Sep 09, '09 07:30:05AM • Contributed by: robelkin
This may or may not work in all situations, but if you are struggling with opening a video file using the new QuickTime Player in Snow Leopard, this may help you.
I have found that Quicktime X has a little bit of an issue with opening video files that have an AC3 soundtrack. When I attempt to open a file with an AC3 soundtrack, QuickTime will state that "The document could not be opened." These files work without an issue in QuickTime 7 on Snow Leopard, so I know the files are fine.
The solution to this issue is to open the file in QuickTime 7, remove the AC3 soundtrack from the file, and then re-save it. That way, you will be using the stereo track for your sound (should it exist). You can do this by going to the Window » Show Movie Properties dialog and deleting the AC3/Surround track, and ticking the box beside the Stereo track. Re-save and you should be able to open in QT X.
A couple of things to note:
- Once you re-save the file, you can't get the original AC3 soundtrack back, so you may want to consider not overwriting your existing files for this workaround, as you will be able to go back to them once QuickTime X is updated to support AC3.
- Front Row does not seem to be affected by this issue; perhaps it is using a different version of the QuickTime framework, or the framework is not the issue and the QuickTime Player application which uses the framework is the issue.
- You have to completely remove the AC3 soundtrack; disabling it in favor of the stereo track is not going to work (at least it did not for me).
[robg adds: I can't test this one, as I don't have any AC3-enabled movies on my machine -- please post in the comments if you can confirm (or not!) the existence of the problem. Another playback option, of course, is to just continue using the QuickTime 7 Player in Snow Leopard, which is what I've done in general (as I dislike the UI in the new QuickTime Player).]
