No audio importing .mp4 into iMovie

Question

No audio importing .mp4 into iMovie

I have a .mp4 file that plays fine using Quicktime of VLC on my Mac. If I drop the video file into iMovie - I don't have any audio. I've reset my iMovie preferences and the video file simply doesn't have any audio (also no waveform is visible).

So, it's probably related to the codes. My file is encoded with ACC, H.264 and the audio channel is MONO. It seems like ACC/H.264 are the preferred codecs so is it somehow related to the fact that the audio channel is MONO?

Mac mini, macOS 10.15

Posted on Oct 1, 2020 3:58 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Rich839

Level 8

47,670 points

Oct 1, 2020 6:11 PM in response to Rick Angelini

iMovie likes Mp4/AAC (not ACC).

Even if the codec already is AAC, try using the free download Handbrake to re-encode it. Do that even if the codec already is indicated to be Mp4/AAC. Re-rendering often cures the issue.

You can get Handbrake here:

https://handbrake.fr/

A simple way to do it is to open Handbrake and do a File/Open Source. Navigate to your video and choose it as the source from the resulting screen. Then do File/Start Encoding. Wait a couple of minutes for the conversion to complete. Then save and import the converted clip into iMovie. It should work fine.

-- Rich

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