Rendered MOV file won't play on MACS

RickD wrote on 4/26/2005, 6:22 AM

I am trying to edit QuickTime MOV files and render in the same format as the original which comes from a digital camera. When I do so, the files play on Windows computers (including very old Win98 machines) yet fail to play on MACS. The message I get is something about the compression being corrupt.

When rendering, I use a custom template I created that matches as close as possible the original format. It's essentially a 24 bpp color Photo JPEG format with no audio. When comparing the original file with the rendered file (using Vegas and and Windows tools) they appear to be identically formatted - yet the rendered file still fails to play on MACS. Any ideas?

Comments

B_JM wrote on 4/26/2005, 6:39 AM

which version QT do you have installed on each machine? do they match ?

does the digital camera file raw play on the mac ?

RickD wrote on 4/26/2005, 7:19 AM

At this moment I don't know what versions of QuickTime are installed on the MACS and Win98 machines because they are not mine. But yes, the original digital camera files do play on the MAC.

My understanding of JPEG photo compression is that it is a very mature format and should have no problem being decoded on any computer. In fact, as much as I have worked with photos and videos I have never once seen a program that said "I don't understand this JPEG format" - EXCEPT when the file was rendered by Vegas.

I do know that one of the MACS is running OS9 and the owner said she upgraded to the latest version by clicking on an "update" menu item.

I also know that the Win98 machine is running an original version of Win98 with no service packs installed. QuickTime was never really used on this machine and it wasn't even connected to the Internet (for access to updates) until recently so my guess is that it is a relatively old version of QuickTime compared to the MAC.

B_JM wrote on 4/26/2005, 7:47 AM

well strange - I also can not get mpeg2 clips made in vegas to play on a mac (with QT mpeg2 pack installed) ..

I could maybe understand your problem if they were MJPEG (which is a type of photo jpeg codec) ..

RickD wrote on 4/26/2005, 8:09 AM

So is that a consensus? Vegas rendered files that should play on a MAC, won't? Anyone else able to verify this problem? Any solutions?

BillyBoy wrote on 4/26/2005, 10:05 AM

"My understanding of JPEG photo compression is that it is a very mature format and should have no problem being decoded on any computer."
It depends on the application as to if or not a file format can be read. While a older format JPEG comes in various flavors, the three most popular being Baseline (standard), Baseline optmized and progressive. As an example I know for a fact that Flash has trouble detecting any JEPG saved in the optmized or progressive mode and must first be converted to baseline. If or not that's part of your problem I don't know, but it may be worth checking to see if your source JPEG are in the standard JPEG format or one of the newer modes. One application that can bring up a file's details showing which format is Photoshop.

See http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/