How to edit uncooperative .MOV files into a movie?

[WaWMoose]

so for a school project we filmed using one of the school cameras, which i can't get a hold of again, and we put all the parts on a flash drive, and i moved them onto my laptop yesterday

Ive been trying for 7.5 hours straight to find anyway to edit these ******* videos into a movie but they don't want to work, WMM and Pinnacle VideoSpin, which support .mov are saying the files arent able to be opened, no other editor i tried is accepting them either. Ive tried converting it in about 8 different ******* formats, .wmv, .avi etc but they still dont open in the editors. The files themselves are only opening with iTunes and Quicktime, even Windows media player, real player or any other player i have is not playing them.

Sorry for my language but I'm getting very frustrated right now becuz of the time ive wasted looking at this screen but im determined to ******* solve these mystery files.

So is there anyway i can edit them with itunes maybe? or quicktime? becuz theyre not opening with anything else whatsoever. im talking some basic editing, cropping, adding a little bit of music and a title screen, not really asking for much am i?

Help would be very appreciated becuz im frustrated as hell right now

[Baldrick]

Try convert to avi with mp4camtoavi. Or edit with mpeg streamclip or avidemux.

[hech54]

I suspect an upgrade to Quicktime Pro will solve the problem of editing them....I doubt it will be easy to go any further to your final objective with it though(adding a music track).
I have in the past converted my iPod Touch videos to DVD/MPEG2 with WinFF first(taking care to select the correct preset/widescreen or full screen)...then open in a regular editor (I mainly use Magix Movie Edit when extra audio tracks are involved).
I'd try converting a small file of yours in this way, see if it opens in your favorite editor, checking to see if it didn't take a huge quality hit in the process. My vids are mostly for YouTube so impeccable quality is not my concern.

[dLee]

I've had good luck extracting content from the .mov container with VLC's Convert / Stream function.

I'm starting to think of the .mov container as a paywall - not the usual definition of the term, but I can't think of a better one - "vendor lock-in" doesn't quite describe it.

[Cornucopia]

For true compatibility, work your way through the chain...

You used a camera. What camera? What does their website say about the codec/format?
Look at various pro NLE sites. They list what cameras are supported. Find the one(s) that support your camera.

Or just pay the $29 and use QT Pro to convert to something you know you can already work with...

Scott

[WaWMoose]

What ended up happening is that I mpeg4 streamclip, but not to edit, instead to convert/export as avi and now it works with the other editors, so thanks Baldrick!! Thanks to the rest that answered as well, i learned alot from this about editing

[ZenGeekDad]

WHAT WORKS:

(1) Video ReDO 4. Frame-accurate copies, and (therefore) extremely fast, and with zero quality loss. Only downside is no batch mode (hmm, or maybe I just haven't looked), but otherwise it's so fast and with zero degradation, it's a major winner in my book.

(2) Prism Video File Converter (by NCH Software). About a year ago, I used the trial version for 30 days, and worked fine. No weird surprises or long mysteries to solve. But NCH software tends to be invasive, and so I have been a little reluctant to rebuy from them. And not as fast as VideoReDo, nor frame-accurate (that I could tell).

WHAT MIGHT WORK:

(3) VLC Media Player. Seems to have tons of options for converting, but I haven't messed with it enough to figure out how to get it to work. A brief attempt resulted in a fast error message about a missing codec. May be straightforward to fix, but I haven't climbed that learning curve.

WHAT DOES NOT SEEM TO WORK:

(4) I have had zero luck using QuickTime Pro to convert .MOV files. Is very slow. Does weird things like abort without explanation, or producing audio-only files when the conversion selections clearly called for a video output file. Maybe just nube errors, but regardless this route is -- at best -- neither straightforward nor easy.

(5) Similarly, my camera's (Nikkon D7000) bundled software (ViewNX 2) allows basic movie editing, but only saves your edited movies as .MOV files. (Closed loop universe trap.)

[Cornucopia]

Those WERE likely newbie errors, sorry. It (QT) IS slow, but doesn't crash very often if you have it set up right. Audio-only from video+audio means you don't understand what is going on under the hood and are trying to make it do something it shouldn't. Very much depends on which formats you are supplying it with. If cam files, the ones it would have the most trouble with would be MPEG2, as it needs a $ plugin to make use of.

Regardless of whether it "works" and is fast, I would never recommend ANY NCH bloated, invasive payware to anyone.

I have to ask: why are you responding to a ~3 1/2 year old post?

Scott

[ZenGeekDad]

I have to ask: why are you responding to a ~3 1/2 year old post?Scott

Yeah, I’ve noticed that forum regulars have a thing about bumping old posts. Maybe you can (gently, please) explain why that is such a no-no? I’m sure there’s some side of it I just don’t get, not being a specialist at any one forum.

