Apple Quicktime Codec
Raguel Charrette
QTK: I understand your rationale about AIC not being a playback codec. And if this is Apple's rationale, nothing can be done. It was also Microsoft's rationale to make Windows Media Player a quirky territorial headache in favoring Windows-friendly codecs & architecture, much to it's eventually ******* off zillions of users. What is "rational" is often unfriendly and alienating to loyal consumers.
EricR: I do have VLC, which I've used for decades on both Mac & my previous "PC" lifetime. It's a great utility. But previewing in the Finder (like Windows File Explorer for you PC folk) by pressing a space-bar, or similar in file-open dialogues is very very very handy, and that's what I feel is a loss.
I'm glad I found this thread as I just realized tonight that I am having the same issue as Inscapes. I have a new Dec '14 MacBook & today I went to replay some of my 5+ years worth of camcorder movies that I have saved on an external drive. All these movies were previously downloaded from my Sony HD camcorder (assume AVCHD format) to an external hard drive using iMovie on my old MacBook. I have always been able to use Finder and immediately view any of these MANY videos in QuickTime or in iMovie. When I plugged the external drive into my new laptop today and click in Finder to play some of the movie clips, it did the "converting" thing...which took one to several minutes per video to "convert". It did let me watch the video in QT with no problem after that, but it was painful to wait several minutes to watch just a 1-3 minute video.
QuickTimeKirk - I am somewhat a novice when it comes to tech stuff (especially videos), so your explanation of the various codes was a little over my head. One confusion I have, like Inscapes mentioned, is that I didn't have a choice in iMovie (as I recall) in what format/code these videos would be downloaded in. I just chose the destination for downloading (external drive) and I recall it asking if I wanted the full 1080 or a lesser choice. Other than that, I had no options. I feel like I have missed something here...I get that you said Apple has dropped some code they used to use, but I assumed all these videos I downloaded (as recently as Sept 2013) was in a format that was standard (like JPG is for photos...nothing specific to apple, and nothing that would just go away!).
SO HELP! What do I do to 1) easily watch these videos without spending several minutes per video to convert them (I have 5 years of video clips of my kids! Converting and re-saving every single movie clip just simply doesn't seem feasible...) and 2) Most importantly, what do I do with all these precious videos (and future ones I am about to download) so that they will be preserved in a format that won't be kicked to the curb down the road? I am so confused and bummed by this. I only have ONE copy of all these videos on this external drive so I'm scared to death to do anything that could screw them up. I was about to drag/copy them all onto another external drive so I would have a 2nd backup, but don't want to do that if I am going to somehow have to change the format of thousands of clips before backing them up...
aeclay: download VLC player for Mac. It's a great general-purpose Media viewer. Use it play your AIC-Quicktime movies. Converting them is a pain in the ***, and an insult to Apple's many users who were hijacked (by apple) into using the AIC codec to convert videos.
Also, when QT does convert it and allow me to watch the .mov clip, when I go to close it, I'm asked if I want to save the converted clip. This converted clip shows the same title as the original clip (still ends in .mov) but just has the word "(converted)" now in title. So both clips end in .mov...I thought that converting it changed the format from .mov to something else??
I am not familiar with nor have ever heard of "VLC", but will check it out if it will let me easily view all these videos from 2007-2013 off my external drive. But my biggest question is still about how do I best/safely archive all these video clips in a format that is good for many years to come, regardless of which type of computer I might have in 10 years or what kind of app I use to view them. These are treasured videos of huge life stages of my kids that I would be crushed to lose!
Sorry for one more question/need for clarification: I have 1.5 yrs worth of videos sitting on my Sony camcorder that I need to download to my external drive. I have historically done it to the ext drive using iMovie as my "middle man" b/w the camcorder and external drive. What exactly should I be doing/using instead to get these videos off my camcorder and onto my drive in a format that is best for viewing/archiving/etc on my ext drive?? Thanks again for your insight!
