QuickTime Pro not working well in Mavericks

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Level 1

5 points

QuickTime Pro not working well in Mavericks

I'm using Quicktime 7 Pro [QuckTime Player 7 Version 7.6.6 (1710) / QuickTime Version 7.7.3 (2826)] and try to edit M4V files in Mavericks.

Things that worked in Mountain Lion (10.8) but do not in Mavericks (10.9) anymore.

It is not possible to select a part of the Movie and to cut the section out of the movie. Noting happens. Nothing is removed.
Opening the M4V file and trying to save as MOV. Error: "Wrong Timecode" or something similar.
Opening the M4V file in Subler 0.24, saving it as MP4 and trying to open it in QuickTime 7 Pro. File is rejected with error message.
Opening and saving the file as MOV in MPEG Streamclip 1.9.3b8. Result file is 0 bytes big. I assume that this application uses the same internal Quicktime API as QuickTime 7 Pro because it worked in Mountain Lion.
Editing a MOV files, that has already be edited with QuickTime 7 Pro in Mountain Lion is possible. The same file, converted to M4V using Subler 0.24 (in Moutain Lion) cannot be edited in QuickTime 7 Pro in Mavericks.

I can exclude problems with the M4V files because I tried files, that already had worked in Mountain Lion.

I tried two differnt Computers (MacBook, Mac Mini).

Who has similar problems. Who has workarounds.

MacBook, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Nov 2, 2013 1:29 PM

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Answer 1

Jon Walker

Level 6

19,467 points

Nov 2, 2013 5:22 PM in response to Vietwoojagig

Who has similar problems. Who has workarounds.

Interesting... but wierder and wierder!

Not sure it is much of a workaround, but I just loaded my H.264/AAC M4V Harry Potter 7 file into QT 7 Pro and deleted chapers 2 through 30. While I agree that I cannot currently save the edited data as a standalone file, I could save it as a reference file that is non-compatible with QL under Mavericks. However, if I then open the reference file in QT 7 Pro, I could then use the "Movie to MPEG-4" option to "Pass through" both the audio and the video to create an MP4 file that will open in both QT X v10.3 and QT 7 and is QL compatible.

As to your subler workflow, while the MP4 file I created with subler did not open in QT 7, it did open in QT X v10.3 and the H.264 video track was QL compatible. I suspect the reason the MP4 file won't open in QT 7 and why QL won't play the Photo-JPEG track is that QT 7 and QL consider the secondary video track that is created by Subler to be "out of spec" for the MP4 file container. On the other hand, if I place the H.264/AAC data in an M4V file container, then it opens in both QT 7 and QT X v10.3 and both the H.264 and the Photo-JPEG tracks are QL compatible.

Nice catch on your part as I am still reviewing the QT X v10.3 forced conversions and had not even started looking as Subler. Also do most of my editing before conversion to H.264/AAC/AC3/Chapter output to M4V so it did not dawn on me to try and edit my M4V files. Thanks to your comments have learned that Subler does not like my AC3 DD5.1 audio track (now seems to cause an infinite loop in Subler due to Mavericks reading of AC3 audio track as having a 0 Kbps data rate) and QL now handles multiple video tracks. (Mavericks—one step forward and two steps back as far as QT is concerned.)

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Answer 2

Vietwoojagig Author

Level 1

5 points

Nov 3, 2013 1:43 AM in response to Jon Walker

OK i'm getting closer to the problem.

My M4V files contian two audio streams: AAC + AC3.

If I remove the AC3 stream, I am able to do the editing thing as usual.

Unfortunaltely I do not want to remove the AC3 stream, because it is the pass-through stream from my original sat receiver transport stream recording (TS-file). Apple TV is able to pass this AC3 stream to my aplifier so I will be able to keep the audio as it was broadcasted.

This leads me to the conclusion, that the perian component is broken in Mavericks and not Quicktime 7.

There are some discussions in the Internet which propose to add a A52Codec.component into /Library/Audio/Components/, but there was already such a file in that folder. Even replacing it with the proposed never version did not work. Also the proposed changing of the output preferences of perian to "Multi Channel Output" did not work.

So what I need is a Mavericks compatible AC3 Codec coponent wich I can add to /Library/Quicktime.

Any idea?

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Answer 3

Jon Walker

Level 6

19,467 points

Nov 3, 2013 6:24 AM in response to Vietwoojagig

Any idea?

Afraid I'm still "behind the cure" here. Did note that I am no longer able to switch between AAC and AC3 audio tracks in QT 7 which was properly configured with the the "improved" A52 codec/Perian combination before Mavericks. In checking the properties, noted the following:

As you can see in this screen shot, the AC3 audio track stats indicate a 0 KB size and 0 Kbps data rate. Had assumed this was either a bug in reading the file or an Apple innovation to prevent AC3 playback under QT X and QT 7 based players since it seems to prevent my switch between the two tracks as I previously could. On the other hand the file still plays the AC3 DD5.1 audio normally via TV throungh my video receiver so I'm convinced the data is really still there in the file.

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