Audio Deleted From Videos in iPhoto

Question

Audio Deleted From Videos in iPhoto

I've been using iPhoto, and now Photos, to store all my photos and videos for at least eight years. I've just tried watching some videos of my son when he was a baby and have noticed that ALL of the audio from these videos (a lot, and very important to us) has completely gone, leaving us with silent videos.

Does anyone know what might have happened, and, more importantly, how I could recover the missing audio (if it's even possible)? This is a near disaster.

Thanks!

Phil

iMac, iOS 10.1.1

Posted on Nov 16, 2016 9:02 AM

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Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

200,651 points

Nov 17, 2016 7:36 AM in response to philancashire

Phil,

after upgrading to Sierra I noticed that most of my QuickTime videos can no longer be played in the QuickTime Player. When QuickTime opens them, it will create a converted version, and this converted version is missing the audio track.

When I am importing the QuickTime videos to Photos it also seems to be converting them when uploading to iCloud and they are silent as well. However, when I export my videos from Photos with "File > Export > Export unmodified Original", the exported video will still play with the attached audio file in QUickTime Player 7.

Do you still have QuickTime Player 7 installed? Try, if your videos are still having the audio resource, if you export one of them from Photos with "File > Export > Export unmodified Original".

Does QuicktTme Player also try to convert the exported originals?

Then try to open the exported version in QuickTime Player 7 or VLC.

You can download QuickTime Player 7 here: Download QuickTime Player 7 for Mac OS X v10.6.3 or later

Or VLC: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

200,651 points

Nov 17, 2016 8:02 AM in response to philancashire

You're welcome, Phil!

You can install QuickTime Player 7 in addition to the standard QuickTime Player and use the alternately, the current version for new videos, and the older version for older versions that will not play properly any longer.

When I installed QuickTime 7, it has been installed in the Utilities folder in Applications.

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Answer 3

LarryHN

Level 10

106,142 points

Nov 16, 2016 9:05 AM in response to philancashire

Lets start with details

Are you talking about iPhoto as you ask or Photos which you mention in your post?

What version of the OS and of iPhoto or Photos do you use?

What has changed since it worked correctly?

LN

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Answer 4

léonie

Level 10

200,651 points

Nov 16, 2016 10:59 AM in response to philancashire

Do you still have the original iPhoto Libraries? Can you restore them from a backup?

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Answer 5

Nov 17, 2016 4:56 AM in response to LarryHN

Hi, thanks for responding.

Okay, the videos were originally imported into iPhoto (as it was then) around 2008 onwards. It has now been replaced with Photos version 2.0. I have 1,209 videos in my library - all stored natively in Photos - and it seems that, besides one or two videos, the sound has been stripped from nearly all videos before about December 2011 (more or less).

I'm trying to think of what could have changed, but I don't know. The hard drive did break a few years ago but it was replaced and iPhoto was restored through a backup. I don't recall there being any sound issues then. I don't have any backups past about a couple of months ago.

Thanks.

Phil

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Answer 6

Nov 17, 2016 7:36 AM in response to léonie

It's worked! You are a genius.

When I export the video files as originals they will then play with audio in VLC. They won't play properly in Quicktime version 10.4 (which is what I have installed), so does this mean I will have to downgrade to version 7? Either way, I'm going to export every single one of my videos - as I said, these are from when my son was born, so extremely precious to me - and back them up outside of Photos.

Again, thank you for saving Christmas.

Phil

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