[Simon Young]

1) Why are certain .mpg files appearing squashed in Quicktime player (all versions)?

2) How should I go about updating Quicktime 5.0 for OS X? Just go to the Quicktime website and download the newest version, or is that meant for OS 9.1? Should I just use the Quicktime updater? If so, how can I get PictureViewer for OS X? Or doesn't it exist?

3) Can somebody explain what extensions are in 9.1, and how they work?

4) What are the advantages of a partitioned drive, and how do I do it? Will I have to reinstall everything/back up my work/format the hard drive etc? Is it worth it?

5) All of my picture files are associated with PictureViewer in OS 9.1. How do I associate them with Preview in OS X? I tried going into the info for the files and setting them to open with Preview, but the picture icons remain as though they are still PictureViewer files. How can I change this?

6) Why can't I import .mov files into iMovie?

7) Is there any way of dealing with hidden files when I've located them? I have some files on CD that are hidden, but I'd like to copy them to the hard disc, and I'm not sure how.

8) How do you set every folder on the hard disc to obey Global View Settings, without having to set each one manually?

9) When playing the Lord of the Rings trailer (roughly 10Mb) in RealPlayer under OS 9.1 it is incredibly jerky. I'm sure this is not right, although I get the same results on my PC. The wierd thing is, I've tried the file on lower spec machines and it works OK. Does anyone know what's going on?

10) Can you get RealPlayer for OS X yet?

BTW, my machine is a Snow iMac, 500Mhz, with 512Mb RAM.

Cheers,

Si

[Cipher13]

Whoa boy, here we go:

1. No idea. I've never had that problem myself.

2. OSX comes with QuickTime 5. There is no need to update. Minor updates can be handled through the Software Updater.

3. An extension is a modular program which is loaded upon startup; they add functionality to the system.
At startup they're loaded into memory as a part of the system; however, they do not occupy any part of the system heap - they use their own memory space, and act like invisible processes.

4. Yes, back up - you must erase the hard drive and re format it. Use the Drive Setup application located in your Utilities folder - I dunno what I'd do without partitions.
They can speed up access, but thats not really an issue - they allow you to have several different 'disks' and therefor backing up and erasing is easier. You can erase a partition without affecting the rest of the drive.
Its absolutely worth it. I have 3 HD's and 5 partitions - 3 of which are bootable.
Its pretty much fool proof. If one partition gets chewed, I can boot off others. If one HD gets chewed, I can boot of another.
Its really a necessity to me, but for most people, it isn't necessary.
You have to weigh up whether you need it. If not, don't bother.
If you do DV work this can be good - make a scratch partition you can erase regularly, and the smaller partitions, as I mentioned, can make for minutely faster access times... but not really

5. No idea. I'm not an OSX person. However, Preview should automatically handle them. Does the icons being different matter that much?
If so you can highlight one with a proper icon, hit Apple-I, click the icon, copy, click the one with the pictureviewer icon, click its icon in the Inspector window and paste.

6. No idea... try converting the .mov to a DV Stream (export from QuickTime Pro) - but, that'll chew HD space like theres no tomorrow.

7. You'll have to make them visible. Because they're on a CD, which is locked media, you can't make them visible. You'll need to use a program like Simple Browser (www.versiontracker.com) to try and copy them to your HD, then make them visible.
Is this in OSX or OS9? If OSX, use TinkerTool (www.versiontracker.com) to make all invisible files visible, and then copy them; or, use the terminal:

cp /Volumes/cdname/dir/to/file /Users/user/copy/to/here

8. Is this in OSX or OS9? OSX questions should be addressed in one of the OSX forums.
In OS9, I don't think you can. In OSX, hit Apple-J on a low-level directory, set the prefs, and hit the "copy to enclosed folders" button or whatever it is. I'm not in OSX right now so I'm not exactly sure...

9. If its the same on the Mac and the PC perhaps the file is corrupted. On the Mac, give RealPlayer more memory - though I doubt that'll help (it seems a problem with the media). RealPlayer is utter crap anyway.

10. Not as far as I know.

HTH