Aperture not playing some videos

Yes...if I drag to the desktop and open it in quicktime, it says "converting" and it starts to play. What's strange is that we tried that at the Genius Bar and it didn't play in Quicktime. It doesn't play in VLC for some reason, but it does play in quicktime after it "converts" it.

Thanks,

Mark

But I would like for it to play in Aperture without dragging it to the desktop and playing in Quicktime (because this is how it used to work). So, please help...

Mark

Below is a screen shot of the "Show Movie Inspector" when played in QT:

As a test, I uploaded new pictures and videos from my Canon SLR. Every video works and has a file size of appropriate size (anywhere from 30MB - 300MB depending on the length of the video). The videos that don't work (even if imported from my Canon SLR which takes huge pictures and videos) have file sizes of around 15KB.

The videos that don't work were both taken from my Canon and from my iPhone.

And, when I dragged one of the videos that doesn't work in Aperture to the desktop (the is a video taken from my Canon) and when I "right-click" on it and look at the file size it says that it's 82KB. When I double-click it and "converts" it (it takes a good 10 seconds to do this), it plays the full 33 second video perfectly. To compare: an 18 second video that I just uploaded from my Canon is 104 GB.

Any ideas?

mark

Correction: I meant that an 18 second video that I just uploaded from my Canon is 104MB (not GB).

Here's another thing I tried and I'm not liking what I found. I went into my Finder - Pictures - Aperture Library - Show Package Contents and here's what I found:

I looked through the Masters and the videos that I just uploaded were huge (50 - 300 MB) as videos should be. Then I found the Masters of the videos that don't work and the files are tiny (30 or so KB). Does this mean that they are completly ruined? I do back up my computer to Time Machine, so I'm sure I can find the back ups there, but that just seems like a huge pain (which I'm willing to do), but I was wondering if anyone can figure this out before I have to search through the horrible way Aperture/iPhoto organize the Master files.

Thanks,

Mark

And a couple more things:

I went back in my time machine and all the masters of the videos that don't play are in the 50 KB range, so I panicked thinking that something really messed up and I lost all those videos. But then I went back to the videos that I dragged to the desktop that says the file is only 80KB.

I played the video in quicktime. I then went to close it. When I did that a little window dropped down over the video that asks "Do you want to keep this new document "MVI_3793 (Converted).mov""? And it has an Export As field. I changed the name to "test" and saved it to the desktop. And the new test file is 192 MB!!!!!! So, these files are somewhere on the computer.

So, do I really need to do this process for every video that isn't working and then re-import them to Aperture? Or is there an easy way to fix this? Sorry for all the posts in a row, but as you can tell, I'm a bit eager/anxious to get this problem resolved.

Thanks,

Mark

Léonie,

When I clicked on one of the videos that doesn't work and used "File > Export > Original" and saved it to the desktop and then tried to play it in quicktime, I got an error saying "Quicktime player can't open "XXXXXX" etc.

But when I dragged the same file on the desktop (it was only 50 KB or so when I dragged to desktop), it did what I said above: I opened in QT, it says that it was converting and then played without problem. I then saved it and changed the name and then the new file is over 100 MB big!

So, exporting the original doesn't work! This is very strange!

WOW! Then I imported the new file (the one that I changed its name and is over 100MB) back into Apeture and now it plays in Aperture. And just to confirm, I went back to my video folder in Aperture and found the original file that didn't play and it still didn't play. This is all very strange. Do I have to do this whole thing and reimport them into Aperture? Or is there a way to do this automatically.

Mark

Ernie,

About a year ago I switched from iphoto to Aperture. So, some of the videos were imported into Aperture directly from the memory card from camera (if I imported after I made the switch to Aperture). When I made the switch from iPhoto, I used File > Export to export all my pictures and videos and then imported them into Aperture.

It may very well be that the videos that don't work were exported from iPhoto and then imported into Aperture because all of my recent videos work; however, there are still old videos that I definitely exported from iPhoto that work in Aperture. So, it's still random why some work and others don't. AND all the videos used to work in Aperture. Now only some do.

Mark

And, I'll be fine doing the long version of fixing this problem (dragging each video that doesn't work to the desktop, opening in quicktime, saving as a different name on desktop, and then re-importing into Aperture) except that it changes the creation date of the picture! So if I sort pictures by date, these pictures will be considered created today.

Is there a way to change the creation date? I went to "Info" and IPTC Core and was able to change the date there, but then when I viewed the picture in filmstrip mode, the date still says today.

Mark