Can't open video files

[volki]

I’m new to Shotcut. I’d like to create a video (for Youtube) from videos that I made with my camera. However, when I click “Open File” and select a .MOV, it just says it “failed to open”, without giving any reason. It this normal? What am I doing wrong?

video$ mediainfo MVI_3937.MOV
General
Complete name                            : MVI_3937.MOV
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : QuickTime
Codec ID                                 : qt   2007.09 (qt  /CAEP)
File size                                : 29.9 MiB
Duration                                 : 10 s 110 ms
Overall bit rate                         : 24.8 Mb/s
Frame rate                               : 29.970 FPS
Encoded date                             : 2015-11-17 06:18:33 UTC
Tagged date                              : 2015-11-17 06:18:33 UTC
Copyright                                :         
com.apple.quicktime.make                 : Canon
com.apple.quicktime.model                : Canon PowerShot S110
com.apple.quicktime.rating.user          : 0.000
com.apple.quicktime.author               : Friedrich Volkmann

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : Constrained Baseline@L4.1
Format settings                          : 1 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC                   : No
Format settings, Reference frames        : 1 frame
Format settings, GOP                     : M=1, N=15
Codec ID                                 : avc1
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                                 : 10 s 110 ms
Bit rate                                 : 23.2 Mb/s
Width                                    : 1 280 pixels
Height                                   : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 29.970 (30000/1001) FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.841
Stream size                              : 28.0 MiB (94%)
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : 2015-11-17 06:18:33 UTC
Tagged date                              : 2015-11-17 06:18:33 UTC
Color range                              : Full
Color primaries                          : BT.709
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709
Codec configuration box                  : avcC

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : PCM
Format settings                          : Little / Signed
Codec ID                                 : sowt
Duration                                 : 10 s 110 ms
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 1 536 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel layout                           : L R
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Stream size                              : 1.85 MiB (6%)
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : 2015-11-17 06:18:33 UTC
Tagged date                              : 2015-11-17 06:18:33 UTC

It can’t be all about camera specifics or filename extension, as I get the same error from a random MP4 from the Web, as well as with .AVI files.

[volki]

Due to an obscure forum restriction, the second screenshot must be in a separate post…

[DougTheDog6]

This is just a guess, but do you have any special characters in the file name/path? I.e. letters with accents, umlauts, or anything else (like á, ü, or ß)? If so, try removing those characters and see if you still run into the same issue.

[volki]

No. You can see the path and filename in the screenshots. Even with the underscore removed, it does not work.

[Elusien]

Is there a sensible error message in the logfile View → Logfile?

[shotcut]

Your problem appears to be one of a bad package or build or missing dependencies. How did you get and install Shotcut for Linux?

[volki]

@shotcut: No Linux here. I installed Shortcut via FreeBSD ports.

@Elusien: My menu entry is named “Application Log…” instead of “Logfile”, and it doesn’t reveal much on file-open:

[Debug  ] <MainWindow::open> "/f/video/MVI_3937.MOV" 
[Info   ] <MainWindow::showStatusMessage> "Failed to open /f/video/MVI_3937.MOV" 

But there is a warning at startup:

[Warning] <MLT> mlt_repository_init: failed to dlopen /usr/local/lib/mlt-7/libmltavformat.so  (/usr/local/lib/libflite_cmu_us_awb.so.1: Undefined symbol "usenglish_init")

This error made it to the FreeBSD bugtracker a couple of times, and they obviously still haven’t managed to fully resolve it.

Reinstalling flite didn’t help, but removing flite support from ffmpeg (and removing flite altogether) did the job. I can now open video files in Shotcut and in Kdenlive (where I had the same problem, because it also uses MLT). Thanks.

I assumed I had to compile more things in when a particular file type can’t be opened, but the opposite was true.