DivX "for Mac" and Safari -- anyone get it to work on Snow Leopard?

Klaus --

Thanks for reading my novel! I have the latest version of Perian installed, but I will remove Perian and all the components the Perian Support page (thanks for the link!) recommends:FFusion, Xvid Delegate, 3ivX, DivX, DivX Decoder, XviD, msmpeg4v1, msmpeg4v2, AviImporter, EX_M4S2, Casio AVI Importer, AC3 Codec, and MatroskaQT. Then I'll do a reinstall of Perian.

The http://www.divx.com/divx/mac/ link lands you at http://www.divx.com/en/software/mac, and under "DivX 7 for Mac," the following components are listed;

Player

Web Player

Community Codec

Converter

Pro Codec

H.264

MKV

AAC

Do I keep everything ""DivX 7 for Mac" installs?

Thanks for the help -- it's too bad that DivX doesn't seem to value their Mac customers enough to make life a little easier by explaining what has to be done to make their software actually work on a platform other than Windows, PS3, and XBox.

Thanks for your help!

Regards,

Bart

BTW, I heard from the laughably-titled "DivX Support Team" today. Here was their cogent boilerplate:

<<

Your Issue:

27" iMac Core 2 Duo 3.06 GHz, 12 GB RAM, OS X 10.6.7

Safari (v. 5.0.5 [6533.21.1])

Safari Extensions:

DivX HiQ 2.1.1.94

DivX Plus Web Player HTML5

On 6/9/2011 DivX responded:

Dear DivX user,

Thank you for taking the time to give us your feedback.

We appreciate your continued support and are always interested in your suggestions and concerns. The DivX team relies on user feedback to provide better products and services!

Your comments have been forwarded to our engineering for review.

If you have an additional support question regarding DivX products, please use our support site at www.divx.com/support for further assistance.

Thank You,

DivX Support Team >>

I'm counting the seconds.

27" iMac Core 2 Duo 3.06 GHz, 12 GB RAM, OS X 10.6.7

Safari (v. 5.0.5 [6533.21.1])

Safari Extensions:

DivX HiQ 2.1.1.94 GONE NOW

DivX Plus Web Player HTML5 GONE NOW

Perian v1.2.2

Klaus -- I hope I'm getting there. I followed your advice: I uninstalled the two Safari Extensions, and removed all the components the Perian support page suggested, then DL'd and installed Perian v1.2.2. It seemed to install all right, but theres a message on the Pref Pane General window that says "Perian is installed, but parts are Not Installed." I've uninstalled and reinstalled, but the window always says the same thing about "parts are Not Installed." Is this right, or am I doing something wrong here?

I hate to sound dumb -- I don't know why: I sound dumb all the time -- but you told me "you will need the DivX Player browser plugin available from divx." However, when I click on that link, the link transmogrifies into another URL that ends in /en/software/mac/player. Though the URL coyly says "software/mac/player," and you can navigate to such links as the URL that ends in "/en/software/divx/web-player," it's all the same as far as I can tell, because, though DivX lists the DivX 7 for Mac components separately...

DivX 7 for Mac:

Player

Web Player

Community Codec

Converter

Pro Codec

H.264

MKV

AAC

...and each component is a clickable link, at the end of any trip you take you're faced with only one option, as far as I've been able to tell: you have to download the whole DivX 7 for Mac package, codecs and all.

So what do I do -- install the DivX 7 package for Mac, and then try to pick out the codecs that might interfere with Perian? I'm guessing these would be ANYTHING DivX except the DivX Player and DivX Web Player, but I see that perian v1.2.2 also has H.264 and MKV, though NOT AAC or "Pro Codec, whatever THAT is.

What do I need to do here?

Thanks!

Bart

Klaus --

To paraphrase Bob Dylan: "You know what I need, but DivX knows what it wants." What DivX wants is to plant two time-limited components that, at their expiration, tell the unfortunate user that he'd better pay his $20, or lose some of the functionality of DivX -- a load of codswallops that I'm sure shakes $20 out of some percentage of the uninformed. When you go to http://www.divx.com/en/software/mac/player, it appears that what you're enticed to download is JUST the DivX web player. It's not so: what you get from the "free" download link there is what you get from the "free" download link anywhere on the DivX site: the complete DivX; in this case, DivX 7 for Mac. If you have some combination of DivX/Perian/QuickTime/whatever components that allows you to actually use the DivX HiQ viewing function in YouTube on a Snow Leopard Mac with Safari, please let me know how you managed it, and what those components are.

