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Helpful answers
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Feb 12, 2012 5:04 AM in response to monkeycrayonsby Jon Walker,I have many QuickTime videos that used to play, but now only some play. I can hear the audio, but no video plays. I am running the latest OS on my 13" MacBook Pro.
What video codecs are involved? Are they legacy codecs? Do you have supporting codec components installed? Are you trying to play them with the QT X or Qt 7 player?
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Feb 20, 2012 8:54 AM in response to Jon Walkerby monkeycrayons,These are .MOV files that I've had for a few years, mostly old commericals. They've always worked, and I have all the latest drivers installed and the latest OS. I am trying to play the, with QuickTime 10.1.
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Feb 20, 2012 9:43 AM in response to monkeycrayonsby Jon Walker,★HelpfulThese are .MOV files that I've had for a few years, mostly old commericals.
The MOV file extension indicates the data, whatever its compression format(s), is wrapped/contained in the generic "QuickTime" file type. This file type is always compatible with the QuickTime player assuming the file and/or the player software is not corrupted. Unfortunately, this does not mean that the data is always playback compatible with a user's system codec component configuration.
For instance, QT 10.0 and QT 10.1 software is a "work in progress." It primarily targets the playback of more modern compression formats like MPEG-4/AVC, FCP "Pro" codec components (if supported), and standard QT OS "system" compression formats (if still supported under Lion). While Apple has added things like "muxed" MPEG-2/AC3 and Transport Stream (TS) support to QT 10.1, it is not as open to third-party legacy component support as QT 7 nor will it always play supported compression formats if the data is in certain file container types. For instance, while QT 10.1 may play a "muxed" MPEG-2/AC3 file in an MPEG, MPG, or TS file container, if the same data is placed in a VOB or MOV file container, the QT 10.1 player will not open/play the movie. In a similar manner, the AVI file container may contain any valid combination of audio and video compressed data. Unfortunately, this file container has not been officially supported by its creator for more than a decade and is often used with legacy compression formats which require use of the QT 7 (currently v7.6.6 for Lion) Player. Since such data is frequently downloaded/saved as QT MOV content, we often need to know what specific compression formats are contained in your MOV files to best answer your question.
If you cannot open your files in QT 10.1, then you can try the Finder "Info" window to see if it indicates the specific codecs used to create the file. Alternatively, an app like VLC which contains its own built in codec suppoort may still be able to both open and play the files, as well as, reveal the data stream information. My usual recommendation is to install QT 7 (v7.6.6) on Lion systems so as to have both players available to augment playback capabilities and access of third-party component configurations. If fact, when QT 7 is installed, QT 10.1 will sometimes recognized a supported legacy compression format and ask the user if he or she would like to open the file in the QT 7 player app.
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Feb 20, 2012 11:04 AM in response to Jon Walkerby monkeycrayons,Thank you. Opening them in QT 7 worked. They all seem to use some variation of Sorenson Video, IMA 4:1 or MPEG Layer 3.
A little frustrating that QT X does not open or convert automatically, but I greatly appreciate your explanation. I learned quite a bit today. Thank you very much!
__Don
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Feb 21, 2012 9:44 AM in response to monkeycrayonsby CLS Marcom,Afternoon,
I'm having a similar issue, but the above suggestions and others that Mr. Walker has made in previous posts, have not worked for me. I'm at a loss.
Our HQ has an internal media studio that I recently used for a instructional video. They shot on two cameras; one output .mov files ("Get Info">Codecs used: MPEG-2 Video, Linear PCM, Timecode); and close-ups using a Sony EX Series XDCAM that output .mp4 files ("Get Info">Codecs used: MPEG-4 Video, Linear PCM).
I am running OS 10.6.8, Final Cut 5.1.4, MPEG Streamclip 1.9, and have both QT 10 and 7 installed (I've just purchased the MPEG-2 component for QT, but no success there). Neither of these videos will open in anything except VLC. When I preview them from the Finder, I will get audio for the .mov files only. When I try to open the .mp4 files, I get an OSStatus error -12909, which seems to have to do with the camera export function.
