Re: format for video/MPEG-2 Playback Component
On 18-Feb-06, at 9:34 PM, Brian McEwen wrote: I would expect that spending the $ to let you play them, would also let you edit them, but this is Apple, and I have not the capability to test as I'm not going to fork out the double $ to get Pro and the codec (I have one of the iLife bundles that came with my laptop though). I have no problem paying for the two if they work - although, I must admit that I get tired of Apple not showing much consideration to loyal customers - i.e. not offering upgrade prices for Quicktime Pro and iLife each year but I guess they have to make their money and that's an entirely different issue. In any case, if Quicktime Pro and the add-on will work to allow me to use this video easily in iMovie, then I have no problem forking over the money for them both. I had just been hoping there was some freeware that would at least allow me to convert or encode the clips to usable Quicktime clips so I could import them into iMovie and edit them there. Amber -- G-Books is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Small Dog Electronicshttp://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html G-Books list info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:G-Books@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/ --- iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com ---
Re: format for video/MPEG-2 Playback Component
If this is a one-time project, Amber,why not take the files to a video operation that does this sort of thing for a living? Might be cheaper than forking over for programs you might not use again. I used one to transfer a PAL taketo NTSC for a friend--the charge wasn't too much IIRC. Later.Howard -- G-Books is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Small Dog Electronicshttp://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html G-Books list info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:G-Books@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/ --- iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com ---
Re: format for video/MPEG-2 Playback Component
On 2/18/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Amber, I'd try opening them with Windows Media Player, if you've got it. It's a miserable piece of horribly buggy code, but it does work, some of the time. As Phil said, VLC usually does a pretty decent job, or it has on my Linux box with plenty of horsepower and disk space.. I know this is a long-shot, but could there possibly be any incompatibility due to the different video format that her British relatives originally used to record the video? I know the computer formats should be the same from country to country, but.. Later..Howard -- G-Books is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Small Dog Electronicshttp://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html G-Books list info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:G-Books@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/ --- iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com ---
Re: format for video/MPEG-2 Playback Component
On 18-Feb-06, at 5:35 AM, Howard Katz wrote: I know this is a long-shot, but could there possibly be any incompatibility due to the different video format that her British relatives originally used to record the video? I know the computer formats should be the same from country to country, but.. The computer formats may be the same but the video formats are not. The videos are all in Pal format vs the North American NTSC format. However, I am not sure if this really makes a difference once they load them onto the computer. I would not be able to play a PAL format video on my VCR but if it was digitized on a computer, I believe I can access it on my PB, similar to what I am doing now. I have been able to access them using the VLC Streaming/Exporting wizard but when I try to play back in iMovie, there is a lot of video and sound stutter. Apple has recommended the MPEG-2 Playback Component add on but the girl I spoke to at Apple did not seem very sure as to what it actually was for...just that it MIGHT help. Amber -- G-Books is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Small Dog Electronicshttp://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html G-Books list info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:G-Books@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/ --- iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com ---
Re: format for video/MPEG-2 Playback Component
On Feb 18, 2006, at 7:57 AM, Amber Robey wrote: The computer formats may be the same but the video formats are not. The videos are all in Pal format vs the North American NTSC format. However, I am not sure if this really makes a difference once they load them onto the computer. I would not be able to play a PAL format video on my VCR but if it was digitized on a computer, I believe I can access it on my PB, similar to what I am doing now. Ah, there is you problem. You cannot mix 25fps (PAL) with 29.97fps (NTSC) on a DVD or within a single video file. You will need to transcode the PAL material up to NTSC framerate. This can introduce the stuttering you were speaking of earlier. There's not really much of a way around it, though. Try using a couple of different encoders and make sure that you set the output framerate to 29.97 before hitting any encode buttons. Then pick the one that has the best framerate conversion. You;ll still end up with a bit of a blur where you're introducing frames, but different encoders will produce better/worse results. -Dylan -- G-Books is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Small Dog Electronicshttp://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html G-Books list info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:G-Books@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/ --- iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com ---
