Why No Quick Look with MP4 in Mavericks?

Subler may work, but I shouldn't have to run all my home videos through Subler just to view them with Quick Look or trim them in QuickTime. The same videos played fine in QuickTime X under Snow Leopard.

I have now gone through all types of video files on my Mac, and it seems that most of it plays well, except for the ones I need the most, the *.MP4 in my Premiere Pro project. They are imported from Sony XDCAMEX and did play in Mountain Lion with no problems. They still play in VCL, but not in Quick Time and Quick Time 7 pro.

I tried the Subler, and it tells me that I have one video and two audio tracks, with no "hints" added to them.

Pacifist were able to install the codecs, but to no avail.

So ... if anyone out there have an idea, it would be more than welcome!

Apologies to everyone who read this in another thread, but I feel this is also relevant here:

You may have better luck in the Quicktime specific threads…

https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/quicktime

This post by martbr explains the situation with 10.9 well…

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5473287?answerId=23530041022#23530041022

Try using Quicktime player 7 (it's better if you have a QTPro 7 key).

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL923

It seems to support everything that it did before Mavericks (including Flip4Mac & Perian codecs), what is different is that the OS uses AVFoundation not Quicktime, the former doesn't support additional codecs therefore there is little hope of getting Finder previews for files with unsupported codecs.

Quicktime is not 64bit (and neither are the thousands of codecs it supports) so integrating it at the Finder/ OS level would be a nightmare for Apple. Instead they have brought over the 'AVFoundation framework' from iOS, but that means it doesn't support additional codecs within the OS.

QT player 7, VLC, MplayerX should all continue to support older formats, but they don't have any affect on Quicklook previews or Finder previews.

There is a WWDC session that goes into some technical details if you want to read up on it (I'm about 1/3 of the way through it). It makes it clear where Apple is headed.

Quote - Sam Bushell: "So now is a good time to gather up your legacy media and bring it across the bridge."

http://asciiwwdc.com/2013/sessions/606

Thanks Drew. It is good to have a few facts. So Quicktime is not Quicktime anymore. I have read a kilometer of strings to get this far ...

But do not ask me why: out of the blue Premiere Pro started working as a charm. It kept crashing on me ... then some files showed up properly in the integrated Media Browser before it crashed again ... and now on last attempt, they are all operational. I have no clue here ... but it may actually seem as if they have been decoded (or something) in the background. So far so good - I only lost a days work. And again thanks for ideas and workarounds.

I imagine that Premiere Pro has a cache for thumbnail versions, I guess it is a case of waiting for them to be generated. Take a look in Activity Monitor (in Apps/Utilities) for signs of background tasks that may be coming from Adobe PP as you look through it's media files.

I haven't touched Premiere for years (v5.1 iirc) so I can't really help, sorry. You may want to create a new issue if you have stability problems with apps. EtreCheck is really good for letting others see what is happening if you need support. http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck 10.9 doesn't like old code meddling in the system.

@industriousbythesea

THANK YOU !! You saved my day !

I use AIC a lot with my Sony NEX-5N (I have this wonderfull and very cheap French program Movie50p60p '11 which converts my avchd files to AIC in a snap) and I could no longer preview my videos with Quick Look in Maverick. But your codec pack put everything in order (even if I don't have Final Cut X but use the "old" iMove 9 - the iMovie 10 is a real mess : you can't put your video files where YOU want !! what a step back...

By the way.. I HATE the way Apple is turning everything the IOS way with iWorks and iMovie 😟

Since installing Mavericks, I can't add an MP4 file as an attachment in Mac MAIL. I'm suspecting the change in QuickTime and QuickLook. I forward preview copies of projects to clients, but have had stop using MAIL since this feature broke after installing Mavericks. My workaround is to use a webmail client whenever I have to send this type of file.

I think the idea of making QuickTime a lean, efficient, modern piece of software is a noble idea, but removing support for legacy formats is going to have a more negative effect on people who just want it to work.

How are you adding the video file to the email? Have you tired exporting it out of iPhoto to the Desktop via File ➙ Export ➙ File Export with Kind = Original and adding it manually to the body of the email?

OT

I don't use iPhoto - I create in Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro. Completed HD spots are saved as .MOV in H.264 format. To send them to clients for approval, I downconvert them to an email-able filesize under 10MB using Adobe Media Converter. Still in H.264 format, just reduced bit-rate and frame size.

Attempting to add one to an email message, using the attach command locks up the MAIL application. This worked fine until I installed the Mavericks "upgrade".

I had the same issue - I've switched to using the flinder method of right-clicking on the clip and choosing the "Services" : "Encode Selected Video Files" option. This creates Apple-happy QuickLook-able files that look great. They are h.264 files with the .m4v extension. I'm usually encoding files out of AE or FCP or Cinema 4D that are either Animation or PR422 codec. You can encode multiple files at once to the same format.

The only issue I have with this method is that there is no true "progress bar", but only a spinning process gear as the left-most icon in the upper-right icon strip in the finder. As long as you wait for the gear to disappear.

So I'm not the only one... Spent several days and hours working with Ron - an Apple technician who has been extremely helpful and attentive, but we haven't found out why this is happening. Obviously something is broken. I even sent them a sample file to try.

yeah, exactly my problem too.

Have you tried just dragging the file into the email window? Does that also lock up Mail?

Not sure if this will help anyone but it's worth a shot. In Lion and Mountain Lion I was required to re-enable legacy codecs. It wasn't evident that Mavericks was different so I performed the same procedure and was promptly told that everything was enabled again.

qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs ApplePlanarRGB enabled

qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs SorensonVideo enabled

qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs SorensonVideo3 enabled

qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleBMP enabled

qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleCinepak enabled

qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleH261 enabled

qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleH263 enabled

qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleMotionJPEGA enabled

qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleMotionJPEGB enabled

qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs ApplePNG enabled

qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleNone enabled

qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleVideo enabled

qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleGraphics enabled

qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleTGA enabled

qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleTIFF enabled

qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleComponentVideo enabled

qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleJPEG2000 enabled

qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs ApplePixlet enabled

There is a method for legacy audio codecs too.

qtdefaults write LegacyAudioCodecsEnabled yes

My system already had/has them enabled but I'm still having the QuickLook issue and inability to play certain videos with QuickTime Player X, QuickTime 7 works great.

I can't claim to have found this on my own, props goes to another forum poster and thread...

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3314756?answerId=18075187022#18075187022

Using the unpkg utility:

http://www.timdoug.com/unpkg/

you can access the codecs inside the ProApps download without having to have FinalCut installed.