Video conversion problem from .MOV to .MP4

[hrh747]

Good morning,

I have recorded two videos with my Iphone 4s. The size of the files are 1.7GB and 93MB respectively and they are in .MOV format. I have transferred these video files onto my HP note book running Windows 10. Using ConverterLite software, I was able to convert the smaller file (the 93B one) into .MP4 format. The problem is the larger file (the 1.7GB one) that doesn't convert. The error msg from the ConverterLite ==> "FFmpeg is unable to extract any valid video or audio from the input file". I tried to use the VLC player to see if I can play this file in its current format of .MOV and the VLC doesn not recognize the input's format! Similar error message with the Windows Media Player. I tried to import the file in to Window Movie Maker software and there is similar error msg there as well. However despite these issues this file plays fine in the Iphone with clear picture and sound.

Any idea, what might be the problem?
Thanks in advance.

Joe

[LigH.de]

The problem is most probably the transfer. I believe that there can be issues with large files, depending on the method to read the file out of the device. I remember there was a recommended software named iExplorer for Windows, which was once free but is commercial now... There may be others.

If the videos are on a removable memory card, the most reliable way is probably to put it into a reader in a PC. But somehow I doubt that Apple devices are this user friendly. I don't have any iDevice (mostly due to financial reasons).

[hrh747]

Thanks for your reply, so what you 're saying is that I am out of luck at this moment. I am only hope for a solution cause that file video has very critical information

[LigH.de]

At least this would be my guess. I wonder if MediaInfo can tell more about the MOV, but if it fails too, you probably got a bad copy from your phone to your PC. Try to transfer it again. Try to transfer it with a different tool if your previous attempts did not give you a correct copy.

[hrh747]

With Iphone photo and video transfer, once the cable is connected the Iphone appears as a drive on the list of Windows drives. Since the file was large and it had filled up the Iphone storage area, so I had no choice but to perform a cut-n-paste from Iphone drive onto the notebook's C: drive. I have no other copy of the video file any more, if I didn't cut-n-paste the file, my phone wouldn't function properly due to lack of storage. I am awful sad .....

Thanks,
Joe

[LigH.de]

What a pity.

In the future, better don't trust the Windows transfer functions, they are known as unreliable. And always keep the original file until you know the copy is good...

[Cornucopia]

You also may not need to convert. Mp4 and mov are sister formats, so you can probably get by with just renaming the extension.

Scott

[hrh747]

Thanks Scott, the renaming didn't change anything, it complains about corrupted format. I guess as stated earlier, the file transmission of size 1.7GB is not a good thing under Windows.

[betruek]

Compress the large file to a smaller size with a video tool, it's better you could choose a tool that can save mov to mp4 as well as compress the video at the same time.

[Cornucopia]

No, further compression is not the best answer. Phone-recorded videos are already tremendously compressed as it is. Find and use a transfer tool that guarantees successful copying using checksums and comparison. For the next time, at least.
On the Windows side, that might be something like Teracopy.

Btw, I don't know if anyone has considered this, but there is the possibility that the file was already corrupt on the phone.

Scott

[smrpix]

Have you tried to transfer with itunes? If you edited your video on the phone, it's highly likely something Apple-proprietary happened to it, and using Apple's own tools to transfer it is probably worth a shot.

[hrh747]

Hi, Thanks for all the inputs. Using a software like iTune makes perfect sense but as I mentioned earlier in the thread, the phone's memory was full and iTune had problem with sync, so the only option I had was to cut-n-paste the file from the iPhone drive to the Windows drive, something that I rarely do. The so called corrupted video file was working fine on the iPhone. Unless, there is a software that can repair a corrupt .mov file, I just have to accept the loss.