turururu
Level 1 (4 points)
Photos for Mac

Q: How to avoid automatic conversion from videos to .mov in photos?

Videos are automatically beeing converted from my camera import. Is there a way to avoid it?

 

The file sizes are smaller. Is this conversion lossless?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10), 2,2 GHz Intel Core i7

Posted on Sep 13, 2016 10:01 AM

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turururu

Q: How to avoid automatic conversion from videos to .mov in photos?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Old Toad,

    Old Toad Old Toad Sep 13, 2016 11:17 AM in response to turururu
    Level 10 (141,105 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 13, 2016 11:17 AM in response to turururu

    It only gets converted if you drag the video's thumbnail to the desktop. Imports are a bit by bit copy into the library.  If you want to get the original file out of the library use the File ➙ Export ➙ Export Unmodified Original of X Video menu option.

    Photos001.jpg

    OTsig.png

  • by turururu,

    turururu turururu Sep 13, 2016 2:24 PM in response to Old Toad
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Sep 13, 2016 2:24 PM in response to Old Toad

    Thank you for your answer but if I export it as unmodified then i get a .mov video. The original video is a .MTS from a sony alpha camera. I just imported with the standard import process and in photos I don't have anymore a .MTS but only .mov files.

     

    Is there a way to avoid this?

     

    If not, is this lossless?

  • by Old Toad,

    Old Toad Old Toad Sep 13, 2016 2:37 PM in response to turururu
    Level 10 (141,105 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 13, 2016 2:37 PM in response to turururu

    Not familiar with the .mts file format.  Open the Photos library package

    Popen.jpg

    and go to the Masters folder.  Look in that folder's subfolders to see if you can tell if the .mts files are there or not.  Do not make any changes to the contents of the library package!  Just look.

     

    If you can't find the video files do the following test:

     

    1 - take a test video and download it to the Desktop. Verify that it's a .mts file. 

    2 - rename it to something unique like MTStestvideo.mts and import into your library.

    3 - delete the copy from the Desktop.

    4 - download and run Find Any File to search for a file with "MTStestvideo" in the file name. FAF can search areas that Spotlight can't like invisible folders, system folders and packages.

    5 - check the results to see if you have a .mts file in the library or if it's been changed to .mov. 

     

    This will help identify where the conversion is taking place.

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Sep 14, 2016 5:03 AM in response to turururu
    Level 10 (106,958 points)
    iCloud
    Sep 14, 2016 5:03 AM in response to turururu

    I noticed a similar problem when importing my videos.

    Photos is converting some older videos on import to a different format. The pixel size and quality remains the same, however. At least, I am seeing no difference when viewing the videos. There seems to be only a limited number of codecs that are supported in an iCloud Photo Library.