Spinning gear wheel in preview column

[ricede]

On my MBP - If an MP4 file is highlighted in column view - immediately a preview window appears in the next column ( which can be played either in that column window or can be opened in Quicklook ).

When an AVI movie file is highlighted, a preview does not appear - only an interminable spinning wheel. Also when trying to open the file in Quicklook ( again just a spinning wheel appears)

If a MKV file is highlighted then a generic icon appears. This also wont open in Quicklook. ( except as an icon )

Is there any way to get ALL movies files to open in column view or in Quicklook. It seems very strange to me that in the 8th edition of OSX - something this simple is not available. Either that or there is something wrong with my mac. Any suggestions of a cure for this problem gratefully accepted.

[fracai]

It's not quite as simple as the idea that the 8th major revision of OS X should have this handled by now.

For one, there's the codec support. Apple doesn't ship support for the codecs that you're likely to find in AVI containers and they also don't natively support the AVI or MKV container formats. You can use software like Handbrake to re-encode the AVI's and you can use something like Subler to re-mux the MKV content to MP4 (it likely contains video data in a supported codec).

Alternatively, you can install Perian, a QuickTime plugin that provides support for many more codecs, but development has ceased and I'm not aware of anyone that has taken up the torch.

If you already have Perian, there's the possibility that the files are just huge and your system can't handle generating the preview.

[ricede]

Quote: Originally Posted by fracai If you already have Perian, there's the possibility that the files are just huge and your system can't handle generating the preview.

Yes i do have Perian installed. As for the size - yes some mkv files are in excess of 2 GB. I do understand that maybe they are too big to generate an image, but most of the AVI files are only around 700MB, which is hardly huge.

I do have Handbrake but it seems quite a sweat to have to change the file format of a lot of movies, just to get them to show in the preview column.

Anyway - its really no big deal. I was just interested in knowing why it was happening. Thanks fracai for your input, i
shall now read up about codecs.