Posted by
Hanspeter Niederstrasser-3 on
URL: http://confocal-microscopy-list.275.s1.nabble.com/Movie-Corruption-Issue-tp591691p591720.html
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http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocalStephen Bunnell wrote:
> Search the CONFOCAL archive at
>
http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal>
> This is not technically a microscopy question, but I'm desperate:
>
> I use a mac. I have hundreds, if not thousands, of videos exported into .mpg
> and .mov formats over many years of imaging.
>
> Of late, I have noticed that _many_ of my older .mov files are seriously
> corrupted on the Mac. It's not the data. Archived movies are the same. It's
> the player- Quicktime. It no longer can play the old movies. However, 2-3
> years ago, before this problem was widespread, we exported several .mov
> files to .avi. These .avi movies (fortunately) play just fine. However,
> attempt to export the corrupted .mov files now yield .avi files that look
> just like the .mov files- that is to say, they look like garbage.
>
> I have attempted to revert to older versions of quicktime- all the way to
> v7.3. No luck. They're still corrupted.
>
> The corruption is not a computer issue. The same movies are corrupted on
> many others Macs with current system installations.
>
> As you might expect, this makes for less than stellar presentations, when
> half of your movies crash.
>
> Oddly, some movies exported on the same day, using the same software, will
> play, and others will not.
>
> Has anyone else encountered this problem on the Mac? Any thoughts?
I noticed this a couple months ago with some files made in older
versions of QuickTime (v7.2.something I think) and saved using certain
codecs, and now v7.3.something will garble it. I would need to go back
to my files to see what codec and Quicktime version was at fault, but I
_think_ it might have been the Animation codec. If you view a QuickTime
movie and press pretzel-I, it will tell you the codec that was used, and
you can see if there's a similarity between the 'good' movies and the
'bad' movies.
Do you have access to a Mac with an older version of QuickTime (v7.2 or
earlier) to test view the files with? Reinstalling an older quicktime
over a new version might not clear the updated decoders, so a
Other than that, I agree with Stephen Kempf about Graphic Converter.
It's great software, if anything for very rapid batch conversions
between formats. Also, you might want to try VLC player
<
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/> for movies.
Hanspeter
--
Hanspeter Niederstrasser, Ph.D. Dept. of Microbiology
hn2157 at columbia dot edu 701 W. 168th St.
Chang Lab New York, NY 10032
Columbia University