why can't Quicktime open iMovie Video Clips?

[space-time]

I have a Mac Mini running Mavericks (10.9.5), and I just installed iLife '09 (iMovie 8.something I believe). I am now importing some miniDV tapes from my late father-in-law that mother-in-law wants to take back with her on a hard drive. I am looking at the movie clips and when I try to open one, it says QuickTime cannot open it.

Is this normal? how can Apple come up with a file format for iMovie that QuickTime cannot handle? How takes these kid of decisions at Apple?

[hal]

You have imported video from a camera, but you haven't done anything with it in iMovie? That explains it - these files came from your camera, not imovie - imovie didn't create them, it only extracted them so that you can manipulate them in iMovie and render a final video. That final product can be viewed with QT.

In later versions of iMovie, the imported clips are hidden in a 'package' file called "iMovie Library.imovielibrary" to discourage attempts to directly manipulate the clips.

iMovie is not designed to do what you are wanting it to do.

[space-time]

still, iMovie can play the clips, QuickTime cannot. I find that annoying. I would imagine QuickTime would be like the foundation of video in OS X, and iMovie would be using Quicktime to play/edit videos. But then I don't make a living creating software.

EDIT: I exported the movie, and from 36 odd minutes that were on that tape, and 20-30 separate clips, I ended up with a single file, about 1 GB in size. Good enough to put on a USB stick and hard drive and give to her. Now 30 more tapes to go.

[hal]

I recently lamented that our family NEVER had any kind of video recorder and absolutely no video exists of us in our younger days. You got 30 more tapes to go through - you're lucky!

[rz]

I use VLC. It plays pretty much every type of video file you're likely to encounter.