I know that some WMV files use codecs not available to Macs but how do I explain to someone creating a WMV file what settings to use to make it open properly in a Mac?

Here's the circumstance, there is a gentleman on a photographic forum I am a member of (it's a paid membership so I can't link to the videos) who has posted several tutorials. They were created using Camtasia. The audio plays but no video. I have tried it with the Flip4Mac plugin, VLC and several other video players that were recommended.

So far, no one using a Mac has reported the ability to view the tutorials.

I contacted the author of the tutorials and he was unaware of the issue and is asking for help on how to set it up properly for the Mac users. I'm not knowledgeable enough in this area to help.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Michael

have you tried it with VLC?

dot.

Yes.

Have you tried using toast and burning it to a DVD/VCD?

Maybe THAT will "break it"

Quote
Jimmypoo
Have you tried using toast and burning it to a DVD/VCD?

Maybe THAT will "break it"

Just tried it. No go.

Thanks for the idea, though.

Michael

That's weird. I've dropped numerous files onto Toast 8 / 9, to combine them into a single DVD, each one being a chapter, just to clear the clutter.

And that includes WMVs. What version of Toast? Do WMVs have some kind of DRM possible? I've never examined the topic. The audio does... so it would make sense it the vids did.

Quote
magicmikey
I contacted the author of the tutorials and he was unaware of the issue and is asking for help on how to set it up properly for the Mac users.

Ask him to post it as a baseline profile MPEG-4 file.
That should be viewable by all players on all platforms.

Edit:
Inexplicably, Windows Media Player on Vista doesn't have a clue how to play a standard .mp4 file. Go figure. Luckily QuickTime for Windows (and thus iTunes) handles it just fine.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2008 10:00AM by TheTominator.

Have the guy use a "standard" codec to make the videos. By default Camtasia uses the TechSmith TSCC codec. Since this is not available for the Mac (or Windows by default either AFAIK), you don't get the video. Suggest something like Microsoft Video 1.

Point the guy to Techsmith's support page for more info:
[techsmith.custhelp.com]

Quote
MEG
Have the guy use a "standard" codec to make the videos. By default Camtasia uses the TechSmith TSCC codec. Since this is not available for the Mac (or Windows by default either AFAIK), you don't get the video. Suggest something like Microsoft Video 1.

Point the guy to Techsmith's support page for more info:
[techsmith.custhelp.com]

Showing my lack of knowledge, that support info refers to making AVI's. Since he's making WMV files, does it still apply?

Michael

Quote
magicmikey
Showing my lack of knowledge, that support info refers to making AVI's. Since he's making WMV files, does it still apply?

Yes. Formats such as QuickTime (.mov), AVI and WMV are actually "containers" that hold the encoded contents. When saving into one of these formats, you have to pick which type of compression (CODEC) to use. Think of saving a Quicktime movie, you can choose plain mp4 or H.264 (or Sorenson, MJPEG, etc.).

Thank you!

I'll pass the word on.

Michael

You made me think - I did a screen capture video using Cantasia a few years ago for a product I developed that never made it to the market. I still have the video and I used the Camtasia player which, I believe, made it playable without codecs. Not having a Mac handy I don't know if it runs on Macs and observing that the file is an exe, I suspect it doesn't. You can see if it plays on a Mac [homepage.mac.com] It's the Photoshop demo.exe in the Camtasia folder.

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Being an exe file, I can't open it. Not running Windows at all on my Mac.

Michael

Quote
magicmikey
Being an exe file, I can't open it. Not running Windows at all on my Mac.

Michael

That's what I figured, but thought I'd post it to see. I hadn't looked at it in a couple years and was surprised I could even find it. It's pretty lame anyway - just did it on my laptop in a few minutes to demo it to my boss - but could have gone somewhere with Adobe behind it - which they were. Win some, lose some.

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