recovering old iMovie files

The media within the iMovie Events ( e.g. Brecon Beacons Feb 2012 ) which is not compatible with QTP may be able to be used ( imported ) into iMovie 10 without conversion.

So , in iMovie 10, import some of these clips and see if iMovie 10 can handle them.

It would mean starting the projects from scratch, but better than nothing.

Control-click on the Project file that is located in your Projects folder. Then click on Get Info from the dropdown menu. What file size does it show? Also from the dropdown menu, click on Show Package Contents. Post a screen shot of the Show Package Contents folder. Does it have any content?

-- Rich

The project file is not a playable file. It basically has no content. When activated by the iMovie 9 app, it will refer to the project's media in the Event folder. However, you will need the iMovie 9 app to play the project.

The .mov files in the Event folder are not compatible with QuickTimePlayer because they likely contain legacy media that has codecs no longer supported by iMovie or QuickTimePlayer.

I suspect that if you copy (copy, not move) the .mov files to your desk top and use the free download Handbrake to convert them to Mp4/AAC files, they will then play.

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.

-- Rich

The procedure is to open iMovie 10 and do a File/Update Projects and Events. Make sure that your Projects folder and Events folder are stored at the root level on your external drive (that is, not located in any other folder). Otherwise iMovie will not be able to find them.

As for converting the .mov files, I believe that Handbrake will convert them as a batch if you add the movies to a list. You only need to convert the ones that you want to play.

— Rich

— Rich

Here's a link to Apple's latest bulletin on legacy media and how to convert it:

About incompatible media in iMovie for macOS – Apple Support (AU)

-- Rich

Does the project icon look like this?

-- Rich

In what version were the projects created?

— Rich