Apple Intelligence now features Image Playground, Genmoji, Writing Tools enhancements, seamless support for ChatGPT, and visual intelligence.

Apple Intelligence has also begun language expansion with localized English support for Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.K. Learn more >

You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

User profile for user: TheCreatureInTheShadows
TheCreatureInTheShadows Author
User level: Level 1
12 points

iMovie: any .mov, .mp4 files are grey and can't be imported anymore?

Good morning,


for some reason I can't import .mov or .mp4 files anymore to iMovie. They are grey and can't be selected.

When I double click the files, I also get a QuickTime Player error message "This file ist not compatible with QuickTime Player".

In external apps like VLC I can watch the movies without problems.


--> This happens since the "Device Support Update" for BigSur on Sept. 30th, 2021


Could someone please check the issue? Am I the only one with the problems?



MacBook Air 2016

MacOS Big Sur 11.6

iMovie 10.2.5

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 11.6

Posted on Oct 3, 2021 1:41 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: Rich839
Rich839
User level: Level 8
47,802 points

Posted on Oct 4, 2021 9:02 AM

Hmmmm. How did you do the conversion? To cover the bases: The way to convert AVCHD is to Control-click on the AVCHD package to open it. Inside the package you will see an AVDHD folder with a subfolder titled BDMV with a further subfolder in BDMV titled STREAM. The .mts files that contain the video are in the STREAM subfolder. Copy out the .mts files, and convert those to H.264, Mp4/AAC. Or, you may not need to covert the .mts files at all. First try copy-dragging them (drag while holding down the Option key) into an iMovie project timeline.


Also, be aware that not all Mp4 files work in iMovie. They must be Mp4/AAC. Handbrake will do that conversion by default.


-- Rich







View in context

Similar questions

5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: Rich839
Rich839
User level: Level 8
47,802 points

Oct 4, 2021 9:02 AM in response to TheCreatureInTheShadows

Hmmmm. How did you do the conversion? To cover the bases: The way to convert AVCHD is to Control-click on the AVCHD package to open it. Inside the package you will see an AVDHD folder with a subfolder titled BDMV with a further subfolder in BDMV titled STREAM. The .mts files that contain the video are in the STREAM subfolder. Copy out the .mts files, and convert those to H.264, Mp4/AAC. Or, you may not need to covert the .mts files at all. First try copy-dragging them (drag while holding down the Option key) into an iMovie project timeline.


Also, be aware that not all Mp4 files work in iMovie. They must be Mp4/AAC. Handbrake will do that conversion by default.


-- Rich







Reply
User profile for user: Rich839
Rich839
User level: Level 8
47,802 points

Oct 3, 2021 10:45 AM in response to TheCreatureInTheShadows

For clarity, where are these files located when you try to select or double click on them? Are they gray before you click on them? What device was used to create the files? What is the audio format of the files? What steps are you taking to import them?


The files contain a codec that is not compatible with iMovie and QuickTimePlayer. I suspect it is because the audio is Mp3, with which for some reason iMovie users seem lately to be having iMovie compatibility issues. iMovie likes AAC. The .mov file format is a container that can have a varying assortment of codecs, so that all .mov files are not necessarily alike. Also, not all Mp4 video is compatible with iMovie. It must be Mp4/AAC.


One solution you can try is to convert one or two of the files to H.264, Mp4/AAC with the free download, Handbrake. 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.


I believe that VLC can do the conversion as well, although I have not used it for that purpose.


To preserve the original files, you might want to work with duplicate copies.


-- Rich





Reply
User profile for user: TheCreatureInTheShadows
TheCreatureInTheShadows Author
User level: Level 1
12 points

Oct 4, 2021 6:10 AM in response to Rich839

Hi Rich,


Thanks for your reply!

I'll try to provide all details:


I have a Panasonic HDC-HS700 videocam which stores videos in AVCHD-format, this format can't be read from Macs.


Therefore I have the App "AVCHD to Mov Pro" from the Mac App Store which converts the video from the HDD of the Cam to a .mov (or .mp4 or several other formats) and saves the .mov-files on the harddisk of my MacBook.


Until last week this worked perfectly fine. And I had already converted some files and they were on my MacBook's harddisk.

Yesterday I wanted to import the .mov files into iMovie as usual but it didn't work.


I re-converted the originals in .mov and also H.264,.MP4 to be sure there was no error during conversion, but they all stay grey and can't be used.

Reply

iMovie: any .mov, .mp4 files are grey and can't be imported anymore?

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.
Learn more Sign up