getting videos off digital camera??

[jaypaul]

I've got a pentex optio S5Z that works great except for getting the video files from it onto my mac.

This is what I do because I dont know any better i guess..
I take some pictures and a video on my camera, play the video back on the camera, works fine, sound and video, then i connect my camera to my computer and import the pictures into iphoto (i prefer that to the software that came with camera) and then I open up the folder for the camera and click and drag the video file into my hardrive and try to open it. Since quicktime is my default, that opens up and I get a blank screen of the video that when i press play gives me the audio, and not the video and a message reading...
"some necessary quicktime software is missing"
SO....I go to the link it gives me and it sends me to the apple website looking at the quicktime components. There is a list of about 15 of these brands, including On2, Divx, and ipix. Anyways, ive tried most of them. I have installed about 10 of them, never being able to view the videos after the fact.

So Then..
I tried using the software the camera came with, "ACDSee for pentex," and that dosent work. The vido file will be sitting in the program along with the pictures which i can view, but when i click the video, I get a blank movie screen playing sound from the video. I looked on the application for a way to somehow import the video and wasent able to figure it out. I called pentex and they couldnt help me at all.

I also tried downloading the $20 Divx Player and converter because it said it would convert any file blah blah blah, so i figured maybe that was the problem, but same deal, no video...just sound. video files are .AVI when grab them onto my computer if that helps..

Does this sound familiar?crazy?common?fixable?anything?
please help me, as you can see i dont know what i am doing.
thankyou so much.

[Skyman]

it is fixable, it could take you a while though. essentially you need the correct codec installed to play the video file and no doubt it uses some obscure codec you will need to track down. if all you want to do is play the files then I suggest downloading media player for MAC from the microsoft website. this probably comes with the codec you need installed. yes i know it is inferior to quicktime but it is an easy fix. otherwise you need to work out what codec you need and track down a mac version. try contacting pentax or looking for their support and downloads.