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[Vipman]

I've got a handful of music videos etc. purchased off iTunes that I'm trying to play and transfer to the iPod using MC12.0.523 but am running into some issues. 

Firstly, while I can see the file from within MC, it only shows up as a gray thumbnail.  Trying to play it yields just a blank screen in the video window, while I can see the progress bar move up as if it's trying to play the video.  No sound is produced either. 

MC was able to transfer the files over to the iPod but they refuse to play on there either. 

I've already upgraded to the current version of MC12 (as of yesterday) and ITunes as well hoping something therein may resolve the problem but it has not helped.  Have also searched through the forum - while I saw a few other posts reporting similar issues wrt gray thumbnails for the videos, I've not been able to find a resolution yet.

Is the DRM m4v playback issue a known one for MC ? And if not, I'd appreciate some help on how to get it working.

The videos play fine on iTunes (and also on the iPod if it is transferred via iTunes).   Also, all my non DRM content (videos included) plays fine within MC, and on the IPod.

Thanks.

- Vip

(MC12.0.523 on winXP Pro)

Edit: Corrected MC version#  on post.

[JimH]

Can you play the files in Quicktime?

[Vipman]

Yep, the files play fine in Quicktime.

[JimH]

In MC's Options, check Playback/Video/DirectShow to see how the files are being played.

[Vipman]

The m4v and mp4 were not checked in the filter list, so I tried enabling them.  Doing this, and then trying to play the files caused MC to crash.. so I went back to leaving them unchecked.

[JimH]

Unchecked, MC will use Quicktime to play them.

[Vipman]

After reading thru some other posts, I found the help->Logging and have produced a log file for what MC does when it tries playing the files.  I can email the log file if it helps. 

[Jakester]

Bump ... I have the exact same problem.  All of my audio comes from other sources, but I do download a few TV shows from iTunes and would love to have them available on my iPod.

[Yaobing]

Bump ... I have the exact same problem.  All of my audio comes from other sources, but I do download a few TV shows from iTunes and would love to have them available on my iPod.

This appears to be a different issue. You should be able to transfer and play your m4v video (even with DRM) on your ipod.

After reading thru some other posts, I found the help->Logging and have produced a log file for what MC does when it tries playing the files.  I can email the log file if it helps. 

Email me a copy. I am yaobing at jriver dot com

I am not sure if the log will show anything useful, but let's try it anyway.

[Vipman]

I've emailed the log file along with a screen-cap of what the MC12 behavior is when trying to play the files.  Hope it helps.

[Jakester]

Hi Yaobing - please re-read Vipman's first post ... the files don't play even after being transferred to the iPod.  My problem (or to be more exact my symptoms) are exactly the same as his.

[glynor]

I don't use or buy DRMed tracks, so I don't know for sure if this is worth the effort.

However, I do remember a very similar issue (without the iPod stuff) that was solved a long while back by completely un/reinstalling both iTunes and Quicktime.  I've had to do this procedure once or twice for other Quicktime playback problems.  I think occasionally, Apple does a less-than-perfect job of "upgrading" Quicktime, and a full removal and install from scratch is needed.

Since both iTunes and Quicktime install system and startup services, the best method is:

1. Uninstall both completely.  No need to kill the iTunes database.
2. REBOOT.  Don't skip because you are lazy.
3. Re-download newest version (only came out last week, so is quite new).
4. Install both from scratch.  I like to install Quicktime via this guide's instructions, to avoid evil.

So... I can't make any promises, but like I said, I have seen it cure my own ills before, and I'm pretty sure it helped with a previous iTunes DRM Video playback problem a while back.  Might be worth the 30 minutes to try...

[Vipman]

No luck.  Tried full uninstall and reinstall of both.  Same issues as before.

[glynor]

Bummer.  Worth a shot, though...

[Vipman]

Any hope for a resolution on this ? 

The logs I'd sent to Yaobing didn't yield anything useful, so I'm not quite sure where to go from here. 

[Jakester]

Yea I'm surprised there aren't more people wanting to use their iPods for both music and an occasional TV show or movie with DRM.

For the last couple of years I've tried using MC to transfer music (from my .ape library) and iTunes to transfer a few shows along with a thousand or so pictures to my 5th gen iPod.  That didn't work for quite a while (would cause files to go missing or get corrupted on the iPod), then it worked for about a year, and now with the latest iTunes and firmware for the iPod it's broke again.  So I've given up on that and was hopeful that MC would handle this (I also discovered that MC handles pictures really nicely in the process).  Plus, with "stacks", which are a great answer to a desire that existed for a couple of years, I was really hopeful I could finally push iTunes into the background and use it only to download an occasional TV show for transfer to my iPod via MC.  But now I'm guessing this will take awhile to get worked out.

[Yaobing]

Any hope for a resolution on this ? 

So far, I can see that Apple DRM'd videos do not play in MC.  I am going to try figuring out a solution, but I cannot promise a quick one as I still do not have a clue. The same video plays correctly on my ipod classic.

[Vipman]

Thanks Yaobing. I appreciate you looking into it further. 

I would've been perfectly happy had the videos actually played properly on my IPod despite not playing from within MC.  On the PC I can at least play it using QT.  However, in my case, as with Jakester - the video doesn't play in either location, and thus the frustration.

If there's anything I can do to help move this further along, then please let me know.

[Jakester]

ditto - I'm mainly concerned about it playing correctly on the iPod once transfered via MC