Vegas 6.0 Won't Accept mov file

[solarblast]

I tried putting a mov on the timeline, but it failed. The file came from a special video application. The mov file will play on real player and QT. I was told to try Gspot. I know little about it, but I opened the file in it and it gave me almost zero info. It shows file type as QT, mine type as video/quicktime and create/modify dates. Otherwise, there's not one drop of info in the video or audio sections. Is it possible this is a QT file that has no codec?

BTW, I tried another mov file not written the app, and it works fine.

[guns1inger]

How about a little less information. We don't need to know, for instance, the application that created the file. Knowing that might provide useful information such as the compression being used, and we would not want to know that.

We also would not want you to try any other video identifiers, such as media info or video inspector, as they may also provide the type of useful information we try so hard to avoid.

But having been a member for so long, you would understand how giving as little information as possible gets you the best answers.

[edDV]

MOV is a container (like a coffee cup). It can contain many beverages (codecs).

[Baldrick]

You could just try convert it to avi using mpeg streamclip or quicktime pro.

[solarblast]

Shirley, you jest.

In this case, knowing details is unlikely to help. Here's the problem. It's a program written for meteor research, and is written in (OOP) Python. I can send you the code, but I don't think it's going to help. I can post the mov file, 800K, the code and what Gspot shows on the screen. I can probably find a smaller mov file. I did not write the program.

Personally, I have little knowledge of codec and the like, but I'm certainly curious about what's happening and will help as best I can by running anything that will give a clue about the problem.

My interest here is that I have some 100 such meteor movies (mov) that I thought would make an interesting movie for the public and others.

[joepic]

Convert your .MOV file to .MP4 using the free program XviD4PSP. I am sure it will work in Vegas then.

[solarblast]

My aging PC is going to get muscle bound on all the video programs it needs to support Vegas and related interests. There must be hundreds of such programs. Perhaps when I bump up to Vista, I'll convert it entirely to Video.

I'll give your suggestion a shot.

The downside of downloading all these programs is the penalty of moving them forward to Vista or even uninstalling them. On the latter, I guess it's just a matter of deleting the folder the program in which one finds the exe file.

[solarblast]

OK, a friend produced this from Super. See attachment.

[guns1inger]

Don't use SUPER if you can help it. Much better quality will be obtained by using Xvid4PSP.

That said, you could try installing FFDShow, then ticking the DirectShow box in SUPER before encoding.

[solarblast]

It looks like I need Framework for that program. I'm currently waiting for the hour glass to end on a download of for XP Pro. I may have to pick it off another machine. I finally talked to the guy who wrote the Python code 4-5 years ago. I think he collaborated with someone else, and doesn't recall much, including anything about a codec.

In the meantime, I tried Media Convert too, and it failed. <http://media-convert.com/> on going to avi and wmv.

[solarblast]

OK, I installed XvD4PSP with Framework 3.5 (not 3.0), and opened my mov file. In a short period, it produced a message that says FFmpegSource: No Video track found. What next? I then used a mov file taken from a resource other than the software app I'm using. No messages. It's ready to go to the next step. Of course, I'm not really interested in this file.

[guns1inger]

Have you tried media info or video inspector to try to get more information about the file ?

Can you post a sample so we can look into it ourselves ?

You still have not provided enough information to get anything but general suggestions.

[solarblast]

A sample of what? Would you like the Python program? What part of anything I've done do you want? Screen images of the output of any program I've run? Would you like the 6M mov file? Ah, here. I found a 420K version of the same thing, and Vegas doesn't like it, but QT will play it. I'm attaching it.

Have fun. I think I'm going to brush up on Python Media, and take the original stack of images and create an avi file from them. I see an example program that does this for stills to bmp, and then back to stills. It's only 60 lines of code. It should be possible to go from the "stills" I can create to avi. A little weekend project.





v20070923_230731_dashdot.mov

[guns1inger]

That's what we need. Your problem is you can't open the file in Vegas, yet you can't tell us anything useful about the file other than it comes form an old, custom written program and the people who wrote it can't remember anything about what they did. A sample of the video at least lets us see what you are wrestling with, as you seem incapable of finding out what is in it yourself.

I have opened the mov file in quicktime pro and found your problem - it isn't a video. It is a still image background with an animated sprite overlaid on it. I have exported the file as a standard H264 MOV file. Vegas should be able to open this.

v20070923_230731_dashdot%20rebuild.mov

Note : You need quicktime pro to be able to export the sprite based files as real videos.

[solarblast]

At least we are getting on the right track. No pun intended. (Ha!) Unfortunately, I still can't open the new file on the track in Vegas. My "standard" for demonstrating that I can works just fine. My drag just turns into a barred circle when it reaches the track area. That doesn't happen with my standard, it puts it into a track.

[guns1inger]

You are using an old version of Vegas, so perhaps it isn't happy with H264. Newer versions should handle it just fine.

Try this one : It is larger because of the compression used (basic mpeg 4)

v20070923_230731_dashdot_rebuild_2.mov

Edit : I just opened and played both of my versions in Vegas 7.0 without any problems. It won't open your original file though.

Edit 2 : Even if Vegas 6 won't open these files, you should find the convertors more disposed toward them because they are now video files. Try using SUPER or Xvid4PSP on them now.

[solarblast]

Congrats! You nailed it. Did you use QT Pro to produce the new file? If so, I might be interested in acquiring it (again! can't find the license). Can you detail what you did?

I only have 100+ of these to put on the timeline! Well, let's not worry about that, but the intent is to make a movie out of a lot of them. It should be quite something.

I might still enter the world of Python media. It has some potential for doing some interesting effects. BTW, I don't want the sprites, so there disappearance is good. Very good.

A friend ran the SUPER program. I'll worry about Xvid4PSP later when I'm awake.

G-day, mate. I'm going to bed. (I often pop up after 5 hours.)

[guns1inger]

Yes, I used QT Pro to do the export. In this case it was a simple export to Quicktime MOV using Basic Mpeg-4. You could also export it to DV-AVI if you wanted, but I wanted to keep the upload/download filesizes down. In the file you posted, the sprite was the shooting star. You can see the four corner points of the sprite in the video. I suspect it was done this way to keep the file sizes down and processing to a minimum, as the the sprite is only part of the video that actually changes.

[solarblast]

Yes, that's exactly right about the sprite. Ah, I see that the four corner points of the motion haven't gone away. I think the four corner points are part of the sprite or maybe separate from it. That is, the sprite is either 128x128 pixels, or it's that plus possibly some simple data that contains only four pixel point positions. The points are somewhat distracting but probably are OK. They are used to identify where the fireball is. Sometimes the tracks are faint.

rebuild_2 works fine in Xvid4PSP.

This is all good. I will be able to use Vegas (see next paragraph), and should be able to build a movie from the collection of fireball images I've collected. However, if the weather holds up for the next 2 weeks, I'll be turning to another facet of astronomy that I've neglected for the last 4-6 weeks. It looks like I'll be purchasing a new copy of QT Pro sometime soon.

Yes, my Vegas is getting old. I may have a few updates to use. I'm very likely to upgrade to 8.0 in the next month. I'm pondering a quad core Vista machine. My current machine is 5 years old, and getting stressed.

I've attached another file for your enjoyment. It's of a very impressive fireball from Aug. 2007 that flew over Sacramento, Calif. and burst somewhere over Yosemite National Park. That one had searchers running all over the wilderness for weeks trying to find any debris.

Thanks for the help.

v20070811_0005_burst.mov