Ever had problems playing some .avi files on your Mac? There are a number of reasons for this and a number of solutions too. This page will not attempt to cover this issue in general. One great starting place for info on the subject is the Playing DIVX and AVI Movie Files Reader Reports on MacInTouch.

For our purposes it is enough to say that QuickTime supports AVI but your success will depend on which codec is used. Apple explains this in their knowledgebase document which says in part:

"QuickTime provides built-in support for AVI, but AVI is not a codec itself. It is a file format central to Microsoft Video for Windows (VfW), and one for which a variety of codecs may be used..."

So basically AVIs are fully supported as long as you have the right codec. One such codec is the I263 codec which is often found in avi files created by Intel video cameras.

Playing I263 on Mac OS 8 and 9 is possible thanks to John Dalgliesh's I263 QuickTime codec which in turn is thanks to the open source FFMpeg library. My contribution to all this, was to update John's QuickTime codec to work on Mac OS X. I was successful, but the codec stopped working with QuickTime 7, and I do not know why. If anyone would like to take on or help with this project, please email me.

My e-mail address is: cwatson@cam.org
Return to Sean's home page

© 2006 Sean McBride, this page was last updated on January 5, 2006.