Using the Archos AV400 with a Mac (1 Viewer)

[Brad Cook]

I recorded a few of my daughter's favorite TV shows onto my stepson's Archos AV400 and downloaded the files to my Mac, which is running 10.3. They're AVI files, but they wouldn't display video in QuickTime 4, although they would play the sound. I assume that was because it uses MPEG-4, and OS X won't support MPEG-4 until 10.4 comes out.

So I tried VLC, that freebie video player that's supposed to support MPEG-4, and I had video, but no audio.

Anyone happen to know what I should be doing here? I was hoping I could turn the video into a DVD with iDVD, but I'm not sure if that can happen since it's MPEG-4. I have trouble following all the various video formats, though, so maybe someone knows how I can translate these files into a format that I can use on the Mac.

Thanks.

 

[Kris McLaughlin]

Quicktime certainly supports MPEG-4, so it sounds like you're just missing a certain codec.

When the file is playing in Quicktime, you can choose "Show Movie Info" from the Window menu and it will tell you the video format. You should then be able to download the appropriate codec (I'm guessing it's DIVX, which is easy & free to download & works well when installed).

Hope this helps, good luck with your videos!

edit: once you get the proper codec installed, it shouldn't be a problem to import the video into idvd, it will do the conversion automatically.

 

[Brad Cook]

Thanks, Kris. I discovered that it is indeed divx, so I will download that codec.

How about importing the video into iMovie? I've played with that software a bit, but I haven't used it a lot. Since a few different shows are in each file (my stepson just let it run), I would like to chop each one into a separate file (and cut the commercials), and then create one DVD devoted to each show.

Is that feasible?

Thanks!

 

[SteveLa]

http://www.macworld.com/2005/03/secr...list/index.php

 

[Brad Cook]

I saw that, Steve. Thanks.