Invalid public movie atom with digital camera videos?

I've shot videos with my digital camera, uploaded through iPhoto and edited on iMovie HD before
but a couple weeks ago I have not been able to upload on IPhoto:
Open on Quicktime:
Or edit on iMovie HD:
My least concern right now is being able to watch these videos because I can view them on the VLC player.
I urgently need to edit them on iMovie HD for class projects and want to know why this "Invalid public movie atom" came out from nowhere.
Can it be fixed? I am desperate for help with some videos I shot today in class because I need to edit them for Tuesday
Thank you!

I'm afraid I can't be of much help, except to tell you what the error means...
It means that at a very low level, something is messed up in your movie.
A QuickTime movie is made up of a heirarchy of containers, called "atoms". Atoms come in two varieties: atoms may contain other atoms, or they may contain data. The first four bytes of the atom give tthe length of the atom in bytes, the next four give the name of the atom, and the rest of the bytes are the data carried by that atom: either raw data or more atoms. The error is telling you that the structure of the movie is wrong, that the actual file does not match its description.
If you are truly lucky, then the problem is an invalid length specification for the top level "moov" atom. Normally, the first four bytes of a QuickTime movie give the length of the moov atom, which is equal to the total length of the file. Try making a copy of the movie and opening the copy with a hex editor. If the first four bytes are not the same as the length of the file, try fixing them and see if that repairs the movie. If not, then the problem is deeper and/or more complicated.
WARNING: Perform surgery ONLY on COPIES of your movies!
--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Similar Messages

'An invalid public movie atom was found in the movie' Error Message

I was just tidying up all the music in iTunes and came across an album that half the songs are unplayable... I get no action with iTunes. I tried opening one of them with Quicktime and I get the following message:
An invalid public movie atom was found in the movie
I wonder if there might be a fix. I have the original CD at home but I am traveling and won't be back for a few months...
Thanks!

I tried to play video clips on from lynda.com and the Q appears but only the audio plays.I am new to Mac and have no idea what to do. The same clips play on my windows pc just fine and that is version 7.3.

Invalid Public Movie Atom????? HELP!

I get this message for a home movie from my video camera.
"An invalid public movie atom was found in the movie" .... It was my absolute favorite movie and now it just doesn't work! Can anyone help?!?!

I'm afraid I can't be of much help, except to tell you what the error means...
It means that at a very low level, something is messed up in your movie.
A QuickTime movie is made up of a heirarchy of containers, called "atoms". Atoms come in two varieties: atoms may contain other atoms, or they may contain data. The first four bytes of the atom give tthe length of the atom in bytes, the next four give the name of the atom, and the rest of the bytes are the data carried by that atom: either raw data or more atoms. The error is telling you that the structure of the movie is wrong, that the actual file does not match its description.
If you are truly lucky, then the problem is an invalid length specification for the top level "moov" atom. Normally, the first four bytes of a QuickTime movie give the length of the moov atom, which is equal to the total length of the file. Try making a copy of the movie and opening the copy with a hex editor. If the first four bytes are not the same as the length of the file, try fixing them and see if that repairs the movie. If not, then the problem is deeper and/or more complicated.
WARNING: Perform surgery ONLY on COPIES of your movies!
--Dave Althoff, Jr.

