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Final Cut Express and QuickTime

I have FCE 4.0.1. When I export sequences as QT movie (not as self-contained movie) the resulting .mov file cannot be read by QuickTime. The QT player starts, says it is converting the file, then states the QT player cannot open the .mov file.


It seems to be a function of OS X. I was having trouble with iDVD, thus I upgraded to OS X 10.9.2 (from 10.7.x) hoping that would cure my iDVD problems. It didn't (still cannot start iDVD without hitting ALT to create new one - that's another issue) and now the .mov files cannot even be read.


Aren't the QT movie files exported by FCE readable by the latest version of QT?


Right now I am converting the exported files using Toast. I do not know if that will work yet. Any other suggestions?


Thanks in advance.


Larry

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2)

Posted on Mar 23, 2014 6:14 PM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Mar 23, 2014 7:11 PM

lafoxmd61 wrote:


I have FCE 4.0.1. When I export sequences as QT movie (not as self-contained movie) the resulting .mov file cannot be read by QuickTime.

Best practice is to always export the QuickTime as self-contained, without conversion. Once you have that file, then make the converted versions you need from that master file.

The QT player starts, says it is converting the file, then states the QT player cannot open the .mov file.

You need to have the correct codecs installed for QuickTime Player to play back. Go to the Apple menu, and choose software update. See if there is any QuickTime or ProKit updates needed for your machine.

It seems to be a function of OS X. I was having trouble with iDVD, thus I upgraded to OS X 10.9.2 (from 10.7.x) hoping that would cure my iDVD problems.

Problems with software are almost never cured by upgrading the OS prior to resolving the actual problem, in 99 out of 100 times the problem is usually made worse.


You should not be using QuickTime X. You should be using QuickTime 7 Pro, which should be on your computer. Check and see if it was moved to the Utilities folder. It may be name QuickTime Player 7.


MtD

10 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Mar 23, 2014 7:11 PM in response to lafoxmd61

lafoxmd61 wrote:


I have FCE 4.0.1. When I export sequences as QT movie (not as self-contained movie) the resulting .mov file cannot be read by QuickTime.

Best practice is to always export the QuickTime as self-contained, without conversion. Once you have that file, then make the converted versions you need from that master file.

The QT player starts, says it is converting the file, then states the QT player cannot open the .mov file.

You need to have the correct codecs installed for QuickTime Player to play back. Go to the Apple menu, and choose software update. See if there is any QuickTime or ProKit updates needed for your machine.

It seems to be a function of OS X. I was having trouble with iDVD, thus I upgraded to OS X 10.9.2 (from 10.7.x) hoping that would cure my iDVD problems.

Problems with software are almost never cured by upgrading the OS prior to resolving the actual problem, in 99 out of 100 times the problem is usually made worse.


You should not be using QuickTime X. You should be using QuickTime 7 Pro, which should be on your computer. Check and see if it was moved to the Utilities folder. It may be name QuickTime Player 7.


MtD

Mar 23, 2014 7:24 PM in response to Meg The Dog

Thank you for the reply.

Meg The Dog wrote:


Best practice is to always export the QuickTime as self-contained, without conversion. Once you have that file, then make the converted versions you need from that master file.



I will try exporting the QT as self contained. I have never done that before and it worked OK.

You need to have the correct codecs installed for QuickTime Player to play back. Go to the Apple menu, and choose software update. See if there is any QuickTime or ProKit updates needed for your machine.

There are no software updates. FYI... the .mov files cannot be read on my MacBook Pro which also has Mavericks.


Problems with software are almost never cured by upgrading the OS prior to resolving the actual problem, in 99 out of 100 times the problem is usually made worse.



I was hoping there would be an update for iDVD.

You should not be using QuickTime X. You should be using QuickTime 7 Pro, which should be on your computer. Check and see if it was moved to the Utilities folder. It may be name QuickTime Player 7.


MtD


QT 7 is not on my iMac. The QT Player is version 10.3. Version 7 is not under my utilities folder of applications.


