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All replies
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Helpful answers
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Apr 16, 2016 9:04 PM in response to dannyboy322by dialabrain,There was no function like that native to OSX. As a matter of fact Quicktime can't read .avi files. You must have been using some third party application.
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Apr 16, 2016 9:16 PM in response to dannyboy322by dialabrain,Perhaps you are thinking of Flip4Mac which would/will allow .avi files to be played in the QuickTime Player. It's still available but it's now a commercial application.
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Apr 16, 2016 10:40 PM in response to dialabrainby dannyboy322,I know Quicktime can't open .AVI, I would double click the .AVI file and it would convert it to MOV
This is what I'm talking about:
QuickTime Player converts certain files before playing them - Apple Support
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Apr 17, 2016 7:35 AM in response to dannyboy322by Acm001,You can try Smart converter available on the app store. Simple interface and works.
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Apr 17, 2016 8:07 AM in response to dannyboy322by dialabrain,FWIW, Adapter is also a very nice conversion program…
Also, VLC plays .avi files without conversion.
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Apr 17, 2016 8:50 AM in response to dannyboy322by Acm001,As stated by dialabrain VLC plays the files without needing to convert. Do you simply want to view the files then use VLC.
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May 23, 2016 4:31 AM in response to dannyboy322by Luis Sequeira1,AVI is a container; just like MOV or MP4, it can contain many different things inside.
Quicktime Player CAN play AVI files, but of course not all of them.
(Examples: AVI files with H264 video, or PhotoJPEG video DO open and play in QT Player)
The problem is that there are many CODECs - some of them are very old, or not widespread - and Quicktime Player supports only a small number of them.
VLC, on the other hand is the Swiss Army Knife of video playing, it can play just about anything; but it is not very good for converting stuff.
MPEG Streamclip, even though it is now a few years old, is a very useful tool if you need to convert. In addition to supporting many legacy codecs (it is based in the old Quicktime frameworks, so it can play anything that old Quicktime 7 can), it can convert to many formats AND different containers - you can convert to, say, h264 in MOV, MP4 or AVI containers, for example (though by now I can't think of a reason anyone would want to create AVI files anymore).
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May 23, 2016 4:45 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1by dialabrain,Luis Sequeira1 wrote:
AVI is a container; just like MOV or MP4, it can contain many different things inside.
True but, I have 69 .avi files I've collected over the years and every one of them uses the MS MPEG-4 Video v3 (DIV3) codec which Quicktime will not play. As far as i remember Quicktime will not play any Windows based codec without something like Flip4Mac installed.
Hi again.

