So I have some video files that don’t work. When I open them, Quicktime tells me it needs more software and sends me to apple.com, which happily informs me it has no idea what’s going on. This, I’ve found, is a sure sign I’m missing whatever codec was used to create the video, so I’m not able to play it back. I have all the usual ones - Xvid, Divx, etc. Are there any programs out there that will tell you which codec was used to create a file so I can go get the right one? I’m on a Mac, incidentally. And it probably goes without saying, but this problem isn’t important enough for me to spend money to solve.
What extension do they have?
Go to Snap Files and download K-lite Codec Pack. They have all the most common types of codecs. Also in that download is a tool where you can upload the file and it will tell you what type of codec is needed.
You can also try downloading the Essentials Codec Pack from Snapfiles.Com as well.
If worse comes to worse, I had one file I just could NOT find the codec too. I opened the file in avidmeux (a free editor, you could also use virtualdub another free movie editor) and just resaving it and that worked as well.
Virutaldub and Avidmeux are available at Snapfiles.Com as well
As GFactor suggested, it will be easier to help you if you tell us the file extension.
I’m betting that it’s an AVI file. AVI is essentially just a container format, and an AVI video can be encoded using any one of dozens of different codecs. In Windows, there’s a great little program called GSpot that will tell give you all the information you need about any AVI file, including which audio and video codecs were used to encode it. I’m not sure if there’s an equivalent for Mac.
One possibility, if you can’t find any other solution, is to download and install the Mac version of VLC Media Player. Not only will VLC play basically any video format that you can possibly throw at it, but once you’ve got the video playing, you should then be able to go to Tools > Codec Information and it will give you the audio and video codec details.
This is what I had in mind. I’m similarly unaware of a Mac equivalent, though.
A previous version of VLC did funny things to my computer, but the current one runs fine. Of course, I’m not running a Mac.
mplayer should at least give you an error code to google which in my experience gives you enough info to be able to get the codec. On the other hand, I haven’t run into any video the last 3 years or so that mplayer or vlc with their standard codecs won’t play.
They are all .avis. Sorry. I’ve not had good luck with alternate players in the past, but I’ll fiddle around with these suggestions tomorrow. Thanks!
VLC works very well under OS X. It can play many, but not all, video files.
You also might want to try installing Perian.