Why bump old posts? They are on page 1 of every Google search. Until Google stops sorting hits based on number of web references to a site, and starts sorting based on newness, old posts will remain what Google searches find first and fast.

I have many times tried to drill into an individual forum’s archives to find newer posts that address my concern. But that has always been orders-of-magnitude less time-efficient. In-site search engines tend to be very inferior to Google (for concept matching). And Google searches are not limited to just one site.

I assume (right or wrong) that the vast majority of information seekers are generalists, and not single forum users. So, they too will first find the old post I found (via Google). And, if there is any info that I can add (that I would have found helpful, had it been in the post), then I add it. Regardless of any inconvenience to site experts, this seems to serve a vastly larger audience in a way that new thread creation cannot. Consider: new threads will take time to get on page one of Google searches, if they in fact ever make it there.

Make sense? Or am I missing something very basic?

My best guess for the argument against bumping old posts would run like this: “Most users don’t search old posts for information. That takes too much time. So they just post their question, and take whatever they get from today’s batch of available experts. For forum experts used to this flow, bumping old posts forces them to read the back material that they would not normally have to read. This mental friction is what forum experts hate. Trying to field a large number of requests for free help is hard enough, without having to work through TLDR back-matter.”

Am I on track? Or is there more to it? Would love an insider's perspective.

Thanks.

[ZenGeekDad]

Regardless of whether it "works" and is fast, I would never recommend ANY NCH bloated, invasive payware to anyone

Thanks for that perspective; it matches mine (if you noticed). Nice to get 3rd party validation that my experience with NCH was not my imagination.

[ZenGeekDad]

Those WERE likely newbie errors, sorry. It (QT) IS slow, but doesn't crash very often if you have it set up right. Audio-only from video+audio means you don't understand what is going on under the hood and are trying to make it do something it shouldn't. Very much depends on which formats you are supplying it with. If cam files, the ones it would have the most trouble with would be MPEG2, as it needs a $ plugin to make use of.

Cool. Thanks for the input. I didn't have reason to work through whether QTP's first-effort glitches were bugs or just learning curve ... since VideoReDo works so gloriously on .MOV conversion. But I'm sure that anyone with QTP but not VideoReDo must appreciate hearing that QTP is a viable option (after a little effort).

[racer-x]

I don't mind people bumping old threads as long as they have useful information to add to an existing problem. I don't have that Nikon camera, but I do have a Canon t2i that records to mov (probably very similar to your Nikon) and never had any issues editing the native mov. A lot has changed in the past 3 years that makes this thread obsolete.

[Krispy Kritter]

Largely because the OP isn't likely to return for the information. And in regards to topics like this one, where software is involved, pretty much ALL of the tools mentioned have had updates or been replaced with a newer version. Which means the issue is likely irrelevant. Better to wait for someone to ask for help with a similar issue and provide information based on current tools.

[ZenGeekDad]

...

[ZenGeekDad]

Largely because the OP isn't likely to return for the information. And in regards to topics like this one, where software is involved, pretty much ALL of the tools mentioned have had updates or been replaced with a newer version. Which means the issue is likely irrelevant. Better to wait for someone to ask for help with a similar issue and provide information based on current tools.

Thanks; interesting.

If we agree that ...

[Post views]:[post contributors] ~ 10:1 to 100:1.

... then we see forum threads less as intimate conversations focused on the OP, and more as a repository of recurring concerns which broad audiences peruse for solutions and insights.

And, yes, all threads must eventually age out of relevance. But I came here in May 2015 currently having the same problem with *.MOV files. And all the conversion software I described are 100% up-to-date (not 2012 versions). I added information that I would have found beneficial, having come here, not found it, and then running the trials myself (just now, in May 2015, using up-to-date software). Yes, the capture software is still the original firmware on my 3-year old Nikon, but not many people change $1000 camera bodies every year, so I doubt I'm alone in experiencing this in 2015.

I hope that doesn't read as huffy; I'm just trying to share a perspective that might not be obvious to hardcore forum regulars.

[ZenGeekDad]

I don't mind people bumping old threads as long as they have useful information to add to an existing problem. I don't have that Nikon camera, but I do have a Canon t2i that records to mov (probably very similar to your Nikon) and never had any issues editing the native mov. A lot has changed in the past 3 years that makes this thread obsolete.

In theory perhaps; but in practice not that I could see -- see my reply #15 in this thread.

[racer-x]

Then post a short 10 sec clip. I'm quite sure I can give you at least 3 different ways to edit the source footage that you didn't already mention.......

I said it before and I'll say it again, this thread is obsolete and redundant.