why does iphoto play my video but finder won't?

Hi I just switched and am trying to figure some things out. I dragged my .mts videos off my sony handycam to Movies folder (mbp ret, yosemite). When I click one, Mac says it doesn't know the filetype. BUT if I import that video to iphoto, it plays no problem. Why? I may be importing the avchd file as well, I forget - I was trying diff things and am pretty confused at this point. Also, what's the diff between an 'event' (a folder, yes?) and an 'album'? I'm trying to understand the physical layout of photos/videos vs. the logical groupings of them. And I'm lost on how to best organize things. Im thinking by Events (ie Birthdays, Vacations, etc) which would contain all photos as well as videos for that event.... is this how iphoto works? Seems so but shouldn't it be called iMedia instead since its working with both photos and videos? D'oh.....

craftydad said:

Hi I just switched and am trying to figure some things out. I dragged my .mts videos off my sony handycam to Movies folder (mbp ret, yosemite). When I click one, Mac says it doesn't know the filetype. BUT if I import that video to iphoto, it plays no problem. Why?

Click to expand...

The reason why your video does not play/work when in the Finder...is it is probably in a format that none of your existing apps recognise to open it directly with.

The reason why the video works after iPhoto imports it is...iPhoto is converting it into a playable format that iPhoto recognises. This import ability is not always an automatic thing...that's why it must be done within iPhoto (in this case).

If you want your videos to play directly from the Finder (be able to auto launch an app that will be able to play it). You need to find an app that will convert the video from it's current format into a format the apps you currently have installed recognise.

- Nick

Also, what's the diff between an 'event' (a folder, yes?) and an 'album'?

Click to expand...

When you import photos into iPhoto, they are shown as Events. An Event being a group of photos usually taken on the same day.

You then create Albums to put these photos into: eg, Family, Trip To The Zoo, Wildlife etc etc. You can also create Folders, then create further Folders and/or Albums within that first Folder. I have a Folder for Family photos, then different Albums in there for individual family members.

However, you can't have an Album within an Album.

Thanks! I now understand the filetype mystery! Funny, I just tried to import an MTS video file from Movies folder into iphoto, and it wouldn't even accept it. It must have been that AVCHD file sitting on my Sony Cam that got all the videos to work in iphoto. I think I'll play around with it on a small scale and see what works best for me, app wise, and grouping wise, and then expand to everything. I've yet to install a video player - just to see how different ones work if for no other reason. Appreciate the help!
craftydad

One comment. Your original post has as a title, "why does iphoto play my video but finder won't?" Finder doesn't "Play" anything. It's a file lister, period. Once you install a video player, right click on a file you want to play, then Get Info. The resulting window will show under "Open with" what application is going to run automatically when you click on the file in Finder. Change the application to what you want, then you can click "Change all" and every file of that type will then open with that application from then on. IF you want to change, just repeat.

The QuickLook feature, where you select a file and tap the spacebar to play it, works with files that QuickTime recognizes. QuickTime does not handle .mts files natively. If you want to play the files the way you describe the video needs to be in a format such as .mov or mp4 that QuickTime recognizes.

Thanks MacInWIn for the explanation. Leads me to a question. I was thinking about just that afterwards. ie. I'm used to Win where you can choose which apps to use with each filetype. I guess I worded my Q wrong - the long version should be: If my .mts or avchd videos play when clicking on them within iPhoto, then why don't they play when I click them from Finder? Wouldn't iPhoto (or whatever is actually playing them) recognize the filetype and play it?

Maybe like pigoo3 stated - the file must be manually imported into iPhoto for it to convert it, while just clicking it from Finder doesn't invoke the import. ??

craftydad

One other thing that may be off topic for Mac ... on my Handycam there's all these .mts files, and one huge (>7GB) AVCHD file. Should I do anything with this AVCHD file? Or do I just import or copy the .mts files to the mac? I think I did both upfront, so I'm trying to figure out what the right way is.

craftydad

craftydad said:

Maybe like pigoo3 stated - the file must be manually imported into iPhoto for it to convert it, while just clicking it from Finder doesn't invoke the import. ??

Click to expand...

There are many apps that can do this "importing" and file conversion. Because of this...I think that it is up to the user to decide which app to use (if they happen to have multiple apps).

For example...iPhoto and iMovie can probably due this. As well as at least couple other Apple apps...and many many many non-Apple apps.

- Nick

Well, if you do what I said in post #5, assign an app to the filetype, then when you see that file in Finder and double click to open it, it will invoke that app to open it. That's NOT QuickLook, a function of Finder that Slydude referred to which lets you take a peek at a file by simply selecting it and holding down the Space bar. For QuickLook you need to have a QuickTime readable file. Does that make sense?

Hi MacInWin, yes it makes sense... I'm still unsure if I should drag this huge AVCHD file into Movies folder or not... its under a folder called Private so maybe I should just leave it alone. I need to dig into that more.

I downloaded VLC... seems to work ok, but it just gives me a file directory of all my clips with numeric names. Unless I haven't just haven't played with it long enuf yet to figure out how to show the thumbnails. iPhoto uses the thumbnails so i can see at least what the clip is about. I like that.

I'll try mplayer next and a couple of others... I dunno, if iPhoto plays them then maybe I should just keep all photos and movies in iPhoto. I feel I'm doing something wrong putting movie clips in an library/app called 'iPhoto". lol

craftydad