How does one export a quicktime file from iMovie that can be added to a web page?

October 19, 2006 11:46 PM

How does one export a quicktime file from iMovie that can be added to a web page?

I am helping someone put a Quicktime movie on his website. He has iMovie on his Mac and I have a PC. He has exported his movie in Quicktime format and burned the movie on a disk (which he mailed me) and also uploaded a copy onto the web server directly. When I add the movie to his webpage, only the Quicktime Q comes up with a question mark. When I download the file and double-click or play from CD, I get "Error -2048: the file is not a movie file:

I can view random Quicktime movies on the web (like movie previews) and even downloaded one onto my computer and it plays when I double-click.

Maybe someone has an idea where this incompatibility lies and what I need to tell him to do to get a file I can use?

posted by traderjoefan to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Have you tried embedding in an HTML page?

http://cit.ucsf.edu/embedmedia/step1.php

There's a handy generator for embedding various media files into webpages..

Here's the deep link to QT - Web Server (not streaming)

http://cit.ucsf.edu/embedmedia/step3_qtv2.php

Matt
posted by mattdini at 12:31 AM on October 20, 2006

• iMovie 6.0 Help: Saving your movie as a QuickTime movie
• Including QuickTime In A Web Page
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:33 AM on October 20, 2006

As a quick test I created a test project in iMovie 6.0.3, exported using the standard "Web" settings (which result in a QT movie with 320x240 12 fps H.264 video and AAC audio). I uploaded the .mov file directly to my web server using FTP and then entered the URL into Safari. It played fine. Perhaps you have MIME encoding problems on your server? Is the QT file being uploaded as a binary file? Are you uploading using something that uses binhex or applesingle to preserve resource forks? If you are, are you certain your server understands these formats?
posted by RichardP at 12:55 AM on October 20, 2006

Oh, if I wasn't being clear, you don't have to be using a server that understands resources forks; just don't try to use a client that wants to preserve them with a server that won't understand them.
posted by RichardP at 12:57 AM on October 20, 2006

Is he able to view the QuickTime movie on his Mac? Do you have the latest version of QuickTime on your PC?
posted by chrismear at 4:30 AM on October 20, 2006

I've found that you need to *not* use the latest and greatest (and default) codecs when exporting from a Mac for the web because while most Macs will keep QuickTime up to date via Software Updates, unless the PC is running (and upgrading) iTunes they can easily have an old version quicktime. You can update QT on your PC but if this is going to the web you should plan for a lower common denominator.

Try using older video and audio codecs to export. This page of charts is confusing cause the keys are on the right hand side, but it shows that Sorensen 3 goes all the way back to QT5.

Google Sorensen 3, Export QuickTime, etc. for more tips.
posted by JulianDay at 7:17 AM on October 20, 2006