What on Earth is the video codec named “dish”?

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Level 2

215 points

What on Earth is the video codec named “dish”?

We have iPhone 13 Camera settings at HEVC, HD, 1920 x 1080. I just recorded dozens of video clips and copied them to a Mac. For all of the clips, Finder and QuickTime Player report the Codecs as AAC, Timed Metadata, HEVC.

Howsomever… One 30-second clip in the batch reports the Codecs as AAC, dish, Timed Metadata, HEVC. Note the “dish”.

That is a problem, because this file can’t be imported for editing. For example, Adobe Media Encoder throws this error for only this file:

IMG_8982.MOV could not be imported. Could not open source file.

Please check that file exists with correct permissions.

What the heck is that "dish" doing there? Any ideas about what might be going on?

iPhone 13 Pro

Posted on Nov 9, 2022 5:33 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Luis Sequeira1

Level 9

64,760 points

Nov 10, 2022 2:55 AM in response to Al Hatch

Al Hatch wrote:

Ahah! There it is, right in your Clip Info:

Codec ID : dish

Thanks. Now, what does that mean?

Sorry, don't know how I could miss it.

I see that Tom has already pointed out its relation to the cinematic videos in recent iPhones.

As noted before, the video itself worked fine for me.

Can you compare the MediaInfo results of this with other similar videos, to see if something stands out as fundamentally different?

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Answer 2

Nov 9, 2022 11:30 PM in response to Al Hatch

I downloaded your clip. It opens in Quicktime Player, and imports into Final Cut Pro without issue.

I also opened it with MediaInfo.

There is no mention of "dish" anywhere (except in the very name of the file)...

I did notice that it has two video streams and one audio stream, which seems unusual.

Here is what it says in Media Info:

Clip Info

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Answer 3

Al Hatch Author

Level 2

215 points

Nov 11, 2022 12:02 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

This is driving me nuts. All videos are taken with an iPhone 13 Pro under iOS 16.1.

Today, I tried a dozen variations in settings for Apple's Camera app. After each settings change, I shot in Cinematic and Normal 1080p. There is no consistency in the metadata among all the clips!

01 Cinematic.mov metadata shows “cinematic-video”, yet it contains only one Video channel and NO Codec ID: dish.
02 Cinematic.mov metadata shows “cinematic-video”, but it contains two Video channels and… Codec ID: dish.
03 Normal.MOV metadata shows NO Codec: dish.

I will continue to experiment, and post if I hit upon anything.

[Link Edited by Moderator]

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Answer 4

Al Hatch Author

Level 2

215 points

Nov 10, 2022 10:32 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Well, I learned something from this. My Camera app setting is 1080p at 30fps. It doesn’t matter whether HDR is on or off. It doesn’t matter whether it is shooting in Cinematic mode. It turns out that Codec ID: dish appears in the metadata for EVERY video shot with iPhone.

In my case, the problem is that one and only one movie file shows “dish” in the Finder window. And that is the one that Adobe Media Encoder won’t accept. I’ll probably never know what’s going on here, but I am going to report it to Adobe, just for grins.

Thank you both, gentlemen.

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Answer 5

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

151,089 points

Nov 11, 2022 5:26 AM in response to Al Hatch

Is this the base iPhone 13? What iOS are you using? Are you using the Apple Camera app? My 13 Pro Max with 16.1 doesn't shoot a second video track with dish. Of all the iPhone video I have, recent and older, only Cinematic videos have the second video track. Some are missing it, but this may be due to when Cinematic was broken, and the metadata was being lost in transfer.

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Answer 6

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

151,089 points

Nov 9, 2022 5:56 PM in response to Al Hatch

Can you upload the the file somewhere that we can look at it? Perhaps Dropbox or WeTransfer and post the link here.

How did you get the clip from the phone to the Mac and into FCP?

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Answer 7

Al Hatch Author

Level 2

215 points

Nov 9, 2022 7:02 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

The clips were all imported from the iPhone using Air Drop.

Here is the problem clip: dish CODEC.mov

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Answer 8

Al Hatch Author

Level 2

215 points

Nov 10, 2022 12:34 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Ahah! There it is, right in your Clip Info:

Codec ID                                 : dish

Thanks. Now, what does that mean?

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Answer 9

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

151,089 points

Nov 10, 2022 2:48 AM in response to Al Hatch

We don't have any details of the system that's showing this. I don't see it in the QT player info. The dish seems to be an Apple code for the the embedded sidecar file used in Cinematic video.

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What on Earth is the video codec named “dish”?

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