Video

I have a question similar to to Chritophers. I was wondering if there is an all-round video media player for the Mac. I have MPlayer, AVI2Mov, DivX Converter, Flip4Mac, Real Player, Quicktime, Windows Media Player, Also Split & Concat & MacPar Deluxe to help download other medias. I have not owned a Mac very long, but for a system that is suppose to be awesome for multimedia I can't seem to find a kick a-- video program. I find that even the videos I buy from iTunes is not very clear unless I play it in a screen that's 1"x1". (And my eyes are not that young any longer.)

If someone can help me out I would appreciate it. If I'm using my machine wrong, please let me know. I want to get the most bang for my buck. It just seems to be a lot of hoop-la to download and view a poor quality video/multimedia clip.

Thank you in advance,
Jim

Message was edited by: Jprasek

imac, Mac OS X (10.4.8), 2..16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo... Memory 2 GB 667 GHz DDR2 SDRAM

Posted on Mar 9, 2008 5:40 PM

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4 replies

Mar 9, 2008 6:19 PM in response to Jprasek

Hi

Apart from the ones you've mentioned I find VLC copes with pretty much everything I throw at it.

http://versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/14738

From a personal point of view I've not found one application that 'does it all' so to speak. Generally having the option to use more than one application is always going to be better than using just the one. I personally like the fact that I can use three or four browsers or three or four dedicated e-mail applications or three or four text editors. What I can't do in one means that I may be able to do it in another.

Tony

Mar 10, 2008 3:31 AM in response to Jprasek

I didn't see Perian on your list, but try and work your way through this:

These are the downloads and the settings you need in order to view/hear pretty much everything that the net can throw at you: The setup described below has proved repeatedly successful on both PPC and Intel macs, but nothing in life carries a guarantee!

It is known to work in the great majority of cases with Safari 3.0.4, QT 7.3 or 7.4 and OS 10.4.11. (If you are running Leopard, ensure that all plug-ins have been updated for OS 10.5.2, but please see my footnote).

Assuming you already run Tiger versions OS 10.4.9 or above (this has not yet been verified with Leopard) and have Quicktime 7.2 or above, and are using Safari 2 or 3, download and install ( or re-install even if you already had them) the latest versions, suitable for your flavor of Mac, of:

RealPlayer 10 for Mac from http://forms.real.com/real/player/blackjack.html?platform2=Mac%20OS%20X&product= RealPlayer%2010&proc=g3&lang=&show_list=0&src=macjack

The new RealPlayer Plus (v.11) is still in beta and therefore free, but works well on Tiger. It includes a download function, and you can get that here:

http://uk.real.com/player/mac/

Flip4Mac WMV Player from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/wmcomponents.mspx (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.

Adobe FlashPlayer should first be uninstalled using the appropriate uninstaller available here: http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_14157&sliceId=2 and then the latest version obtained from here: http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1ProdVersion=ShockwaveFlash and installed.

(You can check here: http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/about/ to see which version you should install for your Mac and OS, but please see my footnote if you are running Leopard.)

In earlier versions than QT 7.1.3 in Quicktime Preferences, under advanced, UNcheck Enable Flash, and under Mime settings/Miscellananeous only check Quicktime HTML (QHTM).

You should also ensure, if you are running Tiger 10.4.11 or Leopard, that you have downloaded and installed the correct version for your Mac of Security Update 2007-009.1.1, which also deals with the Quicktime/Flash issues you may have experienced, such as the '?'. What happened was that both Quicktime as well as Adobe FlashPlayer tried to play the Flash video at the same time. This no longer happens. (N.B. Security Update 2007-009 1.1 requires both a restart and a permission repair.)

If you get problems with viewing video on a website try moving this file to your Desktop:

Hard drive/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/QuickTime Plugin.webplugin

and then restarting Safari. If all now works, you can trash that file.

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.

FOOTNOTE

If you are running Leopard:

Some users have mentioned that the latest Flash Player (v.9.0.115.0) conflicts with Leopard, and that they have needed to revert to v. 9.0.47. This can be downloaded from here:

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_14266&sliceId=1

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