Alternative media player for APPLE

February 18, 2006 5:10 PM

I need to find a some kind of media player for friends' Apple Powerbook. Quicktime won't play the files I have...

I have few dozen movie files that are compressed using various methods such MP4, AVI, MPG, ASF, WMV, etc....
I want to burn it in DVD and/or CD for my friend's Apple Powerbook computer. Quicktime won't play these files...
Can my friend install some type of other players that can play various codec movie files? What do recommend.
Some of these MPEG or AVI files won't even play in normal Windows Media Player. I have something called GOM Player that would play all these and even display translation letters from .smi files...

Is there anything similar to that GOM Player for the APPLE?

posted by curiousleo to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

Try VLC. It pretty much plays everything.
posted by rossination at 5:17 PM on February 18, 2006

VLC Player solved my video playing problems in windows, and it has an apple version. I actually got it from this ask.mefi.
posted by MadamM at 5:18 PM on February 18, 2006

Ditto VLC.

Also, if the .AVI files are from the Internet, there's a good possibility they were encoded with the DivX codec. Downloading DivX will allow Quicktime to play them.
posted by Robot Johnny at 5:32 PM on February 18, 2006

i think most files i have are DivX or something similar... because even GOM player asks for new Codec now and then.. but it finds it by automatically openning windows for download of new codec.... will VLC play all these too?
my friend is not much of computer efficient.. so i need something that can really play everything...
Also if i burn him the apple app file in a cd with my Windows XP computer, would he be able to read and install it in his apple? same goes for those movie files
posted by curiousleo at 5:33 PM on February 18, 2006

VLC is great. I haven't seen anything it won't play.

I also have installed the Divx Codec for QuickTime Player and I watch nearly all of my stuff with that (that's how I've viewed all the Doctor Who episodes, for example). That works pretty well, and I've only run into a few things it won't play that I have to use VLC to view.
posted by smallerdemon at 5:35 PM on February 18, 2006

I find the DivX Codec for Quicktime to be a bit... unreliable. I've had far better luck with the 3ivx Component, although I consider both MPlayerOSX and VLC better then Quicktime Player.

And, yes, a Macintosh can read and make use of CDs and DVDs burned using Windows software.
posted by majick at 6:02 PM on February 18, 2006

Oh, and as for WMV, the Flip4Mac component works reasonably well. I find it more useful than Windows Media Player 9 for Mac OS X, which, in case you didn't know, is another possibility as far as media players go.
posted by majick at 6:05 PM on February 18, 2006

In theory DivX files are standard MPEG-4, but in practice with Quicktime it often doesn't work. The codec enables that and other things like XviD and possibly others to work (more) reliably.
posted by abcde at 8:32 PM on February 18, 2006

VLC works, and you could also use MPlayer OS X which will play nearly anything.

They're both good options; while you're installing stuff you really should stick the Flip4Mac WMV component that majick mentions too.
posted by AaronRaphael at 1:49 AM on February 19, 2006

I second MPlayer, though I think the link above has been abandoned in favor of this one.
posted by Hankins at 10:05 AM on February 19, 2006

There's a slightly newer (but still outdated) binary of MPlayerOSX at Hankins' link, but it contains a completely redone GUI which just happens to also suck horribly. One of my occasional projects is sitting down and hacking the .nib file for it in order to make it palatable, but I never get terribly far.

I suggest sticking with the Sourceforge version for now.
posted by majick at 7:55 PM on February 19, 2006