[Gregg Eshelman]

Do you have the Media 100 or iFinish transcoder? The 601N is the fourcc (Four Character Code) for Media 100. Someone around here should have it for Mac and/or Windows.

If you have to setup an old PC or Mac with an old operating system and the transcoder to convert the files to something readable by current software, that’s what you’ll have to do.

The transcoder supposedly didn’t support full motion playback but the Windows version on XP did and I used it to convert a few old M100 videos to MPEG with Premiere several years ago.

Or try installing FFMPEG with everything it has. Last year they finally closed the ticket (after 11 years!) on Media 100 codec support. I submitted samples from the M100 tutorial and the FFMPEG people made it work.

[Gregg Eshelman]

What does MediaInfo tell you about the files? https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo/Download/Mac_OS

[Gregg Eshelman]

See if the latest Mac port of FFMPEG supports Media 100. 9 years ago I provided some samples to help get support added. https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/959

[Gregg Eshelman]

Sounds like the files have lost their resource forks due to the never to be sufficiently damned “Apple Double” file system, designed to be incompatible with everything else on Earth.

If these are Quicktime MOV files and the backup was made from a “Classic” Mac operating system and done properly, the resource forks should be on the backup, but hidden as they normally are.

If this is a backup compressed into a proprietary Retrospect format you will have to setup an old Mac with OS 9.2.2 or earlier, with Retrospect, to restore the files so you can get at them properly.

If the backup is just a direct copy where you can access the media and see the files, then you need a PC running Windows and one of the programs for accessing Mac formatted media. There are a couple of free ones, look up the EMaculation Mac emulation website. Or buy a copy of TransMac.

What to do is extract the Resource fork first then add the .MOV extension to the file name. Next, extract the Data fork and give it a .QTR extension. Make sure the rest of the names of both files are identical.

On Windows, as long as both fork files are in the same folder, Quicktime will play the video, if you have the Media100 playback only codec installed. Good luck finding a copy since Media 100 went back to Mac only! Contrary to what the website claimed, the Windows version of the codec supported realtime playback. I may have a copy, somewhere, deeply buried, on an olde CD-ROM. Someone ought to archive that thing in a hundred different places.

I dunno if Quicktime for OS X will work with these if both fork files are in the same folder.

There is a fix for the split forks! Google Logiciels & Services Duhem and get their free QT-Flattener.exe ‘Course it’s for Windows. Feed your split Quicktime videos to that and you now have portable, non-self-destructing video files – with that inconveniently antique M100 encoded video inside. QT Flattener shouldn’t need the Windows M100 codec to work.

There is/was another way to flatten split Quicktime videos, the Pro version of Quicktime. I assume it had to have the proper codecs to read the videos you were exporting as flat files.

I went through all this some years ago when I was noodling around with a “Vintage” NuBus Media 100 system in a Radius 81-110, maxed out with 128 megs of 23 meg IBM (HaHa!) 72 pin SIMMs. Captured from a HiFi Stereo VHS to the Mac, edited then exported to uncompressed M100 Codec on a 17gig SCSI drive, which was then hooked up to a much faster Win XP box for conversion to 480×480 SVCD MPEG format.

[Gregg Eshelman]

They host *nothing* for any Windows version of any software Media 100 ever produced. (Which is why I made a post asking about all M100 Windows stuff.)

They’re yet another company that tosses everything for discontinued products down the old ‘memory hole’, often claiming they never made such a product when asked.

My standard for excellent support is how Western Digital did it in the pre-https://WWW years. They had a BBS to dial into (long distance) and a fairly easy method to search for documents and software. IIRC they put various part numbers etc in the database *exactly as printed on the hardware*, which is something many companies didn’t do in the early Web years.

If it was software one was after, it could be downloaded from the BBS.

If it was documents you wanted, you got document numbers to write down.

Next step was a TOLL FREE FAX-back automated system. To retrieve documents you dialed the number then followed the prompts to enter on or more document numbers, then your FAX number.

In a few minutes Western Digital’s computer would FAX you all the requested documents at their expense.

Now *that* was top notch customer service! They even had software and documents for product lines they’d made but sold off to other companies.

[Gregg Eshelman]

Try setting up a Macintosh emulator like Sheep Shaver. If the disks were burned in HFS Standard and hybrid with some format your non-Mac OS can read (usually ISO 9660 or Joliet) then you may be able to get your files through the emulator.

Sheep Shaver emulates a PPC Powermac. It’ll run Mac OS 8.6 through 9.0.4, but can be made to work with PPC supporting versions of System 7. Check out https://www.emaculation.com for more information.

Another possibility is to buy TransMac from Acute Systems to get the resource and data forks for your Quicktime videos off Mac format disks. My old site here has detailed instructions and a link to a Quicktime video flattener so you don’t have to keep the two forks together in the same folder.

https://members.aceweb.com/gregg1/media100/exporting.html

[Gregg Eshelman]

Grab the iFinish transcoder for Windows from here. https://www.easy-share.com/1913048582/iFinishTranscoder.zip

[Gregg Eshelman]

I can return the favor and e-mail you the iFinish Transcoder for Windows. In spite of what the instructions claim, it *does* provide realtime playback on Windows. If you search for NuBus Media 100 you’ll find my old site with some info on working with Media 100 video files in Windows. (I haven’t been with that ISP for several years but they’ve kept my site up all this time! I can’t change anything though.)

I was just doing some hunting to see if there’s anywhere current to download the Windows transcoder, nope. All links dead.

If you need the codec for PPC or Intel Mac, https://www.media100.com/support/downloads.php Since it’s gone back to a Mac only product, Media 100 won’t provide anything for any Windows version. (Insert curses and expletives as appropriate!)

[Gregg Eshelman]

Thanks! Send it to g_alan_e@yahoo.com

Here’s the QT Flattener I mentioned. https://www.macdisk.com/quickten.php

[Gregg Eshelman]

You’ll have to archive the installer with Stuffit before e-mailing it.

I suspect just the installer isn’t all that’s required, there’s probably Tome files or other files required, plus the tutorial files, PDF manuals too.

Use Disk Copy to make an uncompressed image from the CD. Then you can use Stuffit to compress the image file and split it into 20 megabyte chunks.

Why an uncompressed Disk Copy image? Because Nero Burning ROM can burn those to CD-R. It can’t handle compressed Disk Copy images.

If you have OS X, you could make an uncompressed DMG image, newer versions of Nero can burn those to disc too.