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Mac / PC compatibility issues
I’ve got a guy doing some work for me in AE, and for some reason I can’t read his exported video files. He uses PC, I have Macs. He’s tried mpg files, mov. I can download the files, but my machine doesn’t recognize them as video files. I don’t seem to have trouble reading any other mpgs or movs, just these. I think I am up-to-date on quicktime versions and codecs, but who knows.
Related . . .
Is there a way to convert an AE session file from PC to Mac, so that I could open his file on my machine?
Thanks.
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6 Replies
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[Collin Alexander] “Is there a way to convert an AE session file from PC to Mac, so that I could open his file on my machine?”
AE should handle this automatically when you open the file. It will create a new Mac AE ‘Untitled Document’ with all the same properties as the PC AE file. I’ve noticed, however, that things like the Box Blur effect are much more blurry on a Mac =/
As for the files he’s been sending you: what codec is he using to encode them? Do you get an error message when you try to open them with QuickTime?
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
Maybe try full frame uncompressed.
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In the finder, the icon looks like a Quicktime file, and the info box says it is MPEG-1, but no movie appears in the preview window.
Double clicking brings an error message that reads,
“File could not be opened
This is not a movie file”.
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Did he try a QT codec such as Animation or Photo-JPEG at 100%?
Did he try rendering as a TGA sequence? -
What is the file’s extension? .mov? .mpg? Try switching it from one to the other… This usually isn’t the problem, but we shouldn’t skip a step =)
Alternatively you should try using VLC to open the files:
https://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/14738
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
The safest (and best quality/color rendition) option for Mac/PC compatible preview files is MPEG-4, encoded as a Quicktime .mov file. Even very old versions of Quicktime can read these files without issue. When using the MPEG-4 codec, avoid using the .mp4 extension which some apps will default to. Also, tell your artist to set the bitrate to around 1200-1600kpbs, which gives good, clean results and files that aren’t ridiculously huge to download.
MPEG-1 is older, nowhere near as high-quality, results in larger files, and is not as widely compatible, and therefore I never use them.
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