Re: format for video/MPEG-2 Playback Component
On 18-Feb-06, at 4:23 PM, Dylan McDermond wrote: On Feb 18, 2006, at 7:57 AM, Amber Robey wrote: The computer formats may be the same but the video formats are not. The videos are all in Pal format vs the North American NTSC format. Ah, there is you problem. You cannot mix 25fps (PAL) with 29.97fps (NTSC) on a DVD or within a single video file. You will need to transcode the PAL material up to NTSC framerate. This can introduce the stuttering you were speaking of earlier. There's not really much of a way around it, though. Try using a couple of different encoders and make sure that you set the output framerate to 29.97 before hitting any encode buttons. Hi Dylan, I had been told that Quicktime Pro 7 and the MPEG-2 Playback Add-on would allow me to transcode these files so that they will not stutter. I was hoping that somebody here had both and could test this for me with a small file before I go ahead and buy the two. Another suggestion was to use Toast to convert them somehow but so far, I have not been able to make this work. It keeps reverting to PAL format because the video file is in Pal format of course. Is there someway to adjust the frame rate 20 29.97 in VLC or can you recommend a better encoder that will do this for me. I am desperate to get this sorted out as I have to have all these files merged together in a DVD presentation within the next week. Thanks, Amber -- G-Books is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Small Dog Electronicshttp://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html G-Books list info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:G-Books@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/ --- iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com ---
Re: format for video/MPEG-2 Playback Component
On Feb 18, 2006, at 7:31 PM, Amber Robey wrote: I had been told that Quicktime Pro 7 and the MPEG-2 Playback Add-on would allow me to transcode these files so that they will not stutter. I was hoping that somebody here had both and could test this for me with a small file before I go ahead and buy the two. VLC wil play mpeg2. If it plays in the free VLC, then it will play in the expensive, double-quicktime purchase. B -- G-Books is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Small Dog Electronicshttp://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html G-Books list info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:G-Books@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/ --- iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com ---
Re: format for video/MPEG-2 Playback Component
On 18-Feb-06, at 8:50 PM, Brian McEwen wrote: On Feb 18, 2006, at 7:31 PM, Amber Robey wrote: I had been told that Quicktime Pro 7 and the MPEG-2 Playback Add- on would allow me to transcode these files so that they will not stutter. I was hoping that somebody here had both and could test this for me with a small file before I go ahead and buy the two. VLC wil play mpeg2. If it plays in the free VLC, then it will play in the expensive, double-quicktime purchase. Hi Brian, VLC will play them but that's about it. I need to be able to edit them in iMovie (recognizable by Quicktime) and so far, I haven't been able to find a way to do that with VLC...do you know how ? Amber -- G-Books is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Small Dog Electronicshttp://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html G-Books list info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:G-Books@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/ --- iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com ---
Re: format for video/MPEG-2 Playback Component
On Feb 19, 2006, at 12:11 AM, Amber Robey wrote: I had been told that Quicktime Pro 7 and the MPEG-2 Playback Add- on would allow me to transcode these files so that they will not stutter. I was hoping that somebody here had both and could test this for me with a small file before I go ahead and buy the two. VLC wil play mpeg2. If it plays in the free VLC, then it will play in the expensive, double-quicktime purchase. Hi Brian, VLC will play them but that's about it. I need to be able to edit them in iMovie (recognizable by Quicktime) and so far, I haven't been able to find a way to do that with VLC...do you know how ? Amber Nope! I was responding to your above question about whether you could be sure of the double purchase giving you capability to view in QT. So it should do that for sure. VLC indicates thay are mpeg2 right? I would expect that spending the $ to let you play them, would also let you edit them, but this is Apple, and I have not the capability to test as I'm not going to fork out the double $ to get Pro and the codec (I have one of the iLife bundles that came with my laptop though). VLC isn't an editor; If you have access to a XP machine, you could try the free nanoedit utils for working with mpeg2 files that come with a Hauppauge.com card, available for download from their support pages for the PVR-350; it may or may not require the hardware but I think not. If you have flexibility in quality or window size, and really don't wish to pay the $ for the 2 QT pieces, you *could* play them with VLC (especially if played in a window), capture them again with the SnapzPro demo, and have them in a regular video format that iMovie should take. I'm not an iMovie guy but that should/might work. Depends on how badly you wish to avoid spending $ and what you want for quality, I guess. HTH. Brian -- G-Books is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Small Dog Electronicshttp://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html G-Books list info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:G-Books@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/ --- iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com ---
