# Mov file won't play on my computer

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mov-file-wont-play-on-my-computer/242344>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 27, 2004, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mov-file-wont-play-on-my-computer/242344 "2004-04-27T20:42:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\
**Post date:** [April 27, 2004, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mov-file-wont-play-on-my-computer/242344/1 "2004-04-27T20:42:20Z")

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I recently got one of those new fangled cellphones with video camera that can record up to 15 seconds. I’m using Sprint, so I emailed the the vidclip to my email, which in reality, uploads it to the Sprint site and sends a link to my email. I can play the clip no prob, and I can download it, but when I play it, it gives me some hibjazz about the wrong file extension or something. It has an .MOV extension and I have no problems with other QT files, so what’s up?

Phone is Sanyo VM4500, and I’m using the PCS Vision service.

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**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\
**Post date:** [April 27, 2004, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mov-file-wont-play-on-my-computer/242344/2 "2004-04-27T21:31:28Z")

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Just a sidebar – Quicktime is not a media file format by itself, but is instead a _container_ for other media file formats. Though Quicktime comes with numerous codecs (coders/decoders) for various formats, you can still run into a situation where Quicktime can’t play a file because it doesn’t have the codec for the file’s format.

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**Author:** ![robcaro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@robcaro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robcaro)\
**Post date:** [April 27, 2004, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mov-file-wont-play-on-my-computer/242344/3 "2004-04-27T23:44:49Z")

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According to this link: " [http://www.pictureview.com/support/mov.html](http://www.pictureview.com/support/mov.html) " Quicktime should be able to handle all .mov files.

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**Author:** ![xvxdarkknightxvx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/34f0e0/32.png) [@xvxdarkknightxvx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xvxdarkknightxvx)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2004, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mov-file-wont-play-on-my-computer/242344/4 "2004-04-28T01:29:32Z")

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Try downloading the latest DivX codec at [www.divx.com](http://www.divx.com) (get the free one; you just have to look for it).