Ernie Barojas

Q: Video File Previews Black Imported from iPhoto

Is there a way to generate PREVIEWS in Aperture 3.5.1 for imported video files?  All my video files that I imported .mov, .m4v, etc. display a BLACK preview image that says "Unsupported Video Format".  However, the video WILL PLAY in quicktime and I can export the video, but cannot "play" the video inside Aperture.

 

How do I generate a PREVIEW IMAGE?  Does it have to do with my settings for the "QUALITY" of the preview???  For example, in Aperture > Preferences > Previews I have it set for "Photo Preview" as "Half Size" and "Photo Preview Quality" at "8-medium".

 

Hope someone can please help & advise.

 

Thank you.

Aperture 3, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)

Posted on Jan 23, 2014 9:52 AM

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Q: Video File Previews Black Imported from iPhoto

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  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Jan 23, 2014 10:07 AM in response to Ernie Barojas
    Level 10 (106,888 points)
    iLife
    Jan 23, 2014 10:07 AM in response to Ernie Barojas

    Are your imported videos on an external drive? Aperture can only play videos, that are managed and on the internal drive. If you want o play them in Aperture, use "file > Relocate" to move them back into the library.

  • by Ernie Barojas,

    Ernie Barojas Ernie Barojas Jan 23, 2014 10:40 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jan 23, 2014 10:40 AM in response to léonie

    My videos are IMPORTED into the Aperture Library on my local hard drive.  But that is not the problem at all.

     

    The problem is that the PREVIEW IMAGE in my Aperture Library is a BLACK BOX with an Exclamation Mark ! that says "Unsupported Video Format", yet the video CAN be exported and played in Quicktime.

     

    I just want the PREVIEW IMAGE of my VIDEO FILES to have a PREVIEW IMAGE so I can see what video it is.

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Jan 23, 2014 11:49 AM in response to Ernie Barojas
    Level 10 (106,888 points)
    iLife
    Jan 23, 2014 11:49 AM in response to Ernie Barojas

    Aperture does not support all video formats that can be played in Quicktime. And unfortunately, you can only create thumbnails for the videos from the key frames, if the format is supported and you can open the video in Aperture's video editor.

     

    Here is a list of videos formats that shoud be supported, there may be more:

    Aperture 3: About Video and Audio formats in Aperture

     

    For some posters it helped to install additional video codecs - Perian or Flip-4-Mac;

     

    Just a hunch:  Last year, there was a weird glitch: when running cleaner applications a system cache containing an essential helper file required for viewing videos as accidentally emptied. Have you run any utility to safe space, that might have cleaned caches? Then try, if restoring  /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.xpchelper.cache will allow you again to play movies.

     

    See this post by andyBall_uk:   Re: Import video to Aperture library on Mountain Lion

  • by Ernie Barojas,

    Ernie Barojas Ernie Barojas Jan 23, 2014 3:23 PM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jan 23, 2014 3:23 PM in response to léonie

    I did a search on my computer for com.apple.xpchelper.cache and there was no file anywhere on the computer like that.  I looked in the /System/Library/Caches/ and also could not find the file there.

     

    I found a script to run to re-create it and I rebooted and the file still is not on my system anywhere.  The script I ran was:

     

    sudo /usr/libexec/xpchelper --rebuild-cache

     

    And Terminal asked me if I knew what I was doing and asked for my password... I rebooted and nothing changed.  File still missing.

     

    Any other advice?