QuickTime Services???

I made a nasty discovery. The 32000 sample rate mono WAV sound files from my Thumb Drive Audio Recorder will not open in QuickTime Player (X, I think).
Screen Shot 2017-11-14 at 20.31.25.png
Screen Shot 2017-11-14 at 20.27.06.png
Note the duration.

Yet if you carefully steer the files to Audacity, they open just fine.

Since Audacity uses QuickTime Services for most of this stuff, where is it getting the CODECs from?

Attached sample audio file.

Koz

As far as I’m aware, Audacity first tries to import with libsndfile. If libsndfile says it does not recognise / support the file type, then it tries QuickTime (if available) and FFmpeg (if available) - I don’t know off hand which order it tries them.

In this case, the format is supported by libsndfile, so that’s as far as it needs to go.
Note that this file is not PCM WAV but 4-bit ADPCM WAV.
I’m not surprised if modern Macs don’t support formats that they don’t sell on iTunes.

General
Complete name                            : /<my_local_storage>/REC001.WAV
Format                                   : Wave
File size                                : 1.71 MiB
Duration                                 : 1mn 51s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Constant
Overall bit rate                         : 128 Kbps

Audio
Format                                   : ADPCM
Codec ID                                 : 11
Codec ID/Hint                            : Intel
Duration                                 : 1mn 51s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 128 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 1 channel
Sampling rate                            : 32.0 KHz
Bit depth                                : 4 bits
Stream size                              : 1.71 MiB (100%)

I’m not surprised if modern Macs don’t support formats that they don’t sell on iTunes.

Little more complicated than that.

Nobody was celebrating when QuickTime Player (X??) came out. It was a simplified “Player” for generic formats, full stop. It replaced the stunningly comprehensive QuickTime 7 which was a Media Manager. It was such a shock (pitchforks in the streets), you can still get QT7 as a free download which installs as a “Utility” so it doesn’t interfere with the current Player, an APP. If you part with some shekels/dinero, you could get QuickTime Pro which would manage DVD, MPEG2 (broadcast) and advanced formats. I have two licenses for the machines current when I did it.

And sure enough, after digging, QT7 will open those sound files natively. If I had to guess at it, QuickTime library has all or most of these codecs and it’s just waiting for someone or something to call them.

I forgot about the bit depth. That explains the tiny files, good battery life and high noise levels.

I carry one of these tiny recorders around a) as data backup (it is an 8G memory stick) and convenient list of emails, etc, and b) the emergency sound recorder when I don’t have time to set up anything else.

It’s not quite car-key ring compliant, but it’s close.

Koz

Koz, are you referring to the Quicktime 7 version as identified in Apple Frameworks system library or the player version?

I have Quicktime Frameworks 7.6.6 (Universal) and QT player version 10 in OS 10.6.8 and I can concur your wav file plays on my system. I noticed QT Frameworks version is not 64bit while most of the rest in the system library are.

Have you checked to see if the wav file plays in iTunes?

I have no idea why it’s not playing on your current system/OS version of QT player.

I escalated the task to a larger, stereo recorder which produces plain, ordinary sound files. The recorder gracefully produced a numerical series of 2GB WAV files of the extended show which play everywhere.

I have no idea why it’s not playing on your current system/OS version of QT player.

No, but I googled the error and found several people with the same problem featuring similar tiny sound recorders. The Party Line is that Macs don’t play WAV files which is less than accurate. Under certain circumstances it has trouble with those WAVs.

For a while there the Hunt and Peck method gave me an insane Venn diagram. They fail if you open into Quicktime Player, but not if you intentionally open them in Audacity assuming Audacity is the default player and not QTPlayer and you didn’t try QT7 and you played an MP3 first and it’s Wednesday.

I’m unsure the phase of the moon. It’s overcast in Sunny Southern California®

Koz