geek time
so i've got a pioneer dvd player that plays divx files. and this is sweden, so it's not illegal to download films. lately though, several files have exhibited jerky playback. the sound is fine, but the picture skips now and then. a friend told me the reason: packed bitstream. it seems the latest version of the xvid codec has an option called packed bitstream turned on by default. it has something to do with the order of the frames. so a bit of googling later, and the remedy appears to be to run the file through a program called mpeg4 modifier. which is only available for windows. blagh.
but lo and behold! the author of mpeg4 modifier has released a stripped version that only unpacks packed bitstream. and this stripped version, unpackCL, works on most OSs.
so for mac OS X 10.3.x:
download and install the mono framework (scroll down to the OS X version).
you might need to restart after this (?).
download moitah's unpackCL from this forum thread and put it in your Applications folder.
open the terminal.
write "mono " (to use the mono framework) "/Applications/UnpackCL/UnpackCL.exe " (this is the address of the program) followed by the source file address, and then the destination address, then press return.
example: if you have a file called lost.avi in a folder called packed in your Movies folder, you write
mono /Applications/UnpackCL/UnpackCL.exe /Users/yourname/Movies/packed/lost.avi /Users/yourname/Movies/lost.avi
then press return ("yourname" should be your username, obviously).
better yet, the terminal works with drag & drop!
i have in an open text document the first part selected: "mono /Applications/UnpackCL/UnpackCL.exe " which i drag to the terminal.
i then drag the source file to the terminal.
then i drag a file from the destination folder to the terminal, backspace to erase the file name, and write a new filename (with the same extension as the source file)
then press return.
but lo and behold! the author of mpeg4 modifier has released a stripped version that only unpacks packed bitstream. and this stripped version, unpackCL, works on most OSs.
so for mac OS X 10.3.x:
download and install the mono framework (scroll down to the OS X version).
you might need to restart after this (?).
download moitah's unpackCL from this forum thread and put it in your Applications folder.
open the terminal.
write "mono " (to use the mono framework) "/Applications/UnpackCL/UnpackCL.exe " (this is the address of the program) followed by the source file address, and then the destination address, then press return.
example: if you have a file called lost.avi in a folder called packed in your Movies folder, you write
mono /Applications/UnpackCL/UnpackCL.exe /Users/yourname/Movies/packed/lost.avi /Users/yourname/Movies/lost.avi
then press return ("yourname" should be your username, obviously).
better yet, the terminal works with drag & drop!
i have in an open text document the first part selected: "mono /Applications/UnpackCL/UnpackCL.exe " which i drag to the terminal.
i then drag the source file to the terminal.
then i drag a file from the destination folder to the terminal, backspace to erase the file name, and write a new filename (with the same extension as the source file)
then press return.