Comments on: The Lackings of QuickTime: Why Has Apple Abandoned Its Multimedia Player?

By: Stormbutt

Stormbutt — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 11:39:27 +0000

QuickTime is buggy. I need to change video compression settings of movies I receive so they will work in Pro Tools. In trying to use QuickTime Pro to do this, I open the movie in QuickTime Pro player and prove that it plays fine. I click file and chose export, choose file format of QuickTime Movie, click Options, then move on to the all important video settings dialog, BUT AS SOON AS I CLICK “SETTINGS”, QUICKTIME SHUTS DOWN. (By that I mean that it simply vanishes from the screen and I can watch it simultaneously vanish from the Windows Task Manager window also.) I have tried reinstalling QuickTime and the Repair option in Windows but to no avail. What the? -and then you hit the useless Apple support void.

By: Dan Kinoy

Dan Kinoy — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 04:11:40 +0000

Apple have never appeared consistently committed to QuickTime as an end user solution.

It began with the failure to offer a “multiple bandwidth in one file” streaming solution, like Intellistream or SureStream. This meant a webcaster had to set up multiple files, doubling or tripling storage requirements and complicating architectures and administration.

And Apple had no real equivalent for for Windows Media Encoder, which did an excellent job of live encoding. And then Apple’s MPEG4 codec was dreadful compared to the same era’s Windows Media - so no one WANTED a Mac solution.

And then H.264 turned out to be VERY computationally complex and nothing could live encode it at full size and all but the newest machines couldn’t play it back smoothly. Windows Media 9 then and now, produces comparable results on much less powerful machines.

And the player plug-in’s behaviour was not flexibly controllable on a web page.

As a content producer I love QuickTime – as an architecture, QuickTime is a work of art…. and I actually like the simplicity and effectiveness of QT player. I don’t have to battle past 87 marketing inspired features just to play the video.

The end user player is definitely iTunes now, so that’s the space to watch for developments.

By: Doug McNutt

Doug McNutt — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:28:14 +0000

I had to - painfully - revert to QT 7.3.1 in December 07 because an update killed my ability to view many mpegs in OS neXt 10.3.9. I’m afraid to install any upgrades now because Apple’s readme files don’t say a word about fixing it. Does anyone know TRUTH?

By: Bob Zeryunkel

Bob Zeryunkel — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 14:27:48 +0000

QT has sucked since Frank Casanova took over as the product head. He has had zero interest in pushing QT as a distribution tech since at least 2000 when H264 was integrated (it’s true - it’s taken almost 8 years for people to wake up to this awesome codec.). There is so much that could be done…where is wavelet compression? Why is the server languishing? Where is the support for the creative developer community? They pretty much gutted the marketing team and there are only a couple of people globally to grow this product outside of the demands of the video and audio app teams. At this point QT only exists to serve the needs of FCP, DVDSP, iMovie, iPhoto and iTunes. QTX is nothing more than a modern rebuild in order to make it more efficient for power hungry apps like FCP. At this point the distribution game has been ceded to Flash.

By: Sven Rafferty

Sven Rafferty — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:56:38 +0000

Luann, I meant QT movies embedded in sites on the iPhone cause them to open in a QT application launch. They do not play within the web page you are viewing. Try this on an iPhone with your site you’ve offered for example. I understand that Apple believes that this is for optimal viewing experience; however, it was just to further the point that making light of its iPhone success with QT should be suspect since it still doesn’t offer the advantages of Flash.

By: Sven Rafferty

Sven Rafferty — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:51:07 +0000

LOL, sorry, Bob Bat. I agree, it is a bit on the small side. Though you’re the first to complain about it. I should look into popping up the font in the CSS. You can increase the size in Firefox 3.x (may work in older versions) but hitting Command + (or Control + in Windows). It’s a zoom features. Works nicely.

By: Luann Puvey

Luann Puvey — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:50:06 +0000

The embedded QuickTime files on this website open in the browser, not in a seperate application.

http://members.cox.net/lendys/lendys5.htm

By: Bob Bat

Bob Bat — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:45:43 +0000

Can you please make your website’s font even smaller? I think there are still a few young souls that can still read it!

By: Sven Rafferty

Sven Rafferty — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:25:16 +0000

Luaan: yes, it sounds very promising, but from what I see on my iPhone, there is little difference in interaction with QT than there is on a regular desktop. In fact, all embedded QT movies on web sites OPENS QT as a separate program. Further, it still far lacks anything Flash has. Again, the post does touch on the fact that QT X is coming, but will it be worth it?

Mario: thanks for the correction. Even after re-reading it twice (and it did seem wrong then), I guess I’m just not as sharp at 1:00 in the morning as I am in the day. Again, thanks for the correction and being very kind in your comments.

By: Mario

Mario — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:12:18 +0000

Sven: Paragraph 3, line 3 “QuickTime is the heart and …”

“Sole” means alone, or the only one. Also, it is the underside of your feet or the underside of your shoes, and it is a type of flatfish (solea solea).

You mean “soul” which is the spiritual part of a human, or the embodiment of some quality.

I know what you meant, but it may detract from your message.