Clips shot on Sony Xperia phone "unknown format"

steven120566 · Post by **steven120566** » Fri Jun 30, 2017 2:11 pm

Hello, the subject line seems to entirely describe my issue. But, not only does videostudio x9 not recognize these clips, no other PLAYER on my system, including VLC, Media Player, etc. they do not recognize them iether. .mp4 is the file extension on these clips that I have transferred from this phone. So, does anyone know about Sony? Do they use a file format/codec that Corel does not support? I have a question in the Sony phone forum about this too. Even my Vegas Movie Studio 13 (Which is inferior to Corel, but Sony branded) does not recognize these. But they all play fine on this Sony android phone. Thanks in advance for any assistance anyone may know about Sony.

John-T-Smith · Post by **John-T-Smith** » Fri Jun 30, 2017 3:13 pm

To find out what is inside the file, use the Free programs to get file information for PC/Mac http://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo/Download

aljimenez · Post by **aljimenez** » Fri Jun 30, 2017 4:51 pm

If VLC does not play the files, then Corel's VS is never going to play them either. Sony forums must have tons of discussions about this and that's where you need to learn about how to make the files play.

One suggestion is to get Format Factory and see if the files can be converted to mp4. Sometimes Format Factory can read an mp4 that is not playing and convert it into an mp4 that does play.

Post by **lata** » Fri Jun 30, 2017 5:16 pm

Doing a Google search seems to indicate a problem for most users

One reply from here
https://talk.sonymobile.com/t5/PC-Mac-S ... d-p/363542

Quote:-
Re: Can't play videos I record on xperia ST27i
I think I've found the problem.
If I copy the files using Windows Explorer, they will play in Windows Media Player without any problems.

If I copy them using the Sony Software (Sony PC Companion), they will not play in Windows Media Player, iTunes, Quicktime or VLC.

Sort of defeats the purpose of using Sony PC Companion in my view.
Unquote:-

I would think the files are dedicated to the phone in the same way VSP’s are used by Video Studio. Would the Sony PC Companion give you the option to convert the files before uploading to your pc.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Fri Jun 30, 2017 7:34 pm

I have a Sony Xperia C5 smartphone -- not the same model as the one in question here, but pretty good nonetheless. I have never had any trouble playing/editing its video in either VS X9 or X10, plus other software players like VLC. In fact I have been pretty impressed by the quality.

But noting Trevor's post above, I might add that I have never used the Sony Xperia Companion to download the video to my computer. That never occurred to me, and I have always simply used Windows File Explorer to do so.

I have the latest version of Xperia Companion, but it does not have a conversion utility -- just transfer.

steven120566 · Post by **steven120566** » Fri Jun 30, 2017 10:11 pm

Thank you all very much for helping me....

So...I did a test. Shot a similiar 25 second clip on every quality setting of the phone, and for HD and FULL HD, I shot a clip each with the HDR switch on and each off. Anyway, seems to be working fine now. I assembled all the clips in Corel and created a final piece. All clips for the whole gamut of settings on my xperia phone vid-cam were read by Corel. Only difference is I just imported the files into my PC via normal windows file moving this time. Thank you for responses, much appreciated.

Davidk · Post by **Davidk** » Tue Jul 04, 2017 3:18 am

I thought the advice re Format Factory (FF) from Al was useful - I'm always looking for handy diagnosis tools. So I downloaded it and installed. And therein lies a tale of issues, so this is a word of warning about unwanted side effects of installing Format Factory, and why you may not want to have it.

Like a lot of freeware software, it comes with default options to install other software as well. I dislike that practice, so I check (use custom install) to see what else is in the package, and uncheck the install boxes when I find them. In this case, it became clear that I didn't get them all. The actual FF installation went well and the software started Ok. However . .

Next day using windows explorer to move files around as part of a VS project edit, right click on an image file to move (or cut) caused explorer to crash immediately I next used the right click button (as in, "pasteing"). Consistently, same items, or different ones in different folders. With experimentation, I found that left click and drag worked and didn't crash the explorer program.

So I went looking for why. An inspection of the desktop showed 2 extra program icons that I had not noticed (picosmos tools - see my earlier remark about missed items) so I ran control panel and uninstalled them. Cclean delete, reg check and then reboot and re test - some improvement, but still mostly failed in cut or moving files. More work needed.

Next, I thought it may have been a side effect of the recent monthly MS updates, so 1st stop was the windows answer site and a search on 'right click causes explorer to crash' - and there's a wealth of material there. This link in particular explained what the issue may be (a badly coded context menu added by some programs) and how to fix it
http://www.winhelponline.com/xp/slowrightclick.htm

And notably, Format Factory was the most recently added program and explorer only began to misbehave after that event: rt click on a folder or file and examine all the context items in the panel. I observed that Format Factory had added a context menu item in the rt click panel - select it and FF opens. Clearly, one way of fixing the problem was to uninstall FF, but using the disable context menu approach described in the web article may mean I could keep FF. So I used the link and downloaded the shellExView program, and ran into the same issue trying to move it to a tools folder: even an explorer rt click to create a new folder wasn't working. Got around that using 7zFM, and the left click and drag method.

