I know it is probably something quite simple from the Terminal or Console but I can’t find it.

Please share,
Thanks, Chris

very interesting article.
I write you because I recently bought the Episode encoding software to convert some DVDs in RealVideo format, but unfortunately the output quality of RealVideo files is not as good as I expected. I suspect that this depends on the encoding process, since it is not possible to set the “2-pass encoding” option in the RealVideo settings. Can you confirm this?
In the RealProducer software (only available for Windows systems) there is the possibility to set a “2-pass encoding”, that I think helps a lot in obtaining a better quality output. I was wondering why Episode doesn’t have that feature. There is some technical reason why it is not implemented? Or I can hope it will be added in a next release of the software?

Thanks you!

Ulisse

Just wanted to say you are doing a great job here. Very useful information and I’m hoping that we can help more as we progress with our products. I work for a video encoding company called Kulabyte and we have some exciting things coming that your readers may be interested in. You might check out some of the HD clips we just put up on our site at http://www.kulabyte.com. I will be checking back.

Cheers,
Jason

Thanks again.

Griff.

Alternatively, MPlayer has Matroska built-in, according to the Matroska web site. There’s a GUI version of MPlayer called MPlayerOSX which you might choose to use (although it’s rather old and may not support .mkv files; I’ve honestly never seen .mkv’s “in the wild”) if you’d prefer to avoid the terminal.

I’m not familiar with Instant Handbrake, but “regular” HB isn’t too difficult to begin with. Probably the most difficult of all the options I presented (other than command-line encoding) was VLC or iMovie.

Sorenson totally slipped my mind. Just more evidence that there are a million different tools to accomplish the same task: each a little different, some a little better. But I’d disagree with you that Sorenson is less expensive than Episode: The pricing chart at the Sorenson site gives a price of $499 for the version that won’t encode Windows Media; and it also puts limits on monthly encoding volume. The Sorenson Squeeze Unlimited which doesn’t restrict encoding volume is $2,500 per year — ouch! And at $2,500 per year, they still consider the On2 codec an add-on.

I’m plenty happy with my VisualHub, thanks.

You didn’t mention Sorenson Squeeze. What’s up with that? It’s a great professional solution, and cheaper than Episode.

Another workaround you might try in Safari is the Activity Window (Cmd + Opt + A); it has shown me which links are true media files (as opposed to dummy containers) many times when all other tools fail.

I love Skitch, but would be lukewarm if I didn’t have a graphics tablet.

Glad that worked for you! I agree that most site developers don’t intentionally shut out Mac users; they just don’t know better. Microsoft products are everywhere, and it’s so tempting to use them. They don’t realize they’re cutting off Mac (and Linux) users when they go that route.

It’s a bit of work sometimes, but usually you can get to what you want anyway. Another thing that might help is the Unplug extension if you use Firefox or Flock. It can often find the media files for you, saving you all those steps. I don’t know of an equivalent for Safari or Camino, though.

Both VLC and getting the URL worked fine. It’s easier to get a full screen view in VLC (even though it’s a bit fuzzy), so this is probably what I’ll use when I watch the matches through my TV. I’ll ask them to put the direct link on-line so Mac users can watch in their browser if they wish.

Thanks again for your help.
Kenny

I don’t have a fix for you; looking at the raw HTML of the site, it appears as though the developers are actively trying to discourage Mac users. I don’t know whether that’s the case, but it does make things very difficult for people who choose superior operating systems.

I do have a workaround for you, though! I’ve taken and annotated some screenshots. Please follow along with them in order at these links. (All screenshots are taken with Firefox, not Safari, so adjustments may be needed depending on your browser choice.)

1. Select the external player
2. Save the file
3.Open the file
4. Grab the URL for the actual media file from the .php file.
5. Load that URL into your browser.

Provided you have the Flip4Mac plugin, you should be able to watch and/or save the file.

Another option

Alternatively, once you’ve downloaded the .php file, you can simply drag it onto the VLC icon, if you have VLC installed. Since VLC doesn’t know about .php files, you should either rename it to .asx or hold down Command + Option while placing the file over the icon to force it to open.

I’ve been trying to view a live feed at http://www.hiberniantv.co.uk/Teststream.php but can’t get it to work reliably.
Does anyone know of an external viewer for the Mac that can handle feeds like this? The web site producers can’t offer any help and a few others in the forum are having the same problem, so any suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks very much.
Kenny

Are you using the H.264 codec? If not, turning it on would probably fix that. If so, that’s strange behavior that you might want to take up with Techspansion.

Everything I’ve converted to H.264 I’ve done with the Apple TV profile, coming from XViD originals, but I had no problem at all with them on my iPod.

It’s a pain, but it works.

I know HandBrake (and love the quality it produces — especially that PAR anamorphic mode) as well, but I didn’t include it for two reasons:

First, this article is focusing primarily on converting one file format to another, whereas Handbrake is a DVD ripper; and second, without casting aspersions on what’s otherwise very good software, HandBrake does suffer from some legal issues re: DMCA and DeCSS.

There are of course others that I didn’t include as well — ffmpegX, for example — that I simply chose not to for length considerations.