Pre Lion iPhone videos show Thumbnail but can't play - new video generates Unsupported Video Format popup, no thumb but will play via quicktime

This is really frustrating -

Over the last year I have been uploading all of my photos and occasional iPhone video to Aperture 3 (latest version all patches in place). Aperture would recognize the video, create a thumbnale and otherwise treat it nicely.

Now, since upgrading to Lion I find that though I can "see" the old videos in their folders or projects and the associated Thunbnale, I can't play them - I either get the spinning color wheel and then nothing or Aperture will crash and report an error relating to Quicktime (sorry don't have an error code at the moment).

If I try and export a video I can - but what I get also can't be played by Quicktime - just a black screen. When I hit Play - the scroll bar moves, but there is no sound or video.

From Final Cut Pro X, I can imoprt this exported video file and see that it appears complete - but FCPX uses it's own playback elements.

If I shoot a new video on my iPhone, I find that I can see the thumbnale in the import option of Aperture when looking at the phone, but once imported I get a Popup telling me that it is an "Unsupported Video Format" - "Do you want to open this video clip with QuickTIme Player?" If I hit Open then the clip does play, but the thumbnale remains a black square with the warning Exclamation Point.

I have also had some issues with Lion Mail crashing when trying to play a video made on an iPhone and sent to me via email. Seems more likley to be a Lion / Quicktime issue then an Aperture and Mail issue - but who knows.

I spent 2.5 hours of quality time with the Genius bar this morning. We reinstalled Lion and after that the suggestion was to trash and re-install Aperture, but that would require my disc and of coruse a trip home. Mail doesn't seem to still have the issues with iPhone movies that it had - but Aperture is still not happy.

Did as instructed and dragged Aperture 3 to the trash, did the empty trash option, restarted and reinstalled. Then did a software update to catch the new update for Aperture and it found that. Interestingly when I did start it up after that it DID NOT ask me for my key - so clearly some elements were left over.

Now upon retstarting Aperture 3 once again I find that I can still see my old movies (their thumbnails show up) but I still can't play them. The new test movie is there but still generates the popup regarding it being an Unsupported Video Format.

And it's not just my iPhone. Video sent via email from another iPhone can play as an attachment, or when dragged and dropped to the desktop, but once imported into Aperture is once again proclaimed to be an Unsupported Video Format.

Hoping someone out there knows how to resolve this....