us live in Sweden and Sealand, which, AFAIK, are the only two places in Europe where circumventing copy protection is legal.

How sure you are. Perhaps Europe more diverse is.

V

[analogika]

Which part of "AFAIK" is a mystery to you, Yoda?

DeCSS has been illegal in the European Union since December 12, 2002, AFAICS.

Note that there is a difference between the legal right to own copies of your purchased media, and circumventing their copy protection in order to obtain such copies. The former is legal in most places, the latter ILlegal in most places.

But since you obviously know more about this matter than I do, perhaps you could enlighten us as to how Europe more diverse is, rather than just treating us to an almost Prussian smugness?

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by analogika 

Which part of "AFAIK" is a mystery to you, Yoda?

DeCSS has been illegal in the European Union since December 12, 2002, AFAICS.

Note that there is a difference between the legal right to own copies of your purchased media, and circumventing their copy protection in order to obtain such copies. The former is legal in most places, the latter ILlegal in most places.

But since you obviously know more about this matter than I do, perhaps you could enlighten us as to how Europe more diverse is, rather than just treating us to an almost Prussian smugness?

Ahh Prussian smugness [noted for future biased comments on ze germans, thanks!!]

You are correct that the EU has decided that circumventing copy protection is a no no, however this hasn't been implemented in all member states, nor is Europe the EU.

Don't go all American on me Spheric.

Even in the EU things aren't as rosy for copy protection as one might think

Finland court: Breaking "ineffective" copy protection is permissible

V

[analogika]

So how does that affect my point that there is no de-facto legal standard for ripping commercial movies?

Obviously, since the there's healthy dispute, borderline legality, or outright legality in some half-dozen nations on the planet, this means Apple needs to include support for the twelve or so different DivX standards - DivX 2, DivX 3, 3ivX, and whatever else - in QuickTime.

Is that what you're saying?

Or are you just wallowing in useless details in hopes of somehow, for once, effectively contradicting a point I'm making?

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by analogika 

So how does that affect my point that there is no de-facto legal standard for ripping commercial movies?

The legality is a tangent. Yes, in many EU/European countries it is completely legal to circumvent CSS.

Originally Posted by analogika 

Obviously, since the there's healthy dispute, borderline legality, or outright legality in some half-dozen nations on the planet, this means Apple needs to include support for the twelve or so different DivX standards - DivX 2, DivX 3, 3ivX, and whatever else - in QuickTime.

Is that what you're saying?

No, not at all. I made a completely different point. Namely that Apple was pushing its own container (.mov) and own format (mpeg4/h.264) over pretty much any other competitive format.

You made up some PC excuse that it was because Apple is concerned with 'clout' over movie studios. I don't buy that. Apple has no vested interest in DivX or any of its derivatives. End of story as far as Apple is concerned.

Originally Posted by analogika 

Or are you just wallowing in useless details in hopes of somehow, for once, effectively contradicting a point I'm making?

Ah now *that's* genuine Prussian smugness! How can I even imitate?

V

[analogika]

Originally Posted by voodoo 

The legality is a tangent. Yes, in many EU/European countries it is completely legal to circumvent CSS.

This has changed since the decision of Dec 12th, 2002?

Source please?

Originally Posted by voodoo 

No, not at all. I made a completely different point. Namely that Apple was pushing its own container (.mov) and own format (mpeg4/h.264) over pretty much any other competitive format.

You made up some PC excuse that it was because Apple is concerned with 'clout' over movie studios. I don't buy that. Apple has no vested interest in DivX or any of its derivatives. End of story as far as Apple is concerned.

Apple certainly has no vested interest in these formats, any more than they do in .ogg formats.

However, if you want to consider the IMO legitimate argument that Apple has even less interest in supporting codecs used pretty much exclusively to illegally circumvent copy protection "made-up PC excuses", go right ahead.

I'm saying that Apple's interests lie in being goody-two-shoes in the eyes of the film industry, since film distribution is where they're currently expanding.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by voodoo 

genuine Prussian smugness

When you use that term, be sure to savor the irony that it was coined to describe *your* attitude...

[P]

The EU is not like the US. A decision taken by the EU is not automatically made into law by the member states. There is a way to do laws like that, but it is not the common way. The common way is to make a directive, in this case the European Union Copyright Directive or EUCD. A directive is an order to the member states to implement copyright legislation along the lines of the directive within a certain timeframe. For the EUCD, that timeframe ended on Dec 22nd, 2002 - that's where you got that date. Not all member states did so in time, and the EU Commission sued them. The states that were tardy were Spain, France, the UK, Belgium, Finland and Sweden. I know that Sweden has since updated its legislation - I suspect that the other member states have as well.

The part you're talking about is the anti-circumvention clause, the one that says that removing copy-protection is illegal in and of itself. The difference between the EUCD and the DMCA is that the former permits its member states to add exceptions to the law. One possible exception is that if there is no other conceivable way for you to view the protected material except by removing the protection as part of the viewing, you get to do so without breaking the law. You can also add exceptions for research purposes etc.

So, removing the copy protection from a DVD is probably illegal in the EU, or at least most of it. There are exceptions that you may be able to hide behind, but the exceptions vary between the member states. The important part, is that the maximum possible penalty for doing so is low enough that in several states (including Sweden) the police cannot get a warrant to search your home or tap your communications. If you began ripping a DVD in front of a policeman in the street, he might do something about it (though I doubt he would), but that's pretty mcuh the only thing you'd have to watch out for. You also can't advertise tools that break copy protection, etc, but if you just want to rip a DVD, you're probably safe.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Um, who cares? Apple is a US company. Are they going to go out of their way to implement this feature and then only add it to versions of OS X sold outside the US?

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by analogika 

When you use that term, be sure to savor the irony that it was coined to describe *your* attitude...

Ah but the irony is that you so aptly described arrogance as being something so typically Prussian hehe


V

[analogika]

Originally Posted by voodoo 

Ah but the irony is that you so aptly described arrogance as being something so typically Prussian hehe

Subtlety is not one of your strengths, I see.

The Prussian bit, was, of course, an allusion to a prior insult by you, I can't remember if directed at me, but I think it was in a series of your usual everyone-but-Icelanders-and-Spanish-fests in the Poli lounge.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by P 

So, removing the copy protection from a DVD is probably illegal in the EU, or at least most of it. There are exceptions that you may be able to hide behind, but the exceptions vary between the member states. The important part, is that the maximum possible penalty for doing so is low enough that in several states (including Sweden) the police cannot get a warrant to search your home or tap your communications. If you began ripping a DVD in front of a policeman in the street, he might do something about it (though I doubt he would), but that's pretty mcuh the only thing you'd have to watch out for. You also can't advertise tools that break copy protection, etc, but if you just want to rip a DVD, you're probably safe.

Obviously nobody will come to lock you up for fixing up backup copies of your personally-owned media (in most of Europe, at least), but the fact that it won't be prosecuted doesn't make it any less illegal, technically.

Thus, official support for this format is probably not going to be forthcoming from Apple (apart from the fact that they of course intend to push their own formats - but they have AAC for audio, and still support mp3 formats).

[P]

Originally Posted by analogika 

Obviously nobody will come to lock you up for fixing up backup copies of your personally-owned media (in most of Europe, at least), but the fact that it won't be prosecuted doesn't make it any less illegal, technically.

True. And as I said, ADVERTISING copy protection circumvention feature is also illegal and they WILL come after you for that. DivX-support is not circumvention though, so it could happen. Doubt that they will bother, though - they want people to use their own formats like you said.