How do I make a .mov that loops?

A file doesn't loop. The player makes it loop. What application is playing your file?

When the clip ends click and drag the slider all the way to the beginning. Repeat this for as many times you want the clip to loop.

AlexisJames wrote:
wait...but that's not looping. I want it to loop by itself, sir.
I can go into the view tab in quicktime and select "loop", but
what I'm looking for is to be able to send the file to someone else
and have them be able to play it and it will loop automatically without
them having to select loop.
Perhaps it's going to play in the background at a trade show. How can
I ensure it will loop automatically?

You can't. Looping is a function of playback and must be a feature available in the playing application.

There is no flag you can set in a movie's files to tell a player to loop it.

bogiesan

Make a looping DVD.

In DVD Studio Pro, delete the menu thumbnail. Then, right click the video thumbnail and choose First Play from the contextual menu. With the video still selected, go to the Connections button above the viewer. Set the video's End Jump to Track One. Click Connect. Burn the disk and send it to your client.

Hi -

AlexisJames wrote:
So there is no way to make a video loop?

As the others have said, there is no way to embed within a Quicktime movie an instruction to loop.

I can't do this in Final Cut or anything?

No. You can open your movie in Quicktime Player, go to the menu View > Loop.
Then when you press play the movie will loop.
But you must do that when playing in the Quicktime player.

You can, however, make a DVD that will play on insert and then loop continuously, if that is any help to you.


MtD

You've already heard: a ".mov" file can't loop.

However, (as was mentioned by MTD) you can force the playback of a QT file to "loop". Keyboard Shortcut: +L.

Further, I've realized that, once you've done that—set it to loop—and then you re-save the file, the next time you open that .mov file, it loops. Not only that, but if I move that same .mov over to my girlfriends Mac and they she plays it, it loops. So this feature can be saved into the file.

So, while we're here, on the topic of looping, we may as well exhaust it, right... You can post a QT file to the web and use proper embed tags to force it to loop.

In FCP, you can push control+L to loop your sequence.

And, finally, as was plainly demonstrated by Nick, you can force a DVD segment to loop too.

(Seamless looping was never mentioned here, and may be completely irrelevant for the application at hand. The precise implementation was never really mentioned so a "dirty" loop may be A-Okay! However, while we're on topic, it might be worth saying that a DVD loop will never be perfectly seamless. A looping QT file is basically seamless. Sometimes this is preferred: to not have a graphic with a visual hiccup. Most times: it won't matter. But with the DVD you'll certainly see the slight the stutter between the end and reset to the beginning. Even if you fade to, and up from, black—you'll see it. Again, this might be completely useless info. for the purpose specifically at hand.)

A tip of the lens cap to Mr. Brock. That's what I love about this stuff - you learn something new everyday.

MtD

indeed, learn something new every day!

FWIW, when I do a looping dvd for clients, I have a menu screen with two buttons: play video and play video loop, so they have an option to play it once or set it up to play continuously. Saves having to make multiple versions of a dvd-- which is appreciated when you're replicating thousands of them.