Inability to play a .mov file with QuickTime Player during a Zoom meeting

[JohnJ1]

During a recent Zoom meeting with around 25 people I played a .mov file using QuickTime Player on a MacBook Pro. The video refused to play and constantly did a screen refresh in trying. We rebooted everything and had the same result. As soon as the meeting ended I clicked the video and it immediately played without issue. Is there a know compatibility problem with QuickTime Player and Zoom? We had tested earlier in the day with just a few people on the Zoom call and the video played perfectly. Hardwired to internet. Latest versions of everything. Really puzzled by this as we've had meetings previously using the same setup without issue. Any help appreciated!

[ZoomTestKitchen]

Do you recall if you selected "Optimize for Video" when getting ready to share?

The other and I tend to lean towards better way to share a video in Zoom is under the Share -> Advanced -> Video option. This method will automatically optimize the share for video, and it also delivers a better framerate than sharing an app or desktop.

It supports MOV and MP4 files that have been encoded as H.264.

Here are the details...
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360051673592-Sharing-a-recorded-video-with-sound-during-yo...

If you find this information helpful, please click on "Accept as Solution".

If you have further questions, please reply, we're happy to help.

[tmelch]

I always click Optimize for video as we in the past always played the videos from YouTube. I chose to play them locally stored on a hard drive thinking that less bandwidth would be required. Am not sure if that is the case or not. Is it?

We use Apple ProRes 422 codec, but can use H.264 instead to work with the Zoom video player.

This may be the solution to our problem as we are not playing the video using QuickTime Player, same thing as when we play from a shared YouTube screen. We still don't understand why everything worked in testing??

Are there known issues using QuickTime Player like this with Zoom?

[tmelch]

I just used H.264 instead of ProRes 422, and the file size of the .mov file is reduced a LOT! Went from 40.59 gb on the ProRes to 4.27 gb on the H.264, almost 90% less!!! Another reason to use H.264.

[ZoomTestKitchen]

Agreed, Apple ProRes 422 will generate very large files. For playback H.264 should be acceptable, although for editing, color shading, etc. the ProRes files are preferred.

If you find this information helpful, please click on "Accept as Solution".

If you have further questions, please reply, we're happy to help.