Help viewing an old QuickTime file

Question

Help viewing an old QuickTime file

I have an old QuickTime movie that I ripped from a home video recording in 1997. QT player renders the sound, but not the video (black screen). In VLC the color table is all messed up (see below. That is a smiling infant in there!) .

Invisor Lite says it is RGB 5 bit depth (sad, I know) Format: QuickTime/Original Apple specifications, Codec ID "raw" .

Could the 5 bits per channel be confusing VLC? Why do you suppose if it is "Original Apple Specifications" QT player only. shows me black (it does play the audio).

Chances are it was frame grabbed from VHS out on a handheld camera by my first Mac, which was a circa 1996 PowerComputing clone that had a built in video card of some kind. I believe I was running OS 7.5/7.6 or OS 8 on it at the time.

I want to make it viewable again somehow.

Any suggestions?

Posted on Aug 17, 2022 3:10 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Matti Haveri

Level 6

19,664 points

Sep 5, 2022 9:50 AM in response to OrionEridanus

IINA can readily play the movie (VLC can't) and Handbrake can re-encode it to a current H.264 or H.265 video with AAC audio wrapped as .mp4.

https://iina.io

https://handbrake.fr

https://www.invisorapp.com

Movie specs from Invisor as an attachment as well a screen capture from a Handbrake-converted .mp4 upscaled from 160x120 to 640x480.

Invisor info from smileflick.mov

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Answer 2

Sep 5, 2022 10:09 AM in response to Matti Haveri

Newer QuickTime including macOS 10.14.6 Mojave QuickTime Player 10.5 do not open the movie but the QuickTime Player 7.6.6 has no trouble viewing the movie in Mojave.

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Answer 3

Sep 5, 2022 12:26 PM in response to Matti Haveri

That is my boy! Thanks!

I am already running Monterey, so no joy with QT 7.6.6. I downloaded handbrake and it worked like a charm. Thank you!

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Answer 4

Aug 17, 2022 6:25 AM in response to OrionEridanus

There are so many variables in the ancient obsolete workflows. A zipped sample clip might be useful.

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Answer 5

Sep 5, 2022 9:23 AM in response to Matti Haveri

Thank you for offering to help. I put the zipped file into a shared folder on iCloud. Let me know when you have pulled it. I will try and set my notifications for discussion so I respond more promptly!

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Help viewing an old QuickTime file

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