I popped open the DivX 7 for Mac installer, and in the Archive.pax wrapper -- the entire guts of the installation -- there are over 200 items, including 2 Quicktime components, 4 QuickTime codecs, 2 Browser Plug-Ins, 14 bundles in the 'Stream Engine" alone, and 6 DivX applications: DivX Converter, DivX Player, 3 pure BS-DivX advertising apps, and the ONE useful Application in the entire program: "Uninstall DivX for Mac."

There is no downloadable "Divx Player," that provides the HiQ viewing option in YouTube, and the stand-alone DivX Player -- latest v7.2 (build 10_0_0_184) -- that comes in DivX 7 for Mac exhibits the same behavior I described before: the endlessly-spinning beach ball, a message in "Force Quit" saying that "DivX Player is not responding," and the necessity to force quit to get out of it.

I also asked these same questions on the Perian Community forum at Cocoaforge, and got this rather tart response from one of the Admins:

"First it should be noted that AAC is already present in QuickTime as well as Pro Res Codec (which may be what you meant there) [he's referring to the "Pro Codec" that DivX lists as one of the components of DivX 7 for Mac -- BB]."

"We have tracked down so many bugs related to the DivX components causing problems with Perian that we have decided we will never support anything that remotely involves their software. I remember the first one that I found causing a memory corruption for files containing AC3 audio and DivX video causing incorrect playback of audio; which wasted several hours of my time trying to fix a bug only to realize the bug wasn't mine to begin with. The list does not end there by a long shot. Sorry to say, but if you want any support related to their software, you've come to the wrong place."

I'm one of those obstinate people who just can't stand not being able to fix a mechanical or software problem, but a week's time is a week more than I should have wasted on DivX to begin with. I give up.

As I said before, if anyone using Snow Leopard and Safari has been able to get the DivX HiQ viewing function in YouTube to actually work, please let me know how you managed it.

Thanks again!

Bart

Well, I can start banging my head against the brick wall again.

"I have never knowingly come across Divx in any shape or form. YouTube uses either Flash or HTML5."

I don't understand how you can make that statement, considering the discussion you participated in at:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2567740?answerId=12210423022#12210423022

under: Apple Support Communities > Mac OS & System Software > Safari > Discussions

DivX Web Player and Safari

...from July 2009 to September 2010, sections of which you copied and pasted verbatim into this discussion, for example:

"Klaus1

Somerset, UK

Level 7 (22,700 points)

Re: Plug-ins

Jul 12, 2009 2:09 PM (in response to Martin Alper)

"...In Macintosh HD/Library/Quicktime/ delete any files relating to DivX (Perian already has them). However it should be noted that Perian is not an internet plugin and will not play DivX files imbedded on a website. For that you will need the DivX Player browser plugin available from http://www.divx.com/divx/mac/"

And on September 4, 2010:

"Klaus1

Somerset, UK

Level 7 (22,700 points)

Helpful AnswerRe: DivX Web Player and Safari

Sep 4, 2010 5:31 AM (in response to Philippe Pauwels)

You should read this support page http://perian.org/#support in case you need to delete older codecs. In Macintosh HD/Library/Quicktime/ delete any files relating to DivX (Perian already has them). However it should be noted that Perian is not an internet plugin and will not play DivX files imbedded on a website. For that you will need the DivX Player browser plugin available from http://www.divx.com/divx/mac/"

And, in reply to Philippe Pauwels response to the above post:

Philippe Pauwels

Level 1 (0 points)

Re: DivX Web Player and Safari

Sep 4, 2010 6:28 AM (in response to Klaus1)

Hi,

Thanks for your answer. After some more experimenting, i finally got it to work ... However, not every embedded DivX movie will play.

I just deleted another codec in the Macintosh HD/Library/Quicktime folder. (One of the codecs mentioned on http://perian.org/#support was still in the folder). Before I had only deleted the files whose name has "DivX" in it.

I did NOT install the DivX Web Player plugin.

Now some DivX videos play, some don't... So maybe I should re-install the DivX Web Plugin? But the Web Plugin never worked for me ... If I re-install it, won't I go back to where I started?

