Apple Problem Opening mov file: “the file is not a movie file”

Apple Problem Opening mov file: “the file is not a movie file”

Hi,

With regards to your query,  the video file you are trying to play is currently in a "spanned" state as shown in the extension of the file name in the picture you provided.

Spanned files are generally caused by recording a video longer than what your device' memory initially has. What the device does is to "span" the file and, in turn, add an extension known as "spanning". The clips you shot after exceeding the memory limit of your device is then saved on another drive that is supposed to be present on your device.

The process of "Importing" or transferring these files to your mac would require you to transfer all of your spanned file and then extracting the video out of them.

Having them on play-back is pretty simple. In order to properly have them on play back, first you have to rename the files and remove the "spanned" extension after the .mov extension. You can do this by clicking the icon, renaming it and then editing the name of the file and removing the ".spanned" from the file name. After you've done this to all of your files, you have to put all the files together on the destination you wish to have them placed. Then, you have to play them in chronological sequence under Quicktime as to which spanned files came in first.

I hope this was able to help you with your query.

Regards,

Bob

Apple Problem Opening mov file: “the file is not a movie file”

An MOV file (.mov) that includes a SPANNED extension (.spanned) is a splitted MOV file. Normally, if you have a big MOV movie file and you want to save space in your hard drive, you can split the file into smaller segments. This means your spanned MOV file has other spanned files that complete the entire file.

To convert it back to MOV instead of being in a spanned state, you need to have all the spanned files together and merge them into one MOV file. To merge your spanned files into one file, you can use iSkysoft MOV Video Converter for Mac. First, download and install iSkysoft MOV Video Converter for Mac. Once installed, run the program. You can drag and drop files to the program.

You can also go to the File menu and select Load Media Files and then locate the MOV files you want to add. After loading all the MOV files, select MOV as output format. This converts all the files in MOV format. Finally, merge all the MOV files. To merge, check Merge located at the bottom of the window then click Convert.

This converts all the MOV files into one continuous MOV movie. Just select any format you want for the output file like MP4, WMV, AVI, FLV, MPG, and others.