Inscapes

Q: why does the new Quicktime NOT play my old MOV files?

Hi Folks.

 

I'm using the lasted updated Yosemite on a 3-year old iMac.

 

Back in my early iMac days (3 years ago), I imported my camcorder's AVCHD files

into iMove or Final Cut Express and converted them to Quicktime MOV files.

Turns out they were rendered by Apple or Final Cut into MOV files using the

Apple Intermediate codec.  I had no choice over this.

 

Until I upgraded to Yosemite, I was able to preview any of these movies

very easily in the Finder.  Simply highlight the movie, press the spacebar,

and it opens, in a real-time, real-size screen, with a simple play-pause button

in the progress bar at the bottom.  Never had a problem with any previous

Mac OS.

 

Now when I click on the file in the finder, instead of a movie preview, I get a

big, silent QT "Mov" icon that just sits there looking silly.

 

I double click it to open it up in Quicktime, and it attempts to go through this

lengthy conversion process, taking at least as long as the movie is in minutes,

then asking me if I want to save this new "converted" version.

 

Fortunately, I have an old version of Quicktime 7 on my Mac, and QT 7 opens it

and plays it no problem.  No "conversion" necessary.  No cumbersome and

space-hogging needs to create a "cloned" copy, just so the new, lame version

of Quicktime can play it.

 

What's up, Apple?  AIC was YOUR codec that YOUR SOFTWARE chose to

transcode into.  Now, your new Quicktime does NOT support this codec?

And your old version does?  And why might THAT be?

 

Really, this is so elementary.  This is not rocket science.  Just like JPG images

not displaying properly in Mac Mail now.  It begs the question "why" ...?

 

I mean, for the elementary preview abilities that always made Mac such a

friendly computer ... *uh* ... where is that?

 

And here we go, wasting hours of time, looking for fixes that should not

have to be "fixed"...

 

Did I miss something?  Or did you?

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Feb 7, 2015 12:27 AM

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Q: why does the new Quicktime NOT play my old MOV files?

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  • by Lanny,

    Lanny Lanny Feb 17, 2015 5:35 PM in response to aeclay
    Level 5 (7,952 points)
    Desktops
    Feb 17, 2015 5:35 PM in response to aeclay

    It's still available to download though: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL923?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

     

    Additional info about Quicktime Pro keys: http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201691

  • by burjoes1,

    burjoes1 burjoes1 May 19, 2015 6:39 AM in response to Inscapes
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 19, 2015 6:39 AM in response to Inscapes

    I'd like to keep this thread going. Just like you, I have years of Sony videos from a 1080i camera that recorded in AVCHD, but with only a Mac, I converted using Quicktime to MOV. As others have stated, there were no options to convert to something else. I suppose I could have found another utility then converted again to something else, but surely no tool available then would have put me in any better situation than I am in now.

     

    When I open in QT today, it does the conversion, and the new file takes up almost double the space. Even worse is that the new file does not retain the time/date metadata that the original has - it updates it to the time you convert. I found this out after converting hundreds of videos over a weekend. I kept the prior versions, deleted the conversions and will try again.

     

    I should mention that my goal is to use Photos to manage both photos and videos. I had been using iMovie (grudgingly) for years, and am excited to be able to store a backup of everything in the cloud (I'm paying the $10/mo for the 500GB of iCloud space).

     

    I'm looking for a lossless or close to lossless codec, and the software to do the conversion, that will allow Photos to work with the files. If I could make that happen without conversion, even better.

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