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Fixing Broken DV Files in iMovie

Since my resource forks were blown away by Backup, a lot of the iMovies I've kept on disk failed to work because all of the "Clip"s in the Media folder were wiped of their creator code and file type. If I added ".dv" to the files, iMovie complained that it could not locate the files.

So, SetFile -t 'dvc!' -c 'Hway' Clip* worked fine. Pain in the butt, granted, but at least my movies work again.

4 Responses to "Fixing Broken DV Files in iMovie"

  1. why the hell does iMovie still use filetypes/creator types? Stupid Apple, not following their own advice.

  2. I think the latest version creates files with the .dv suffix, but projects "upgraded" from previous versions do not rename the files to add the extensions.

  3. Thanks for writing me back, sorry that I emailed you directly.... anyway, here's the deal:

    I recorded a test movie from a dv camcorder in iMovie, and it worked perfectly. I can play the file with no problems. Since the test file worked, I recorded what I needed with the exact same setup (directly from the DV camera into iMovie). iMovie made a 16 Gb file (it was over an hour of recording) which I still have, but it will not open in iMovie or quicktime. I feel like the headers are busted or something.... but I have no way of knowing for sure.

    I have both the iMovie test recording (the working one) and the important recording (the not working one) so I could use one or the other for reference. Any idea on how I might go about fixing the file I need?

    Thanks to whomever can help me!

  4. [quote comment="46157"]I have both the iMovie test recording (the working one) and the important recording (the not working one) so I could use one or the other for reference. Any idea on how I might go about fixing the file I need?[/quote]

    What version of iMovie are you using? What does the file look like when viewed in the Finder? Can you drag it into an iMovie project? What does the "info" window look like (including its default application)? If you use GetFileInfo on the command line, what's the output?