The movie could not be opened

I have a file from a video security system and the file is 251.7 Mb in size (24 hours of video). As luck would have it, I cannot open the file from the one day that I need! On the Mac (using QuickTimePro ), I get the error message of "The movie could not be opened." I tranfered the file to a PC and there, I get the error message of "Error -2048: Couldn't open the file camera1.mov because it is not a file that QuickTime understands."
Is there any hope? Do I need to hexedit the file? Does anyone know of a program that I can use to salvage the file?
Thanks for the help.

I get the feeling that we are barking up the wrong tree here. I sent the file to a friend that has the Apple QuickTimeMPEG2.component installed on his machine and he is getting the same error message when he tries to open it.
On my harddrive, the file has the generic QuickTime icon but it just won't open. iMovie won't even try to import the file.
I'm wondering if the file got damaged somehow? Is there a way to see if that is the case?

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