08-02-2009, 03:01 AM

<2.33GHz MacBook Pro running Mac OS X 10.4.11>
Greetings, folks!
Is it simply not possible to play AVI MS-MPEG4v1 videos on an Intel Mac?
I have been looking for years (on and off) to solve this, but the only MS-MPEG4v1 codec I can find is only for PowerPC Macs.
The videos are recognized by QuickTime Player as MS-MPEG4v1 (MP41) videos.
All possible applications (QuickTime Player, VLC, Firefox, etc.) will play the audio, but will not show the video.
Is there no Intel codec? Is there any way to convert the files?
If there is no solution, how far back (in hardware and software) must I go to get these videos to play?
Thoughts?
Thank you!

08-02-2009, 03:40 AM

I had an mpeg4 file that would not play with Quicktime until I downloaded the divix player and now it plays. Forgive me if this is not relevant I am a new switcher but have been messing around trying to convert m4v files today to make them avi and so this issue arose for me. I tried to play one of the files I converted to mpeg4.avi with quicktime and all I got was audio until I downloaded the divix player.

08-02-2009, 04:00 AM

Or you could download Perian, which extends Quicktime's codec support

Perian - The swiss-army knife of QuickTime® components

08-02-2009, 05:05 AM

Thanks for the thoughts, folks!, but I am running Perian 1.1.4, and it and the DivX apps (Doctor II, Player, and Converter) don’t do any good.
I have also cleared out my QuickTime folders of all older codecs; only Perian and the Flip4Macs are in the User and HD Library/QuickTime folders. I felt it best to not touch the HD/System/Library/QuickTime folder. ;-)
Thoughts?

08-02-2009, 07:30 AM

Have you tried VLC, usually plays just about anything you throw at it

VLC media player - Open Source Multimedia Framework and Player

08-02-2009, 11:25 AM

Thank you, louishen, but as I mentioned in my first post, VLC will not play the files either.
I booted from a FireWire drive with a pure version of 10.4.11 that I keep around for such purposes, installed Perian 1.1.4 and the files will not play there either, so this is not an issue of user modifications to the Mac OS X. (They played fine up until a few years ago when I switched to an Intel Mac, but I just don’t need to refer to them very often.)
QuickTime Player’s inspector displays the format as:
16-bit Integer (Big Endian), Stereo (L R), 44.100 kHz
MS-MPEG4v1 (MP41), 320 x 240, Millions
so it knows what they are and it plays the audio just fine.
Thoughts?
Thank you all for your troubles!

08-02-2009, 11:32 AM

MS-MPEG is Microsoft MPEG, which from reading is supported by ffmpeg and mplayer. To prevent you from having to install another player (mplayer os x looks very outdated), I would recommend using Handbrake to convert it to a more "friendly" format.

08-02-2009, 01:33 PM

Thank you, vansmith!
I appreciate your efforts, however, after much testing, HandBrake 0.9.1 will only open video_ts-based DVDs. It will not open _any_ kind of video file, and I have tried many (avi, mov, mp4, flv, etc.). Also, there is also a strict denial of any kind of support for handBrake 0.9.1 (the Mac OS X 10.4.11 version), thus I have no way of figuring out why HandBrake can only open DVDs.

All I ever get is the error: “No Valid Title Found” and the log states:
GUI ERROR dialog: dvd: DVDOpen failed
scan: unrecognized file type
(I was not trying to open a DVD!)
HandBrake 0.9.1 will not open _any_ videos of any kind for me and I have many perfectly good videos.

Thoughts?
Thank you!

08-02-2009, 02:48 PM

Support for using any video file as a source was only introduced in the most recent version, which is 0.9.3. Install the new version and you should be able to use any file as the source.

EDIT: Sorry, I made a mistake. I forgot to notice that you are using Tiger, which is not supported by the Handbrake devs anymore (thus excluding you from using 0.9.3). I'll get back to you.

EDIT #2: Despite being about a year and a half old, ffmpegx might work for you. Read the listed instructions carefully.

08-02-2009, 05:22 PM

vansmith, your kind suggestions are deeply appreciated . . . and on a Sunday!

Unfortunately, ffmpegX didn’t solve the challenge (although it is a fine tool!). The codec is still the issue; here’s the report:

FFmpeg version CVS, Copyright (c) 2000-2004 Fabrice Bellard
Sun Aug 2 15:03:37 MDT 2009
Mac OSX universal build for ffmpegX
libavutil version: 49.0.0
libavcodec version: 51.9.0
libavformat version: 50.4.0
Input #0, avi, from '/Users/me/Desktop/1.avi':
Duration: 00:00:12.0, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 350 kb/s
Stream #0.0, 29.97 fps(r): Video: MP41 / 0x3134504D, 320x240
Stream #0.1: Audio: pcm_u8, 8000 Hz, mono, 64 kb/s
Output #0, mov, to '/Users/me/Desktop/1.avi.ff.mov':
Stream #0.0, 29.97 fps(c): Video: mpeg4, yuv420p, 320x240, q=2-9, 96883 kb/s
Stream #0.1: Audio: aac, 44100 Hz, mono, 64 kb/s
Stream mapping:
Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
Stream #0.1 -> #0.1
Unsupported codec (id=0) for input stream #0.0

I even went back an re-installed the MS-MPEG4v1 codec (into '/Users/me/Library/QuickTime/') with no luck.

Thoughts?
Thank you!

08-02-2009, 07:05 PM

My only other suggestion would be to look into mencoder.

I was under the impression that ffmpegx (which uses ffmpeg) would convert the file as ffmpeg can convert just about everything. Just for another test, follow the instructions here to "install" ffmpeg using the copy that came with ffmpegx. Once this is done, open up a terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app) and type the following:

ffmpeg -i <input file> <output file>

Replace <input file> with the name and directory of the file you want to convert and the <output file> with the name of an output file. So, for instance, to convert ~/Desktop/test.mpg to test.avi, I would execute the following:

ffmpeg -i ~/Desktop/test.mpg test.avi

You can read this for a little more info on ffmpeg. If this doesn't work, I'm out of ideas (for now).