[P1] OT Playing AVI files

[Brian Olesky]

First, thanks for taking the (huge amount of) time to lay all this out. It
was extremely informative. I actually went and found a more recent version
of VLC (0.7.2, vs. the 0.7.0 I had been using), plus I downloaded the latest
DivX encoder. Since then, things are working better in QuickTime, but I
still can't get VLC to work very well at all, which may be a function of my
processor being only 600 MGHZ. But again, thanks for taking the time.

Brian 

On 7/2/04 6:29 AM, "KhooCK" <filhos at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Hi
> 
> I use a combination of software
> 
> For standard .mov and apple mpeg4, Quicktime 6 is the best
> For asf files and wmv files (sometimes incorrectly labelled as avi files), I
> use Windows Media Player 9
> 
> For avi files, a little explanation is required
> The avi format does not have a fixed codec (ie like mp4) but a container
> file type. It can have different codecs, the commonest being DivX; (yes,
> with a semicolon). This is a rip off of Microsoft's original MPEG 4
> implementation. The rip off occurred because Microsoft's implementation
> (using Windows MediaPlayer) uses the asf file format which is proprietary.
> By ripping the codec from microsoft but using the avi container format, it
> freed users from having to use MS software to encode/decode. The fourCC
> codes for these files are DIV3 and DIV4
> 
> As expected, MS shut down the sites promoting DIV3 and DIV4. In response,
> the authors made a new version OpenDivX that didn't depend on MS's
> MediaPlayer engine but actually decoded the bit stream directly. This is the
> codec available from www.divx.com. The fourCC codes are DIVX and DX50.
> 
> 3ivx is a similar effort but is more mac friendly. It can be got from
> www.3ivx.com. The fourCC code is 3ivx.
> 
> In addition, there are also Indeo legacy codecs that are stored using the
> avi format. These have fourCC codes that start with IV and are followed by
> two digits eg 32, 42 etc.
> 
> How to play these files
> First identify the fourCC codes. The easiest way to do this is to launch the
> file using the latest version of VLC and get info (Apple I). There will be a
> drop down menu that gives you info on the various streams (one for audio,
> one for video and any extra streams)
> 
> For DIV3 and DIV4, use VLC. It is the best. You can convert it to
> Quicktime's mov format with additional software but the results are always
> poorer than non transcoded files.
> 
> For DX50 and DIVX, download the free software from www.divx.com and install
> it. You can use either Quicktime or VLC. Personally I find VLC better but
> you do need a fast processor. VLC decodes the bitstream directly and is more
> processor intensive.
> 
> For 3IVX, download the codecs from www.3ivx.com. You can use Quicktime or
> VLC.
> 
> For the Indeo codecs, it's a bit more complicated. You can get codecs for
> them but they are classic only. Do a search for Indeo on versiontracker. I
> run them in classic using Quicktime 3.
> 
> After all that, there are still a few avi files (a very tiny minority) that
> you will still have a problem with. I find that these files also give
> problems on WinPCs so I suspect it is an encoding problem but I only have
> about 3-4 files with these problems so cannot tell for sure.
> 
> VLC is my main player for non Apple formats. The latest versions are faster
> and have lesser requirements. VLC used to be very slow as it didn't utilise
> the graphic chip (but depended on the processor instead). No problems of
> late. An added bonus is that it can play DVDs without going through region
> checking as it decodes the stream directly.
> 
> Hope this has helped
> 
> Rgds
> Khoo
>