Q: Quicktime player just won't play .mov files after Mavericks update....WHY?????

I am in the process of trying to download "Any Video Converter Free".  It seems to be taking an extremely long time, and other than the rotating circle in the upper left corner, there is no indication that anything is happening:  like a thermometer bar or a growing pie.

So in the meantime:  I didn't realize I had a problem until I tried to open .mov files with my MacBook Air running El Capitan.  I just saved a PowerPoint as a movie (.mov), and couldn't open it.  Then I tried some of my older .mov files, and they won't open either.  Those in the .m4v format or mp4 WILL open.

Since .mov is the ONLY way to save PowerPoint or Keynote as a movie, this is crazy!  I hope the "Any Video Converter Free" will work.

I gave up on the free app.  The App Store seems to not be downloading anything.  I just paid about $50 for Movavi Video Converter 6, and it seems to work.

I am not a computer programmer, just a simpleton that bought iPhones, a macbook pro and uses iPhoto.   All of which I assumed fit together.   To create room on my macbook hard drive I move iPhoto Library's to memory sticks, BUT WHEN I DO, I CAN NO LONGER OPEN OR PLAY THE MOVIES!!   What is happening to my movies in this simple and necessary process??   Is there an app that will play my movies after they are moved?? 

I not interested in compression formats or the Quicktime formats and neither are 99% of your mac customers, we buy mac because it's idiot proof!!   Steve Jobs, where are you when we need you!!    Your heirs have already forgotten how you gained all of your customers.    We have a simply, reasonable task and your support is not talking computer jargon to us!!

In Conclusion, an iphone, macbook pro, iPhoto customer should have a simple way to play iPhone movies AFTER THEY HAVE BEEN MOVED TO A STORAGE DIVICE.   Can someone help in plain English??   I'll gladly pay for an app or whatever I need.

Running the latest El Capitan OSX on a 2014 MacBook Pro. I stored files on external hard drive for over 10 years of home movies. I can read my oldest MiniDV files from 2003-2004, but the newer files from 2008-2011 don't seem to run on quicktime.

I'm really frustrated because the Mac used to be the best system for photos and videos. I don't comprehend all this codec stuff, just want to see my videos of people that have passed. Apple seems to have forgotten their users. Not sure what to do now.

ag-ok, I think you will be better served by creating your own topic if you have not already found a suitable answer here.

You could try the 'legacy player'…

Installing QuickTime Player 7 on your Mac - Apple Support

I don't know if that works on 10.11 but it certainly added support for older codecs on earlier versions of OS X.

I'm afraid that if you want to keep playing your media you will need to find a way to update the formats - Apple are clearly moving away from supporting older formats that cannot run on new OS's. Apple did not make many of the codecs (video & audio compressor - decompressors), so they cannot take responsibility for updating them to 64bit instructions.

I'd strongly suggest you get a new HD & duplicate the older files to it so you have at least 2 copies. You can never have enough backups anyway. Try updating the copies to newer formats.

The mediainfo app may help you work out what the formats are…

http://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo

Ask in your own topic for help converting them - this is a 10.9 thread, full of many conflicting posts & is difficult to follow over all these pages.

I can read my oldest MiniDV files from 2003-2004, but the newer files from 2008-2011 don't seem to run on quicktime.

Were the 2003-2004 MiniDV files recorded using the same camera/camcorder as the 2008-2011 video files or on different cameras/camcorders using different formats (codecs)?

I'm really frustrated because the Mac used to be the best system for photos and videos. I don't comprehend all this codec stuff, just want to see my videos of people that have passed. Apple seems to have forgotten their users. Not sure what to do now.

Video recording formats (codecs) are constantly evolving—from analog DV to digital DV and MPEG-2 to HDV to H.264 MPEG-4/AVC to numerous specialized/professional formats (etc.) as resolutions have increased from SD to HD to 2K to 2.5K to 4K to 5K, etc. As a result, Apple's support for the various format possibilities has also changed. Since you do not appear to be interested in specific codec usage and solutions, the best general advice would be to try playing your files in a third-party multimedia player like VLC which includes its own built in codec support which does not rely on the limited number of codecs actually supported by Apple under its own Mac OS X structure embeds/codec configurations (e.g., El Capitan and/or "Pro" codec packages). If your files play in the free VLC player, they can probably be converted to "El Capitan" compatible files using the free HandBrake download which employs the same codec support package for conversion.