MP4 file opens on personal laptop as XML Document file

Ok, this is very perplexing (to me at least).

Here is an 8 second mp4 video (created by me for an animation test) You can download at the top right of screen:

(removed link)

aardvark said:

Ok, this is very perplexing (to me at least).

Right, just managed to download a sample MP4 video and it played just fine in VLC and default Windows program - means there is something wrong with my file and not the laptop! Uft! Or...something wrong with my external memory drive - it might be damaging the file - if that's even possible?

Kasta9383 said:

Right, just managed to download a sample MP4 video and it played just fine in VLC and default Windows program - means there is something wrong with my file and not the laptop! Uft! Or...something wrong with my external memory drive - it might be damaging the file - if that's even possible?

Well, the good news is you have localized the problem to being either that video or your usb drive. So, try another usb drive and bring it home. make sure it is formatted as ntfs. the only other thing it could be would be related to the codec that was used to create the mp4 but i have no idea how to determine that from afar. anyway, i think you are good to go now. well,... almost.

OK, I just couldn't let this rest so I went on a search and found several articles related to devices that were creating .mp4 videos but they were improperly storing XML metadata inside the .mp4 container. Maybe this is what led to the improper XML file recognition by your PC? So, why does that same video open on your work PC? Who knows? Unless the same software that generated the .mp4 video is also resident on your PC at work?