Why does only VLC plays these specific MOV files?

[Pietpotpolleke]

Hello,

It's not really a problem what I'm having here, but I would like to know the cause of this...

I have a bunch of video files here which were packed inside several rar files. When unpacked(or unrarred) there were several .avi and .mpg files inside it which play fine. But most of the videos were .mov files. The mov files play fine with VLC but with all other players(I tested Quicktime, Windows Media Player, DivX Player, GOM Player,... and eventually VLC) only the audio is playing and there is no picture or video(only a black screen).

So I checked the technical information of these mov files and here are the specs:

container: MPEG-4 (Quicktime)
codec in video stream: XviD
codec in audio stream: MPEG audio (or mp3)

-I tried to just change the extension to mp4, avi... Cause I thought the files maybe didn't had the mov extension in the first place... but it didn't help!
-If I convert or just demux these MOV files, any other player will play the files fine but the video and audio is out of sync.
-There was only one MOV file of that whole list that I could play with any other player. But that MOV file had other specs...
-In general all other kind of MOV files just play fine with any other player.

Before succesfully trying to play these certain MOV files with VLC player; I was actually always using the VistaCodecPackage(from Shark007) allong with GOM Player to play all my files.

Could it be that the downloaded rar files were somehow "corrupt" or not fully complete...?? And that the integrity/condition of these files aren't that good anymore...? But that VLC somehow can fix or read the files and play them anyway!?
Although winrar didn't gave any errors while unpacking + all the other video files(avi, mpg) that were also inside the rar files didn't gave any trouble...

thanks

[jimt]

i have had problems with mov files that were encoded with older sorenson compression that when listed in newer viewers misreported what they were. these all also had difficulty playing back or even being recognized by newer quicktime releases. sometimes ffmpeg can convert these in a way where they are then playable in vlc or other viewers but not always. not sure why ffmpeg can usually do the trick but you may have to use several settings to get it done.

jimt

[Pietpotpolleke]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply man, it sure helps me of how and where to place this problem or what the reason of this could be... Well if I try to play them in quicktime(and with most of other mediaplayers) it get the message that I'm missing some components, the Xvid codec. Which isn't true cause I have the most updated xvid codecs already installed+any other xvid video file play just fine with any other player. Quicktime player sends me then too the downloadpage of apple, and that I'm then supposed to download the Xvid Component. When I click on that, it redirects me to another webpage that suggest to either download VLC player, MPlayer or just the Xvid component. These specific MOV files works flawless with VLC, I haven't tried MPlayer yet, but the one with only the Xvid component is a .dmg file... and I know that that type of file are for Apple computers only, and so doesn't work on Windows. However, even if I download the XviD codec for windows from another webpage it still doesn't work...(with any other player than VLC at least...)

But thanks a lot, at least I know now that VLC player somehow "adjust" or "edit" these specific MOV files, and so it can read them properly and eventually play them without any problem!

Greetings