[scratt]

I have a very large avi I have had real problems converting to a more versatile format on my Macs.

I have tried all the usual culprits but with little joy.

Today I was checking out Daring Fireball and he had this little article..

http://daringfireball.net/

Perian 0.5 ★ Freeware QuickTime component with support for a bunch of additional video formats, like AVI, Divx, and FLV. Install this and you can play these formats using your favorite QuickTime player app instead of VLC. Works great in my quick testing (but I still needed this additional sound component to get audio to work with an AVI video downloaded via BitTorrent). Seems like it supports most of the formats supported by VLC. (Via David Young.) Update: If you wind up with a 948 KB download named “Perian_0.5.dmg.bz2”, don’t expand it like a regular bzip2 archive. Instead, rename it by removing the “.bz2” extension, and just open the .dmg file like a regular disk image.

I have never found 'avi's to be as responsive as .mov or .mpg files on my Mac, until today..

NOTE: I can't see a link to any of these plugins elsewhere on AN so am making a new thread about this.. Appologies if my searching was not good enough, and if this needs to be merged elsewhere, so be it.

[MBHockey]

sweet...it works really well here on a bunch of .avi's i've tested.

Thanks!

[turtle]

Great find, thanks.

[sunrain]

I don't have Front Row, but could someone confirm if this cooperates with Front Row? That'd be sweet.

[torifile]

Using the divx plugin works with avi, so if this is better, it should to.

BTW, scratt, did you try the divx plugin for QT? I haven't had any problem with it.

[Majost]

Awesome find. Does this solve the beachball if you try to load the preview of an AVI that quicktime can't read (ie clicking on a file with the preview pane on in Finder)?

If it does, that'd be even more spectacular.

[scratt]

Originally Posted by torifile BTW, scratt, did you try the divx plugin for QT? I haven't had any problem with it.

Yeah, but I didn't find it as solid as this solution..

This one literally just installed and worked, which was why I was particularly impreseed with it.

[scratt]

Originally Posted by Majost Does this solve the beachball if you try to load the preview of an AVI that quicktime can't read (ie clicking on a file with the preview pane on in Finder)?

Nope. Just crashed my finder on a 700MB avi!

Having said that.. I just tried it again (immediately after the crash), and it worked perfectly.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by torifile Using the divx plugin works with avi, so if this is better, it should to. BTW, scratt, did you try the divx plugin for QT? I haven't had any problem with it.

*me points to "Codecs obsoleted by Perian"*

For encoding and transcoding, you'll still need the DivX component. Also, you'll still definitely want Flip4Mac, and if you have some AC3/A52 audio, you'll want the A52 component.

Things Perian does that I haven't found any other to be capable of include:
• H.264 through AVI (asinine, but some idiots indeed do that )
• FLV (Flash video)

[GladToBeHere]

Be careful. I can't guarantee that it's this plugin that caused it, but immediately following installation, my external usb 2 drive kept mounting and unmounting. Can't get it to work other than use firewire.

[scratt]

Originally Posted by GladToBeHere Be careful. I can't guarantee that it's this plugin that caused it, but immediately following installation, my external usb 2 drive kept mounting and unmounting. Can't get it to work other than use firewire.

No problems with that here.. Have been running it doing stuff with avi's for the last 24 hours without a glitch.