Trouble dowloading and playing movies
 

I'm on Mac OSX. I've spent all day reading forum Q&As on existing threads which lead me from one website to another, downloading more software than I'll ever know the anachronyms for. I just want to download and play movies. And search for them. No porno - just regular existing dvds that people are sharing. First, when I search I get millions of porno matches. When I do finally find one worth downloading, I can't get a successful download (it stops, saying it's going to requery). Then, for the one partial movie which did download after trying all day, I can't play it. I've downloaded upgrades today to Limewire, QuickTime, and iDVD. I've downloaded divX, which doesn't really seem to do anything but search for AVI files. The one partial movie I downloaded is an AVI file, but not recognized by divX. I downloaded installer software for DIVX doctor I and II, neither of which seem to load. Also, a DIVX502bundle which does nothing when I click on it. Something called Indeo Video 3.smi is on my desktop and I have no idea what I did to make that appear or what it's supposed to do. What are the simple, basic steps to searching, downloading, and playing for a computer novice like myself? It also is a hindrance that I'm new to Mac and have trouble figuring out this OSX thing to begin with. HELP!!!

Your best bet would be to hang out a while at the QuickTime Forum at Apple. Most of the problems you encounter have been dealt with countless times: you will find many posts.

An .smi is a self-mounting image file in X. It should mount as a volume on your desktop just by clicking on it. If that doesn't work, the Indeo codecs are listed at versiontracker.com. You need all of them. DivX Doctor only runs in 9, not X. It also does not require the information at the end of an .avi file. I've used it to preview files numerous times.

U HAVE TO GO TO 3IVX.COM AND DOWNLOAD DIVX DOCTOR WHICH ONLY COVERTS AVI'S TO VIEWABLE MEDIA FOR US MAC USERS. NOT ONLY MUST U DOWNLOAD DIVX DOCTOR BUT ALSO ANOTHER CODEC CALLED DELTA 4PR. U MUST DOWNLOAD THEM CORRECTLY HOWEVER, I'D SUGGEST VIEWING THE READ ME FILE BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO DOWNLOAD U'LL FIND THAT ITS ALOT EASIER. AND TRUST ME, ITS POSSIBLE. HERES A TIP, MAKE SURE TO COPY MACDEC TO UR EXTENSIONS FOLDER, BUT THE WEBSITE 3IVX SHOULD TELL U ALL ABOUT IT. HOPE THAT HELPS

I have the same problem. I have downloaded all of the files from 3ivx.com and placed all the extensions in the proper folder. Ocassionally I can download an .avi file and get it to play-but not all of them. Some .avi file are not even recognized after they are fully downloaded. Once I do get an .avi to run, the sound is garbled. I have read the read me files and cant understand how to fix this problem.
The divix doctor seems to do nothing and the decoder and converter dont seem to work either.
Cant the rest of the world just "get it" and switch to quicktime - where most of these movies are made and edited initally anyway!!
ARRGGHH!
I'll pay for a easy to use converter!!!!!!

fscott

If you are on X, download VideoLan(versiontracker). It should play almost anything you throw at it, unless it has AC3 or wma audio, in which case you have to decode into an aif, then recompress the audio in 9 as an mp3 and splice back into the video with QT Pro.

Unless you give more specifics, I can't help you. Use DivX Tools to find out which codec was used. DX50 and MP43, for instance, will hardly ever play properly in 9, but VideoLan can generally handle them in X. Supposedly, DivX 5 for Mac (versiontracker) can handle DX50, but so far, I have had no luck in 9 getting these to work except for one vid that was compressed at 15 fps.

"Some avi's are not even recognized". This doesn't bother DivX Doctor. Or you can change what you need with DivX Tools so it has a proper QT icon.

"The decoder and converter don't seem to work either." If they didn't work, you would only get a white screen in QT.

Usually, if the avi is corrupt, DivX Dr. truncates the audio, which you can extract with DivX Tool's slow option. If it is garbled after that, then the file was corrupt. Period. Nothing will help it, although it might play OK on a PC.

thanks!

I run 9.2 on my laptop (powerbook psimo) but i run x on my imac.
I will ook for the app you mentioned and run it on the imac.
iwas trying to put everything on the pbook because it would be easier to jack into my big screen tv. i guess that the os is the baisic problem tho.

thanks again

fscott

p.s.
cant find videolan
tried .com
tried limewire
should i search under versiontracker?

fscott

Look under the OS X section of versiontracker.com.

The OS is really only a problem with DX50 and a few other DivX codecs. Supposedly DivX 5 and it's verifier are supposed to be able to fix these videos. But so far, I've had no luck. Most of the other codecs, the DivX Doctor can produce a .mov file that will play fine in 9.

HELP!!
 

when i go to preview or play a file windows media player opens but then says it does not support this type of file (which i checked and it does) or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file.
what do i do??