I keep two archives of my AVCHD recordings, partly for backup, and partly for Sony's ability to archive nicely in it's own native format on it's PC-friendly utility called "PMB". (came wtih both my NEX and ALPHA cameras). I have an old PC that I use for my complete archive; Sony's PMB utility works only on PC's and will do a good job both of archiving, providing a thumbnail database, and re-writing your choice to removable media in it's typical Sony hierarchy.
If you've only got Mac's, you can still archive your AVCHD recordings; copy them to folders named or organized to your own spec's. AVCHD is a high-quality compression format, and they'll take up way less disk space than converted Quicktime MOV files. You can open and play all AVCHD movies quite easily with VLC player.
The only extra trick to be aware of here is this. The only reason you would need to preserve the intact "sony" folders (named "AVCHD" / "BMDV" etc) is is you were using Adobe Premiere as a video editor. Somehow, it needs the hierarchical folder stuff in place to properly index the files. Not mandatory, but helpful if you are a Premiere user. Otherwise, forget the weird "package" folders; just right-click (ctrl-click) on them, choose "view package contents" and MOVE the MTS files out of the Sony hierarchy for permanent storage. Use VLC player to open and view them.
I'm not clear on your other question about the files that add the word "converted" on. Of course Mac will convert to Quicktime MOV files. Not sure what codec they're using now, likely H.264. Anyway, don't bother converting. It'll take up a lot of time and waste a lot of disk space.
The .mov extension is just a "wrapper" around the internal encoding of the media. The encoding is what turns the digital bits into something that can be interpreted by a piece of software. The file that holds the encoded video is a "Movie" file, but the encoded video could be in any one of various formats. It is the internal format, not the external wrapper that determines what can be used to view the movie. Just because they have the same extension doesn't mean they hold the exact same type of content. All media files are this way, AAC, MP3, AVI, etc.
Apple stripped most of the obscure, obsolete codecs out of QuickTime X. There were plug-ins that would add codecs to QT, but they no longer work. I don't know if there is any development on new ones.
MacBook Air M2 Ventura 13.3.1(a). Quicktime-Player does not play mp4-files generated by Adobe Premiere. Sometimes a cold reboot helps. Sometimes .mpeg works. Change extension from .mp4 to .m4v executes apple tv and the file is played a.s.o.
You reference "H.265 Codec ID hev1 has an error message" I appreciate the explanation below your segment, but is there a fix thats in more laymans terms that I can try? I've never had this issue before and everything usually works just fine.
@Sputnik_1, I've tried opening an .MP4 both from within the finder and from within Quicktime Player and both times it gave me the not compatible warning. I'm using Mac OSX 12.5 Monterey. The only solution I've found so far is to use VLC player.
QuickTime Player refuses to play some H.265/HEVC flavors (as well as Final Cut Pro 10.6). Currently macOS 11-13 Big Sur, Monterey and Ventura are more forgiving but they still has the following issues with "Codec ID" and "Chroma subsampling" options.
H.265 Codec ID hev1 has an error message "This file contains some media that isn't compatible with QuickTime Player" and plays audio only. There is a lossless fix if you install ffmpeg and add '-tag:v hvc1' without re-encoding in the Terminal:
Chroma subsampling 4:2:2 (Bit depth 10 bits) has an error message "This file contains media which isn't compatible with QuickTime Player". It fails in Mojave, opens anyway in Big Sur, no problem in Ventura.
Google might use webm wrapper and open source community Matroska mkv wrapper that might have to be converted to a more common mp4 (or its very close cousin m4v or mov) wrapper (usually losslessly with ffmpeg although subtitles might be unsupported in other wrappers).
VLC and IINA should have no issues with playing any decent new or old codec. Handbrake, VLC and ffmpeg can be used to convert old codecs to new H.264 or H.265 wrapped as common mp4 (or its very close cousin m4v or mov). ffmpeg can output also ProRes.
It seems to have nothing to do with Quicktime. If the file is opened with the Quicktime command Open, then it works. I suspect a problem with the Finder: When clicking directly on the file, the message "File cannot be opened" etc. follows, or when searching, the Finder does not find files in the specific directory, but displays them when searching the whole Mac. So close the question.
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