Safari with video. Is this normal?

[Bramblecat]

Hi guys,

I'm new to the Mac revolution (2 weeks) and I have just purchased a Mac Pro mainly so that I can run Windows XP Pro for my games and the Mac side for everything else. So if my questions seems a bit dumb please be a bit forgiving to this newbie.

When I am in Safari and I want to view a video clip/picture I have found that on some websites the video is downloaded into a text reader and shows up as text. I can't find any literature to stop this and was wondering if there is a control I haven't found, or perhaps the Mac can't read the video? Also is it normal for Mac to want to download clips before playing them? I don't have this problem when running on XP.

As a footnote a mate had Safari running on an PC and has a similar problem with Safari wanting to download before showing and although he liked Safari over OE7 he didn't like the idea third party videos being planted on his computer

Thanks for your input

 

[chscag]

One of the nice things about using IE and WMP when in Windows is that video clips are streamed and buffered at the same time. (requires a fast connection) No need to download to the HDD.

However, Safari and Quicktime on OS X do not seem to be able stream and buffer at the same time allowing viewing of video without actually downloading a copy first to the HDD. There may be other ways of doing it in OS X but I'm either not aware of how to do it, or haven't found the proper software which will provide the capability.

I agree having to download the video clip first is not as convenient, but after it's downloaded it plays just as well - and can be deleted afterward.

Regards.

 

[Bramblecat]

Thanks for the help at least that clears up the download question.

Have I missed something on the Mac as some videos are downloaded into a text box and instead of the video I get a page of text (I assume it's machine code as it makes no sense and has a lot of unusual symbols)

Thanks

 

[AlyciaAnimation]

Do you have an example of videos that have to download? I don't usually have to download videos in order to play them. Maybe I'm not understanding you correctly.

Sometimes when something downloads it doesn't have the right extension on it and it'll open with a text editor. If you know what kind of file it's supposed to be try adding the right extension. Like if you know it was a quicktime file add .mov at the end.

 

[Aptmunich]

Yeah, that sounds like a typical case of a file being downloaded with the incorrect extension. I think it usually happens with videos formatted for the iPod...

Change ".txt" to ."mp4" and try playing them in Quicktime...

One of the nice things about using IE and WMP when in Windows is that video clips are streamed and buffered at the same time. (requires a fast connection) No need to download to the HDD.

However, Safari and Quicktime on OS X do not seem to be able stream and buffer at the same time allowing viewing of video without actually downloading a copy first to the HDD. There may be other ways of doing it in OS X but I'm either not aware of how to do it, or haven't found the proper software which will provide the capability.

Actually whether or not it is downloaded depends on the way the file is set up on the webpage: You can either embed the video file to stream it, or offer it as a download.

Quicktime is capable of streaming and playing at the same time, you just need to enable "Play movies automatically" and enable "instant on" under the quicktime system preference pane.