QT "invalid public movie atom" problem - iPod Classic

I encountered a strange "invalid public movie atom" problem relating to my brand new iPod classic (80GB):
I used QTpro 7.4.1(14) to convert several movie/avi files for iPod (the standard procedure via the offered converting methods).
After copying them to the iPod via iTunes, they showed flawlessly on the iPod and i was also able to watch them on my TV.
Then i converted another file, copied it to iPod and tried to start the video, the result was a fuzzy green screen (like some encountered it with the album art) and the the iPod crashed (restarting automatically with the grey apple-logo screen).
I did this a second time, it crashed, and after restarting again, i tried it with one of the videos that worked fine before. One of them then caused the same problem, green fuzzy screen, restarting automatically!
When i tried to open these two files mentioned with QT from the movies folder in my iTunes library, i got the "invalid public movie atom" message and, well, the videos don´t play anymore. (keep in mind, they played before!)
Important: i did a clean install about two weeks ago, installing all updates (OSX, QT, iPod, etc.) before doing anything else. The first videos im talking about are older, but worked well after the cleaninstall/update procedure was done. Since then nothing was changed and now suddenly the problem appears?!
Some thoughts: i read here in other posts that A the iPod sometimes crashes because of that "album art problem", but that doesn´t have anything to do with video?! B since it worked before (the last days since i did the clean install) the bug , or whatever it is, "appeared" based on another issue?
Thx :-/
Hardware/Software involved: PowerMag G5 dual 2GHz., iPod Classic 80GB, OSX 10.5.2, QT 7.4.1(14), iTunes 7.6.1(9), iPod 1.1.1
I also posted this in the QT for Mac OS section:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1442446&tstart=0

There is a little piece of code that tells iTunes which movies can be played on iPod. It is called the iPod Atom. If you have a movie that is fully compatible with iPod BUT doesn't have this atom, it just won't sync regardless the movie can actually be played by the iPod. I have been having trouble with these little bastards myself...
My guess on your problem is that the converted movies weren't 100% compatible with your iPod but they had the atom so they synced. Some AVI movies plays partially on QT.
May I suggest that you instal Perian which adds a lot of codec handlers to Quicktime and try to re-encode some of them.
On my side, I have been trying to find how to insert the aforementioned iPod Atom on movies that have already been encoded so I don't have to re-encode them again... But that's my personal quest. Good Luck!
Alec
Costa Rica

'Invalid Public Movie Atom' after moved movies across HDD's

hi all.
im kind of freaking out because i have just lost over 1TB of movies when purchasing a new usb HDD.
now all i did was copy the movies from 1 USB hdd to another USB hdd and now they won't work, i get the error 'Invalid Public Movie Atom' or 'this is not a movie file'.
They are all .mp4
i tried dropping one of them into visualhub and it came up with an error.
is there a way to recover or fix all my movies.
edit: one of the movies happens to work. i have moved my data to a WD MyBook mirror edition, its status currently is RAID 0 +HFS, the moveis were on a MyBook 1TB formatted MacOS Extended (journaled)
Message was edited by: j4y Gr4y

Hi,
I suggest to start looking at this:
http://aeroquartet.com/movierepair/container%20structure%20correction.html
http://aeroquartet.com/movierepair/missing%20resource%20fork.html
'I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.'
Regards, BJ

An invalid public movie atom

HEEELP,
Is Apple letting me/us down.
I have terrabites of original QT files captured from camera that are all getting the massag:'An invalid public movie atom'
I discovered this when I had to re-edit a project I made a year ago. I constantly got the message :General Error' when rendering.
After hours of trying to find the bug I discovered that all my original media is corrupted and giving the massage:' An invalid public movie atom'
when I tried to open them with QT.
What to do????
André

We're talking native HDV streams here, correct?
If you can't find an appication that can decompress (or play) the source footage with your current setup, you're going to have to restore your system (or use a friend's system, if available) to the same software set up as when you were last able to open the files. For example, you might need to go back Mac OS X 10.6.8, QuickTime 7.6.6, Final Cut Pro 7.0.3 or further back to Mac OS X 10.5.11, QuickTime 6.x, Final Cut Pro 6.0.5, etc. Then, convert your HDV source to the Apple Intermediate Codec using Media Manager or Compressor. You could also use ApplePro Res422, but AIC is the codec that Apple implemented specifically for HDV footage.
Also, before committing too much time to this, convert one clip 1st and then test it. Although, any AIC or APR clips should be good to go in any recent version of Final Cut Express or Final Cut Pro (X included).
Unfortunately, it's not uncommon for a simple software change (like QuickTime 5 to QuickTime 6) to reak havock on your workflow.
One way to protect against this is to always have a bootable backup of your startup disk. Make sure that your "working" system is currently backed up and then run and/or install a software update. If things go all "atom" on you, you can restore your bootable backup and/or boot directly from it.
-Warren

Invalid public movie atom was found in movie

Mostly all my HDV files tonight I can't edit in FCP. Now what. Yesterday fine today I am screwd.
Apple you need to fix this problem.
What if any is the solution to this problem..
Clients can't wait for there work..

