Lost my QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component and Time Machine

Thank you, Babowa,

Am also in the Pac. NW. South Coast. Your reply tells me that mine is NOT an isolated problem.

The last of the techies above checked into my purchasing history but the order could not be found due to having been made 2 years ago. My own notes show that I had to re-install the components twice since then after having problems but the Apple Store had no problem with recognizing my bona fides. At that time I was still under the extended Apple Care protection which may have something to do with the splendid cooperation I received.

I was using the MPEG component to translate movies taken with a Panasonic video camera D-300 which uses small RAM discs and produces *.VOB format that had to be made readable for Quicktime before the file could be burnt to DVD. It is a somewhat cumbersome process, quite unlike downloading videos of lesser quality from my Fuji Finepix camera using SD cards.

Reading your last kind question, the answer is YES!

How can I enter my Time Machine on an external dedicated 500 GB drive to search the period BEFORE I upgraded to Snow Leopard, i.e., the dates visible before November 11, 2012? The individual marks and dates ARE visible but only barely, in contrast to the recent ones AFTER November 23 which "light up" when touched by the cursor arrow.

What I badly need is access to the Desktop folder dated July through October 2012 for it contains 300 pages of a book I was editing on a weekly basis. Some 10,000 photos were fortunately stored on a second external drive and are accounted for.

I marked this as "it answered my question" because I learned more from you than the Apple gurus who evidently don't monitor this forum. I don't know anything about the point system and the levels but you deserve the rank of a general for your help.

I received the component via electronic transfer if I recall and charged my credit card. I never kept anything on file that related to my purchases from Apple because I held them in high regard and didn't feel like I needed any evidence of my dealings with them. They proved me wrong in that they now put the burden of proof on me. Any notes I kept of my contacts served as guidance before I contacted Apple Care for my questions.

As I was told, I cannot upgrade to one of the Lions (or Bobcats...?) with a formerly poor Leopard machine, Upgrading to a new computer would be the way to go but it'll most likely be a Windows machine which I had used heretofore. Also, going on 85, anything I install will be discarded by my grandkids born with Chinese iPhones in both ears. 😀 Windows' aggravations were minor because they have far more apps and programs - even free ones - than Apple.

Will study the links you gave, thanks again!

I spent 90 minutes yesterday afternoon on the Apple help line repeating four times the gist of my difficulties. The last technician I was referred to as a senior advisor asked for permission to look at my computer and was able to "see" the large number of files which appear as grayed out and not accessible. We established that the TM stopped auto recording on the day that I upgraded to Snow Leopard in mid-November. The date marks below that light up properly when the cursor hovers above them, but the previous 12 months remain barely visible.

When I dug up dates from my hand-written contacts and the purchase order number, I was told that their records don't go back that far. Therefore, even if I could gain access to the dates and sent screen prints, they would not be able to ascertain that I ever purchased this item.

One would assume that a senior advisor could find it within his powers to order a replacement since I have a sufficient number of records to show that I had lost the components once before and had no trouble in being

believed.

His parting advice was that I should re-purchase it or get a free one on-line. There's no such nugget to be found - they do a rudimentary check and then demand payment. The one that tried to rope me in wanted

$ 60.- , three times the Apple cost.

Of course today I was invited to give a testimonial. Mine was less than laudatory given the lack of anything usable from a platoon of associates who saw fit to put me on hold for almost half of the tour de force.

I read through the links you sent and one of the remarks describes what I should see when opening Desktop and then open TM to find an earlier date, ditto for Mail, both of which I cannot access - nor any other file - for any dates before November 2012 till back August 2011, when I installed the external drive.

The drive has some 170 GB out of 500GB available. I followed your file path and found mention of the component and date of installation. Clicking on that line causes this drop-down in the Quick Time folder:

"AppleMPEG2Codec.component" could not be found. Hangul cannot open this type of file".

Have no idea where this Mr Hangul hangs out..😉

I guess I'll have to live without it and use one of my Windows machines to open * VOB files from the video camera's RAM disk and burn DVDs on the Windows system which gives me no grief. It margianalizes the iMac but am fed up with the difficulties caused by Apple's paranoia in trying keep much of their stuff propriatary. It still serves as a giant photo album and email client. Since I'm not a gamer (Windows has the great original Tetris from the nineties...), I don't miss it too much. I'll definitely never upgrade it again - which was the cause of all this trouble.

Should have thought about that solution before plunging into this morass.

Thank you for all your patience and help!

GV.