QuickTime: About using MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 media

Summary

Learn some of the limitations in QuickTime when working with MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 media.

More technical information about QuickTime is available from the QuickTime Web site.

Products Affected

QuickTime 5 (Mac), QuickTime 5 (Windows), QuickTime 6 (Classic), QuickTime 6 (Mac), QuickTime 6 (Windows), QuickTime 7 (OS X), QuickTime 7 (Windows)

QuickTime 5, 6, and 7 include the following:

MPEG-1 playback, both local and streaming on Macintosh and Windows computers
Layer 1 and 2 audio support
Support for RTP packing for streaming (RFC 2250)
Support for elementary and muxed streams
Enabling of frame-accurate access and effects compositing

The optional QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component requires QuickTime 6 or QuickTime 7. It will work with or without QuickTime Pro.

The QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component provides QuickTime 6 and 7 users with the ability to import and play back MPEG-2 content, including both multiplexed (a.k.a muxed, where the audio and video tracks are interleaved together into one track) and non-multiplexed (a.k.a. elementary) streams.

It is not possible to export the audio portion of a muxed MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 audio/video stream using QuickTime. For editing purposes, the entire MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 stream is treated as a single sample. You may create edit lists to display parts of the stream in the usual way, but if you flatten the movie data, the entire stream is saved, not just the parts displayed in the movie.

You cannot perform editing functions such as Cut, Copy, Paste, Add, and Add Scaled with MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 media using QuickTime Player, whether or not you have upgraded to QuickTime Pro.

You may want to consider using a third-party utility to convert the muxed file to a format that does allow you to edit or export.