After expanding and installing ShellExView, running it, and following the advice in the webpage (hide the MS extensions, view only context menu items) and disabling the Format Factory item, an explorer restart and the items in the rt-click panel (cut move new folder) are all working again. And the FF icon is still on the desktop. Clicked it, the UI opens and . . there's no provision in the UI to actually open (or input) a file for conversion. Obviously, that's what the context menu item was for: rt-click the file and choose FF and the file is available for conversion. A weird approach, but since that menu item kills explorer for other more frequently used functions, and the desktop icon become useless without it, FF becomes junk.

asik1 · Post by **asik1** » Tue Jul 04, 2017 5:34 am

Why the hell you still use/recommend Format Factory ?
I believe I brought to the table XMedia Recode in the past, not only is it very good, it can be used as portable with no installation at all.
http://www.xmedia-recode.de/en/download.html

Post by **Ken Berry** » Tue Jul 04, 2017 5:48 am

David -- if you look back to where a number of us in the past couple of years have recommended Format Factory, we have all been very careful to note that you need to watch all of the installation screens very closely as it tries to install the things you have found. I have never had the sort of problems you describe, and still use FF (and in fact just now have updated it!) But I also have a variety of other conversion programs... and yes asik, those include XMedia Recode!!

The easiest way to use FF is to drag and drop the video you want into it, though you can also use the right click menu method you mention.

Davidk · Post by **Davidk** » Tue Jul 04, 2017 8:06 am

Thanks Ken, Asik

I mentioned I looked out for extras, and missed some. Removing the FF entry in the context menu corrected the explorer crashing situation, but that basically also made FF unusable: the UI would load Ok from the desktop icon, but there's no other way (eg file/open) to specify an input file to convert. So (reluctantly) I removed it.

Then I tried xmediarecode. Did note that one did not need to install - expand the zip file and run the exe file. Tried converting a .mid file to .wav as an experiment, but after set up and looking thru all the parameters, there seems to be no button on the UI that says "do it". Even when it blinked at me (? done maybe) I could not find any converted file. Just not my day today.

asik1 · Post by **asik1** » Tue Jul 04, 2017 10:11 am

Davidk wrote:Thanks Ken, Asik

I mentioned I looked out for extras, and missed some. Removing the FF entry in the context menu corrected the explorer crashing situation, but that basically also made FF unusable: the UI would load Ok from the desktop icon, but there's no other way (eg file/open) to specify an input file to convert. So (reluctantly) I removed it.

Then I tried xmediarecode. Did note that one did not need to install - expand the zip file and run the exe file. Tried converting a .mid file to .wav as an experiment, but after set up and looking thru all the parameters, there seems to be no button on the UI that says "do it". Even when it blinked at me (? done maybe) I could not find any converted file. Just not my day today.

I don't see that it can do mid>wav at all.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Tue Jul 04, 2017 10:18 am

And as I said above, with FF you drag and drop with Windows File Explorer...

Post by **lata** » Tue Jul 04, 2017 1:52 pm

Hi Guys

The original poster did not need to convert the video so no need for FF or XMR
Unless of course the video uses a variable frame rate that may cause problems.

First time I have used XRM, a bit of a learning curve with a few test converts to check settings.
David not sure I understand your comment regarding “there seems to be no button on the UI that says "do it".”

Top of panel Add to Queue, Encode icon becomes active, that “Does it”

Oh. The file I downloaded from Asik’s link installed the program, it was not stand alone, the program shows in Program and Features.
Was able to convert my mts to m2ts using interlacing, I think FF only supports progressive?
A little unsure how to set conversion properties, but just a learning curve.

steven120566
apologies we seem to have hijacked your post.

asik1 · Post by **asik1** » Tue Jul 04, 2017 2:12 pm

Scrolling down a bit get you to the portable version.

Davidk · Post by **Davidk** » Wed Jul 05, 2017 12:09 am

Hi,
Trevor/Asik
I downloaded the portable version. And did try the queue/encode buttons without seeing any result. I'll try again.

Edit update
Using the Xmedia queue and encode buttons in sequence seems to be the way it works. I think I may have been trying one or other but not both.

Ken,
Drag and drop using explorer works to copy a file into a folder. So, getting FF to execute on a file using this technique seems unusual. How, specifically? without the FF item in the rt-click menu and with FF icon on desktop.

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Clips shot on Sony Xperia phone "unknown format"

Clips shot on Sony Xperia phone "unknown format"

Re: Clips shot on Sony Xperia phone "unknown format"

Re: Clips shot on Sony Xperia phone "unknown format"

Re: Clips shot on Sony Xperia phone "unknown format"

Re: Clips shot on Sony Xperia phone "unknown format"

Re: Clips shot on Sony Xperia phone "unknown format"

Re: Clips shot on Sony Xperia phone "unknown format"

Re: Clips shot on Sony Xperia phone "unknown format"

Re: Clips shot on Sony Xperia phone "unknown format"

Re: Clips shot on Sony Xperia phone "unknown format"

Re: Clips shot on Sony Xperia phone "unknown format"

Re: Clips shot on Sony Xperia phone "unknown format"

Re: Clips shot on Sony Xperia phone "unknown format"

Re: Clips shot on Sony Xperia phone "unknown format"

Re: Clips shot on Sony Xperia phone "unknown format"