How come QuickTime will read some files and not others?

[quote]Originally posted by Gandalf the Semi-Coherent:
<strong>I've been spending a lot of time on the Gnutella network downloading video clips (found both Star Trek and Babylon 5 bloopers--whoo hoo!), but I've discovered that QuickTime is not able to read some of the files I've downloaded.

For example, sometimes it can read an .AVI file, but not all the time. More often than not, I get an error message saying that either the file isn't properly configured or that QuickTime doesn't have the extension necessary to read it. What's up with that?

I've also discovered that some .MPG files are also unreadable. How can that be? I thought .MPG files were QuickTime's default video format.

To try to solve these dilemmas, I downloaded the Windows Media Player for the Mac, but although it will read the .ASF file format that QuickTime cannot, WMP also has problems with certain .AVI files. And it won't even read .MPG files whatsoever.

Am I doing something wrong here, or do these file formats need to be "optimized" for the Mac O/S in some way before QuickTime can read them? Or are these shared files simply corrupted to begin with?

Input would be most appreciated. My wizardly powers are failing me here.

[ 01-23-2002: Message edited by: Gandalf the Semi-Coherent ]</strong><hr></blockquote>

Look for rosetta stone to fix the unplayable MPGs (most of them @ least) AVI isnt going to happen until the MPEG4 codec comes out at QT live (I hope) and even then it will be a stretch. I have the same problem... anyone else have solutions?

I Know about DiVX player, but it sucks....