I had a similar issue with ProRes 4444 files in FCP. After poking around Creative Cow's forum and reading some other posts here, the problem may be with iTunes 10.5 or Security Update 2011-006 - one or both of these is causing random Quicktime files to return the "invalid public movie atom" error. I was in the middle of editing a film on FCP, took a two week break, came back to this error. I did a reformat and reinstall of Snow Leopard, reinstalled FCP, and it worked. The Quicktimes open and play down without a problem. I would avoid upgrading to iTunes 10.5 and the Security Update for the time being. Hope this helps, and here's another discussion on the same issue:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3273077?start=0&tstart=0

Invalid Public Movie Atom

Certain proxies will not playback on Mac or Windows clients and throw an error "The movie could not be opened - An invalid public movie atom was found in the movie". These proxies are mixed in with good proxies created at the same time, same path, same codec from nightly scans.
If we Analyze the same clip again, the proxy is recreated and is then playable without error.
Love to troubleshoot but not sure where to begin. Any ideas what the "atom" error refers to? Thanks.

This is a bug associated with QT 7.3; it's been cropping up with various video files and Apple so far hasn't responded with a fix.
Unfortunately in your situation there isn't any workaround other than outputting a file in another format - assuming iTunes/ATV will accept it.
I suggest calling Apple tech support and put in a trouble ticket; this "invalid public movie atom" issue is widespread and you're not alone but we need Apple to get cracking on a fix.

Movies taken with digital camera on sd cards

As a matter of organization should I keep these files with iphoto or move them to another location like where I keep my uploaded home movies that I take with a handicam?
Anytime I plug in my headcam which records on sd the mac thinks they are photo files and opens them with that rather than with imovie.
Any recomendations for where I store the files and which app (imovie vs iphoto) I use to view them??

iPhoto just organizes the movie files and uses Quicktime to play them. Most all video files on your HD will be opened by Quicktime. iMovie only imports QT files into its projects for editing and does play them. iMovie is an editor, not a player. So you can move those files into the Movie folder where other movie/video files are kept as they all will be played by Quicktime Player when double clicked on.
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've created an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. It's compatible with iPhoto 08 libraries and Leopard. iPhoto does not have to be closed to run the application, just idle. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.

Error -2002: a bad public movie atom was found in the movie

I have a Nikon Coolpix L10 (about 2 years old) that records video in the .mov format.
Most of the time when I play the videos on my computer I used to get a bad flicker and the video would often freeze. When I used a video editing program I found that for every two frames of video there was a black frame.
So I thought maybe Quicktime wasn't 100% compatible with the file type or version. So after some deliberation I got Quicktime Pro and I have the newest version 7.6.5. The flicker is gone but the video still freezes.
So I tried exporting to MP4 or AVI or anything and I keep getting
"Error -2002: a bad public movie atom was found in the movie"
It wont allow me to export the video to a different format.
Sometimes when I cancel the export Windows pops up a screen that it's searching for a reason that the Export Controller stopped working.

Thank you very much for the help. I tried copying and pasting the video file that is a .mov file to my zip drive and then I tried to an .avi file. The reason for doing this is so I can edit it with microsofts windows movie maker. After I had it on the zip drive and tried to export it so I could change the file it still defaults to the error 2002 message saying there is a bad public movie atom. I have done a bunch (5) other movies from the camera and they all worked and then the last one would not. So I assume there is a random factor that happens such as file size or something in the recording that causes the random atom attack. Maybe the difference is not being a mp4. It would be great if there was a definitiion of what bad public atom was and what it meant. Computers and technology is great.
I did another search and found that a person commented on zipping the file. Well I tried to zip it from the external drive I have to my desktop and it would not work. Then I ziped the file again. Saved to a external drive then unziped it to the same external drive. From that file I then did the file export and it went fine. So the moral of the story is if the video you took is important keep searching and trying and thanks for everyones help. Why is it the vendor of the product does not post solutions? Anyway now I can go on making movies and editing them. It must be a file corruption issue so that by moving the 1's and 0's around it fixes it's self. Is it a bug with the camera recording or is a bug with quick time?

