My .avi files have sound, but no picture with Quicktime, and are distorted.

[SyracuseMug]

I'm running OS 10.4.11 on a Mac G4 Quicksilver, and I have fourteen widescreen avi files which I've been viewing with Quicktime 7.5.

When opened, my Quicktime window measures 7.75" wide and 6.375" high, and the first four avis appear in widescreen with dimensions of 7.75" x 4.75," and black areas on top and bottom.

The next four avis take up the entire window, meaning that the original widescreen image is distorted (like the trick mirrors we see at carnivals); and the remaining six files have sound, but no picture.

I also have VLC Media Player 0.8.6b, and when I used it to view these same files, it restored the video which Quicktime was missing, and it also played them in widescreen, whereas Quicktime did not.

Using VLC would thus seem to solve the problem, except that my goal has been to convert all of these avis to DVD format using iMovie HD and iDVD, which require Quicktime.

So my first question is whether there is any Mac software that will let me reconfigure these distorted files, so that they'll play in widescreen with Quicktime as well as with VLC. And of course, play the video too.

I already have Perian 1.1 in my System Preferences, btw.

Any help would be appreciated.

[rumplestiltskin]

1. Update your Perian to 1.1.3; you have an old version.

2. Some of your videos were captured in letterbox mode; could these have been caps from an analog source?

3. To convert everything to DVD using iMovie & iDVD you need to transcode the source to DV. Use MPEG Streamclip for this and alter the dimensions accordingly. You can also use QT Pro and simply alter the video's dimensions before you "save as..." a reference movie. Drop the reference movie into iMovie.

4. For the videos with the letterboxing, MPEG Streamclip will also let you crop out the black bars.

[SyracuseMug]

Thank you.

I took your suggestions and I can now view all of my avis with Quicktime. I also downloaded MPEG Streamclip and tested it on a one-minute sample of one of the problem files.

I successfully converted it to a widescreen DV file, and then I wanted to test one of the letterbox avis, but I didn't know what value to place in the Top and Bottom crop windows. Should I use numbers with inches?

[rumplestiltskin]

The numbers in the crop boxes are pixels. Try 30 in both boxes and preview it. If it's not right, increase or decrease as needed.

By the way, I always slide the "quality" setting all the way to 100%. I'm on an Intel iMac so the speed doesn't seem to be adversely affected.

Let us know how it goes.