I was sent a.mov movie and Quicktime won't play it

Question

Level 1

0 points

I was sent a.mov movie and Quicktime won't play it

Hi,

I just got my new iMac a month ago and am loving it. Strangely, a friend sent me a Quicktime movie of her granddaughter and I can't get it to play with it, even though .mov is a supported format? Any ideas?

I get a message that The document “IMG_0793.mov” could not be opened. The movie is not in a format that QuickTime Player understands.

I can play other .mov movies on my computer. Is this one corrupted??

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Feb 14, 2011 9:22 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Jon Walker

Level 6

19,489 points

Feb 14, 2011 11:17 AM in response to iansmama

Strangely, a friend sent me a Quicktime movie of her granddaughter and I can't get it to play with it, even though .mov is a supported format? Any ideas?

MOV is the generic QT file container. The sender (or camera) can put any form of compressed audio and/or video in it that is compatible with the platform or camera encoding the content. If you do not have the same or an alternative playback component installed on your system, then the movie will not play on your system. Some examples might include:
1) A file exported by FCP using a codec installed by FCP and your system not having FCP installed.
2) A file containing MPEG-2 video and you not having the QT MPEG-2 Playback component installed.
3) A file containing DivX or XviD video and you not having Perian (or other dedicated decoder) installed.
4) A file containing WMV content and you not having a Flip4Mac playback decoder installed.

And so on and so forth. Basically, the first thing you should do is determine what audio and/or video codecs were used to create the file. If the file will not open in any application, then check the Finder "Info" window to see what it says. If it loads and plays in a third-party application like VLC, then use its media information window to determine the compression format(s). If it opens but will not play in QT, then check the "Inspector" window (or, if you have QT 7 Pro, check the "Properties" window). Once you determine how the file was encoded, then you solve the problem of figuring out how to play the file.

I can play other .mov movies on my computer. Is this one corrupted?

There is always a possibility that a file can become corrupted for one reason or another, but it is usually best to eliminate the most obvious possibilities first.

Reply

Answer 2

iansmama Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 15, 2011 9:30 AM in response to Jon Walker

Thank you so much for your answers, I am going to print them out for future issues. This friend who sent the video was not computer savvy and, I'm not sure what she changed, but she sent it a few times and the third time was a charm- it worked!

My husband is wondering why certain videos don't work that certain friends send him that worked on our old system (we had a VERY old Mac that couldn't upgrade to OS X 10.6.6) so I will see if your ideas might help his issues!

Much appreciated!

Reply

Answer 3

greymfm

Level 1

0 points

Mar 11, 2011 9:01 AM in response to iansmama

If you have installed all required codecs to play the movie and you think your movie is corrupted (and should play), one last thing you can try is to use a movie repair tool (for example, we developed something like that for QuickTime-based movie files - http://grauonline.de/cmsimple26/en/?Solutions:HD_Video_RepairUtility).

Such a tool scans the movie for video and audio streams and writes them back into a new movie container file. Additionally, it can reencode the movies and this fixes encoding errors. Good luck!

Reply