I am trouble opening a Quicktime service announcement in mpeg. It states QT doesn't understand it (-2048)

There are many different MPEG standards. You might try another viewer, like VLC available here.

thanks, i downloaded it , it recognizes the file but it sits there and does nothing

Can you point us to the file so others can try it?

OK try this

http://www.mohscollege.org/mohssurgery.mpg

Looks like a standard Quicktime file. Clicking on the link opens it in Safari, but it takes a couple of minutes to completely load. File size is 118 MB. Are you having trouble with any other QT files? You may have a corrupt plist file.

I didn't have any problem either. What version of QuickTime are you running? What version of OS? What type of Internet connection do you have?

it's not a problem viewing it but i save it to the desktop and that's where I get the problem with the error code when I try to reopen it

No problem with the downloaded file here. Which browser are you using? FWIW, I used Safari, and I have it set to just download and not uncompress, decode, don't do anything, leave it alone for me to handle. (I don't trust any file that I download.) If your browser is trying to decode it, it's possible that it's messing it up somehow, maybe changing or dropping the extender.

i too use Safari
under Pref...General I hav checked SAFE FILES AFTER DOWNLOADING

What *version* of Safari? QuickTime? What OS do you have?

QT player 7.0.4

safari 2.0.3

Uncheck "Open Safe Files" and then try downloading again. Then double-click to see if it will run.