My quicktime movies are showing up as completely black

Question

Level 1

8 points

My quicktime movies are showing up as completely black

Some of my quicktime movies, made quite a while ago, are all of a sudden showing up black on my MacBook Pro. They used to play perfectly on this same computer, it seems to be a very recent change. But when I went back to an early backup on Time Machine, they were still black. I tried copying one to another computer, an iMac, and there they played perfectly. Has there been a change to the system or to the Quicktime player that would cause this?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Oct 26, 2011 12:58 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 27, 2011 7:30 AM in response to annie1204

What video codec are they encoded in? Are both computers using the same version of Quicktime? It sounds like one of the video codecs in Quicktime has gone bad.

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Answer 2

Oct 27, 2011 8:22 AM in response to annie1204

Open the file with whatever version of QuickTime you're using and then open the Movie Inspector window.

Report what it says about your file.

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Answer 3

Oct 27, 2011 8:25 AM in response to annie1204

Also there is a good alternative to Quicktime that supports almost every video file imaginable. It is a free download, and if you are like me you love free lol. It is VLC. Google VLC for Mac and enjoy

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Answer 4

annie1204 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 27, 2011 8:47 AM in response to Brad Wright2

They are in Apple Motion jpegB. I have both Quicktime 7.6.6 and Quicktime player 10.0 on my laptop, and neither one will play it correctly. The iMac is running Quicktime 7.6.4.

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Answer 5

annie1204 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 27, 2011 8:50 AM in response to QuickTimeKirk

Thanks - very helpful!

The format is Apple Motion JPEG B, 440X439, millions

FPS is 10

Data size 25.4 Mb

Data rate 10.35 Mbit/sec

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Answer 6

annie1204 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 27, 2011 8:53 AM in response to Brad Wright2

I didn't realize that they could go bad, I was thinking that perhaps a recent software upgrade might have put the movies into the "too old to work with current software" category. Can that be fixed with a reinstall of Quicktime?

On the other hand, a free universal player sounds terrific! Will it interface with Powerpoint or Keynote?

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Answer 7

Oct 27, 2011 9:16 AM in response to annie1204

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3775

Lots of changes in the last two years and support for old codecs like Motion JPEG are being dropped.

I don't have any Motion JPEG files to test. But I just looked in my Lion version and I can no longer chooose Motion JPEG as a video codec export option in QuickTime Player 7.6.6 Pro.

Best solution (if the files are important to you) would be to upgrade to Pro ($30) on the machine that does play the file and "export" them to a more modern video codec.

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Answer 8

annie1204 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 27, 2011 9:30 AM in response to QuickTimeKirk

Thanks - I'll try that. I have a key for Pro. Is there a current preferred codec that I should use?

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Answer 9

Oct 27, 2011 9:32 AM in response to annie1204

I would use H.264.

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Answer 10

annie1204 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 27, 2011 9:34 AM in response to QuickTimeKirk

Thanks so much!

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Answer 11

Jon Walker

Level 6

19,489 points

Oct 27, 2011 10:45 AM in response to QuickTimeKirk

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3775

Interesting! Thanks for posting the link, QT Kirk.

I don't have any Motion JPEG files to test. But I just looked in my Lion version and I can no longer chooose Motion JPEG as a video codec export option in QuickTime Player 7.6.6 Pro.

I just created and tested MJPEG A and B files (MPEG Streamclip still accesses the Apple Motion JPEG A/B export codecs) in both QT X.1 and QT 7.6.6 under Lion. Both still play on my system even though the QT 7 Pro export option is no longer available as stated above. Looks like "the handwriting is on the wall" even if the codecs are still supported (at least partially) at this time.

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Answer 12

Oct 27, 2011 2:40 PM in response to Jon Walker

The whole codec think is a HUGE problem. I ended up going backwards in quicktime versions to rescue some old clips. found the methodology here: http://www.digitalrebellion.com/blog/posts/using_pacifist_to_downgrade_quicktime .html

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Answer 13

Oct 27, 2011 2:43 PM in response to william from valley village

but NOW I have an export problem out of QT Pro 7.6.6.... I either get the dreaded

"Failed: The movie contains an incorrect duration -2014"

OR

I get the dreaded "Quicktime Player 7 Quit Unexpectedly"

with the following in the error report:

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGBUS)

Exception Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE at 0x0000000000000000

Crashed Thread: 19 QTKit: QTVisualContextImageProviderWorkLoop

Can anyone help me????!!!

thnx

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