# Making videos for the Mac or TV **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 5, 2007, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-videos-for-the-mac-or-tv/428895 "2007-12-05T10:34:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Testy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c37758/32.png) [@Testy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Testy)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2007, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-videos-for-the-mac-or-tv/428895/1 "2007-12-05T10:34:03Z")
Id like to give a friend some video clips I have. Unfortunately, he uses a Mac and the last time I tried I couldn’t get them to play on his machine. The files are AVI and use the MPEG4 V2 and the Lame audio encoders. Does anyone have an idea how I can do this easily? This is a one-off so I really don’t want to D/L a lot of software. If I can’t make this usable on the Mac, is there an easy way to prep the files to play on a home CD/DVD player connected to the television? Regards Testy ---
**Author:** ![wasson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/4da419/32.png) [@wasson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wasson)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2007, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-videos-for-the-mac-or-tv/428895/2 "2007-12-05T13:37:39Z")
There’s really no reason your friend shouldn’t be able to open a video clip on his Mac. Make sure his Quicktime is updated, and has the Flip4Mac plugin installed. If that doesn’t work, have him try downloading VPN video player. That thing plays everything. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2007, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-videos-for-the-mac-or-tv/428895/3 "2007-12-05T13:39:54Z")
MPEG4 was pretty much invented by Apple, it ought to be playable on one. ---
**Author:** ![Testy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c37758/32.png) [@Testy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Testy)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2007, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-videos-for-the-mac-or-tv/428895/4 "2007-12-05T14:15:11Z")
**Wasson & Guanolad** My thanks to you both. I’ll cut this stuff now and drag it over there this evening. I’m a computer jock on PCs and servers and he’s an honest-to-God brain surgeon so the pair of us ought to be able to get this done. 😛 Thanks again to you both. Testy ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2007, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-videos-for-the-mac-or-tv/428895/5 "2007-12-05T15:26:36Z")
[QUOTE=wasson] There’s really no reason your friend shouldn’t be able to open a video clip on his Mac. Make sure his Quicktime is updated, and has the Flip4Mac plugin installed. If that doesn’t work, have him try downloading VPN video player. That thing plays everything. [/QUOTE] You mean VLC - [http://versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/14738](http://versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/14738) ---
**Author:** ![Testy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c37758/32.png) [@Testy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Testy)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2007, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-videos-for-the-mac-or-tv/428895/6 "2007-12-05T20:21:58Z")
My thanks to you all. I’ve just returned home and we got the files to play. Probably our worst problem was my ignorance of Macs followed by his ignorance of IT stuff in general. _S_ Anyway, I D/Led the VLC player, it had an icon like either an orange wizard hat or a traffic cone, I’m not sure which. Anyway, it played the AVI files just fine. I was impressed with how easy the install went. I just said “Go”, and it did. I dropped the files into the playlist and it started stepping through them. A nice piece of software. Thank again and all the best to all of you. Testy ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2007, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-videos-for-the-mac-or-tv/428895/7 "2007-12-06T03:54:10Z")
Also, there are various codices available for Quicktime. The most comprehensive I know of is [Perian](http://perian.org/). Installing that will clear up most of your “Quicktime doesn’t recognize this file type” headaches. I’ve noticed that Flip4Mac and VLC have complementary but not overlapping areas of ability. If a Windows Media file won’t open properly in one, it will in the other. I think the older versions are handled better by VLC and the newer by Flip4Mac.