Video Codec Support
Songbird doesn't support all video files you might have in your collection. Unfortunately, some common files use codecs that we'd have to pay a fee for if we included support. We can't afford that for a free download! So instead, we have to rely on the codecs that are part of the operating system..
What codecs does Songbird support
On all platforms, we support Ogg Theora video - a royalty free format that's gaining in popularity on the web, since it can be used for free.
On MacOS, we support MPEG 4 and H.264 video, in MP4 files.
On Windows, we support WMV, and if you have QuickTime installed, we also support MPEG 4 and H.264 in MP4.
| File extension | Windows | MacOS | Linux |
| ogv | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| wmv | Yes | No | No |
| mp4 | If QuickTime is installed | Yes | No |
| m4v | If QuickTime is installed | Yes | No |
| mov | If QuickTime is installed | Yes | No |
What can I do about other files?
If Songbird didn't import your video files, you can still try playing them if you want - and maybe you'll be lucky! Just use File->Open File, and select the video. We won't import things unless we're pretty sure we can play them, so the videos that did get imported should work.
If that doesn't help, then you could search the addons site - maybe there's an addon that adds support for the video format you're trying to use? Right now though, our community hasn't contributed any addons like that. Hopefully they will soon!
This is really annoying, I just want to play my files
We understand. We'd love to include support for many other formats - but legally we can't. Sorry!
But I downloaded a "codec pack" to play this file, why doesn't that help?
Unfortunately, many of the "codec packs" that people download from the internet cause major stability problems. Because we really don't want Songbird to crash, we don't support using those.
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