You replied, 10 minutes later:

Klaus1

Somerset, UK

Level 7 (22,700 points)

Re: DivX Web Player and Safari

Sep 4, 2010 6:38 AM (in response to Philippe Pauwels)

It could be that your previous DivX player was out of date.

As Perian says, you need both.

First, I certainly wish you (or my search of Apple Discussions, which, inexplicably, did not turn up this discussion) had referred me to this discussion before -- it would have saved a LOT of time.

Now, to your reply to Philippe Pauwels: "As Perian says, you need both." Both WHAT, exactly?

From the initial release of Perian 0.5, September 29, 2006, to the latest release, Perian 1.2.2 - Tuesday, April 13, 2011, there is not a single mention of DivX in the entire 2006 to 2011 version history. The only information on the Perian support page regarding DivX is the paragraph that states, in part, "Please consider removing obsolete QuickTime Components: ...DivX, DivX Decoder..."

Can you please tell me what you mean by "Perian says, you need both," in regard to putative DivX Extensions, Plug-Ins, Components, whatever?

Finally, on July 12, 2009, you posted, in a reply to martin Alper, a list of "the downloads and the settings you need in order to view/hear/play pretty much everything that the net can throw at you." Taking into consideration that it's 2 years later and most versions have newer updates -- including Mac OS X itself -- some items are no longer among us, and some NEW ones have shown up. could you please update or comment on this list, for the benefit of all sufferers?

Thank you very much,

Bart Brown

Your list as of July 12, 2009, taking into consideration your wise caveat that "nothing in life carries a guarantee!:

The setup described below has proved repeatedly successful on both PPC and Intel macs, but

It is known to work in the great majority of cases with Safari 3 and 4, QT 7.4.x, 7.5.x and 7.6 and OS 10.4.11 and 10.5.7.

Download and install (or re-install even if you already had them) the latest versions, suitable for your flavor of Mac, of:

RealPlayer 11.1 for Mac from:

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/15540

Flip4Mac WMV Player from http://www.telestream.net/flip4mac-wmv/overview.htm (Windows Media Player for the Mac is no longer supported, even by Microsoft)

Perian from http://perian.org/

You should read this support page http://perian.org/#support in case you need to delete older codecs.

The latest version of Adobe FlashPlayer can be obtained from here:

http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1ProdVersion=ShockwaveFlas h

(You can check here: http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/about/ to see which version you should install for your Mac and OS.

It is suggested that you first uninstall any previous version of Flash Player, using the uninstaller from here (make sure you use the correct one!):

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_14157

and also that you follow the instructions closely, such as closing ALL applications first before installing. You must also carry out a permission repair after installing anything from Adobe.

You should also ensure that you have downloaded and installed the correct version for your Mac of Security Update 2009-001 (and for Tiger only, 2009-002). (N.B. Security Updates require both a restart and a permission repair.)

In Macintosh HD/Library/Quicktime/ delete any files relating to DivX (Perian already has them). However it should be noted that Perian is not an internet plugin and will not play DivX files imbedded on a website. For that you will need the DivX Player browser plugin available from http://www.divx.com/divx/mac/

Now go to Safari Preferences/Security, and tick the boxes under Web Content (all 4 of them) to enable Java.

Lastly open Audio Midi Setup (which you will find in the Utilities Folder of your Applications Folder) and click on Audio Devices. Make sure that both Audio Input and Audio Output, under Format, are set to 44100 Hz, and that you have selected 'Built in Audio'.

Important: Now repair permissions and restart.

You should also consider having the free VLC Player from http://www.videolan.org/ in your armory, as this plays almost anything that DVD Player might not.

There is an additional 'fix' you could try if you are having problems with Flash and Quicktime, depending on which type of Mac you have:

On Intel Macs, make sure that you are not running Safari in Rosetta. You can check this, and change it, in the Get Info window.

On PPC Macs, go to the Hard Disk/Library/Internet Plug-Ins folder, and drag the file 'QuickTime Plugin.webplugin' to the desktop. Quit and restart Safari. If things have improved you can trash that file. If they haven't put it back, as the lack of this plug-in can cause QT content in some widgets to cease functioning.

