I Need HELP!!! With VIDEO

Hello there, well I just got my new iMac G5 Intel 17" and so far I am very pleased just so much easier to use than a PC hands down!! Unfortunately there is some thing that is just ticking me off. What I do on the computer is the followng: Music, E-mail, Surfing the Web, Photos, light video editing, and downloading. Now everything listed below is just wonderful, especialy video editing. Except, I am having a royal pain in the but when it comes to watching videos on the web and downloading video. The video is a piece of cake when I use my camera, but I can't get any video from the web, downloading or streaming (This would be avi, Divx, and others). It just isn't working. I have tried every major codec. Divx works for converting, but i can't play the the video after converting. I tried MacVCD X doesn't work, and Windows Media Player, don't even think about, i can't even open the file after the download of the program is complete.

Any advice will be GREATLY Appreciated. Replies with Photo step by step will be GREATLY helpful. Any input will be GREAT!!

Thanks

first try vlc (free). then try the flip4mac plugin for quicktime (free). then if neither of those work you may have to try windows media player (free).

when dowloading apps...you will get a disk image on the desktop (looks like a white hard drive). open it up. inside there will either be the app itself or an installer. if its an app (should be able to tell easily) just drag it to your applications folder in finder. if its an installer (again, you should be able to tell easily) just copy it to the desktop and then run it. it will do the work for you. (sometimes installers will add a few extra little files besides just putting the app in the apps folder) then you can delete the installer off of the desktop. if any of that was confusing just say so and i (or many other more knowladgeble people) will help you out. then finally, you can delete the .dmg file that looks like a hard drive on a white piece of paper.

finally, welcome to the forums. good luck with your mac and don't be afraid to ask stupid questions...we've all been there.

VLC and Flip4Mac.

UncSki1218 said:

first try vlc (free). then try the flip4mac plugin for quicktime (free). then if neither of those work you may have to try windows media player (free).

when dowloading apps...you will get a disk image on the desktop (looks like a white hard drive). open it up. inside there will either be the app itself or an installer. if its an app (should be able to tell easily) just drag it to your applications folder in finder. if its an installer (again, you should be able to tell easily) just copy it to the desktop and then run it. it will do the work for you. (sometimes installers will add a few extra little files besides just putting the app in the apps folder) then you can delete the installer off of the desktop. if any of that was confusing just say so and i (or many other more knowladgeble people) will help you out. then finally, you can delete the .dmg file that looks like a hard drive on a white piece of paper.

finally, welcome to the forums. good luck with your mac and don't be afraid to ask stupid questions...we've all been there.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info on which Plugins i should look into.

I did all the steps you talked about before i posted this thread. I can get the app in the dock. The app works fine, it is just that it won't play any of my videos like avi.

Man waaaaaay to slow, 2 posts before I got done! neye: :dummy:

flip4Mac is apparantly not universal yet (ie not for intel) but VLC has an experimental build for intel.

Windows Media Player is not universal either, but it does run under rosetta fairly well from what I hear. Last time I got WMP, it came packaged in a sitx file, you need Stuffit Expander to open these files. http://www.stuffit.com/mac/expander/download3.html

A cool and easy tip for when you need to drag something like an app somewhere, can drag the file and 'hover' over folders and hard disks, and after a second (or pressing spacebar) it will open that folder. I use this way to move files instead of remembering to open 2 windows one with the file and one with the destination.

AVIs and WMVs are always problematic, and in fact I have found that it is the videos that are encoded in the 'WMV3' codec that won't play, and I have never found a solution for these files. Neither flip4Mac nor VLC will play them correctly. I have spoken to the devs of flip4Mac, and it is apparently a lisencing issue with MS, but they were, at that time, working on getting some sort of solution.