Older Movie File Formats in Photos

[Aragornii]

I have about 1.3TB of old family movies imported into iMovie from an HD camcorder. They're about 10 to 15 years old, 1080i, in ".MOV" format, and some older standard def video in ".dv" format.

They are in my "iMovie Library", and if I select "Show Package Contents" I can see all the original imported videos in there. I want to import these into Photos so they can be with all my other photos and videos, and because I don't use iMovie any longer.

iMovie handles the files without any difficulty, but if I try to import them into Photos I get and unsupported file error message, and QuickTime won't play them either (if I want to watch the clips directly I use VLC).

Any suggestions as to how I can either make these ready for Photos or import them directly from iMovie to Photos? I am hesitant to go through a massive video transcoding exercise as there are thousands of clips, and they are irreplaceable. I'd hate to downgrade the quality in any way, although a more efficient file format would be a plus.

 

[kryten2]

I'm sure there are lots of apps that can do this. A simple test is to open Terminal application :

ffmpeg -i input.mov -vcodec copy -acodec copy output.mp4

Replace input.mov by dragging a file from the Finder into the Terminal window. If all goes well there should be an output.mp4 file in your home folder.
Info : Ffmpeg

 

[Aragornii]

I'm sure there are lots of apps that can do this. A simple test is to open Terminal application :

ffmpeg -i input.mov -vcodec copy -acodec copy output.mp4

Replace input.mov by dragging a file from the Finder into the Terminal window. If all goes well there should be an output.mp4 file in your home folder.
Info : Ffmpeg

I downloaded ffmpeg and couldn't get it to work. Terminal commands are a little out of my comfort zone.

I tried converting a few with Handbrake. Does that do essentially the same thing as ffmpeg?

On the plus side, the files I convert end up about 10% of their original size and appear to be about the same quality. On the minus side I lose the metadata when I do it that way. Since these are primarily baby videos, date and time of filming is important. For the files that I can copy directly into Photos, the date and time of filming is preserved. When I transcode using Handbrake, they are tagged with the current date/time.

Any suggestions as to how I can do what I want to do without losing the metadata?

 

[kryten2]

I downloaded ffmpeg and couldn't get it to work. Terminal commands are a little out of my comfort zone.

That's a bit vague. Can you post a screenshot of the Terminal window with what you tried?

I tried converting a few with Handbrake. Does that do essentially the same thing as ffmpeg?

I'm guessing Handbrake uses ffmpeg behind the scenes but I could be wrong. The example given takes video/audio from one container and copies it to another container eg. mp4 whithout transcoding.

Any suggestions as to how I can do what I want to do without losing the metadata?

There might be some useful info about that in another thread here.

Info: ffworks