And there is an additional kid on the block: SilverLight. Microsoft has created their own version of what a replacement for Flash could be. You can read more about it here:

http://silverlight.net/

So, if you go to any sites that have been designed for this new Silverlight stuff, you can download the plug-in from here (but make certain that you are downloading SilverLight v.1.0 for OS X (10.4.8 upwards) if you are using a PPC Mac. Version 2 only works with Intel Macs:

http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/

Recommendation: Close all applications before installing any of the above, repair permissions, reboot, and repair permissions again.

Thanks again

Bart Brown

PS: You wrote "It is a pity you chose a camera that produces video in that format! As you have discovered it is incompatible with iMovie." Uhh, I don't know where this question came from -- more stray copying and pasting, perhaps? I have no camera, and am not trying to do anything pertinent to this discussion with iMovie.

"...I am not prepared to engage in an autopsy debate about what I might have written to other posters, at other times, in other threads in other forums, in answer to different questions."

They weren't different questions, what you wrote in that thread almost 2 years ago was copied, by you, verbatim, into THIS thread -- after claiming you'd never come across DivX -- and an autopsy is NOT the point at issue. The point is, did YOU ever get your recommended laundry list of installations, uninstallations, permissions repairs, etc., etc., to work with the DivX HiQ web player extension in Safari, so that you could actually watch YouTube, Vimeo, et.al. videos in the DivX HiQ player window in YouTube. It's a simple yes or no question. If the answer is "No," then this whole dialogue, or whatever it was, was to no purpose. If the answer is yes, I would greatly appreciate knowing whether the laundry list of installations, uninstallations, permissions repairs, etc., etc. you recommended with your Level 7 authority is still valid, with the caveat of using the latest versions of the Mac Snow Leopard OS , Safari, Perian, and the various other elements you mentioned.

I have no desire to get into an argument, I'm just trying to solve a problem that several other people have had, and -- at least in 2010 -- seemed to be able to overcome, primarily with your help. I was under the impression that this was an Apple Support Community discussion, and that people came here looking for answers to problems, and that the reason for these "Levels" and "Points" was to identify people whose experience was such that one could have a commensurate degree of confidence in their answers. If you either don't wish, or do not have the relevant experience with this problem, to be of help -- and it would be difficult to argue the latter, given your contributions to this discussion, and the nearly identical discussion I referenced from 2009-2010 -- then it would have saved us BOTH a great deal of time and effort had you not responded to my question in the first place.

If you CAN help me, I'd be most grateful if you would do so. If you can't, then this discussion became pointless the moment you entered it. Why? Because once ONE high Level, high Points member answers, no OTHER high Level, high Points member is likely to join the conversation, thinking, as I thought, I was in good hands.

Bart Brown

Stuicy -- Yes, I've run across his Olympian -- as befits his avatar/pic -- pronunciamentos on other occasions. It takes all kinds.

Thanks for the links to the DivX stuff -- I've just DL'd them, and I'll check 'em out. On my Main Mac -- my 27" iMac 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo -- I've given up on Safari completely, and am suffering along with Firefox, which at least works -- most of the time -- though its GUI gives me a headache, No online experience is exactly an unalloted joy with Comcast Cable and the miserable Motorola Surfboard 585100 they stick you with, I need to look into a better cable modem.

My other WORKING Macs ((I have a couple of dead PBG4s, a B&W G3, and two original iMac Indigo DVIs) a pair of lease take-back Mid-2005 iBook G4/1.33GHz 12-inchers (M9846LL/A) I snagged -- probably from OWC -- for 200 skins apiece, are probably the best bargain in laptop computers available (I don't count anything Windows -- don't know, don't WANNA know), and I DO run some PPC version of SafariSafari for 200 bucks you get 512MB (sounds sad, doesn't it?) of PC2700 DDR SDRAM (which I upped to the max 768 -- still sounds sad...), 4X AGP ATI Mobility Radeon 9550 graphics with 32 MB of DDR SDRAM, AltiVec "Velocity Engine" vector processor, AirPort Extreme (802.11g) and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, two USB 2.0 ports and one Firewire 400 port, plus a slot loading Combo Drive, and -- borrowed from the G4 PowerBooks -- the "Sudden Motion Sensor" technology that stops the hard drive heads from moving if the notebook is dropped (Praise De Lawd!), and the "scrolling Trackpad," which is of dubious value with my ham-sized hands. I find "thumb-scrolling" on the tracpad easiest. At any rate, whatever version of Safari is on there works with no hiccups, while I've NEVER had a Snow Leopard version of Safari that wasn't a crash monster.

