Need to play mp4v and mp4a in Quicktime

[sladuuch]

I've got a video file that plays fine in VLC, but Quicktime won't even open it (it says, "Error Opening movie This movie could not be opened."). I poked around in VLC and it says that the movie is encoded in mp4v for video and mp4a for audio. Can anyone think of Quicktime codecs that will read these formats?

[Madelin]

Perian is a codec pack for quicktime including many of the most common media types.

Try use that to play your video with quicktime. Also what extension does the video have, guessing mp4 or something?

[Satcomer]

I am not sure but a great Quicktime codec that will play many video types (that is free) is Perian.

[sladuuch]

Perian's great, but it doesn't do the trick. The movie's extension is .mp4, BTW. I tried some other things in the meantime, and the 3IVX codec (which isn't free, sadly) allows Quicktime player to actually open the movie, but it doesn't have any sound. perhaps 3IVX has support for mp4v but not mp4a? Then again, Quicktime player claims the audio is AAC encoded, so I don't know what's going on.

[MisterMe]

Originally Posted by sladuuch

Perian's great, but it doesn't do the trick. The movie's extension is .mp4, BTW. ... perhaps 3IVX has support for mp4v but not mp4a? Then again, Quicktime player claims the audio is AAC encoded, so I don't know what's going on.

With the advent of QuickTime 7, MPEG-4 has been its default codec. AAC is the audio track codec for MPEG-4. 3ivx has shifted emphasis from being a alternative to DivX to being a free but superior alternative to Apple's MPEG-4 codecs to being a shareware MPEG-4 codec. Long story short--with Perian's, 3ivx's, and Apple's codecs installed, you should be able to play files encoded in any iteration of MPEG-4. The fact that you cannot means that you need to seriously consider the source of your MPEG-4 files.

[sladuuch]

Well, I can play the video, just without any audio. Is it possible that 3ivx can't play mp4a? As I said, VLC plays the video just fine.