why won't a VERY LARGE QUICKTIME file play on my powerbook?

Question

Level 1

8 points

why won't a VERY LARGE QUICKTIME file play on my powerbook?

i have a large .mov file on disk (in the vicinity of 3 GB) that appears to be non-functional.

after inserting the data dvd into my computer, my powerbook will recognize the file as a quicktime file but it won't play.

this is what happens:
(1) it is not able to calculate its size
(2) when i double-click the file, QUICKTIME PRO opens but the following error message appears: "the movie could not be opened. the file is not a movie file."

i ran the disk over to a friend's macbook pro, and experienced the same problems, so i'm thinking that it's not my powerbook, but i have a hard time accepting that the problem is with the disk since it was generated by a professional service who created three data disks for me in all, of which one of them works (it's a disk where all of the .mov files are under 1.6 gb) while the other two disks (each of which contain files that are larger than 1.6 gb) do not work.

does anyone know what could be causing this problem? any ideas of how i can resolve this?

is it possible that powerbooks and macbook pros are not powerful enough to handle this kind of file?

any help would be greatly appreciated. btw, i'm using the most recent version of QUICKTIME PRO and i've recently updated my codec library, so i should have that covered (plus, none of the error messages mention anything about missing codecs).

thanks again.

G4 powerbook, Mac OS X (10.4.11), 1.67 Ghz PowerPc, 512 MB DDR2 SDRAM... my computer feels a bit old and tired

Posted on Jun 6, 2008 6:41 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 7, 2008 5:12 AM in response to svanes

Copy the QuickTime file (drag and drop) from the DVD to your Desktop.
Try again with the playback.

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Answer 2

svanes Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 7, 2008 10:58 AM in response to QuickTimeKirk

hey there, thanks for the suggestion but i have already tried this and another ERROR message comes up. the same thing happened when i tried to do the same on my friend's macbook pro. i should have mentioned this before.

i might be way off but i'm wondering if quicktime files that are very large give problems to the processors found in powerbooks and macbooks? would i have better luck trying to open the file on a newer apple desktop?

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Answer 3

Ricktoronto

Level 6

11,560 points

Jun 9, 2008 10:26 AM in response to svanes

I have played much larger files on a MacBook Pro 3GB is not that big.

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Answer 4

svanes Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 10, 2008 8:46 AM in response to Ricktoronto

thanks for responding. that's good to know that a 3+ GB file works on your machine, but this particular problem is not yet solved.

we can now say that it may not be the file size.

when i open the disk on a macbook pro and let it sit there for 25 minutes or so, the computer is still not able to estimate the file size but it does recognize the file as a QuickTime file.

when i attempt to drag the file onto the desktop, the following COPY error message comes up: "SORRY, THE OPERATION COULD NOT BE COMPLETED BECAUSE AN UNEXPECTED ERROR OCCURED (CODE -50)."

as i mentioned earlier, the other disk that was generated during this session works fine (however, that particular disk contained several smaller QuickTime files while the problem disc contains only ONE LARGE QuickTime file).

thanks very much to anyone who can provide me with some help.

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Answer 5

Ricktoronto

Level 6

11,560 points

Jun 10, 2008 9:28 AM in response to svanes

Can't play off the DVD "not a movie file" and can't copy to the hard drive due to an error sounds a lot like a corrupt file on the DVD which would not be that novel. Can the friend burn another DVD for you? Can a different computer even Windows copy the file to any hard drive location?

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Answer 6

svanes Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 12, 2008 6:00 PM in response to Ricktoronto

so, i just wanted to follow up on this particular problem.

it turns out, the disk with the large quick time files in question plays perfectly well on a pc. i was able to transfer the files from the disk to the pc and then burn a new disk from the pc, which i used to transfer back to the mac, no problem.

it's very odd. but i found a way around the problem.

now that i've determined that it is not necessarily a disk error per se, does anyone have an idea of what the source of the problem is?

thank you!

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Answer 7

Aug 12, 2008 6:22 PM in response to svanes

Were those DVDs burned on a pc to start with? Were all the dics burned on the same computer? What kind of DVDs were used? Are the all the DVDs the same make and type?

I had a few DVDs that would not play on a mac. But the same DVDs would play on a pc. Both commercial and burned DVDs.

Message was edited by: David M Brewer

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Answer 8

svanes Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 13, 2008 8:23 AM in response to David M Brewer

thanks for the responses.

to answer the last question: the original DVDs were burned on a pc but not the same one as the one that i used to burn the copies.

the dvds themselves were different. i used a dvd-r to make the copy. i don't know what the originals are, since they were professionally made and labeled (so i can't see if it's a dvd-r or dvd+r).

i have a feeling that the problem is the same as your problem ("I had a few DVDs that would not play on a mac. But the same DVDs would play on a pc. Both commercial and burned DVDs")...

i'm happy to have found a way around it, but i wonder why this is a problem for macs?

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