Quicktime converting .MOV to .MOV?

Same question, but with more detail. I have videos converted from various other formats to .mov by QuickTime 7. When I try to play one with the new QuickTime Player it decides to "convert" it, which take a long time. But worse, it increases the file size by a large factor, and leaves me with an unneeded new bloated file copy.

Why does a .mov file need conversion to be played by the new Quicktime Player? Why does it bloat the file size in the conversion? And how do I get QuickTime 7 to be my default player, so I can be rid of the "improved" version?

What in the world is going on?

Only Apple knows for sure. However, Most users feel this is attempt to move users who are reluctant to update their older "legacy" files to more modern compression formats since Apple has been phasing out what support it had for these formats since Lion when active use/access was turned off. One might suspect that passive support may be removed in the near future.

Why does a .mov file need conversion to be played by the new Quicktime Player? Why does it bloat the file size in the conversion? And how do I get QuickTime 7 to be my default player, so I can be rid of the "improved" version?

The MOV file container is generic in nature. It may contain any form of of data compatible with the system configuration on which the file was created. This meaqns users on some systems can put datas which is compatible with their system into an MOV file which would not be compatible with your system. Unfortunately, the latest version of the QT X player (v10.3) is programmed to to look at your file types and compression formats they contain, and then decide whether or not to recompress the data to another ompression format and wrap it in an MOV file container. In most cases both the audio and video content is converted. In others one form of data may be converted while the other is simply "passed through" to the new file container. What is more unfortunate, the programming of some of the IF-THEN programming traps that evaluate the need for conversion seem to be incomplete or erroneous and, as a result, some files that are already compatible, are forced into re-conversion.

With regard to "bloating" the files, this is simply a matter compression settings. The H.264 compressor is context adaptive with respect to the display size and graphic complexity of the source file but does not, for instance, look at the data rate of the source file. Basically the conversion preset has a relatively fixed target quality setting which means that even if the source file has a relatively low data rate, the H.264 compressor may use a data rate higher than the source file to achieve the targeted level of quality even if the graphic complexity of the source file does not warrent such a high data rate. Since the size of a file is determined by its total average data rate and its duration, then an output file have a higher total average data rate than the source file of the same duration would be larger and the amount of size increase would be directly proportional to the increase in the total average data rate.

As to resetting the default player for double-clicked Finder icons, it is changed the same way it always has. Simply select a Finder icon of the class you wish to change the default opening application, open the Finder "Info" window for the file type, select the "Open with" application you want to use, and press the "Change All..." button to apply the change.

Thanks. That tells me at least as much as I needed to know. I had already figured out how to reset the default player. It does seem that Apple might have supplied this information to users, and that the new player might have a setting to leave well enough alone.

It does seem that Apple might have supplied this information to users, and that the new player might have a setting to leave well enough alone.

I agree it might be nice to have a setting to be able to trun the auto-conversion off and/or at least have access to the limited manual conversion options that now appear to be available at the Finder level. As to why the player is locked into the auto mode, your guess is as good as mine which is that most users simply won't convert their "old technolgy" files unless forced to do so. A more pressing question for me is why the app also forces conversion of content like AIC which is one of Apple's own codecs that is not listed as a "legacy" codec but which now appears to no longer be supported by QT X v10.3. For instance, does this mean Apple has replaced or is in the process of replacing it with the Finder Apple ProRes 422 codec as an intermediate compression format for iMovie editing under Mavericks?

This is incredibly annoying. My Creative Director comes to my desk to review a video I produced yet he has to sit here and wait for the file to "convert". I'm so disappointed with Mavericks and am wishing that I didn't upgrade.

This is incredibly annoying. My Creative Director comes to my desk to review a video I produced yet he has to sit here and wait for the file to "convert". I'm so disappointed with Mavericks and am wishing that I didn't upgrade.

Depending on the content format, why didn't you use an alternative media player? For instance, files using Apple editing codecs which QT X v10.3 converts automatically can still be viewed using the QT Player 7 player under Mavericks. Common third-party and legacy codecs are usually supported by FFmpeg based media players like VLC and MPlayerX. Keeping multiple players installed/availbly on your system should avoid such potentially embarrassing situations.

Many users have asked me why this happens, but I did not know why, either. I guess may be the QuickTime is not so good at converting videos to MOV. Fortunately, I know an app in iTunes store can help you convert all videos to MOV, the Video Converter. It should works well, just have a free try.

