QuickTime- an Apple’s patented media player distributed over Mac and Windows systems (free basic edition). QuickTime player supports Movie (.mov), MPEG-4(.mp4, .m4v), MPEG-2 (OS X Lion or later), MPEG-1, 3GPP, 3GPP2, AVCHD (OS X Mountain Lion or later), AVI (Motion JPEG only), and DV video formats.
iTunes Audio (.m4a, .m4b, .m4p), MP3, Core Audio (.caf), AIFF, AU, SD2, WAV, SND, and AMR audio files.
But sometimes, you can’t open your file in QuickTime Player. This might be due to codec issue, software update, filename inaccuracy or corruption.
Codec Issue:
All digital videos are the outcome of compression. During compression, multiple media streams (like audio and video) are adjoined using an algorithm called codec, that deciphers digital info into a readable format.
Once the media is processed via codecs, they are consequently combined into a single file via multimedia container. If your file failed to open in QuickTime player, then it is probable that the computer is not prepared to read the file’s codec.
You can find-out the codec of an opened file in Window tab of QuickTime player menu by selecting Show Movie Inspector. All media’s codecs will be listed under the Format section.
So, activate the required codec support for QuickTime in order to play the file which is not opening. Some programs you try to do this are MPEG-2 Playback Component, DivX, Xvid, Autodesk etc.
These are the QuickTime supported codec:
Video Codec: MPEG-2 (OS X Lion or later), MPEG-4 (Part 2), H.264, H.263, H.261
Audio Codec: AAC (MPEG-4 Audio), HE-AAC, Apple Lossless, MP3
Software Issue:
If QuickTime fails to open your file, then it seems your application installation is outdated or incompatible. The QuickTime player may be too old and thus it is not able to read the file. So, update your player first.
But, when it comes to updating the QuickTime version, it is not obligatory to uninstall it completely then, re-install. All you need to do is just switch to Help tab on the QuickTime player window and choose Update Existing Software. Follow on-screen instructions and complete the update process.
Filename Inaccuracy:
File extension tells what type of data is stored in a file. It also specifies which type of player should be used to open the file. But, file extensions are prone to modification. They can be easily edited.
As a result, your QuickTime player fails to open the file. So, analyze the file which you cannot open in QuickTime and confirm if it has the right extension. You can use free tools like MediaInfo, FileAlyzer, etc. for this purpose.
File Corruption:
If your file fails to load in other media players apart from QuickTime (like iTunes, VLC, etc.), then it seems the file is corrupted.
So, repair you file that you are trying to open in QuickTime with the help of an efficient repair tool. If it is a QuickTime MOV file, MP4 file or MOV file then try Yodot MOV Repair. This is the effective fix for all corrupted, inaccessible, damaged, error showing and non-playing videos. Even you can repair a non-playing AVI, XVID, and DIVX video files with the help of Yodot.