Re: format for video/MPEG-2 Playback Component
On 17-Feb-06, at 9:09 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You've got it backwards. MPEG4 and H.264 play in standard QT 7, but MPEG 1 and 2 are part of a $20 MPEG playback upgrade, that isn't even part of Pro, AFAIK Caleb Hi Caleb, Thank you for your input on this query. I was able to convert/ transcode the file into MPEG4 and then open it up in Quicktime and in iMovie. However, the quality is not greatlots of tiny blocks and a lot of video/audio stuttering that was not present when I played the original mpeg video file in VLC. If I purchase this upgrade, would it allow me to import the original video into iMovie without the loss of video quality that I described above ? i.e. with the MPEG-2 Playback Component upgrade, will I be able to open the original file directly into Quicktime or import into iMovie and get close to the original quality of video (which was very clean/sharp) ? If so, I'll go ahead and buy it. Amber -- G-Books is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Small Dog Electronicshttp://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html G-Books list info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:G-Books@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/ --- iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com ---
Re: format for video/MPEG-2 Playback Component
From: Amber Robey [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 17-Feb-06, at 9:09 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You've got it backwards. MPEG4 and H.264 play in standard QT 7, but MPEG 1 and 2 are part of a $20 MPEG playback upgrade, that isn't even part of Pro, AFAIK Caleb Hi Caleb, Thank you for your input on this query. I was able to convert/ transcode the file into MPEG4 and then open it up in Quicktime and in iMovie. However, the quality is not greatlots of tiny blocks and a lot of video/audio stuttering that was not present when I played the original mpeg video file in VLC. If I purchase this upgrade, would it allow me to import the original video into iMovie without the loss of video quality that I described above ? i.e. with the MPEG-2 Playback Component upgrade, will I be able to open the original file directly into Quicktime or import into iMovie and get close to the original quality of video (which was very clean/sharp) ? If so, I'll go ahead and buy it. Amber Amber, there is no guarantee that the MPEG-2 Component will playback your relatives' videos. Is the video your relatives sent to you indeed MPEG-2? It could very well be MPEG-1. As Caleb incorrectly posted, MPEG-1 playback is and has been built-in to Quicktime for many versions. The problem is either the files your relatives sent were not mastered correctly, so Quicktime is not opening them, or they are in a format Quicktime doesn't handle, like MPEG-2, or they are not really MPEG at all and are just mislabeled as such (they may be some Windows Media codec). How long are the videos? If they are only a few minutes long and you have lots of disk space to use temporarily, try to use ffmpegX or VLC to transcode the video to DV. Or try H.264 instead, as I too have seen the ffmpeg MPEG4 encoder to be buggy. Going the DV route will produce a better end result, since you will only be transcoding once, not twice. If you are still having problems, can you drop the relatives MPEG files onto the window in ffmpegX? In the status boxes on the left side, it should tell you what format, resolution, bitrate, etc the Video and Audio are. The GUI uses mplayer to read out this info. What does it say about those files? Phil -- G-Books is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Small Dog Electronicshttp://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html G-Books list info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:G-Books@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/ --- iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com ---
Re: format for video/MPEG-2 Playback Component
As Caleb incorrectly posted, MPEG-1 playback is and has been built-in to Quicktime for many versions. Eh, I got it halfway right, at least. I've never had reason to work with MPEG-1, so I was playing the guessing game there. The MPEG-4 stuff is all correct, though. Amber, I'd try opening them with Windows Media Player, if you've got it. It's a miserable piece of horribly buggy code, but it does work, some of the time. As Phil said, VLC usually does a pretty decent job, or it has on my Linux box with plenty of horsepower and disk space.. Caleb -- G-Books is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Small Dog Electronicshttp://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html G-Books list info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:G-Books@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/ --- iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com ---
