No video stream with .MOV files. Why?

CVM wrote on 10/8/2011, 5:20 PM

I need to import HD QuickTime Movies (.mov) into Vegas Pro 10e Build 738 64-bit. Vegas recognizes that there are two streams at the beginning of the Import Media stage, but the dialogue box says: 'Video stream attributes cannot be determined.' The audio stream is OK. Basically, I'm getting only audio, no video when I drag to the timeline.

Here are the properties of the clip (via right-click and Properties): Video Data Rate is 83208kbps. Video Total Bitrate is 84783. Frame width and Frame height are blank. The .mov's are HD and shot with a DSLR I believe.

I have QuickTime 7.6.9. It is NOT the pro version. It wouldn't play the video portion of the file (audio OK) but said I needed to download something to make it work and gave me a link. I then downloaded Avid DNxHD from that site because it looked like I needed to based on the description. Now, QT doesn't give me that message when I try to play the file... but it still just plays audio.

I could really use an answer, because my NYC client guy is really expecting wonders from me. How can I tell him I can't even open his footage? :-)

Dave

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 10/8/2011, 5:45 PM

Download MediaInfo (from Sourceforge) and tell us what kind of footage you have.
83 Mbps is not a common DSLR bitrate. Nor is it typical of DNxHD.

CVM wrote on 10/8/2011, 6:01 PM

First Video Stream: 78.8Mbps, 1920x1080 (16:9), at 29.970fps, Intermediate Codec (Apple)
First Audio Stream: 536Kbps, 48KHZ, 16 bits, 2 channels, PCM (Little / Signed)

John_Cline wrote on 10/8/2011, 6:57 PM

The video stream is in Apple ProRes format which is not natively supported in the standard or pro versions of Quicktime. There is a free Windows ProRes decoder plugin for Quicktime available on the Apple site. It is playback only.

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL2

CVM wrote on 10/8/2011, 8:51 PM

So, does that mean I CAN edit my files in Vegas and save them to something else?

Former user wrote on 10/8/2011, 8:52 PM

Yes, if they are ProRes the ProRes codec will allow you to play the files back in Vegas. You cannot encode to ProRes though, you can only do that on a Mac with Final Cut.

But I thought ProRes was included with the latest version of QT. Try the download and make sure.

Dave T2

CVM wrote on 10/8/2011, 9:00 PM

I tried and the set up for the codec says: 'A later version of Apple ProRes QuickTime Decoder is already installed on this computer.'

Now what?

Former user wrote on 10/8/2011, 9:01 PM

that means that your version of QT already has the ProRes decoder. I would say your video file is not ProRes. since it says Intermediate, it might be a file created bya Final Cut system that can only be used on that.

Can whoever provided you the file, give you more information, or another file type?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Intermediate_Codec
According to this wikipedia, it is a Mac Only Codec.

Dave T2

CVM wrote on 10/8/2011, 9:26 PM

Not good. Not good at all.

Thank Dave T2, and the rest of you, for your help. It is much appreciated. I didn't think I was going to get stymied with this problem, with all the conversion programs out there.

Stoopid Macintosh.

musicvid10 wrote on 10/8/2011, 9:39 PM

Yes, Apple Intermediate and ProRes are two different codecs.
Intermediate is not available on Windows boxes, sorry to say.

Byron K wrote on 10/8/2011, 9:43 PM

Another option may be to convert the file to an editable format. Media Coder reads and converts "almost" everything I throw at it, uses CUDA and converts to a lot of different formats relatively fast.

musicvid10 wrote on 10/8/2011, 9:46 PM

Have your client supply DNxHD and save yourselves a lot of trouble.

CVM wrote on 10/8/2011, 10:00 PM

Can you provide an explanation, musicvid?

CVM wrote on 10/8/2011, 10:14 PM

Byron, Media Coder couldn't do a thing with the file. Thanks for offering, though!

John_Cline wrote on 10/8/2011, 10:30 PM

Well, that just goes to show you how much I know about the Apple world...

musicvid10 wrote on 10/8/2011, 10:54 PM

"Can you provide an explanation, musicvid? "

DNxHD is part of the free Avid 2.3.4 LE codec download that can be found on their site.
It is transparent across platforms, and is one of the few that does not throw the well-known colorspace error to and from Mac.
It is compared favorably with ProRes 422 in both quality and compression.
http://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=392959
Be sure to download 2.3.4, not 2.3.2.

Mindmatter wrote on 10/9/2011, 3:10 AM

I had the same trouble once when someone gave me a .mov that turned out to be apple intermediate codec ( AIC). and just would not play anywhere..the only solution was to get final cut studio (cheapest version) for the mac side of my mac pro and convert it from there. You could ask around if you know somebody witrh a mac and FCS or FCP.

CVM wrote on 10/9/2011, 8:38 AM

Mindmatter, that's what I'm gonna have to do... Already starting the process. If that fails, I'll have to go back to the source which I'm trying to avoid.

CVM wrote on 10/11/2011, 8:56 PM

My solution was to work with a colleague with a Mac. He used Compressor to convert the video MOVs from the Apple Intermediate codec to H.264. It took 8 hours to convert 40 gigs to 10 gigs.

Bottom line... the clips imported perfectly into Vegas with no visible loss of quality. I am starting the project now.

Phooey on the original post house (who was fired) by supplying the client with intermediate files instead of originals as a way of completing their unprofessional approach to client satisfaction. My gain!

musicvid10 wrote on 10/11/2011, 10:26 PM

That's a good solution. Glad it worked out for you!

rmack350 wrote on 10/11/2011, 11:27 PM

...the well-known colorspace error to and from Mac

Hey MV, do you have any reference links about that? It'd be useful information for me, I think.

Rob

musicvid10 wrote on 10/12/2011, 12:10 AM

Try searching for "gamma error" or "gamma shift" on this forum. That should lead you to a few of the threads from a couple of years back. Also some of the older threads for "DNxHD".

rmack350 wrote on 10/12/2011, 5:42 PM

Ah. By "well known" I was thinking more globally. I was poking around with Google but not searching this forum. Yes, I'll look, later.

Rob

musicvid10 wrote on 10/12/2011, 8:36 PM

That was the "local" reference. Rob Franks is probably the resident forum expert on this, and his posts convey far more information than the couple of times I have had occasion to deal with the error.

The "global" references are equally well-known and numbered in the hundreds on professional video forums last time I searched, which was a couple of years back. Many (most?) of those related to identical failures in Premiere, which confirmed the representative posts in this forum. You may want to run your own cross-platform tests with various codecs, and let us know how they come out.