I use them for catching up on email, the miserable weather, and eBay while in the family room watching "So You Think You Can Dance" and "Breaking Bad" -- about the only TV I watch anymore. I have 10.4.11 on both of them (one's my wife's), and I'm not sure why I never brought them up to their max syatem capability of 10.5.8 -- maybe because 10.4.11 is the highest you can go and still be able to use OS9 apps in the 'Classic" environment, though I don't think I have any OS9 apps left.

Speaking of video, I've used MANY 3d-party apps to capture YouTube, Dailymotion, and elsewhere vids: MacTubes, MPEGStreamclip, Firefox's quirky Download Whelper, and others, but have found ClipGrab 3.1.0.1 to really, really work -- at least on YouTube and Dailymotion -- it's interface couldn't be simpler -- in fact all you have to do is copy a video URL in your browser, and it automatically loads ClipGrab, AND you can change file format and quality (within the limits of the video of course) on the fly. It's donationware, and the minimum donation is 10 Euros, which is now $14.19 -- anybody remember when the $US and Euro were at parity? I do.

Is there a version of Safari that actually runs on Snow Leopard without munging up everything it tries to load, and is that version compatible with some version of Download ClickToPlugin?

My little iBook G4s are running Safari Version 4.1.3 (4533.19.4), the Fred Flintstone version, and I don't see any version of DownloadClickToPlugin that's compatible with anything below Safari v5.x.x.

Have you heard/seen anyone talking about The Company ever unlocking the full potential of the MiniDisplayPort input in the 27" iMac so it's not crippled to 720p, and we'll be able to use the way-more-than 1080p of which it's capable?

Thanks for your advice!

Bart

Stu --

Thanks for the heads-up on Click2PlugIn, Pacifist, and v4.x Safari!

ClipGrab is fantastic -- the only downside is that it's nearly impossible to get video from anywhere but YouTube and Daily Motion.

Yeah, I've looked at the Atlona device. The scaler is the magic ingredient here. Unfortunately $300 is a bit rich for my blood. But doesn't it seem to you that if Atlona can build this device, another company starting with the letter "A" could do the same -- actually build it INTO the 27" iMac and big Cinema Displays? One has to wonder why they don't... of course, that WOULD put them into competition with HDTVs: imagine a NON-passive HDTV with the computing power, utlity, and apps such a machine would have! Remember the terms "convergence," and "interactive television?" Sounds like something out of a 1950's Popular Science "The World of Tomorrow!" article (hey, I'm 63!), when our cars would drive themselves on electronically-controlled highways while the front seats spun arounf so Mom and Dad could play Gin Rummy with the kids in the backseat, every family would have a helicopter and a submarine, nuclear energy would provide power so cheap it wouldn't even be worth metering, and we'd be watching holographic TV.

"Convergence" (and consequently no need for multiple manufacturers with mutually-exclusive systems competing for the consumer's dollar) -- I believe there are too many vested interests (another term for Darwinian Capitalists) to let such an obvious streamlining of functions come to pass -- it's like the mythical CHRP of the 90s: Someday there would be ONE platform standard, and every app would run on it: no "emulation" or "Parallels" or kludges of every sort. Never gonna happen.

Speaking of things that are never gonna happen, back to the HDMI-to-Mini-DisplayPort-Input-Adapter:

Belkin's AV360™ Mini DisplayPort Converter for 27"iMac, sounds almost like a deal at $150.00, until you read the Belkin fine print:

Accepts full 1080p signal, provides 720p to iMac

Delivers stereo audio

So you still can't get anything better than game console resolution (720p), and plain old stereo (no surround, or even caveman Dolby Pro-Logic). 720P is fine for games (for now -- Criswell predicts that in ten years or less, it will be nearly impossible to tell CGI from live action -- the only movie I actually went to see this year, just for the CGI, was "Battle Los Angeles," and I have to say, I was gobsmacked); but for movies with real live people moving in front of cameras, 720p doesn't cut it. 1080p barely does.

Thanks again for the links! It's been a pleasure conversing with you. If you know anything about VOB video files, let me know.

Peace Out

Bart

Message was edited by: Bartbrn. Can't spel