haha, wow, it echoes :P

[eccentricity]

So, I downloaded some clips that were .mp4, and I can't play any of them. Quick Time says that the movie cannot be opened; DivX opens the movie, but only shows a small black square and the tracker bar at the bottom just blinks without moving; VLC 'unexpectedly quits.' (I'm on a mac, btw, system 10.3.9)

I had similar problems in the past with .mkv files, and ffmpegX fixed those just fine by converting clips to .avi with relatively little direction from me, so I tried converting the .mp4s to .avis, and it sort of worked, because I can play the video in both Quick Time and DivX now (VLC still 'unexpectedly quits.' It actually starts playing the clip before doing so now, though >_<), but the audio is really, really...funky.

Basically, it wasn't really noticable at first, but then a couple minutes into the clip the sound started echoing - it really became noticable when dialogue started. At first it was just annoying, but the echoing makes the audio lag, which means that eventually that audio and the video are disgustingly out of sync.

I'm relatively new to all this, so I'm not sure what info you guys need to figure out the problem, but here's what I could get from VLC before it would quit, just in case this helps:

Info about the original .mp4 file
Statistics about the original .mp4 file
Info about the converted .avi file
Statistics about the converted .avi file

And, naturally, if there's any other info you guys need to know to help me fix this, I'd be more than happy to try and find it >.<

[terryj]

I'm betting that if you were on 10.4.x, and had Perian 1.0 installed,
it would play the file natively in Quicktime.
I'd be happy to test this for you, where is the file located?

[eccentricity]

ah, it was a torrent (fansubbed anime, so... I'm staring at this big red "Do NOT give, link, ask, or advocate WAREZ," which I'm pretty sure is what I've got >.< (so, disclaimer: I'm not advocating it? heh))

*sigh* life would be a lot easier if I had 10.4, huh? =/ I've run into so many things that require 10.4 in the past month it's not even funny >_>

[terryj]

yes, and with the advent of Leopard,
10.4 is becoming the lowest OS many people
will support/make apps for.

[eccentricity]

well, hey, good news is that apparently there's a 10.4 disc sitting upstairs that I didn't even know about :P so, it's upgrade time, I guess!

Now here's hoping everything works once that nightmare is done (I hate upgrading... >_<)

[terryj]

upgrade to 10.4, then quickly go to Apple's website and get the 10.4.10 Combo updater ( 10.4.11 I have found to be a bit flaky).

Once you have updated from disc, reboot, and then run the downloaded
10.4.10 Combo updater. Once that is done, go get Perian 1.0
and install.