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My new MacBook Pro with MacOS Catalina will not read/play many 720p and some 1080p .mov files from my old MacBook Air (mid 2011) running High Sierra.
Is this a known problem? I have a time consuming work around, but if anyone knows if this is going to be addressed by Apple, it would sure save me a lot of time.
MacBook Pro 13”, macOS 10.15
The files were imported from various Sony camcorders and a GoPro using iMovie, several years ago. They worked fine up until Catalina, and they still work fine in Sierra and High Sierra. Quicktime, Photos, iMovie, iTunes, Preview and Quicklook all properly play all the files in Sierra and High Sierra. Many were imported into iTunes as "Home Movies" so we can watch them on our AppleTV.
The files are stored as the originally generated "clip" files created by iMovie.
So far, every file I open in QuickTime on High Sierra MacBook Air and then save it, fixes the incompatibility with Catalina. The files look identical when compared. And they save so fast, it Quicktime appears to be just writing the file back to disk as is -- obviously it's changing something though.
For example, when I inspect the file using Quicktime it reports:
format: MPEG-2 Video
5.1 (L C R Ls Rs LFE), AC3, 48000 Hz
resolution: 720 x 480 (873 x 480), pixel aspect 40:33
Encode FPS: 29.97
Data Size: 15.7 MB
Data Rate: 4.65 Mbit/s
This is the same for both files, original and newly written by Quicktime on High Sierra. I guess I'll get busy opening, saving, closing... lather, rinse, repeat.
I think that it's changing the default app for opening the file. You may have been using QuickTime Player 7 before. Go into Finder and hit Get Info on one of the .mov files. You will see a section marked Open With. Insert the proper application and then click on Change All...
We’re further afield from what you’ve already checked here, and what’s in those .MOV files.
You’ll want to investigate the specific encoding used, any content protection that might be present, and related details, all associated with those problematic .MOV files, and confirm that encoding and the rest is all supported by the Apple tools you’re trying to use here.
As an alternative to the Apple tools, try loading and using VLC, or maybe nessViewer, or such.
If this is the older-format .MOV files that QuickTime X was looking to convert, Handbrake can be another option.
Write a script, then. Using Handbrake, or otherwise. AppleScript could also be used to automate the open and close, too.
There was a 32 bit Quicktime application that supported some more formats than the latest 64 bit application. I started using iMovie and VLC for processing these files.
Quicktime .mov file incompatibility problem
