Mac Forum / Applications / Media Player / September 2005

Hi,

I would like to find a way to create highly compressed video files
that can be played both on Windows and on Mac.

So far I have been using with good results the DIVX codec.

Howwever today I downloaded from the Microsoft website
and started experimenting with the
"Codecs Installation Package for Wndows Media Video 9 VCM".
I have installed it on my Windows XP IBM T41.
I have converted an uncompressed avi video generated
by camcorder using VirtualDub as a video editor and
the Microsoft VCM9 as codec.
I tried both the Constant Bit Rate and the Variable Bit Rate.
I am extremely pleased with the quality per bit rate of the VCM9 codec.
I would like to switch from divx to WCM9.

However I could not get any of those videos to play on my Mac OS X 10.3.9
where I have just installed from the Microsoft website:
Windows Media Player 9.0.0 (3307) for Max OS X"

I get the following error message:
"Cannot play back the file. The file format is invalid"

I would appreciate any help.
My final goal is to create compressed video files of good quality
such as the WCM9 codec that can be EASILY
played both by Windows and by Mac users.

Ideally I would like to compress my files using my Mac OS X
which is much much faster.
In that case I would appreciate a suggestion for some
free program that does that on my Mac OS X.

If generating them on my Mac is not possible I can continue
compressing them on my Windows XP laptop.
However in that case I would appreciate a suggestion
on how to set the settings of my Windows XP VCM9 codec
for compatibility with Mac.
Or should I use another codec instead?

thanks
Luca