.flv and .avi Thumbnails in Mavericks

I use Flv Crunch to convert flv to mov.

Because Mavericks's converting is soooo slow.

http://download.cnet.com/Flv-Crunch/3000-2194_4-10909295.html

After converting,I can see thumbnails.....

I feel you pain here. I'm having big problems since Mavericks. I only have Apple software on this iMac. FCPX, Compressor, Motion, Logic X. No third party anything.

Sadly, the Perian development has ended, and isn't being updated by the coder. Apple have dropped support for older video formats in Mavericks, one can only guess, to bring all their devices into line with m4v & mp4 format. There are plenty of video converter apps out there, one called smart converter is on the Mac Store and is free. Apple does provide a back end conversion within OSX, but for whatever reason it isn't always efficient. Right click on any video file, scroll down to services and you'll find a convert file option there. It does work but not as good as those that use an ffmpeg conversion engine. Google ffmpeg video converters for Mac, you find a few out there.

I've gone through all this myself, just so I can get a preview of the video file I'm looking at. At least we can say Apple are trying to be progressive with modern video formatting, unlike Microsoft who continue to hold onto wmv's like a smothering mother over a baby.

Dear Apples,

I just got home from a long day of shooting interviews. There are 80 different videos on my card. The client has asked me to edit a quick sound bite from the 3rd rooftop clip.

Before Mavericks I would simply open the card with finder and view the thumbnails and see the one I need.

How do I quickly find this file now?

If the files are not in an mpeg2 or older format, you now won't be able to see a preview of the file, you will have to double click to open the file with a player, like Quicktime or VLC. Depending on what file format they're in, they may need conversion to be opened in Quicktime. Use VLC player if you have it. It will play any file and won't try to convert it like Quicktime will.

All the best.

P.S, for future reference, the forums here aren't moderated or answered by anyone at Apple. Just users who give up their time to help others.

Does anyone else see how crazy this is? I have 80 files and I need to quickly open just one of them. Without the ability to see thumbnails the workflow has gone from seconds to minutes or even possibly hours!

Welcome to the Apple Discussion forums.

You have discovered what many others have since Mavericks arrived.

You will just need to deal with the fact, only mpeg2 or newer video files can be previewed in Mavericks.

I have just spend the past few weeks converting my old .avi movie files to .m4v.

Perian use to enable previewing of most formats under Lion and Mountain Lion, but its development support ended last year.

Mavericks no longer uses Quicktime as its A/V component support and has switched to CoreMedia to do the job.

There are no workarounds, no fixes, no patches or scripts to enable previewing of non Apple formats now.

You can download the files, convert them with a converter tool, or simply play them using VLC player.

This is Apple, resistance is futile. Sorry.

Both of my cameras are new. A Canon 5d3 and Canon C100. What type of Camera shoots in a format that allows me to see the thumbnail preview in Mavericks?

ikeithb wrote:

Does anyone else see how crazy this is? I have 80 files and I need to quickly open just one of them. Without the ability to see thumbnails the workflow has gone from seconds to minutes or even possibly hours!

If Mavericks is currently a hindrance to your workflow, then revert to your previous system using the backup of your system that you made before choosing to install Mavericks.

OS X Mavericks: Revert to a previous OS X version

Then just wait until a method arrives in Mavericks or any future OSX release that suits your needs.

Pete

Both those cameras record in MPEG-4 H.264 video format. The files should be able to be previewed under Mavericks. Have your saved the files to your desktop? Once they are on your HD, they should be able to be previewed. If you're trying to preview them on the camera via the USB cable, then that could be your problem.

Try opening Image Capture Application with the camera connected and see if you can preview the video files there. Better still, iPhoto may also do the same.

Thanks for clarifying this. In the scenario above I have no choice other than to use a PC or a computer without Mavericks. There is no way I could copy all of the contents of every card. There are so many useless takes and we already have over 81 terabytes of video files to deal with. Sometimes a client may want a small file with a sound byte on the afternoon after a shoot.

I'll give iPhoto a try.

Hi guys,

I have an Ok solution for this problem. What I do basically is I open the .flv video by VLC, I take a snapshot of it (snapshot that indicates what this video is about). After that, I open the snapshot that I just took using preview, then I press command a ( to slect the whole snapshot) then I copy the snapshot (command c). Finally, I go to the .flv file, I click on get info then I go to the icon (up left) and click on it then I click paste (command v) to paste the snapshot. You will realize that the .flv video icon turnd into the snapshot you just took.

I hope this was helpful and not confusing, I know it's a lot of work but in my situation it had to be done.

Pics may help

pic1-take snapshot

pic2- selection (command a, if you want the whole image) using preview

pic3- click on get info for .flv file

pic4- click on icon then paste (command v) the snapshot

5- after pasting

the final result

Imagine having over a hundred files on a 32 gig memory card. You need to give the client just one of the clips before you finish for the day.

The only way to do this in a reasonable amount of time is to view the thumbnails and import the one file that is needed.

This means that even though I'm using newer Canon cameras, working with Mavericks and FCPX 10.1 is no longer an option.

I tried viewing the card with iPhoto and it didn't work.

This is totally iunacceptable. AVFoundations is a joke... so Apple only wnats us using formats that they approve or what? Why would they even care!? And no preview icons for half the stuff that Snow Leopard supported. I mean a basic png file doesn't even show a preview icon for me in finder! This is absurd.