Thanks again.


Larry

Mar 25, 2014 6:08 AM in response to lafoxmd61

There have been many internal changes to QuickTime over the years, especially QuickTIme X compared to QuickTime 7 ... that sometimes lead to viewing problems with video files. It's possible that by installing QuickTime 7 and viewing your FCE exported movies there will cure the problem.


On the other hand, there are other possible causes of this problem:


Please tell us about your FCE project. In particular, what are your FCE project's sequence settings? (Control-click the name of your Sequence in the FCE Browser, select Item Properties and tell us what it says for frame size, vid rate and compressor.) It will also help to know these same Item Properties for at least one of the clips in your sequence.


What model Mac do you have and what is the history of FCE on it? For example, did your Mac originially have Snow Leopard (10.6.x) on it when you first installed FCE? Did you later upgrade to Lion and even later to Mavericks? Or did you already have Mavericks on your Mac before you installed FCE?


Is this a new problem? Meaning, were exported QT reference files playing fine before, and now they are not? If so, what may have changed in your Mac? (Upgraded OS X, installed some new software, etc.)


Does QuickTime X play your video ok if you export from FCE to QT Movie (self-contained)?


Did you render & mixdown in FCE before exporting your video?

Apr 5, 2014 6:49 AM in response to lafoxmd61

MartinR wrote:


Is this a new problem? Meaning, were exported QT reference files playing fine before, and now they are not? If so, what may have changed in your Mac? (Upgraded OS X, installed some new software, etc.)


Does QuickTime X play your video ok if you export from FCE to QT Movie (self-contained)?


Did you render & mixdown in FCE before exporting your video?

Yes, this is a similiar problem that I am having. I know my settings in my sequence AIC. Before I downloaded Maverick, all I had to do was export sequence as a Self-contained .mov and it was ready for QT viewing. Now, I get the converting from Quicktime Player. It seems that this extra step converting again is very inefficient.


So, to answer your question, no Quicktime does not play my export FCE to QT self-contained movie. I can export my sequence, but, then Quicktime converts it again. I just would like to bypass that extra step. Is that possible?


Yes, everything was rendered before exporting.

Apr 9, 2014 6:04 AM in response to CameroCamero

Unfortunately, I don't think you can directly get around this on Mavericks. There have been subtle changes in QuickTime X in Mavericks that appear to cause the reformatting. It is a known problem in the QuickTime forums. There may also be some low-level incompatibilities between your (generationally old) Final Cut Express and (very new) Mavericks/QT based system.


The only suggestion I can think of is this: Install & use QuickTime 7 as an intermediary. Export your movie from FCE, then open the resutling file with QuickTime 7. Export it again, selecting passthrough for audio + video. I hear that files processed this way open cleanly in Mavericks without QT X forcing another conversion. It can't hurt to try. (You might even try exporting from FCE to a QT reference file (ie non-self-contained) and using that in the QT7 reprocessing ... if it works, it will cut down the overal processing time from FCE to final video file.)

Apr 18, 2016 9:16 PM in response to MartinR

Hi, I recently upgraded to Mac OSX Yosemite and then downgraded back to Mavericks! I had to reinstall my Final Cut Express and finally got it to work. But now that I did this, Quicktime 10.3 is no longer opening the exported self contained .mov files that I Exported as a Quicktime Movie from Final Cut Express 4.0.1


All of this you explained very well in your comments, just wondering if you had found a simple way around this, so that it can be back to the same way I had it before. Quicktime never had to convert the video in order for me to play it, also in the finder, the videos used to play a preview by just pressing the space bar when selected, this no longer works.


I have reinstalled QT 7 Pro, but this doesn't really solve my problem, lacking a lot of the sharing and exporting functions to youtube that QT 10.3 has.


Any update to FCE 4.0.1 that you are aware of? any help would be appreciated, and no I do not want to upgrade my OSX.

Final Cut Express and QuickTime

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