Well that was an interesting, but ultimately fruitless investigation.
One of our librarians at work had a video file in .MOV format they could not open. I tried the usual suspects (VLC, Handbrake, ffmpeg, etc) before trying various esoteric codecs, all to no avail.
Figuring it might have needed older codecs, I fired up first the 2010 MacBook Air running 10.12.6 I had lying around.
No luck there.
Then I went for the oldest working Mac I have - a Powerbook G4, of probably 2005 vintage. Alas, it too didn't recognise the format. Finally I dug up a copy of Final Cut Express (v4), but that was another dead end.
We're left hoping the accession records might have a few more clues (of course, it's also possible the file is corrupt).
