Where Are QuickTime Converted (Shared) Files Stored?

Question

Where Are QuickTime Converted (Shared) Files Stored?

I have a very large QuickTime movie (created in Final Cut Express) that I want to make smaller for uploading and sharing on line. The initial movie weighs in at more than 13 GB. I used QuickTime to re-render the file (Share for E-mail, set to Large). The process of converting the movie took more than eight hours. At the conclusion of this process, QuickTime automatically opened Mail, and attached the converted movie into an e-mail document. Before I could drag the file out of the Mail window and onto my desktop, Mail crashed. Now I cannot find the converted file anywhere on my system.

I do NOT want to spend another eight hours converting this file. Logic tells me that SOMEWHERE on my computer, the file must exist. What is it called, and where do I find it?

Also, does anybody have a more efficient way of resizing a large QuickTime movie than by using QuickTime itself? I'm open to suggestion.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on May 16, 2010 6:57 AM

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Answer 1

May 16, 2010 8:27 AM in response to Ronald Palmer

Good question (where is the file).
Have you search for the file name?
Open the Share dialog window with your previous FCE file to find the default file name. Then cancel the export.
None of the canned presets for export are the right choice because you don't have any control over file options.
Export Movie to QuickTime Movie and click the Options button to change video codecs, dimensions data rate and others. You can get better control of the file size of the export.
It took eight hours on your G4. A faster machine would export faster.

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Answer 2

Jon Walker

Level 6

19,467 points

May 16, 2010 9:01 AM in response to QuickTimeKirk

Good question (where is the file).

If Mail completed transfer of the temporary encode file to the "New Message" document, it should be in the "~/Users/named_account/Library/Mail Downloads/" folder under its original name. If not it would have been an arbitrarily named file in the "/private/var/..." area which was probably lost when The Mail app crashed.

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Answer 3

May 23, 2010 8:16 PM in response to Ronald Palmer

Update on the lost QuickTime converted file.

I realize that my iMac G5 (PowerPC based, still running Tiger) is considered a dinosaur, but this still seems like a flaw in the QuickTime code. I’ve rendered this 13 GB file FOUR TIMES now, an eight-hour procedure each time. At the end of the process, QuickTime embeds the rendered QuickTime file into a blank Apple Mail document, and then Mail crashes (or the file vanishes). If I try to drag the attached file to my desktop, Mail crashes. If I leave it alone to think about what to do, Mail crashes. If I key in my e-mail address to send the file to myself, Mail stays running, but the e-mail disappears. It does not land in the Drafts folder. It does not get sent. The page just disappears, and along with it my rendered QuickTime file.

I have looked in every Library subfolder I could think of to try and find the rendered file. It was nowhere to be found in any of the QuickTime folders, nor the Apple Mail folders.

As I say, I’ve rendered the file four times. I found the lost file once in a “Recovered Files” folder in my Trash. But that only showed up one time. I’ve updated the source movie, and have been trying all weekend to render it again, but the file has disappeared like this both times…after 8-9 hours of rendering.

I’m strongly pro-Apple, but does anybody have an alternate software idea I can use to render this 13 GB QuickTime file into something about 500 MB in size, still in QuickTime format?

This is nuts.

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Answer 4

Jon Walker

Level 6

19,467 points

May 24, 2010 8:20 AM in response to Ronald Palmer

I’m strongly pro-Apple, but does anybody have an alternate software idea I can use to render this 13 GB QuickTime file into something about 500 MB in size, still in QuickTime format?

There are probably many options here but my first choice would normally be a "manual" conversion using QT Pro or MPEG Streamclip (free) which provides the same manual conversion features. Since you did not indicate what compression format is used in the source MOV file, it is difficult to provide specific suggestions here. However, a 13 GB file sounds about right for an hour of DV content which, if exported to an iPhone preset/target equivalent, should come in at or around a 500 MB file.

If still too high, simply decrease the video data rate slightly or you could possibly allow B-frames to decrease the final file size. You will also likely want to use the single pass mode to hopefully cut your encoding time in half here and then see if the quality/file size remains satisfactory for your purpose.

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