# VLC Media Player on OSX



## Arrival (Jun 12, 2006)

Hello All,

Just wondering about the VLC Media Player. This "universal" player was recommended, so I downloaded it (the one for Power PC). It played one Quicktime video and then started to produce error messages. I then trashed it and downloaded from another site. Same problem.

Anyhow, they don't appear to be workable on my OSX 10.3.9 Panther.

Any thpughts?

Peter


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## fryke (Jun 12, 2006)

You want _opinions_ about this or troubleshooting? If it's troubleshooting you want, I'd have to move the thread to the OS X System & Software forum. If it's opinions, here's mine: It works beautifully on my system and is my main player for most movie files. I'm all for it.


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## Mikuro (Jun 12, 2006)

It's always worked well for me, in both Panther and Tiger (and possibly Jaguar; I forget if I used it back then).

But keep in mind that VLC is NOT QuickTime-based, so you cannot expect it to play most QT content. It does have basic support for the mov file type, but it does not have QuickTime's array of codecs at its disposal. QuickTime and VLC have very little in common, technologically. Each one can play a lot of files that the other can't.


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## fryke (Jun 12, 2006)

I thought VLC _did_ use Quicktime for playing Quicktime files (if available on the system, same thing doesn't have to be true on Windows and UN*X' other than OS X).


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## Mikuro (Jun 12, 2006)

Hmm. I've never found any way to get VLC to play WMV3 video, for example, while I can play it just fine in QuickTime. VLC can't handle it in either WMV or MOV form. It's bugged me for quite some time.

Maybe VLC only uses QuickTime for a few pre-defined codecs, or maybe there's some trick to it (I can't find anything in the prefs, though).


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## Veljo (Jun 16, 2006)

I find that any movie that skips frames and runs terrible in QuickTime usually runs smooth as silk in VLC. I love it


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## sheepguy42 (Jun 27, 2006)

I would say that I find a similar thing happens with any videos I download: I try in Quicktime, and if that doesn't work I go to VLC. If I've been annoyed by Quicktime lately, I might go straight to VLC until something doesn't work, then QuickTime saves the day. Strange thing is, the format seems to be irrelevant; I've had .mov files that only worked in VLC and others that only worked in QT. Stranger still: on my (now rather old and showing it) Cube, DVD Player won't play more than half a movie without freezing up (and blaming the scratchless disk); VLC handles all my DVDs just fine.


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