Does OS X read Windows .avi and .wav files?

[Tony! Hulette]

[Mike] “Now there’s a new camera coming out that I want to buy that has a pretty exclusive deal with Apple Final cut for thier DVCPRO HD codec, so I’m thinking about moving over to Mac.”

Hi Mike,

We’ve all been drooling over the Panasonic HVX200 since NAB last March (actually we’ve been drooling over their future release of a P2 video camera for the last couple NAB’s). It tops on my list as well. Final Cut Pro and Mac will be a challenge at first, but you’ve got the most helpful and active community of Pro users anywhere here on the Cow to help out. OS X is an incredibly powerful and reliable operating system. I suggest reading and following one, or more, of the great Final Cut forums we have here as you’ll learn a lot and find them a great resource. We also have a Panasonic P2 forum which you will likely be interested in.

[Mike] “I’ve got several hard drives filles with MP3, Wav and AVI files that I use in the process of my production work.

Can the Mac read those files? If they can, will I see a loss in performance?”

Below I put a list of the file formats QuickTime currently supports. AVI for the most part is an old outdated technology and was never popular, or used really at all, on the Mac. AVI is a container, like Quicktime, and as such it contains video encoded by many different codecs. Some of those codec’s will play in Quicktime on the Mac and some won’t (most PC codecs won’t). There are some 3rd party players that support some of the codecs that you may have used in your AVI files (or DIVX). I recommend trying the VLC player found here: https://www.videolan.org/ as one possible solution. You can check here for more info on the subject as well: https://www.thexlab.com/faqs/avidivx.html

If you’re talking about using these formats in Final Cut Pro, then you’ll have to convert them to an Apple codec or one that is used by your capture card of choice (AJA Kona 2 or BlackMagic for example) as they won’t play reliably (or at all) within Final Cut Pro. One of the better ways to do this is to play them on your PC and capture them to your Mac through your capture card directly.

I hope that helps a little,

Tony!

QuickTime’s supported File Formats

3DMF (Mac OS 9 & Windows)
3GPP
3GPP2
AIFF
AMC
AMR
Animated GIF
AU
Audio CD Data (Mac OS 9)
AVI
BMP
CAF (Mac OS X)
Cubic VR
DLS
DV
FlashPix*
FLC
GIF
GSM
JPEG 2000 (Mac OS X)
JPEG/JFIF
Karaoke
MacPaint
Macromedia Flash 5
MIDI
MPEG-1
MP3 (MPEG-1, Layer 3)
M3U (MP3 Playlist files)
MPEG-2**
MPEG-4
MQV
M4A, M4B, M4P (iTunes 4 audio), M4V (iTunes video)
PDF (Mac OS X)
Photoshop*
PICS
PICT
PLS
PNG
Quartz Composer Composition (Mac OS X)
QCP (Mac OS 9 & Windows)
QuickTime Image File
QuickTime Movie
SD2 (Mac OS 9 & Windows)
SDP
SDV
SF2 (SoundFont 2)
SGI
SMIL
System 7 Sound (Mac OS 9)
Targa
Text
TIFF*
TIFF Fax
VDU (Sony Video Disk Unit)
Virtual Reality (VR)
Wave

[Mike Schmitt]

Thanks for the info.

From what you’re telling me, my motion graphics DVDS and stock footage DVDs ought to work. I’d hate to have to buy them again!

The only problem I think I’ve got, then, is that all my old projects are stored as .avi files — earlier ones with the Microsoft codec and later either uncompressed or with the Main Concept codec.

I appreciate the information.

Thanks again.
MIKE

[Christopher Wright]

The solution is “Flip for Mac” which enables you to use avi files within quictime on a MAC.