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White or gray video when you play a movie with QuickTime or missing software message.

When you play a movie with QuickTime, you might sometimes be able to hear the sound, but not see the picture. Instead, you see a white or gray screen.

You might also see the following alert: "QuickTime is missing software required to perform this operation. Unfortunately, it is not available on the QuickTime server." This will happen if you try to play H.264 encoded video on a computer with QuickTime 6.5.2 or earlier.

The H.264 codec is only available with QuickTime 7 or later. The Office of Public Instruction, Fish Wildlife & Parks, the Department of Health and Human Services, Legislative Services and the Governor's Office stream video in the H.264 format.

The latest version of QuickTime can be downloaded from the QuickTime website, http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/.

The most common reason this happens is because your computer is missing the necessary video decompressor (the "dec" part of a codec). A movie file that uses a codec that is not part of QuickTime, for example, would cause this symptom. In many cases QuickTime won't be able to decompress the video, but can decompress the sound because the right sound codec is installed. The solution is to find out which codec the movie file uses, then install it on your Mac (if a Mac OS version of the codec exists). If you can't find a codec to install, a third-party player application may include a codec that only it can use. Try a third-party player to see if it can play the movie.

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