<p>I'm trying to deal with some very old video files from a Mac OS 8-era CD. They have a &quot;.ms&quot; file extension, and can be played with the old &quot;Movie Player&quot; distributed with OS 8. But Movie Player won't export them to .mp4 or anything currently useful, and I haven't found a modern-day player/converter (VLC, etc), on either Mac or Windows, that will open them. I could update my old testing Mac to QuickTime 3, but I've long ago misplaced my QT 3 Pro key(!), and the free version of QT 3 doesn't do exports. Those were the days... BTW, these &quot;.ms&quot; files are not the same as &quot;.dvr-ms&quot; files, so there's no help there.</p>
<p>Any advice? Maybe there are some settings for ffmpeg I've missed? Thanks!</p>
<p>The beginning of the file is:</p>
<pre><code>$ hexdump Breakfast\ Pals.ms | head -n 16
0000000 00e1 3a2c 0034 008c 6a01 bfbf 003c 0098
0000010 aa00 abaf 6044 00a0 5600 af6b 8044 40a0
0000020 6a05 ffbf a04c 61a4 aa00 bfaa c048 82a0
0000030 aa05 ffff c04c 81a8 aa00 ffff e04c a3a4
0000040 aa00 fffb e04c a3a4 aa14 ffbf 0051 a3a4
0000050 ab10 fffe 0051 c2a8 aa00 ffae 0051 c3a8
0000060 ea00 ffaa 0051 c4a4 aa00 ffba 0051 c3a8
0000070 aa00 ffaf 0051 a3a4 aa10 ffff e04c c2b0
0000080 aa15 ffbe e050 e2bc 5951 fefa e050 e2bc
0000090 4150 efd6 e04c c2b8 9544 faaa c04c a2b4
00000a0 a994 ffba c04c 61b0 9100 fee9 8044 60b4
00000b0 5500 ea96 6044 40b0 5500 feaa 4044 40a8
00000c0 a950 feaa 2040 20a8 9500 ffaa 0040 20a0
00000d0 aa00 fffb 003c 0098 a540 faaa 002c 0090
00000e0 a540 fffa 0030 0090 5500 fefa 0028 0088
00000f0 5500 feea 001c 0080 5500 fef9 0010 0080
</code></pre>
<p><code>file</code> is unable to identify it:</p>
<pre><code>$ file Breakfast\ Pals.ms 
Breakfast Pals.ms: data
</code></pre>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-11-07T16:05:25.897Z
have you tried using `file` utililty?
v010dya
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-11-07T16:07:10.733Z
Also, do you mind uploading one of the files somewhere?
v010dya
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-11-08T17:17:33.980Z
Duh; should have done that in the first place.  I think this link will work; LMK if it doesn't:  https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/0ce4w60ieBGw1yFEE0Vmtg3fA#Breakfast_Pals
Jim Miller
<ffmpeg><video><mac>
Does anybody know about the ".ms" video format, and how I might be able to convert it?
Jim Miller
# Does anybody know about the ".ms" video format, and how I might be able to convert it?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-10-02)

I'm trying to deal with some very old video files from a Mac OS 8-era CD. They have a ".ms" file extension, and can be played with the old "Movie Player" distributed with OS 8. But Movie Player won't export them to .mp4 or anything currently useful, and I haven't found a modern-day player/converter (VLC, etc), on either Mac or Windows, that will open them. I could update my old testing Mac to QuickTime 3, but I've long ago misplaced my QT 3 Pro key(!), and the free version of QT 3 doesn't do exports. Those were the days... BTW, these ".ms" files are not the same as ".dvr-ms" files, so there's no help there.
Any advice? Maybe there are some settings for ffmpeg I've missed? Thanks!
The beginning of the file is:
$ hexdump Breakfast\ Pals.ms | head -n 16
0000000 00e1 3a2c 0034 008c 6a01 bfbf 003c 0098
0000010 aa00 abaf 6044 00a0 5600 af6b 8044 40a0
0000020 6a05 ffbf a04c 61a4 aa00 bfaa c048 82a0
0000030 aa05 ffff c04c 81a8 aa00 ffff e04c a3a4
0000040 aa00 fffb e04c a3a4 aa14 ffbf 0051 a3a4
0000050 ab10 fffe 0051 c2a8 aa00 ffae 0051 c3a8
0000060 ea00 ffaa 0051 c4a4 aa00 ffba 0051 c3a8
0000070 aa00 ffaf 0051 a3a4 aa10 ffff e04c c2b0
0000080 aa15 ffbe e050 e2bc 5951 fefa e050 e2bc
0000090 4150 efd6 e04c c2b8 9544 faaa c04c a2b4
00000a0 a994 ffba c04c 61b0 9100 fee9 8044 60b4
00000b0 5500 ea96 6044 40b0 5500 feaa 4044 40a8
00000c0 a950 feaa 2040 20a8 9500 ffaa 0040 20a0
00000d0 aa00 fffb 003c 0098 a540 faaa 002c 0090
00000e0 a540 fffa 0030 0090 5500 fefa 0028 0088
00000f0 5500 feea 001c 0080 5500 fef9 0010 0080

file is unable to identify it:
$ file Breakfast\ Pals.ms 
Breakfast Pals.ms: data

**Tags:** ffmpeg, video, mac

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: have you tried using `file` utililty?  
> **username_1**: Also, do you mind uploading one of the files somewhere?  
> **username_0**: Duh; should have done that in the first place.  I think this link will work; LMK if it doesn't:  https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/0ce4w60ieBGw1yFEE0Vmtg3fA#Breakfast_Pals  

---

## 0 answers

