Lagarith AVI

Have any Mac users been able to open a Lagarith AVI in OS X? If so, how? I'm trying to move a Premiere edit to FCP and would prefer not to have to re-rip and convert all the files again.

As far as I know it can't be done. Maybe if you try some major Wine/Winetricks jiu-jitsu.

it is supported with ffmpeg/libavcodec so i would look towards those options...

Are you sure about this? I thought the only support in the ffmpeg libraries for Lagarith was through an experimental patch?

Even if you can theoretically get support for Lagarith through ffmpeg, it's a total pain in the ass for OSX as it needs to be built from source. The ffmpegX project uses four years old ffmpeg code (fine for most tasks, but not for this one), and is completely dead at the moment. Also, keeping in mind that Lagarith is a VFW (video for windows) codec, I'm not sure the patch would even work.

As far as I know, the only lossless OSX option that's not quicktime-based is HuffYUV using an ffmpeg build. (Maybe ffmpegx would work too.)

If anyone can specifically tell me how I'm wrong about this, that would be wonderful news!

Just noticed you said re-rip. Why would you need to do that? Can't you just convert the Lagarith file you've been using to a more Mac-friendly codec and take it from there? Or am I missing something?

theslime said:

Just noticed you said re-rip. Why would you need to do that? Can't you just convert the Lagarith file you've been using to a more Mac-friendly codec and take it from there? Or am I missing something?

Click to expand...

It comes down to hard drive space. But yes... this is an option.

I know nothing about Mac stuff but I know a thing or two about a thing or two.

Thing 1: Avidemux is available for Mac.
Thing 2: There is a way to get it to load lagarith avi's

Another thing: Avidemux is a crap name for such an awesome app.

I'll have to investigate this Zep. Thanks for the info.

Thing 1: Avidemux is available for Mac.
Thing 2: There is a way to get it to load lagarith avi's

Click to expand...

Avidemux is indeed a great application. However, how exactly will this decode anything not in the quicktime or the aforementioned (pain in the ass) ffmpeg libraries on OSX? Unless it comes with an OSX Lagarith build precompiled (and it doesn't), I just don't see how? Avidemux is great, but it's not capable of magic. Unless there's a working OSX-specific Lagarith build somewhere on the computer, it just won't happen.

Again, I'm happy to be proven wrong. I just couldn't find ONE suggestion on any of the usual sites (doom9, videohelp, etc) that this can be done, not to mention the fact that the Lagarith site itself says there's no OSX build.

If that route is not possible, perhaps converting to a lossless .mov file can work? Or any kind of lossless format that can be used on a mac.
There is a tool to convert from .mov to lagarith avi but I don't see one that goes the other way.

Use a windows tool to end up with a Huffyuv file in a MOV container. Maybe even MKV or MP4 could work (just not AVI). Huffyuv is supported through Perian (an ffmpeg-based QuickTime library tool), and through (I think) the ffmpegX frontend. If Perian supports it, it will work through QuickTime (and thus (I think) Final Cut).

Bumping a year-old thread to say that the OSX Perian project - which is basically a whole working FFMpeg library for QuickTime (making QT able to play nearly everything) - now has support for the FFV1 format.

Why is this obscure bit of non-news about a pretty much unknown video codec actually GREAT NEWS? Because with Perian FFV1 support, there's for the first time ever a fully functional cross-platform lossless video codec available. What is FFV1? Basically it's a lossless codec for the FFMpeg library. This means it's cross-platform, as opposed to the Video For Windows-only Lagarith. It is slightly slower than Lagarith, but it's almost as good and seems to be on par with Huffyuv. Huffyuv is also compatible with Mac and Linux, but seems to be more problematic to get to work than FFV1.

Thus, converting an AVI (Lagarith) file to, say, an MP4 (FFV1) file for mac use seems like a good alternative. Or if you're concerned about multi-platform, stick with MP4/FFV1 on Windows too.

This is great news. Thanks for sharing!