I was recently given a keynote presentation which contained a movie. When I played the presentation the sound worked but the movie was blank. It turned out the movie was not in a format that Quicktime could play and it turns out there are many such formats. When I tried to play the movie in Quicktime I got an error saying ‘The document could not be opened. The movie is not in a format that QuickTime Player understands.You may need to install additional software to open this type of file.’ The tell me more option was next to useless, but there is a solution.
Perian is a handy free program that allows your mac to play almost any movie format including AVI files from a Windows computer. In fact it claims to play all the following movie formats: AVI, DIVX, FLV, MKV, GVI, VP6, and VFW, MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivx, H.264, Sorenson H.263, FLV/Sorenson Spark, FSV1, VP6, H263i, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Snow, NuppelVideo, Techsmith Screen Capture and DosBox Capture.
You can download it for free from perian.org.
Then simply click on the icon and it will install itself as a Preference Pane. It sits in the background – you don’t need to do anything. Your normal programs such as keynote and quicktime will now be able to play any movie format.
What you may notice is that perian WON’T play wmv files. To play WMV files try out VLC for Mac OS X.
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I have the newest version of Perian and it still won’t play my file. Nice try.
Read the details about supported codecs WITHIN an AVI file: http://www.perian.org/#detail
Sam – what type of file is it? You can use something like mpeg streamclip (google it, download, install it) and try to convert it to a file type that perian or quicktime can read.
I have a .AVI file but even after installing perian it still wouldn’t work?
Wow,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Perian looks great. So simple!!!
Perian is typically great for playing…well, everything. But I just came across a codec that it doesn’t gel with: .libav (aka .libavcodec)
Here it is, broken down on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libavcodec
This is one of the first times that Perian (or the potpourri of media players on my computer) has stumbled but I feel like it may be one of the things that causes the ‘ could not be opened. The movie is not in a format that QuickTime Player understands.You may need to install additional software to open ‘ error.
Well,
I think that this is also a work for the almighty VLC.
Yes, it’ll play everything.
Best regards,
José Nunes
I experienced the same problem too. I’ll try Perian if it works for me.
Hi. Can anyone offer any advice?
When I try to open an avi file, quicktime says I need to install additional components.
However, if I right click and select “Get Info”, I can preview the movie no problem.
Why won’t quicktime open the file then?
SOLUTION: Just use VLC! trust me it works with almost everything!
Yes, but it does not integrate with other apps like iMovie, Keynote, Powerpoint or Compressor.
Downloaded and installed perian–no effect whatsoever. Useless.
Read the details about supported Codecs WITHIN an AVI: http://www.perian.org/#detail
Also deinstall 3ivX and DivX codecs as they conflict with Perian.
I was having the same problem. I installed Perian, Quit Quicktime, relaunched QT, and now the clips play perfectly. As well, now they seem to work with proper previews in iMovieHD.
Thank you.
This seems to be the Emperor’s New AVI Player: it seems to do nothing.
hi,
I am trying to play .avi files using quicktime. After downloading A52codec, I am able to play the video but not the audio. Then i downloaded Perian, but still only the video works but no audio. Anyone who could advice? thanks a lot, please write to me at nshuks@gmail.com
thanks,
Nitin
great! worked a treat once i quit QT and relaunched movie file
Wow. Interesting- I must try to use Perian
GOM is the best SW is playing all the movies formats
try it http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/38445/gom-player
Thanks for this tip :-)
I wasn’t able to add AVI files to my Keynote presentation, and now I can.
Thanks
It wasn’t working out until I read the comments below and realized I had to quit QT. Now it works perfectly. Thanks!