I have a movie i very much want to play (1.4 gig), so i tried quicktime and it played but there was no audio. Thats ok this happens all the time, i have "mplayer" and "vlc" for just such an occasion but for some reason in these apps the file will only play a few minutes then it stops. So now im stuck, of the three players i have only one can play it all the way through but that one has no audio.

aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggggggg!!!!!!!!!


In quicktime i went to "get movie properties" and it said this about the file:

in the video track - 3ivx D4 4.0.4
in the sound track - MPEG Layer-3 Audio

I know nothing about codecs, not even what to do with or where to put it once (if) I downloaded the one i need.

so this is where i need your help, ive searched for the right codecs but ive had no luck (im sure this is because im looking in the wrong places, not because it doesn't exist).

Does anyone know where i have to go and what i have to do to get quicktime to play the file properly? If more detailed info about the file in question is needed, let me know.


any assistance would be GREATLY appreciated.

BTW - im using quicktime player version 6.3 if that helps at all.

Have you tried using the player from DivX.Com?

I had a similar problem and DivX worked for me!

It's worth a shot!

Åudioslave,

it worked, thanks a lot! your post really helped, i got to watch my movie 10 minutes after i read it.


Im still really curious about codecs tho, how they work and how one uses them in a mac osx environment so if anyone else has anything to add id appreciate it.

the codecs are just different ways to encode the data which makes up the video and the audio of the file.

There are different codecs, each which can be wrapped in a file type (such as .mov or .avi). it's all very confusing, and IMO needs to be standardised better. thankfully, MP4 looks pretty good, and more and more people are using it and it's standarised codec set. We need to get Divx figured out now - it's a really good codec, but it's splintered all over the place resulting in file incompatabilities .

If you download a codec for use in quicktime, you need to drop the file into the /Library/QuickTime/ directory. Once these files are in place, Quicktime will be able to use them as instructions for reading and playing files encoded using the codec in question.

good luck, and thanks for the link, Audioslave, I was unaware of the standalone player they had available!

thanks for putting it into some kind of perspective for me, its a bit clearer now!

Do you know of any links for quicktime (mac) codecs specifically. I assumed there would be an easily found site with a list of available codecs or something but i cant find anything like that. They seem to be spread all over the place and i can never even tell if they're for mac or not let alone for quicktime. For a person like me, who doesn't know much about software to begin with, its a real mess.

I assumed it would be in quicktime's interest to make this stuff easily accessible (with at least links to codecs if not downloads) through their site but they barely mention it. it doesn't make much sense since, without 2nd party codecs, quicktime's player is almost useless.

It sounds like you were trying to play .avi file with quicktime..that's a no no...quicktime is designed for mpegs really.

Xvid is a popular new way to encode .avi's now but too bad the right codec for Xvid is hard to find for casual users......there are too many of them and i have only found one to work...and some even are viruses.

3ivx plays xvid.

http://www.3ivx.com/codec/download_mac.php/3ivx_d4_404_mac.sit