error -2041: an invalid sample description was found in the movie

I know the cause and the solution for this problem. The cause is a wrong AudioType code in the MP4 container. The correct should be 64, but some encoders put this code as 103. To change this I use mp4UI ( http://mp4ui.sourceforge.net/). The steps are:

1. open mp4ui
2. Go to the options tab
3. Disable Add hint tracks, make ISMA compliant, optimize on close and enable Advanced functions/information
4. go to the general tab and open your mp4 file
5. right click on the audio track(s) and choose set properties in the advance submenu
6. in the preset list choose AudioType, change the value to 64 and click OK
7. Click on close and try to open your file with quicktime. It should work. It has worked for me with about a hundred files...

Good Luck!

well the problem with the samsung phones is there is NO audio type added to the MP4 files which is a format error. also there is no bitrate. I so we cant edit it with the mp4ui - why doesnt apple fix this

thanks to whoever figured out that changing the file extension to 3gp was a good workaround. i have the htc mogul and the first time i tried to play an imported video i received the error "an invalid sample..."

searching google brought me here and i tried that solution first. worked great. after opening in QT as .3gp i was able to save it as a .mov. no issues.. never lost audio.

system: macbook / 10.5.4 / QT 7.5

I have the VX6700 and I have the same issue. It has not always been that way. Previously I could video with my phone and it would play fine on my winblows box. At some point QT was upgraded and now it won't play. However, my bro is still apple to play the same video on his, as are other friends/family.

I'm going to try renaming the extension to .gp3 as others have suggested. This is a Quicktime problem. They've licensed QT to the phone vendors and they need to adapt.

3gp extension works. Just remember it's 3gp and not gp3, which is why it didn't work for me the first time.

Hello,
i got the "an invalid sample description was found in the movie" error message too when i attempted to open the videos taken with HTC Tytn (Windows Mobile). These files are saved on a PC via ActiveSync as .mp4 files and then uploaded to my Mac (10.5.4).
So I searched for fixes on the web and i found several references to changing the extension into .3gp, which worked well for me.

Given the rather high number of videos i collected in the past, i created a folder called 3gp and with Automator i created a plug-in (folder action) that replaces any file containing the string .mp4 with .3gp.
So now every time i move a .mp4 file into that folder, it is automatically "converted" into 3gp. May be there is also some way to further refine this process, for instance by excluding mp4 files that have not been created by a Windows Mobile device, i don't know, i didn't investigate yet if i can filter out the files in the Finder by means of some special file property.

So, you just need to open automator and create a single workflow action containing the item "rename finder items", option "replace text".
Then save this workflow as plug in (folder action).

Hope this helps
Flavio

i have tried everything in this discusion, i have tried changing file ext. to 3gp, mov, mp4, almost every extension. i have also tried to conversion programs and nothing seems to be working, all im trying to do is get my baby's videos on my itouch, she is my first. someone plz help

error -2041: an invalid sample description was found in the movie

I dragged the videos to my desktop creating a copy.
I changed the file extension to .3gp

I opened them in quicktime. I then SAVED AS and created .mov files for all the movies. they work perfectly.

Neither renaming the extension from mp4 to 3gp or changing the AudioType from 103 to 64 worked for me with Quicktime 7.4.5 and Perian 1.1 but I did find a very simple solution. Using mkvtoolnix's mkvmerge gui you can mux from mp4 to mkv with no transcoding which takes only seconds and works with Quicktime provided you have Perian installed. It is as simple as selecting the original mp4 and clicking start muxing.

http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/downloads.html#macosx

http://www.perian.org/

Hi friends,

After a lot of research i found the answer that everyone in the group was looking for, for playing a file's including audio and video which you have downloaded from your mobile as .mp4 extension can be played through Quick time player. There is no need to go for Quick Time pro and converting your .mp4 to .mov extension. You just have to follow few simple steps in order to see and listen the movie clearly.

Steps to Follow:-
1. First you have to find your audio and video codec, in my case the video was mp4v and the audio was "samr".
The audio codec, which is samr is not supported by VLC. So, you have to convert the "samr" (i.e AMR) codec to another codec, which could be mp3, wav etc. You will find the converter for your operating system at the following location:-
http://www.miksoft.net/mobileMediaConverter.htm
it's free of cost. But before that the second step is -->
2. Rename the files from mp4 to 3gp.
3. Download the convertor from the website mentioned above.
4. Open the convertor--> select the input file as one of your video file and the output file as a new file.
5. Start the converter, it will take less than a second for the file to convert.
6. Run the file using Quick time and now you can hear the sound. You don't have to use the converter for each and every file. You just have to do the conversion once and the solution will work for the rest.

Hope it helps................

Thanks and Regards,
Vibha Jha.

My h.264 Base was created with x264 command line and AAC-LC with FAAC BeLight GUI, muxed together in YAMB.

Error message is: The movie could not be opened. An invalid sample description was found in the movie.

I tried the '64' edit fix on Windows and that worked, however video bitrate is reported as 0.

My solution is to use VisualHub's mp4 tab. In Advanced... settings Extra FFmpeg Flags: Copy original (passthrough) for both video and audio. This creates a new container which reports correct bitrates and plays properly. No re-encoding, no changing extensions, very fast.

Same thing here. I am using a UTStarcom - Verizon XV 6800

I have viewed many videos from the 6800 with Quicktime (on my Mac) in the past. Today is the first time I've had a problem. I did change the extension to .3gp and that worked perfectly. To view and listen to the file. I did open it with VLC and it didn't have audio.

Thanks for all the suggestions already.

I had this error when there was a aac audio file that had been encoded using enc_aacPlus.exe within the RipBot264 frontend. I demuxed the audio from the MP4 file, re-encoded it using nero, and remuxed the newly encoded audio back into the MP4 file. It then worked in Quicktime/Itunes.

Changing players is what everyone always says which, of course, does nothing to solve the problem. I could easily play this video on any number of media players but I NEEDED to have this file play with Quicktime, Itunes, and in the end, an IPod.

So if you really NEED to have the problem RESOLVED try what I suggest and let's see what happens.

carbonunit wrote:
I demuxed the audio from the MP4 file, re-encoded it using nero, and remuxed the newly encoded audio back into the MP4 file. It then worked in Quicktime/Itunes.

Um, mind telling us what program you used to demux, and how you "re-encoded" using Nero? thanks a lot