Movies for a Pee Cee

[Dennis R. Cohen]

On 2/12/03 at 7:35 PM, JM <juanm at mac.com> transmitted the following
electronic message:

>Are you folks really not able to play VCDs on your Mac. I have the Pro 
>version of QT on my Mac and can play VCDs. Are you saying the newer 
>versions of QT are NOT available unless you get QT PRO??? I find that 
>hard to believe.
>
>and the newer version will not play VCDs but the older ones will??????
>
>
>On Tuesday, February 11, 2003, at 11:04  AM, Thubten Kunga wrote:
>
>> Donna ,
>> MoviePlayer2.5 isn't showing up in VersionTracker. You have a URL
>> for that please?
>>
>>> on 2/11/03 12:18 AM, Gordon B. Alley at galley at texas.net scripsit:
>>>
>>>> I don't believe VCDs will play on a Mac without third-party
>>>> software, like MacVCD.
>>>>
>> On Tuesday, February 11, 2003, at 07:58  AM, Donna B wrote:
>>> I play them in MoviePlayer2.5...
>>>

VCDs, in this context, refer to the actual discs. The i/o routines
QuickTime uses to read from a disk in OS X are pretty much restricted to
Mode 1 Form 1 disks and give errors when Mode 2 Form 2 block read
attempts are made.

Current versions of QuickTime will play VCD-compatible MPEG files just
fine -- they just won't play them from the actual CD media. The
shareware solution (MacVCD) allegedly works to play the discs (I haven't
tried it recently) as does the freeware solution (vlc). 

--Dennis Cohen
  iLife Bible (April/May 2003)
  iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, & iDVD Bible
  MacOS X Bible