movies on a mac

ok, so i have a bunch of my movies ripped to my computer...(a vista pc.) they are all .avi files it seems. what would you play them in on a mac, or how do i convert them to whichever format they use (quicktime?). and also, what do you play them in? i hear that front row isn't very good.

 

VLC to play.
Visual Hub to convert if you don't like VLC for some reason.

 

AVIs play in Quicktime fine . Just double click the file and Quicktime will pop up, and you can Full Screen if you'd like!

 

Just make sure you get Flip4Mac WMV, and Perian; Quicktime will thus be able to play almost any video format you'd need.

 

Yeah, I found playing files in Quicktime had a lot higher quality than VLC. VLC really is bottom of the barrel. Go with Perian.

 

VLC will play most things...but if you want subtitles

I would go with either MPlayer or Quicktime with Perian and Flip4Mac.

If you come across any high bit-rate files that all of the above struggle to play (doubtful with an avi container) try OSXBMC (its like Front Row)

 

Hey! Never knew about Perian, just installed it, works like a charm. Now I love Quicktime player again

+rep. Cheers!

 

random thoughts:

avi is just a container... it can contain a variety of formats.

quicktime can play avi files, but not necessarily any format.

perian and flip4mac help a lot.

vlc can do subtitles too!

 

Vlc just sucks at doing subtitles, and if its styled subtitles (.ssa or .a ss), vlc doesnt display them with the right fonts and colour and soforth.

 

Quicktime will play it, I use isquint for converting things.

 

so for Divx, the VLC will work?
and can quicktime play divx movies?

and itunes, that just uses quicktime to play the tv shows/movies doesnt it?

 

VLC player for everything, I play mkv 1080p movies on vlc and it looks amazing. compared to the quicktime and vlc, quality is the same it only depends on the source of the material.

 

also, in itunes, is there a way to view the itunes store while watching a movie without stopping the movie? kind of annoying i think.

 

don't bother with quicktime, just go with vlc. it doesnt have the prettiest interface but it'll always do what you want and wont be limited like quicktime.

 

until you try to play anything with a high bit rate...

 

so what about my 9 seasons of seinfeld. can i add those to itunes? how does that work. i like having software that manages my files as well as playin them.

 

^ You need a program like Handbrake.

Handbrake can also add chapter markers in mp4 videos; so that in iTunes you can skip around the file just as on your original dvd. I don't know how/whether that function is present on the iPod, though.

 

here's a question. to watch movies in itunes, do you have to purchase them from the itunes store only? what if i have a dvd or something i've ripped. it wont let me import any of my files from mac or pc. on the mac i got it to play the vids in quicktime (they are .avi files and divx codec i believe.) i can't add these to my itunes library at all?? thanks.

 

You either purchase them from iTunes, or you may encode your own dvds.

Someone more knowledgeable should corroborate this, but I can't possibly see what could be wrong with encoding one's own purchased dvds for viewing on a Mac or an iPod. It's no different than encoding music cds----yet iTunes itself does not import video. That's why I referred you to Handbrake.

The catch, however, is that for anything to be importable/playable on iTunes, it must be iPod compatible. And AVI is not iPod compatible. You have to encode your videos in MP4. Refer to other threads, Handbrake help, etc. for the exact specifications.

 

oo thanks for the help. any1 know of any good video converters? the one i have isn't very good. (or i dont have it set right. heh.) thanks!

 

like raymond-luxury-yacht said, try handbrake, or theres also Visual Hub, or there's also isquint.

lots of choices.

 

know of any good vid. converters for windows?

 

VLC will do subtitles just like mplayer, just press "s".

VLC player will play anything and looks exactly the same as quicktime videos as well. That's pretty much all you need is VLC , I have no problems playing all my files, escept .wmv which has no sound for 1080p movies which I use an xbox 360 to stream movies anyways with dts/aac/ac3 type stuff.

 

No, mplayer will render subtitles correctly 90% of the time. VLC will always ignore any font settings associated with a video file, use its own gigantic ugly fonts, and, god forbid, if the text needs more than one line, VLC will simply stack the lines of text on top of each other.

Try playing any h.264 encoded files with a bit-rate greater than 5 Mb/s and get back to me.

 

Perian + Quicktime is just as good as VLC. Furthermore, you can play all your movies in front row if you like. I use both btw.

 

I've used constant subtitles with all video formats with vlc player and ran subtitles flawlessly. I never change the font color or size the default is just fine 100% of the time. And they are all h264,mkv,mp4,ogg anywhere in the size of 9-15gb each for the movie files.

I watch alot of asian and european films and I always d/l the subtitles and it runs 100% error free and problem free.

I used to use mplayer a long time ago when I was a pc user.. but after using a mac and especially finding out about vlc player, its the only player installed on my osx and use 100% of the time for anything.

My brother uses pc's only and recently started to use vlc player for all his anime he watches which he used to with windows media player.

 

THIS.

This is why VLC sucks.

Has your brother tried the CCCP? I've found its better for anime on Windows. Only 6MB too.

 

Allok (alloksoft.com) is very good or go to slysoft.com (CloneDVD, CLoneDVDmobile, AnyDVD) and they have a good ones. At slysoft.com they let you use it for 21 days for free, but then make you pay. Also with slysoft.com you have to download AnyDVD along with which every product because it removes the DVD's security protection. Allok is not free but im sure you could find serials or a crack, it a very good program.

 

let's hope so. all of the one's ive been using have been so/so quality. i'm trying to keep my quality, not lose it.

 

what's the best quality format i should be converting to that i-tunes will allow me to play? quicktime or mpeg4? because it would seem as if both of them are a lesser quality than my .avi files (using the divx codec.) perhaps this is for another forum?

 

.mp4 is the ipod one but it will always be worse than .avi. I just rip them and keep them as .avi on my external then when i want i convert one to ipod format.

 

that's what im starting to think. although it would be nice to have them all organized, i guess that won't be happening.

 

Just to clarify, .mov .mp4 .avi .* are just containers for the video and audio stream files. The codec that is used to encode these streams are what determines the quality, not the container file. For video, h.264 gives the best image quality per bit-rate. Typically h.264 video streams are muxed into .mp4 and .mkv containers but it's not like these containers enforce specific codecs.

 

i'm tech savvy, but you've lost me a bit. so i should use the new h.264 format? is there a converter for that?

 

No it won't. Please don't post if you're not sure what you're talking about.

Read this.

 

Yes, you can either use VisualHub or iSquint. I have VisualHub and its just a matter of dragging and dropping the files into the VisualHub window and selecting which device you intend to play the video file. It gives you the option to use h.264 encoding however the downside to this codec is that it takes a lot of processing power. Also keep in mind that whenever you re-encode a video file, quality will always be lost.

 

yea, i'm on windows atm. i do have access to mac, so maybe then ill try the isquint. but overall, just playing the movies in quicktime will be the best bet for when i have a mac?

another question: can you create a playlist in quicktime? or is that for pro only?