unplayable videos

[Shichi49]

I recently tried downloading a couple videos, and once both of them were done, I tried to play them in QuickTime and got this message:

"The movie could not be opened.
An invalid sample description was found in the movie."

I tried downloading them again, but got the same error messages. I might have gotten the same message on another video I downloaded some time ago but can't recall.

These videos I downloaded were Sungazing and Chained to the Sun. Both of these that I downloaded were also in mp4 format mainly because I wanted something I could watch on my iPod. I downloaded other videos in mp4 format off this site recently and had little problems with them other than slow download speeds.

I just want to know if this can be fixed, either on my end or the site's, or if the uploader can replace them with playable version.

[Otohiko]

Ah, well you see, mp4 is basically a container - you shouldn't confuse .mp4 files and Quicktime's mp4 codec.
Basically, think of mp4 as a package that could have different types of content. What you're used to is Quicktime video packaged in mp4. However the two videos you have here are both h.264 video packed into the same container. The problem for you is that you don't have a decoder for h.264 video on your PC, and that's why those files won't work.

If you'd like to play them back on your PC, follow the suggestions made on the Chained to the Sun page you linked - either grab the CCCP codec pack, or just use VLC player. Both will freely handle h.264 video.

If you'd like to get these videos on your iPod however, you'd have to convert them to Quicktime's mp4. I would recommend Videora for that purpose, I used that when I had an iPod and it worked great.

[hasteroth]

There shouldn't be a single unplayable video on this site.

VLC is great it's really good for .mkv files, and pretty much everything else.

Videora is one of the best iPod converters out there.

[Corran]

There shouldn't be a single unplayable video on this site.

Key word being "shouldn't".

Reality is that there are editors that don't know how to export video from their editing software or upload files to the site. : /

The videos in question in this thread are playable though.

[hasteroth]

There shouldn't be a single unplayable video on this site.

Key word being "shouldn't".

Reality is that there are editors that don't know how to export video from their editing software or upload files to the site. : /

The videos in question in this thread are playable though.

And that is really quite sad when you think about it.

[LivingFlame]

Did nobody really bother linking to the sticky about this very matter?

/disappointed

But like Otohiko said, either CCCP with Media Player Classic or VLC will get you up and running.

[Shichi49]

OP here.

Thanks, but I use a Mac and those programs only work on Windows. I did manage to follow a bunch of links from the CCCP link to get here where I found something I might be able to use. Hopefully, this should help.

Sorry if my claims made me seem ignorant. But it does annoy me when people only upload amvs and fansubs in a format (*cough* mkv *cough*) that I can't play and HAVE to download something. I remember when I had to download Divx so I could play avi's because everyone was uploading in that format, and I couldn't find any mov's or mpeg's. Usually if it's something in high quality or high definition, I couldn't tell much of a difference and don't care that much anyway. Similar note, anyone know any good free video conversion programs I could use (on a Mac)?

[LivingFlame]

Should've mentioned you were on Mac.

VLC works on Mac.

To transcode to a format for an iPod/iPhone, try out HandBrake.

[Shichi49]

I almost expected my Apple preference to be given since I mentioned Quicktime. I would also prefer to just use QT so I only have to worry about a single player for my videos and simplicity's sake. Thankfully after I downloaded the Divx player I mentioned, I was able to forget about it and keep using QT for avi's afterwards (somehow).

At least I'm not getting a bunch of flames like "Macs SUCK!!" "Just get a Windows PC!" and crap like that. Though, I did recently transition to an Intel Mac. Hopefully, I should my hands on Windows 7 (heard of how much better it is than Vista) so I could finally play some decent visual novels and other games otherwise not available.

That stickied post doesn't seem much help to me, though. Thanks for your advice, anyway.

[Otohiko]

Macs can do the playing as well as the PCs though - and the extra downloads should come to be expected, to a certain point. The PC users get to do those too. You definitely do want to get yourself a player/codec package to play x264-encoded mp4s. Sure it's a bit of a distraction, but the improvements for quality/size (and not to mention ease of encoding thanks to Zarx' gui) are definitely worth it, so it's become a bit of a standard, especially here in the AMV community. I agree that it'd be dumb to accommodate for every format someone decides to use on a whim, but in this case it's really a current norm for AMVs and I'd say you're probably looking at a good 80% of good-quality AMVs being released in that format now. So, in this case it's better to bite the bullet and conform. Do search around for options that are out there for the mac, I'm sure there's ways for you to get it to work with whatever player you prefer.