QuickTime and avi

[bbhack]

I've been using ffmpeg for a few days now and still find the variety and quality of codecs it makes accessible amazing. I like the command line fine, but given the amount of trial and error that often goes into optimizing compressed video, I'm not sure I'd bother without a tool like ffmpeg - thanks!

The only snag I've run into is this: Using both the ffmpeg and mencoder encoders for avi give excellent results which play beautifully in both MPlayerOSX and VLC. However, the QuickTime Player chokes on these files with a vague error message "QuickTime is missing software required to display this movie file. Unfortunately, it is not available on the QuickTime server."

I'm using QTPro 6.3 (with the MPEG2 extension, not that it should matter). What missing software might it be referring to? Since the QT player is what I'm targeting this is a more than bit dismaying.

Thanks for your help!

[bbhack]

I've may have answered my own question.

QuickTime directly supports only a small subset of the avi files out there, apparently only those with the original vfw format. It doesn't have the necessary codecs for Indeo or DivX encoded files, among others. I assume the mpeg4 avi files produced by ffmpeg and mencoder are in the latter category.

3IVX has a freeware QuickTime plugin which provides support for DivX and other non-vfw avi files. They also offer Divx Doctor II which will directly convert DivX to 3IVX QuickTime video.

http://www.3ivx.com/download/macos.html