question [Why don't people like QT player?]

ssdrizzt666 · Post by **ssdrizzt666** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 5:47 pm

How come it seems that alot of members here seem to say that quicktime sux but that it also seems to play almost every video I download?

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 5:49 pm

Are you talking about the Quicktime player or the Quicktime format?

devilmaykickass · Post by **devilmaykickass** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 6:15 pm

I believe you're talking about the quicktime player, as in, the Quicktime that plays videos. The Quicktime that everyone says sucks is the Quicktime format, which would mean you'd only be able to play it in the Quicktime player....get it?

I personally hate both the format and the player, but that's probably because I have a slow computer that doesn't handle it well.

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 8:44 pm

devilmaykickass wrote:I believe you're talking about the quicktime player, as in, the Quicktime that plays videos. The Quicktime that everyone says sucks is the Quicktime format, which would mean you'd only be able to play it in the Quicktime player....get it?

That's actually incorrect. The format is open, and there are other players besides the official Apple player that will handle Quicktime movies. Quicktime4Linux, for example, is a library designed to handle Quicktime movies with audio and video tracks. (It can be extended to handle Quicktime's other capabilities, such as 3D/Flash/QTVR/whatever integration, but it just isn't at this time.)

What is locked down are some codecs that people place in Quicktime containers, such as Sorenson Vision.

I never understood why people always said that the Quicktime container sucked. It's one of the most flexible container formats out there -- go look at the ISO MPEG-4 specification and how much it can do, and then realize that it's basically Quicktime. It certainly kicks the crap out of any AVI variant as far as power is concerned.

rbroemeling · Post by **rbroemeling** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 8:50 pm

I can hardly attest to the strengths of container formats, as I am a user, plain and simple.

What I can attest to is the fact that QT is a fairly open format... it works under multiple OSes/players etc. Even the locked formats (such as Sorenson) have "hacked up" decoders that work under multiple OSes/Players.

Perhaps QT is simply not as "prevalent" or "popular" because it is not a Microsoft container, and thus doesn't have the marketing bulk of MS Windows behind it? With that bulk, it might have been different -- but without it, it is perhaps another case of VHS vs. Beta.

ssdrizzt666 · Post by **ssdrizzt666** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 9:09 pm

well, now it sounds like quicktime is decent so I guess I'll just stick with that.

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 9:12 pm

ssdrizzt666 wrote:well, now it sounds like quicktime is decent so I guess I'll just stick with that.

Again, player or format?

Personally, I don't like either, but keep in mind: the player is your own thing, you watch it, noone else is affected. I personally still don't like it.

But if you're encoding your own videos, please - do others a favour, and avoid using this rather inconvinient encoding format. Granted, most competent people will still be able to see it without getting the QT player, but it will turn off many potential viewers nonetheless.

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 9:22 pm

ssdrizzt666 wrote:well, now it sounds like quicktime is decent so I guess I'll just stick with that.

My post wasn't meant as persuasion, but rather as a counter. I guess it went from the latter to the former.

The reason why most videos here are placed in AVI or MPEG-1 containers is because those two containers are the two which are the most obtrusive to work with. You can play a 352x240 MPEG-1 on almost anything, from Pocket PCs to supercomputers. As for AVI...well, the more I learn about it, the more I hate it, but the dominance of Microsoft has given a certain ubiquity to the format across the entire computer industry. A standard that you'll find on this site is XviD DivX5-compatible video with MP3 audio in an AVI container.

rbroemeling · Post by **rbroemeling** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 10:16 pm

But if you're encoding your own videos, please - do others a favour, and avoid using this rather inconvinient encoding format. Granted, most competent people will still be able to see it without getting the QT player, but it will turn off many potential viewers nonetheless.

I second this -- my post (like trythil's) was meant simply as a nod that QT has real potential; and people that say that it "sucks" may not be completely correct. BetaMax had potential, too -- but VCR won. No-one can realistically record something on BetaMax today and expect that people will bother watching it -- superior detail or not.

While the analogy is hardly perfect (I, personally, do not see QT as being as "out of it" as Beta is -- the game is not quite over yet); it is at the least similar. The anime scene has (currently) standardized on AVI/DivX/MP3 or MPEG delivery, as trythil pointed out. Distributing movies in another format (i.e. QT) simply won't work very well, if you are aiming to reach the maximum number of viewers.

If you are talking about your player, of course, then please ignore this.

ssdrizzt666 · Post by **ssdrizzt666** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 3:19 am

hmmm, I apologize, it seems as though I have misled quite a few people in this matter.

I am not talking about making my own videos because if I were to do that I would be doing it with much more precaution.

I am a viewer and simply nothing more on this site. I find videos I like, download them, rant about them and say how good they are, suggest them to acquaintances and be satisfied.

The reason I started this whole thing was to know why I couldn't view some of the videos that I had previously attempted to download. It was simply ment for viewing not creating.

So now I offer my deepest apologies to all that thought that this and other similarly related threads were centered aaround video creation.

If anyone still has suggestions about video viewrs, please feel free to post them because I will defenitly take them into consideration.