In VLC, "Media Info" says Video: Codec MPEG-1/2 Video (xd5b); Audio: PCM S16 BE (twos) for .mov files.
For the .mp4 files, same Audio; Video: Codec MPEG-1/2 Video (mpgv).
Here's the deal. I need to add Ins and Outs in FCP for the HQ producer. I have the 130 GB of footage on an external hard drive, and all I need to do is mark what clips I want. I'll then email him the FCP file, and he can relink the footage he has to keep us from having to snail mail hardware back and forth.
Except I can't even open the files. I can open them on 4 other Macs, but can't figure out what they have that I don't. Older and newer software and hardware. My head hurts from banging it on my desk.
Please please pretty please, can you help?
Thanks,
Andrea
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Feb 21, 2012 12:41 PM in response to CLS Marcomby Jon Walker,
Except I can't even open the files. I can open them on 4 other Macs, but can't figure out what they have that I don't. Older and newer software and hardware. My head hurts from banging it on my desk.Are you saying that neither the MOV or MP4 files will open/play or that you are only having a problem with the MP4 file? If both file containers are unreadable, does the MOV file contain all I-frame or GOP MPEG-2 content? If the latter, have you tried the possible workaround of re-wrapping both the MOV and MP4 content in a new program stream (MPG) file contaner and then seeing if it can be recognized? If the MOV file contains all I-frame MPEG-2 content, do you have a current version of iMovie installed on the system? For that matter, have you cross-checked the QuickTime component folders to see if there are any differences in the various systems' codec component configurations?
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Feb 21, 2012 1:29 PM in response to Jon Walkerby CLS Marcom,Hi Jon,
So glad you replied, thanks!!
I am having problems with both files, the .mov and the .mp4. VLC will play both, but FCP will not recognize either, nor will MPEG Streamclip nor QT.
For the mp4, I opened with VisualHub, a program I found installed by the previous laptop owner, and converted the .mp4 to... wait for it... .mp4, and with H.264 Encoding, and now FCP and QT will open it. It has severely degraded the quality, and when I tried the same thing with the .mov files, FCP would import them but only play the audio. To me, this isn't really a fix, and not really a bandaid either. I guess it means there's hope that something can transcoded?
I have iMovie 09 installed, and I've included a screen shot of my installed Codecs. I'll check them against my production computers tonight.
As for I-frame content... not clue. Unfortunately, I too am an amateur.
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Feb 21, 2012 4:52 PM in response to CLS Marcomby Jon Walker,As for I-frame content... not clue. Unfortunately, I too am an amateur.
Was attempting to determin if the MOV content was the product of an iMovie import or an MPEG-2 file wrapped in an MOV file container by the camcorder device. The former should be QT compatible while the latter may not.
For the mp4, I opened with VisualHub, a program I found installed by the previous laptop owner, and converted the .mp4 to... wait for it... .mp4, and with H.264 Encoding, and now FCP and QT will open it. It has severely degraded the quality, and when I tried the same thing with the .mov files, FCP would import them but only play the audio. To me, this isn't really a fix, and not really a bandaid either. I guess it means there's hope that something can transcoded?
QT normally does not expect either MPEG-2 video or AIFF/Linear PCM audio content to be wrapped in the MP4 file container. That was why I asked if you might have re-wrapped the data in either the MOV or the MP4 files to an MPG file container using VLC. The object of this exercise is to get other applications to recognize the content without transcoding the original compressed data and degrading it as did Visual Hub. VLC has this capability. As to the audio, the TWOS code should indicate the audio standard QT 16-bit AIFF/Linear PCM/Integer compression format using Big Endian byte order as opposed the SOWT which would indicate QT 16-bit AIFF/Linear PCM/Integer in Little Endian byte order. While this audio should be QT edit compatible, it may or may not be recognized by various apps when multiplexed with MPEG-2 video data in the MOV or MP4 file container. So, the first step here would seem to be to get other applications to recognize the data that VLC already plays.

