.mpg movie

Biff

Biff

Thinking Different
Quick question. I know next to nothing about mpg or mpeg. I have a movie file that has the extension .mpg. It will not play in Windows Media Player or Quicktime on Mac OS X or 9 because it says a piece of software needed could not be found. I have the exact same file on my Windows XP machine and the movie plays fine in Windows Media Player. Does this have something to do with the fact that MPEG-4 is missing from Quicktime 5?
 
.mpg usually means that it's MPEG-1 compressed (someone correct me if I'm wrong), and that's pretty much as cross-platform as it gets.

I wonder if it's really a windows-only codec in an avi file with the wrong extension.

If it really was an mpeg file, you'd be able to play it.

For some reason mpeg-4 files have an avi extension by convention, though as I understand it, that has nothing to do with windows avi files. In fact Quicktime is the official file format of mpeg-4 files. Boy, if this isn't turning into a big confusing mess, I don't know what it.

-Rob
 
MPEG-4 usually gets the .avi ending.
I also have one of those files, and the only way I can view it is throu the Quicktime plugin in Internet Explorer.
First drag/drop a picture from the same folder as the movie into IE, then change the URL to the file-name of the movie...then you can at least see the movie.
 
Microsoft attempted to hijack the MPEG's version 4 codec; many, many .avi (and a few .mpg) files out on the internet are encoded with Microsoft's proprietary, Windows-only "MPEG 4" codec; how they got past the MPEG's lawyers on the naming thing is beyong me. The REAL MPEG 4 is now complete, but some companies, Apple included, are refraining from its use because the group that controls the codec, the LA Consortium (?), has imposed unreasonable licensing fees along the line of $.02 per hour streamed, i.e., 100,000 people watching a 60 second stream=6,000,000 minutes. This may not sound like much, but it adds up to millions of dollars VERY quickly for large organizations. The rogue Microsoft MPEG 4 files usually only play on Windows machines through the Windows Media Player; this codec is not available, to the best of my knowledge, for Macintosh or any other non-Windows platform. Don't you just want to strangle Bill Gates the way Homer does Bart?
 
chenly: Actually, the terms of licensing proposed by the MPEG LA is not as bad as Apple makes it out to be. Take a look at this thread:

http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15613

Basically, you can provide MPEG4 content for free, with no subject to a use fee, as long as you don't have a subscription service to access the MPEG4 content, and you have no advertising in connection with providing the content (I sent him another e-mail asking him if banner advertisements or such things counted as making the stream subject to the use fee).

If you have any more questions, I'd be happy to relay the questions to Mr. Horn, as he seems pretty open with providing information.

I agree that it would be nice if there was no use fee, but we'll see what happens.
 
Originally posted by chenly
Don't you just want to strangle Bill Gates the way Homer does Bart?
Click to expand...

Interesting how the movie file I am talking about is a simpsons clip. :D
 
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