After recently having my first issues playing certain video codecs in Quicktime since the installation of Mac OSX Snow Leopard I thought I’d look at my installed Quicktime Components that in the past have allowed me to play most files. Obviously, Quicktime Pro facilitates many options that are grayed out in the regular Quicktime Player. I also have Premiere Pro which now facilitates many HDD camera files, Final Cut which also supports many mpeg formats and VLC Player which seems to open most files.
Flip4Mac Pro WMV
I have the Flip4Mac Studio Pro for WMV playback and export. There is Flip4Mac Player for WMV Playback, Flip4MacPlayer Pro allows you to import WMV’s for conversion to Quicktime formats although this version is not free, Flip4Mac Studio allows you to export WMV’s in the Quicktime environment but using the presets and Flip4Mac Studio Pro which allows you to create you own custom export settings. I would advise purchasing Studio Pro if you support a company that uses Video in Powerpoint as it provides the most versatility.
Visit The Flip4Mac download page here
Perian
Perian, they say is the Swiss army knife for Quicktime Codecs. I’ll be honest, I installed it and as I can play most formats I guess it helps but couldn’t evaluate it completely. Here is the list of codecs Perian supports.
- File formats: AVI, DIVX, FLV, MKV, GVI, VP6, and VFW
- Video types: MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivx, H.264, Sorenson H.263, FLV/Sorenson Spark, FSV1, VP6, H263i, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Snow, NuppelVideo, Techsmith Screen Capture, DosBox Capture
- Audio types: Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), and MPEG Layer I & II Audio, True Audio, DTS Coherent Acoustics, Nellymoser ASAO
- AVI support for: AAC, AC3 Audio, H.264, MPEG4, and VBR MP3
- Subtitle support for SSA/ASS and SR
Download the Perian Plugin here
REDcode
I have REDcode installed but to be honest I have know hardware that would require using this as yet.
Visit the REDcode website here
DIVX 7 Codec
I have the DIVX 7 Component installed which adds playback of .divx videos and .avi files, there is also a DIVX 7 Pro version which allows you to create your own DIVX files but I have not yet had the need to do so so I don’t have this installed
TechSmith EnSharpen
Since I have installed Camtasia on the Edit suites at work I have installed the TechSmith Ensharpen Codec to reduce the problems I might come across saving out screen capture video created in Camtasia and saving them to Quicktime to then import for edit into Adobe Premiere Pro.
Visit the TechSmith EnSharpen Codec page here
I’m pretty sure I have the XVID Component installed too but again am not sure whether this ever needs pulling out of the bag and if it does it probably runs nicely in the background.
For more Qucktime Components visit Apple
Not sure it has to be a pain to encode to avi and wmv when you have apps like Apple Compressor. Why do I need to pay $49 for something else, frustrating. I wonder if Avid allows for exporting to wmv.
Been trying out FlipForMac as well, pity the trial version only allows for 30seconds.
Not that I export to avi or wmv – it ‘s just there is always one person that wants that – in this case it happens to be a MS employee. lol