'Quicktime' or equivalent query.

Aggieboy

Quick and easy question for some of you, I suspect. What do I need to download to my PC to play video from a SD/SD(HC) card, please? I'm on Windows Vista. Thanks.

desweller

It's just a form of memory storage, like a hard disk or USB stick.

What you need to find out is the format of the video file.

Cleat Eastwood

of my sd card theyre stored as .avi's which play on microsofts own media player.

Like DesWeller said you need to know the format. One of the best players ( that is the one with the most codecs to play most file types is VLC media player)

acidstrato

depends whch format the file extension is but if its from a digital camera or mobile phone I'll assume its an mp4 or .mov file if not avi

you could download vlc player which includes all common codecs and basically plays everything

Aggieboy

The video will play back on my new camera but once in Windows photo gallery (where they would play on my old PC) it doesn't. 'Properties' show it as a JPEG image, if that helps.

Cleat Eastwood

make a copy of the file and stick it on the desk top and its icon should have a little picture and the letters avi, thats if its avi

for a quicktime mov its a big blue Q with movie underneath it.

theres no default app for mp4s but theyll open with quicktime or media player.

Right click the file and choose open with and browse to program files/windows media player and see if that works.

Its unlikely to be a sequence of jpegs, unless you have that setting on your camera cos your file size would be quite large.

bompington

Windows 7 (with WMP12) - will play all the common formats including MP4 & .mov

Aggieboy

Thanks for your patience! It's a mov file. All my photos come up in Windows media player but the mov file won't play.

Cleat Eastwood

then you do need quicktime

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

Aggieboy

Ok, last bit of help before you get too fed up with me and I chuck the PC out the window Hope this makes sense..........

Downloaded Q'time. Opened pics/vds in Windows Media Player. R clicked and opened the mov file with Q'time player. Seperate player appears with the begining of the file showing but when I press play the 'play bar indicator'?? just whizzes (technical term) to the end of the bar and nothing plays.

Cleat Eastwood

if you hover your mouse over the .mov icon what size does it say the file is? It might be a corrupted movie!

Aggieboy

Thanks all for your help. I think I'll give up for now. The 'movie' is my new Grandson, that I took this morning. As I said it plays back on the camera but not the PC. Just me being IT thick I expect! (not the first time)

SteppenHerring

There's a handy program called Avicodec http://avicodec.duby.info/ that will tell you what a media file is and point you in the direction of the right decoder.

AVI is just a wrapper for many, many different formats so don't rely on the extension meaning anything about whether it will play or not. Unfortunately for people who don't want to mess about, there are far too many formats out there.

Also a lot of cameras/phones tend to record as "motion JPEG" which can cause problems.

Someone above mentioned VLC Media player. This is generally more capable than Windows Media Player. Worth a download.

Aggieboy

Once again, a big thank you to all your help.
Discovered that it will play on QT once I have dragged the file into my Pictures folder but not straight from the SD card while in the PC. So that's fine. Just me being IT inept, I expect :roll: At least I can watch my Grandson now.
Cheers.

Bunneh

VLC is a great little, free, movie player. Plays pretty much everything, including .flv video ripped from Youtube. Been using it for yeaaaaaaars.

markmod

+1 for VLC if vlc don't play it... It ain't a movie full stop!