Playing H.264 Contained within an AVI …

Question

Level 1

0 points

Playing H.264 Contained within an AVI …

This is annoying –– QuickTime Player flat-out refuses to even attempt opening a video file (“Error Opening Movie: the movie could not be opened”), despite being able to open H.264s if they’re in a *.MOV.

I’m using the latest OS, 10.4.7, and the most recent version of QuickTime, 7.1.2.

Some third-party programmes can open it, but play it back very, very, very poorly for a few seconds and crash (even VLC!). I also can’t find a utility that will change the container format (D-Vision, ffmpegx); all they can do is completely re-encode it.

So, short of re-encoding, does anyone know of a tool that would change the container format of the movie? Any help would be appreciated.

iMac G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Posted on Aug 26, 2006 12:10 AM

Reply

Answer 1

M. R.

Level 2

365 points

Aug 27, 2006 11:37 AM in response to Jonno_t

the problem is not the container on Mac (on PC container is very important).
If you want to change the container, just change the .mov to .avi

Reply

Answer 2

Aug 27, 2006 10:11 PM in response to Jonno_t

So, short of re-encoding, does anyone know of a tool
that would change the container format of the movie?
Any help would be appreciated.

QuickTime cannot play AVI video files that use H.264 in compression. Use MPEG Streamclip or DivX Doctor II. More information here.

iMac G5 2GHz Mac OS X (10.4.3) 1,536 MB RAM

Reply

Answer 3

Jonno_t Author

Level 1

0 points

Aug 28, 2006 2:53 AM in response to Jonno_t

If you want to change the container, just change the .mov to .avi

I seriously hope that you weren’t trying to suggest that changing the file extension would change the file type …

Use MPEG Streamclip

Thanks for the suggestion, Horror in Oklah. Unfortunately, MPEG Streamclip also refuses to open the video, claiming that it is an “unsupported file type”.

This problem is pretty stupid, really. I may as well just re-encode the video altogether, though it’ll take a while. <_<<br>
Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Reply

Answer 4

M. R.

Level 2

365 points

Aug 28, 2006 4:07 PM in response to Jonno_t

changing the extension does change the container, of course it does not change the codec.

Reply

Answer 5

Jonno_t Author

Level 1

0 points

Aug 28, 2006 11:54 PM in response to Jonno_t

No, you see, you can’t just rename a file and say you’ve changed the container format.

What format it’s in (encoding aside) is not dictated by the file extension. It is the file extension that is dictated by the file type!

If I want to change the container format (and in turn the file extension), I need an application that will do so. And so far, none of them have worked. It’s weird, but it seems the whole Mac OS X platform hates H.264 AVIs … <_<

Reply

Answer 6

Aug 29, 2006 5:32 AM in response to Jonno_t

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AudioVideoInterleave
Some codecs work better in different containers. AVI should just die and go away.
You can "trick" the Mac OS into opening some files by changing the file extension.
Examples include renaming the blah.DAT file found on a VCD to blah.mpg which allows QuickTime playback.

Reply

Answer 7

Ricktoronto

Level 6

11,560 points

Aug 29, 2006 7:15 AM in response to QuickTimeKirk

Ditto for the file extension in JVC MPEG-2 cameras which are MPEG-2 with an oddball extension. You can also just tell OSX to open the extension in MPEG Streamclip as well.

Reply

Answer 8

M. R.

Level 2

365 points

Aug 29, 2006 3:31 PM in response to Jonno_t

not quite: here an example.
Create a .divx file with QTP (Mac) and get it unto a PC and try to embed it into PowerPoint. Well, it doesn't play! Now before you give it to the PC change the ending to .avi (and that way change the wrapper), now powerpoint will play it.
BTW, this is one of the only ways I found out that I can put a movie file from a Mac into a PC PowerPoint.

Reply

Answer 9

M. R.

Level 2

365 points

Aug 29, 2006 3:33 PM in response to QuickTimeKirk

yes, also as QTkirk says, change the .dat extension to a .mpg will work with that mpeg-1 file. You change the wrapper that way.

Reply

Answer 10

Aug 29, 2006 4:23 PM in response to M. R.

All of our discussions here are missing the mark of this question:
H.264 inside an .avi "wrapper".
This fails because of the restrictions on the AVI extension. Some of these files may play on a PC but rarely will work on a Mac.
Consider the file extensions as a lunch bucket that mom packed.
She put in a PB&J sandwich, some potato chips and a bag of Oreo cookies into a Star Wars lunch box.
Everyone would expect the same contents would come out.
But in our example the Oreo cookies inside a Star Wars lunch box work just fine when "opened" in a PC school cafeteria yet fail to open in a Macintosh cafeteria. They may become Fig Newton cookies. They may not resemble cookies at all.
Since the PC school has 90% of the students, parents and kids get things a bit confused when using the Macintosh campus.
It all goes back to the supported codecs that are found in these containers.
AVI is very ubiquitous but also very old and basically unsupported by any creators.
Want a true H.264 Video codec? Use MPEG-4 or QuickTime. Even some broadcast TV is using it for HD content.
Microsoft is still playing games with both file formats and these codecs.

Reply

Answer 11

Jonno_t Author

Level 1

0 points

Aug 30, 2006 2:38 AM in response to Jonno_t

In any case, changing the file extension doesn’t work (first thing I tried …), most likely because the difference here is that AVI isn’t just a container JVC invented that is identical to another. :P

The site I got the videos from has a tonne of plug-ins to ensure correct playback on a PC, but no mention is made of Mac.

So, no one else has come across this problem? You’d think changing a container format of all things shouldn’t prove to be so … impossible. QuickTime could at least try to open it, instead of just spouting a generic error message.

Reply