This is frustrating

#1 Write your own? I don't believe there's currently a cross platform fix.

#2 Someone please correct me if i'm wrong but I believe AVI isn't in any way a cross platform system. If I recall it's a microsoft packaging system for video and audio streams, and it's a bad one at that.

For a cross platform solution you'd be looking at using something like OGM / OGG / Vorbis / Xvid.

#3 Xvid costs money does it not?

#4 Gareth, man you are confused or what? Yes AVI format was created by Microsoft, but even they they don't actually use it since they love their DRM'd WMV files. AVI is a video format which uses codecs to decode the compressed(well usually compressed) data with in an AVI file to something the player can understand and display that video which the AVI's specifications have defined which I think is some kind of RGB palette. AVI format has nothing to do with cross platform since it's just a file format just like any other such as MP3s, MPEGs, and the rest. So AVIs aren't just a Windows thing.

Also AVIs contain audio too hench the name Audio Video Interleaved (AVI). Just think of AVIs as a wrapper for video/audio files. :)

By the way DivX costs money (there is a free non-spyware version around somewhere) and XviD is open source. Both DivX and XviD have codecs for Windows, Linux, and even Mac OS(I think).

#5 There are AVI players (free too) for all of the Torque Supported Systems. No reason why you couldn't "roll your own" for Torque.

#6 Gareth is NOT confused : it's well known that QuickTime has trouble with a lot of AVIs on Mac (now MacOS X, but the problems's been around since QT has had support for AVIs)
As Gareth said, it's only a packaging format, like QuickTime.

#7 Ogg Theora might be an interesting choice... that is, when it goes stable of course.

www.theora.org

#8 QuickTime has never been the greatest piece of software in my mind... Although I still remember the days when I could have (and needed) 3 different versions installed at the same time on Windows for the many games I had that used it. So maybe I'm biased, but still, maybe they haven't worked on the AVI support and hence why it still sucks.

#9 I don't know much about codecs. But DivX uses an AVI extension, and the latest version of DivX is required to view the most recently encoded files. DivX is quite popular, and numerous files I have found on the internet (p2p and ftp) require at least DivX5. I have never gotten QT to work with those DivX files, and I assume it *thinks* its the older Audio/Video interleaved codec.

#10 DivX is based on the MPEG4 (Quicktime 6) spec. It can be used under just about any wrapper format (avi, mp4, mov) if the playback program has access to the codec. I don't know that the DivX group has released a Quicktime codec for it.

My experience with DivX has been generally bad - though not in terms of quality (it has excellent quality to size ratio). The problem is that the format changes so often and the backward compatibility is so spotty that it is almost always a hassle for the end user to get it running, usually requiring downloading several versions of the codec and hoping you get the right one.

Don't count on joe-average consumer to take the time to figure this out. Also, you may have to pay them a fee if you use the codec in a commercial product.

#11 FYI, the Quicktime problems with AVI usually stem from the use of random codecs (such as DivX) with an AVI wrapper. Like Quicktime .mov and MPEG4 .mp4, .avi is just a wrapper format, so support for it only goes as far as the codecs installed on your system.

A lot of codec makers don't bother making a quicktime-compatible version of their avi codecs because they are not concerned with cross-platform compatibility.

Quicktime is also does not automatically look for and download unknown codecs, as far as I know, which often means that even if a codec exists, you have to know what codec is used in your video and go search for it yourself. Yay.

#12 I wasn't suggesting the usage of DivX, I was just making people aware that just because it carries an AVI extention doesn't mean it is based on the original codec (which produces big fat massive files) nor is it necessarily compatible with known codecs and players that normally use AVI.

DivX and OGG are my favorite video formats, but OGG isn't used nearly as much. I've basically resolved all DivX issues by making it a point to download the latest version of the codec. Its always been backwards compatible with everything I have. For the average user, it can be a huge hassle.

I am a huge PDA user, and DivX and OGG simply can't be beat. All other formats are a friggin joke, especially MOV and REAL.

#13 I completely agree with Randall. :)

#14 I thought OGG was like audio?

#15 Actually, I meant OGM, which is an OGG based media file. Its rarely used, but does excellent work compressing cartoons (which is more difficult than a standard movie because of the hard lines and edges).

#16 You could implement SMPEG into torque but it would require porting the windows code to SDL like the linux and mac code already is since SMPEG requires a SDL surface to display on. Then you would have the ability to play mpeg files. Used with some compression lib it wouldnt be terrible, although a loss compression format would be better.

#17 Chris,
if the avi file isn't long and there is no need for sound, you may wish to consider using the GuiBitmapAnimCtrl that is available in Torque. In that way, it is cross-platform.