QuickTime Player 4.0, Mac OS 9.04, and xyz.mpg Problems - Advice Needed!

Oct 8 15:32 UTC 2003

Consider this another episode in the ongoing drama "dpc faces broadband."

I have an iMac 350MHz with Comcast broadband access.  Last week Comcast
increased its theoretical download speed to a spiffy 3 MB/sec, so I thought
I would try downloading some movie clips.

Some of these are xyz.rm files, which I have viewed successfully using
RealPlayer - thanks to goose!  

However, the overwhelming majority of movie clips are xyz.mpg files.
And I have not been able to view them using QuickTime Player 4.
(This is the version that came with my iMac.)  I am running Mac OS 9.0.4.

Here is what happens.  I am sure I am getting a successful download
of the xyz.mpg files onto the desktop.  Download Manager tells me so. 8-)
A downloaded file icon has the stylized QuickTime "Q" at the top,
bordered by film sprockets.  Underneath this, there is a black
bar with the white capital letters "WAV" (or "UAV") on it.
Underneath this, there is the file name xyz.mpg.

When I double-click on this icon, QuickTime Player 4 *tries* to open
up.  I can see the dotted lines coming out from the icon.  Then
I get an iMac error message which says:  "Couldn't open the file
"xyz.mpg" becaues the sound information was in a bad or damaged
format."

That's my story.  I surmise that the error message is inaccurate.
I doubt that the dozens of xyz.mpg files I have tried to open recently
*all* have sound problems!

What is going on here?

Oh - could someone link this to the Macintosh Conference? Thanx!

response 2 of 28:

Oct 8 18:30 UTC 2003

Quicktime 6.0.3 is available for download. It has MPEG-4, which may do the
trick. You can install it on OS 9.0.4, but you might also want to do the
upgrades 9.1, 9.2.1. and 9.2.2, also from the web. (I had to upgrade an
iMac to 9.2 to use it with some digital camera software, so I've just been
through this.) 

response 4 of 28:

Oct 8 18:49 UTC 2003

I'm not sure what it's like on Macs, but on Windows RealPlayer depends
on whatever codecs the OS has installed to play non-RealMedia formats.

response 6 of 28:

Oct 8 22:01 UTC 2003

  MacOS X is *not* going to make him happy on a 350Mhz iMac.

response 8 of 28:

Oct 9 01:33 UTC 2003

One thing that may do the trick is to use one of many free downloadable 
tools to check the file type (a four-character code which the Mac uses to 
associate the file with the appropriate icon and application), and try 
changing that code to "MPG " (the fourth character is a space).

Quicktime might be choking over the fact that the file is and mpg, but 
the filetype Quicktime is trying to see it as is wav.

One of the tools to do this is ResEdit.  There are lots of AppleScripts 
and contextual memory modules also.  (Check control-click.com for the 
latter.)

response 10 of 28:

Oct 9 22:48 UTC 2003

(I don't use a Mac and so can't help Dave with his problem, but
being a Comcast customer myself, his statement that Comcast has
increased download speed to 3 megabits/sec caught my eye.  So I
went to http://www.dslreports.com and ran their connection speed
measurement tool.  Lo and behold, I'm now getting 3 megabits/sec.
I think that's better than double what it was before.  Sweet!  
(Upload speeds are still pretty pokey, though.))

response 12 of 28:

Oct 10 04:46 UTC 2003

txt
dd
not
666
understand
adcdc
to exit

pass

response 14 of 28:

Oct 11 04:41 UTC 2003

<<< you are sure about that ???????????????? >>>
  
<g>
  
dpc - waht browser (and versin) ar yo using? are you d/l the file
and then truing to oppen it .. or tryign to open whilst browsing?

response 16 of 28:

Oct 16 14:02 UTC 2003

Instead of double clicking on them, did you try what was suggested in #11?
Upgrading to the latest free version of QuickTime would most likely install
the necessary codecs if you don't already have the right ones.

response 18 of 28:

Oct 21 20:43 UTC 2003

Well, I can report progress-regress.  I tried selecting a downloaded
*.mpg file and then using File|Open with various players.  RealPlayer
said it would try to add a plugin, but then said, after visiting its
Web site, that "Currently, AutoUpdate has no plug-in available to
play your selection."  Windows Media Player for the Mac got a "bad
format" message and gave up.  Windows Media Player *did* condescend
to accept a plugin so that it now plays *.asf files (at least sometimes).

This past weekend I took people's advice and went to apple.com.  I tried
playing a trailer and was informed "QuickTime 5 required."  A little
light bulb went on over my head.  Maybe the files I have been trying
to read require the standards used by QuickTime 5, instead of the
older ones used by QuickTime 4.  So I downloaded QT 5 with no problem.
Then QT5 actually *played* a trailer successfully!!  Hallelujah, I
thought.  The trailers on the Apple site don't say they are in *.mpg
format, but QT5 showed that it wasn't just lying there on the hard disk.

Regrettably, my toothpaste dropped to the floor (I was crestfallen)
when I clicked on a *.mpg file on the Web.  A new error message:
"Attempt to load *.mpg failed."  So now the stupid *.mpg files don't
even get downloaded.  And this is with the current QT5.

Should I just give the whole thing up as a bad job?

response 20 of 28:

Oct 22 14:43 UTC 2003

I'll have to remember that toothpaste pun.  It is truly a groaner.

response 22 of 28:

Oct 22 17:56 UTC 2003

It sounds like maybe your browser's file associations are screwed up
somehow.  Have you tried with a different web browser, just to see what
happens?  I like to keep two installed so I can try the other if one
doesn't do what I want.

response 24 of 28:

Oct 27 19:55 UTC 2003

Thanx!  I hadn't thought that anything could be wrong with Internet
Explorer.  Silly me.    8-)