Media Support/OS X

This page describes media support provided by LibreOffice on macOS.


 * HINT: For a summary of supported media types, look at the tables on the Media Support/Summary page.

Tests
Extensive testing is the best way to verify media support. If we have any major regressions, we can document our testing here or in Bugzilla.

For the most part, the tables on the main Media Support page can reference the Wiki and Bugzilla. Let's try to use useful identifiers for each test table below so that we can easily link to tests from cells in those tables.

Image Support

 * Media Support/macOS/Image Tests

Audio and Video Support

 * Media Support/macOS/Audio Tests
 * Media Support/macOS/Video Tests

Background
On macOS, media support is provided through the multimedia framework up to 10.8, and (potentially?) using AVFoundation framework for 10.9+.

QuickTime default codec support
Apple maintains a list of "media formats and codecs that QuickTime Player can open in macOS v10.6.x or later":
 * List of QuickTime-supported formats

AVFoundation default codec support
Starting in macOS 10.9, tools like QuickTime Player X have moved to use AVFoundation as their backend. As of August 2014, AVFoundation can play all of the default formats supported in QuickTime via the QTMovieModernizer class.

It's unclear how AVFoundation + QuickTime integration will affect LibreOffice.

Free/Open Source Codec Support
With the demise of, there does not appear to be a single QuickTime Component that provides extensive codec support. Some available codec packs include:
 * - Support for Ogg container format and Speex, Theora, FLAC and Vorbis codecs
 * WebM QuickTime Component 0.2.0 Installer

Note: These codecs may only work up through macOS 10.8 (see below).

macOS 10.9 Codec Support
Perian appears to work up through macOS 10.8. For 10.9, Apple has made critical changes regarding QuickTime Player X. It appears that QuickTime library/QuickTime Components have been deprecated and are no longer a part of the standard media playback framework.

We've integrated some support for the AVFoundation framework in modern builds. It's unclear what additional work will be necessary to add codecs, etc.

Tor notes in IRC: the code falls back to the stuff from avmedia/source/macavf if QT stuff is not available or something like that

IIRC, when I added that AOO code to use AVFoundation, I explicitly tested removing the QT-related dylibs from the LO installation, and it then successfully used the AVFoundation ones instead from my point of view, we could just remove the QT stuff, if the AVFoundation stuff has the same functionality

(As of August 2014, the AVFoundation codepath does not provide the same functionality)

NOTES and THOUGHTS:
 * It's possible that Perian and other QuickTime Components may work in 10.9, but we'll need to test this
 * We'll need to make sure that during the test LibreOffice either tries to use QuickTime first, or successfully tries to fall-back and use QuickTime if AVFoundation can't deal with a particular container/codec
 * There's currently no public documentation for adding codecs to AVFoundation. Developers of other products are asking Apple to rectify the problem.
 * Another possible (but temporary) solution would be to use the QTMovieModernizer class to convert media on-the-fly.
 * This is code built-in to QuickTime designed to convert media in a variety of different formats into one of Apple's new 'standard' formats, (e.g. H.264)
 * We haven't done any legwork to see how feasible this conversion might be.
 * Integrating with libvlc is a possibility, but will require more testing and investigation before it can be considered production-ready.

Official Apple-recommended Codec Vendors (Proprietary)
Apple provides detailed instructions for adding new codecs, most (all?) of which are proprietary and cost a fee per device.