Me too! Mavericks has been a Mistakericks. I need to browse hundreds of videos files quickly. THIS IS MY JOB APPLE!!!

This is runing my animations. I cannot view them in QuickTime 10 or use them in the new Keynote because it wants to compress them to **** and lose all clarity, even when I ask it NOT to optimise.

This is runing my animations. I cannot view them in QuickTime 10 or use them in the new Keynote because it wants to compress them to **** and lose all clarity, even when I ask it NOT to optimise.

It would help yo know what OS you are operating under and what specific workflow you are attempting to utilize. Unsure if your source file is simply animated content in an unspcified compression format or content that was compressed using the Apple Animation codec or if you are just trying to play the file or edit it. Please be more specific and, if your problem is unrelated to the topic opened by the original poster, you may wish to open your own discussion topic.

I am using 10.9. I generate a series of high quality png files. I then animate them using Quicktime 7 "open image sequence..." and save as a .mov

I then have beautiful movies.

But if I attempt to play them in Quicktime 10, it forces a "conversion" that renders them so compressed as to be useless. If I attempt to import them into the latest Keynote it asks whether to optimise or not, but either way they end up compressed and useless too.

It seems Quicktime 7 and Keynote '09 is the only way to retain the quality. I hope Apple fixes this issue before they force non-compatibilty of those programs in a future OS update.

Here is a snapshot of the same .mov open in Quicktime 7 (left) and 10 (right)

http://i.imgur.com/2pYsgrP.png

But if I attempt to play them in Quicktime 10, it forces a "conversion" that renders them so compressed as to be useless. If I attempt to import them into the latest Keynote it asks whether to optimise or not, but either way they end up compressed and useless too.

QT X v10.3 (and apparently Keynote under Mavericks) does not consider the files created by your old workflow to be compatible with the new system and, therefore, automatically converts the video to (i assume) H.264 video. Currently, the obvious answer is to not open your files in either app and to perform the conversion manually. Have you, for instance, tried control-clicking your file icon in the finder and selecting the "Services > Encode Selected Video Files" Context menu option?

Doing so will open the following window:

This Window will allow you to export your selected file to either H.264 or Apple ProRes compression formats. The H.264 option offers three different target video display ranges with each offeing a low (Greater compatibility) or high (Higher quality) while the Apple ProRes option creates file with the same resolution as your source file for high quality intermediate encoding use.

Alternatively, you could use QT 7 Pro or MPEG Streamclip with one of the QT H.264 encoding options that allows you to target higher data rate/quality settings. In either case, you should be able to improve the transcode quality of the QT X v10.3 auto-conversion workflow and still end up with file compatible with both the QT X v10.3 and Keynote apps whithout reverting to an older OS.

In case you are interested, DV stream, ACI, and Apple Animation files all suffer this same problem under Mavericks. And, while the above workaround option(s) may or may not be suitable for you, you still might want to test them to at least see how much of a difference thay might make.

Thanks for the info. The ProRes is an improvement but isn't great; it increases file size by about 50% while decreasing quality. A custom mp4 export is more effort but I'm getting better results.

Thanks for the info. The ProRes is an improvement but isn't great; it increases file size by about 50% while decreasing quality. A custom mp4 export is more effort but I'm getting better results.

Sorry, this disn't work out for you. My results were somewhat different. Tested the ProRes 422 conversion on a test PNG video with little or no difference in clarity and even a bit of improvement in color saturation (which migh be expected with this particular codec). In any case, here is the comparison:

As to the specs for the conversion, in my test the PNG total average data rate of 121.45 mbps dropped to 34.54 mbps despite the almost 8 fold increase in audio data rate which yelded a net 61% drop in file size.

Am also wondering what you mean by MP4 export. Not sure to which specific workflow you might be referring here—anything from a chapter 2 MPEG-4 to an H.264 workflow with options to control both data rate and quality setting along with the application of saturation, color balance, sharpening, edge detection, etc. filers as desired/needed using QT 7 Pro conversions.

In any case, the only other options I can think of would be to post-convert to high quality Motion JPEG or pre-convert the PNG images to high quality JPEGs before applying the open sequence workflow. Both of the resulting files (Motion JPEG and Photo JPEG) are QT X v10.3 the QL compatible under Mavericks but still may be of lower quality than you seem to require.