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discovering the compression method
Hi,
First post! brill
I have two .mov’s that I cannot open, play, edit or get any information from. One is 146mb and the other 100mb. Neither will play on a MAC (FCP, QT, Compressor) or a PC (VLC, Premiere etc).
Quicktime says ‘the movie could not be opened, not a movie file’. A similar message is given in other programs and just will not play on the PC. I get ‘general error’ from Adobe software.
I have run G-spot and that only tells me that it is a .mov container, nothing about its contents. It is the same story with two independent clips and I requested they were sent to me again incase they got corrupt in transfer so I guess its not a corruption error. They aparantly play fine at the senders end. Transfer is via FTP.
Does anyone know how I could discover the technique that was used to create these .movs? or at least what codec is being used. This is not the first time this has happened so im sure I must not be alone. I have trawlled the internet to no avail, please help! Any thoughts welcome.
Thanks in advance for your help!
Ian -
10 Replies
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Use VideoSpec to find out what the codec is.
https://laurent.ettouati.free.fr/english/Also ask the client what the codec is or how the files were created.
It may well be some odd ball proprietary codec that requires using a specific product. Personally I think people should run very fast from companies that do that.
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They said they had used DV PAL?
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Also, thanks for the app, very nice. Unfortunately it doesn’t recognise the files. Very strange
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DV PAL would be easy to recognize and play. Either the files are corrupted or they don’t know what they’re doing. Given your description it’s certainly NOT valid DV PAL files.
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I agree. Thanks for your help, I am going to leave this one with them.
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If VideoSpec can’t recognize it, it’s decidedly non standard or corrupt.
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What makes the whole charade even more perplexing is that the two files are from completely different people. The other was supposed to be h.264 compression. I have requested they send them physically and hope the files have somehow been corrupted due to FTP.
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You could try having them zip the file and upload to RapidShare free.
https://rapidshare.com/
Megaupload is another free option
https://www.megaupload.com/ -
Just a shot in the dark, but it is the Avid DNxHD codec? That’s a relatively common one that you wouldn’t have unless you installed it (or avid). I think you can still download it for free… try here: https://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=372311
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If you are really desperate: upload the files to youtube, and download the MP4 or FLV again. Great chance that you can at least view the files and edit them.
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