avi files on macbook pro

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OnceBitten

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#170860 28-Mar-2015 23:11

I've got 2 files (movie clips) that I want to watch, but they are avi files
when I click to open it I get this message
The document “33.avi” could not be opened. A required codec isn't available.

so my questions are
1) what is a codec?
2) where can I get one?
3) can I download something else to make these files open?

any advice would be helpful thanks

RunningMan

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#1272628 28-Mar-2015 23:22

Download VLC. It will play almost anything

Mark

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#1272637 28-Mar-2015 23:45

Idiot proof as Macs are supposed to be they really suck donkey bits out of the box for playing any media that has not come from iTunes!

Without going to OTT and explaining how various video and audio formats are encoded,a .AVI file is just a container, the video and audio inside it can be encoded in any number of different formats and you basically need a codec for each .. the "codec" will let the Mac translate the video/audio and get it on screen and out your speakers.

As already mentioned, to make up for the OS X shortcomings go off and get the VLC Media Player, it can play about 99% of the audio and video files out there and is SOOOOOOOOO much better than Quicktime Player.

tdgeek

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#1272684 29-Mar-2015 08:33

Mark: Idiot proof as Macs are supposed to be they really suck donkey bits out of the box for playing any media that has not come from iTunes!

Without going to OTT and explaining how various video and audio formats are encoded,a .AVI file is just a container, the video and audio inside it can be encoded in any number of different formats and you basically need a codec for each .. the "codec" will let the Mac translate the video/audio and get it on screen and out your speakers.

As already mentioned, to make up for the OS X shortcomings go off and get the VLC Media Player, it can play about 99% of the audio and video files out there and is SOOOOOOOOO much better than Quicktime Player.

To be fair, does Windows out of the box play every format? I used to as standard, install a do everything codec when I installed Windows. Latterly just VLC, Not much different really.

Behodar

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#1272688 29-Mar-2015 08:43

Mark: As already mentioned, to make up for the OS X shortcomings go off and get the VLC Media Player, it can play about 99% of the audio and video files out there and is SOOOOOOOOO much better than Quicktime Player.

To be fair, QuickTime Player and VLC serve different purposes so it's not that one is "better" than the other. For example, as far as I know, VLC won't let you trim videos frame-by-frame and losslessly export the result. I often use QT Player for simple editing - but I agree that it's not a general-purpose video player.

AVI is part of "Video for Windows" and is therefore firmly rooted in the Windows world. I also believe that it's obsolete.

josephhinvest

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#1272705 29-Mar-2015 09:29

Agree with above, download VLC and make it the default for all movie types. (Get info on a file. Open with > select VLC And press Change All).

Cheers
Joseph

khull

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#1272708 29-Mar-2015 09:40

Check out MplayerX if you want a more simple interface

Dell

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OnceBitten

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#1272836 29-Mar-2015 13:30

thanks VLC did the trick!