Help!!! Upgrading to iTunes 10.5 has destroyed all video in Final Cut Pro

I've been a Mac user since 1988 and I have high regards for the company and its products. But I know better than to think they are all-knowing and infallible. I have never allowed an automatic update of any operating system or ProApp.

This started because "back in the day" data communication was often chancy and the probability of failure was high. Data communications got better, but the need for archives of apps and upgrades continued so I made a policy of always downloading and verifying all upgrades. Then, if you clone before you upgrade, you can always revert if everything goes sideways. Any other method invites disaster.

Ok, I have the same problem. After foolishly letting Apple update my computer I can no longer play back anything from my Firestore. I don't have access to another Mac so I can't try your fix. Can you send me those files that you are using? Pretty please? (BTW - can you PM on here? I tried to contact Charles directly, but didn't see how. Do you need a certain post count? This is my first post as this is the first problem that I can't fix on my own.)

Thanks for any help!

that's not the only reason not to do the updates without a clone. You cannot expect apple to test all the third party apps and hardware. And even if you do expect it, it ain't gonna happen. And even if they do, it will not always work out. Back in the day, Avid used to be a closed system. You bought an avid, you got a turnkey system with all the hardware and software down to the beautifully labelled cables. And when they did an update, they had supposedly tested it on all the hardware they sold you. But the fact is they hadn't actually tested it on all the variations of firmware updates, etc. And they'd often have to issues a patch or replace a card.

I understand your frustration, but learning about this stuff is either part of your job or you need to hire someone who has this expertise.

if you still have the problem, email me directly (my email is in my profile) and I'll try to find these files on my computer.

Email me at charles.ellis@fwXXd.org

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I've done 2 complete OS 10.6 sytem re-installs this week and tried various fixes. The problem is confined to files from my Firestore DR-100 and 5 years of archived footage, always edited in FCP, and that worked a couple of weeks back but no longer works. The "Pacifist" fix worked for me to open the files but caused a number of other issues with Compressor and a number of other oddities like deleting App icons.

I did a fresh re-install of OS10.6 (Snow Leopard) on a wiped drive and left iTunes at version 9. something i.e. no updates, Quicktime 7.6 I installed from the Snow Leopard install disc. Everything worked. Then I did the Combined OS 10.6.8 upgrade through the Software Update (but refused all the iTunes and Quicktime 7.7 updates) back to square one Quicktimes recorded on Firestore new and old won't open. Quicktime can't be just uninstalled and an older version re-installed as it becomes part of the whole OS, meaning the only way to go back is a complete system re-install.

Fortunately I have a redundant system drive I can boot from with OS 10.5 but converting 5 years of archived footage is ridiculous. I also have all the original footage archived on tape from the JVC HD111e. VLC will also open the files old or new without any problems on the "updated" OS 10.6.8 system.

Recording new media as m2t on the Firestore and then re-wrapping as .mov using Clipwrap 2 works. Go figure, it's just a re-wrap not a conversion.

Using a trial version of the Digital Rebellion Pro Maintenance tools says the files which I couldn't open are fixed, but they still won't open. This is definitely an Apple update problem I've eliminated all other causes and provoked the problem by simply doing an Apple update.

I've had a very bad year with Apple equipment and applications and need to consider whether their product is any longer viable for professional use. I was considering purchasing the Adobe Production Suite but I don't think this would necessarily solve the issue of the Firestore recordings, but I might try a trial version of Premier.

One thing we have found looking through our systems is that in the new version of QuickTime (7.7) that came with the new iTunes (10.5) the codec for MPEG-2 video was not there. It was overwritten or deleted in the new upgrade. Once we added it back, everything worked like normal. Look and see if you still have the MPEG-2 codec in your Library/QuickTime folder.

Email addresses are not allowed in your forum posts.

You can enter one in your profile though.

Reposting from here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3439009?answerId=16701716022#16701716022

I found a work around.

You need to be able to access a machine that has not been updated with the latest quicktime update. (I installed Snow leopard on a spare drive so I could use this process) In the updated system folder/library delete the components and quicktime folders. Empty the trash. Then in the non-updated System/Library copy the components folder and the quicktime folder and paste them into the updated system/library folder. (make sure you have already deleted and emptied the trash of the offending folders or this won't work). Restart the computer. It should see all files as it did before. Worked fine for me.

Hope this helps

Hmm, random thought. Has anyone thought about going back through Time Machine to see if their computer would allow them to play the files? I'm going to give that a shot when I get to my computer at home...... hmmm.

It's about the backup and I'm guessing it's a Quicktime issue. I had the same issue, where one day about two months ago my entire library that I'd shot with my Focus Enhancements DTE (outputting in MPEG2) would play on my Macs. I went back to an earlier clone of my MacBook Pro, which was running Snow Leopard. Like others, I'd updated my software. I've bought two other high performance Macs in the past 2 months and Lion won't read any of the MPEG2 files. I used the 2 1/2 month-old clone of my laptop to get back to my original system (before the update) and everything now reads fine. My workaround is to take the MPEG2 files from my external hard drives (video files for FCP), run them through MPEG Streamclip to convert to ProRes422 (you could convert to whatever you like) and they'll run on all the newest Mac machines and versions. Hassle, for sure. But it's a workaround that works. My only issue is that I have 14 two and three TB drives filled with MPEG2 video files...