[FFmpeg-user] Converting Quicktime (.mov ) from iPhone to mp4

[Peter Alderson]

On iPhones running iOS 11, if a video is pre-recorded and uploaded I get the following errors:- ( ie, the video is recoded on the iPhone and then uploaded as an attachment ). 

$ ./ffmpeg -i <input-file>.mov -vcodec h264 -acodec mp4 test-output.mp4
FFmpeg version CVS, Copyright (c) 2000-2004 Fabrice Bellard
Mac OSX universal build for ffmpegX
  configuration:  --enable-memalign-hack --enable-mp3lame --enable-gpl --disable-vhook --disable-ffplay --disable-ffserver --enable-a52 --enable-xvid --enable-faac --enable-faad --enable-amr_nb --enable-amr_wb --enable-pthreads --enable-x264 
  libavutil version: 49.0.0
  libavcodec version: 51.9.0
  libavformat version: 50.4.0
  built on Apr 15 2006 04:58:19, gcc: 4.0.1 (Apple Computer, Inc. build 5250)
[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 0x5597b8]mov: header not found !!! (err:0, moov:0, mdat:0) pos:3189455560
<input-file>.mov: Error while opening file
$

If the video is recorded and then transferred to a Desktop uploaded and then converted it works OK.

If I use a ‘live’ recording then all is OK.

I found this…

https://www.howtogeek.com/327689/how-to-make-your-iphone-use-jpg-and-mp4-files-instead-of-heif-and-hevc/ <https://www.howtogeek.com/327689/how-to-make-your-iphone-use-jpg-and-mp4-files-instead-of-heif-and-hevc/>

Which seems to suggest iOS 11 will use different formats, but this appears to make no difference whatever the settings are for ‘High Efficiency / Most Compatible’.

My experience is that it’s iOS 11 devices which are causing this issue.

Any ideas ?

Peter