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Hallo all,

after spending the whole night reading all the .mov file issues, I thing I rather post my problem, as I couldn't find anything similar, during my search.

We filmed a motorcyle trip with a Sony HDR-FX1E semi-pro camcorder. The miniDV tapes have been captured by a macintosh, to .mov files. I received these .mov files on DVD's and copied them on my HDD. I can play these files on different player softwares (VLC, QT, ..) but my X2Pro cannot play the video. I can hear the sound perfectly but no video at all, on the editing screen.

I am using an XP-SP3 machine; Athlon64, 2GB Ram.
I am running X2Pro, the patch applied.

Below is the attributes of the .mov file.



I'd appreciate any comment, which might avoid the re-capture process, as my PC couldn't handle it. Tried and failed.

Thanks in advance.

Regards
Kaya - theXXXL

First thing I would check is to make sure your playback device (in Preferences) is set for Preview Window.

First, can we assume that you had no alternative but to download to a Mac, and that you personally do not have access to the original mini DV tapes? I ask because QT .mov files are one of the more difficult to deal with in VS. I have had experience of downloading standard definition DV on a Mac, which uses the .dv extension (whereas PCs use .avi). But it is not just a matter of changing extensions. With standard definition .dv you also have to use QT to play it back and convert it (with QT Pro) to PC-readable DV/AVI.

But I am afraid I don't know anything about high definition HDV format to a Mac. But I suspect you would need a fairly recent version of QT Pro to be able to do much with what you have got.

Curiously enough, one of the problems is the audio. First, I have never heard of Little Endian codec (though I could probably Google for it). Second, it has captured in Mono, when the HDV standard uses mpeg layer 2 dual channel stereo audio.

But anyway, first I would copy one of the captured files and change its extension from .mov to .mpg (or even .m2t) and see if that works.

If not, I am afraid all I could suggest is getting the original tapes and capturing again on a PC. You could try a free conversion program like SUPER but I am not sure of the end quality of such a conversion when using a Mac high def file.

Thanks Jeff,

within the same project I have some other clips from an other camcorder, which were captured as .avi files. These avi files play OK on the preview window.

Currently I am converting these problematic .mov files to .avi files, with the "super" converter -presence of this software is one another great kowledge I have obtained from this forum, thanks guys.

It took some trial & errors, until I found the in-sync audio setting, for convertion. Currently my poor PC is working its *** off, to convert the +100 pieces of files. The converted files are OK in X2Pro and I can work with them, however suprisingly that don't play in WMP - who cares?

It seems I by-passed my problem by convertion somehow, but if it is a simple setting or a codec, which would enable my .mov files to work, I'd appreciate the help. I'd prefer to use non-converted files in my project, if possible.

Thanks to everyboy in advance.
Regards
Kaya - theXXXL

Dear Ken,

thanks for the reply.
The capturing to a Mac was against my will and beyond my control... It is the camcorder owners bad habit

I still have the access to the MiniDV's and I already tried to capture it to my olderly PC. Unfortunatelly, it was too hard for my PC.

After your reply, I have realised that the sound is mono. But the second channel is there. If this is an evidence for something; I can tell for sure, that with the motorcycle itself, the sound travells from right to left or vice versa; I checked with earphones.

Changing the extension; I'll try it as soon as I get home... God, how I wish that this will work

I am already (at this very moment) torturing my fellow PC, to convert the files with Super. I spend the enitre night trying to find a high quality convertion setting, with in-sync audio; fortunatelly found it. By the way, I will need to downgrade these videos to fit the other clips in the same project, anyway.

Thanks for all the support and advise.

Regards
Kaya - theXXXL

I still have the access to the MiniDV's and I already tried to capture it to my olderly PC. Unfortunatelly, it was too hard for my PC.

The specs of your pc are better than mine, and I have no problem capturing DV-AVI. How exactly are you trying to capture?

I have an on-board firewire connection and a high quality cable. I use this setup for downloading from my SD handycam, everything works fine.

We used the same setup with this semi-pro camcorder (HDR-FX1E)
After some research in it the camcorders menu, we discovered the iLink - DV/AVI setting and engaged it.

When I downloaded as .AVI file, the video was tooo jerky; tooo many droped frames. Impossible to use.
When I captured as .mpg file, the tests were OK and I was ready to use .mpg instead of .avi, exceptionally for this project. But after capturing of 1h tape, the "encoding" process took several hours and against the end of "encoding", the computer hung.

I might go for another shut, but wanted to try the existing .mov files.

Thanks for giving a thought.

Regards
Kaya

The thing is that with the original video being HDV, it is already high definition mpeg-2 with virtually the same settings as your .mov file but with mpeg layer 2 stereo audio, and using the .m2t extension (which is just the transport stream version of .mpg). So there is no point in trying to convert it to .avi. Moreover, .avi is just a carrier extension which can include a wide variety of formats.

But the basic message is, on a PC, capture to HDV/mpeg-2 format and edit in that format. If you are downconverting, the camera itself needs to be set to output DV/AVI and not HDV, and the conversion is done in the camera. You use firewire for this as you are already doing. Or else, you capture and edit in HDV format, then convert (Share > Create Video File > DVD) to standard definition DVD-compatible mpeg-2 if your intention is to burn a DVD.

You can also Google for a small freeware program I use all the time for capture of my own HDV. It is called HDVSplit, and as its name implies, it will capture and split the captured video by scene. VS will not do this during capture of HDV format.

The above problem and some other issues have been sorted out recently.

Very suprisingly, it turned out, that my beloved HDD (Seagate 200GB, 8MB, SATA) which was eceptionally purchased for video editing requirements, was incompatible with my video editing activities.

Capturing to this HDD, converting .mov files to this HDD, playing big video files from this HDD gave very bad results. I had very difficult time and believed that my PC was uncapeable.

A couple of days ago, just before runing out of patience and alternate solutions, I tried some of the above mentioned tasks, targeting my dear old and slow IDE HDD... WHAT A SUPRISE !... It handled the actions very well... No jerky videos, no computer hung ups, no 100% CPU workout... Same camcorder - same video - same firewire cable - same everything... I tested the SATA HDD again; no... The Seagate SATA could't do the job... but the IDE and the other SATA HDD (Samsung, 120GB, 8MB, SATA) can do the job, without any problems.

I downloaded a couple of HDD diagnostic softwares. Everything seems to be fine with this HDD, but it can't handle the job...

Now I am happy because I still can move on with my current setup, except this HDD.

Many greetings from Istanbul
Kaya

Glad you figured it out!

Cok teşekkür ederim! We appreciate you coming back with an explanation!!

I would take the SATA drive back to the shop and ask for a replacement/refund. Tell them your videos are working on your old drive but faulty on the new and so there must be something wrong with it, probably faulty blocks or bad sectors.

Curiously enough, a couple of years ago, I had a similar problem with a 400 GB SATA drive (Samsung) which I had first as an internal hard drive (though not the C:\ system drive) and then as an external drive. But it would just not work with my main computer which simply could not see it. I took it back to the store and got an exact replacement. But had exactly the same result. However, I did what I should have done in the first place, and tested it with two other computers I have, and it worked absolutely fine with both. In fact, it is now a secondary internal drive in my main back-up computer, and I have had no trouble with it there, including with video editing...