Audio portion of H.264 AVI file has problems, even though video is fine. Why? How to fix?

Here's a peculiar problem I'm having with H.264 AVI files which I've never seen solved or even described anywhere online:

I bought a strange little gimmicky "spy camera" from Japan (just out of curiosity -- it was very cheap).

It pretty much works as advertised: It takes videos in an "H.264" AVI format, which one can then upload to one's computer for viewing/sharing/whatever.

When I play these files back using QuickTime (or any other player, actually), the video portion shows up perfectly -- but the AUDIO has some serious issues which I can't resolve. They are:

- There is a loud fluttering/racheting sound in "the background," which is reminiscent of the sound from feeding an 8mm filmstrip through a projector.

- The actual intended audio which normally would accompany the video is very dim and hard to hear in comparison.

- The fluttering sound seemingly increases and descreases in volume for no apparent reason.

I have a suspicion that the problem is not in the recording device itelf, but rather in the playback-software, which is struggling with an unfamiliar audio format/codec/whatever-it's-called.

The instruction manual is ENTIRELY in Japanese, with no English translation available anywhere, so that's not gonna help me.

I opened the file in QuickTime Player 7 (7.6.6) and selected "Show Movie Properties" and it says:

"Video Track: H.264

Sound Track: Integer (Little Endian)"

I have installed:

- Perian

- DivX

- Flip4Mac

...and a bunch of other stuff recommended online.

I have tried playing the file using:

- QuickTime 10.0 (the "regular" QuickTime that comes on all Macs)

- QuickTime Player 7 (v 7.6.6) (the "Pro"-type player that allows more advanced editing)

- SimpleMovieX

- iSquint

- QTAmatuer

- iTunes

- DivX Player

- flvThing

- Amadeus II

- ...plus a few others...

...and in NONE of them does the audio sound correct.

Note that the camera itself when in use is utterly and completely silent, and has no moving parts, so it couldn't be the case that the microphone is picking up some noise coming from the camera. Also, I have purposely experimented standing perfectly still in a perfectly silent room, and recording a video, and even in those circumstances the SAME audio fluttering can be heard on the soundtrack.

I also seriously doubt that the manufacturer intentionally designed the camera to automatically add this sound to every video as some sort of "retro"-seeming feature.

Now, I suppose it simply could be the case that the camera is chintzy and dysfunctional and in some way is unintentionally adding this noise to the audio portion of the videos, but I have read dozens of reviews of this product online and in not a single one does anyone ever mention this problem with the audio. Which is why I suspect that the "problem" is actually some kind of artifact resulting from some conflict/incompatibility between the format of the audio and the capabilities of the software I'm using. And that if I had the proper software/player/whatever, the "fluttering" sound would disappear completely, because it was never really there in the first place.

I can tell from the Japanese manual that it assumes the user has a Windows machine, but I think that really shouldn't matter. (I'm using a MacBook Pro with Intel Core i5).

Anybody have the slightest clue as to what might be causing the problem? Or what the "Integer" part of the audio format means? Or what I can do software-wise or codec-wise or whatever to fix this issue? Thanks.