Videos saved from a PC wont play on new Mac

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I had a bunch of saved videos from when I owned a PC laptop. I switched to a Mac and I try playing them off my thumb drive and it tells me "The selected video could not be played because the file format is not recognized". What is this about and what do I need to do to watch these movies? On my old computer I downloaded something called VLC player. Would this help? Thanks
 
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Your Mac's Specs
21" iMac * 2.8 Ghz Intel Core i7 * 16GB 1333 Mhz DDR3 * 1TB HD *AMD Radeon HD 6770M 512 MB
Macs don't natively support all video formats, so download VLC and Flip4Mac and Perian just to be covered and you should be all set.
 
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Your Mac's Specs
Mac Specs: 13" MacBook Pro (Late 2011), i5, 2.4GHz, 4GB of Memory, 500GB HDD, backlit keyboards
What format are they in? I had the same issue and VLC worked for me. I'm about 2 or 3 weeks in to the switch so far.
 
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Your Mac's Specs
Mac Specs: 13" MacBook Pro (Late 2011), i5, 2.4GHz, 4GB of Memory, 500GB HDD, backlit keyboards
Macs don't natively support all video formats, so download VLC and Flip4Mac and Perian just to be covered and you should be all set.

Wow we posted at the same time! I have Flip4Mac too. I'll look into Perian. Thanks.
 
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I cant tell what format they are. Which VLC did you download? They have a 32 bit, 64 bit, and a 32/64 bit
 
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Your Mac's Specs
Mac Specs: 13" MacBook Pro (Late 2011), i5, 2.4GHz, 4GB of Memory, 500GB HDD, backlit keyboards
I don't remember seeing a choice when I downloaded it. You should be able to look in the properties to see what type they are in. When you look at the file in Finder it should show you. I have mine setup to show the files as if I had set the view to details in Windows Explorer. It makes it easier for me looking at the files.
 
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I downloaded the 64 bit and my problem is fixed. Thanks for the help. There is nothing that can hurt my computer by downloading that VLC right?
 
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MacBookPro, 15", iCore 7, 8GB, Thunderbolt Display
Greg,
VLC is just fine, nothing that can hurt your computer :)
 
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thank you chas! greatly appreciated!
 

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