"Error - 2002 Damaged public movie atom" bla, bla, bla"

Hi,
I hope that there's someone out there that could help me with this issue that I have with iTunes.
When I try to add the taggs of each of my movies in my library, such as name, genre and poster, my iTunes 9 out of 10 times crashes. But that is not the whole thing.
When it crashes, I discover that the movies that I tried to edit were damaged by the software and none of them are playable by either VLC, WMP or QuickTime. When I try to play them in QuickTime I get the message: "Error - 2002" and something about a damaged public atom.
What is this **** and how do I recover all of my films?
Plz help!

Were these movies purchased from the iTunes Store?
Take a look at this blog post someone made -> HOWTO: Fix the "Error - 2002: a bad public movie atom was found in the movie" problem with mp4 video in iTunes / Quicktime on Vista
WTH.

Transfer digital camera videos to ipod

how can i transfer my digital camera video to the ipod? i can transfer the pictures, but the digital video says it does not support, what can i do?

Hi Ellen,
On the Apple website here there are software downloads...look under iPod and you will find one called MoviesForMyPod which i use to convert movie files from my Sony camera. It's free and works a treat.
Niall

Interfacing java application with digital camera

Dear all,
I've a question and I need your help.
I've my swing/javafx application and I need to interface it with a digital camera.
How should I proceed? How can I understand which digital camera offers support for java integration?
Do you have some model for me?
Thanks

I don't know anything about using Java directly with digital cameras. However I have a few observations. When you say you want to interface Java with a digital camera, do you mean you just want to display the image in a Java application? If so, you can use the software that came with the digital camera to download the images as *.jpeg (or whatever) to the hard disk. Then you can use Java to easily read the files from the hard disk and display them or move them to some other location. For instance, when you display them in Java, then you can then ask the user to fill out various textfields to go along with the image such as giving a title to the image or a description.
If instead you want to write Java to grab the images from the camera directly, I think that's a bad idea. I imagine different digital cameras have uniquely written custom software to communicate between the digital camera and say, Windows 7 (I'm guessing). I doubt all the manufacturers have agreed upon a common way to communicate. Therefore if you take this route, you will end up creating a large set of Java programs to communicate with each model of camera. A maintenance nightmare.
However, I have seen applications such as taking passport photos that appear to communicate directly with a digital camera wired to the computer which I imagine the vendor supplied with the application.

Bad public movie atom

I have a couple of clients trying to use FCS client at home over our secure company network with very limited success. Mostly they receive constant "caching" messages. I am telling them that I cant guarantee them they can do this at home but one of them received the message "bad public movie atom was found". Can anyone help with the diagnosis of this problem?

Over what protocol are you allow the remote users to hit Final Cut Server?
Also, what ports are available from the remote users systems to the server running FCS? At minimum, 8821 and 8826 need to be open for the client to work properly.
- James Heliker

Public movie atom

Good morning,
after updating the OS with Lion, the files "mov" that before I read with QuickTime 7, now I get this message "In the movie I found a" public movie atom "is not valid. What can I do to still be able to read my files ?
thanks

after updating the OS with Lion, the files "mov" that before I read with QuickTime 7, now I get this message "In the movie I found a" public movie atom "is not valid. What can I do to still be able to read my files ?
The update likely included a security update that now doesn't like something about your file or how it was encoded. Many users have complained about this. Please send QT feedback regarding the issue including platform/OS, QT Player version, compression format and and capture/encoding workflow for the file(s).
What can I do to still be able to read my files ?
Try a different player app.

Invalid public movie atom with digital camera videos?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for