Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

ink · Oct 7, 2005, 12:07 PM

I've had a G3 iBook for about 4 years now, and previous to that I had a PowerMac 6100 and a G3 iMac. Quicktime was always something that worked very well on those machines. Over the past few years, I've been unable to play quite a few Quicktime movies on my iBook -- I've been attributing those problems to the age of the computer (heck, Safari starts to chug when it tries to display the smiley palete on MacNN).

Sooo, I open up my brand-new 12" PowerBook (1.5Ghz G4), and I'm all ready to play some Quicktime movies of video game previews that I couldn't play on my iBook. I double-clicked on the hires demo of Famicom Wars DS (Advance Wars DS) only to be greeted with an audio track, and a slideshow-like effect on the screen as QT7 drops frames to keep up. I was stunned.

I dragged the file over to VLC, and it plays (in fullscreen, no less) perfectly.

What's the deal? Are they just concentrating on the 64-bit version or something?

Person Man · Oct 7, 2005, 12:12 PM

Originally Posted by ink

I've had a G3 iBook for about 4 years now, and previous to that I had a PowerMac 6100 and a G3 iMac. Quicktime was always something that worked very well on those machines. Over the past few years, I've been unable to play quite a few Quicktime movies on my iBook -- I've been attributing those problems to the age of the computer (heck, Safari starts to chug when it tries to display the smiley palete on MacNN).

Sooo, I open up my brand-new 12" PowerBook (1.5Ghz G4), and I'm all ready to play some Quicktime movies of video game previews that I couldn't play on my iBook. I double-clicked on the hires demo of Famicom Wars DS (Advance Wars DS) only to be greeted with an audio track, and a slideshow-like effect on the screen as QT7 drops frames to keep up. I was stunned.

I dragged the file over to VLC, and it plays (in fullscreen, no less) perfectly.

What's the deal? Are they just concentrating on the 64-bit version or something?

There's no "64-bit" version.

Cubeoid · Oct 7, 2005, 12:14 PM

Apple Quicktime.

residentEvil · Oct 7, 2005, 12:23 PM

Originally Posted by Cubeoid

Apple Quicktime.

Yes, I believe it is Apple Quicktime. Also known as QuickTime and QT.

ReggieX · Oct 7, 2005, 12:27 PM

Where'd you get these trailers from, I'd like to check them out.

olePigeon · Oct 7, 2005, 12:28 PM

If some movies have corrupted headers, they'll mess up in the QuickTime player. VLC is much better at playing movies that are corrupted.

residentEvil · Oct 7, 2005, 12:32 PM

Originally Posted by Cubeoid

Apple Quicktime.

Yes, I believe it is Apple Quicktime. Also known as QuickTime and QT.

Cubeoid · Oct 7, 2005, 12:37 PM

Yes. Apple Quicktime.

turtle777 · Oct 7, 2005, 12:38 PM

Originally Posted by Cubeoid

Apple Quicktime.

-t

Cubeoid · Oct 7, 2005, 12:41 PM

Yea. Good response there turtle.

turtle777 · Oct 7, 2005, 12:47 PM

Originally Posted by Cubeoid

Yea. Good response there turtle.

-t

Cubeoid · Oct 7, 2005, 12:53 PM

Hehehehehhehehehhehehehheheheh. Hehhehehheheheh.

Warung · Oct 7, 2005, 12:53 PM

Quicktime 7 is a worthless heap of cow dung.

Except for .movs, I play almost all video in VLC by now.

iLikebeer · Oct 7, 2005, 01:14 PM

Originally Posted by Warung

Quicktime 7 is a worthless heap of cow dung.

Except for .movs, I play almost all video in VLC by now.

But if the audio gets out of sync on VLC (some BSG episodes), then I use mplayer.

moodymonster · Oct 7, 2005, 01:18 PM

if you're smilies are chugging make sure you're running at least safari 1.3, beyond that - I don't know.

QT is a bit lacking of late. Having VLC and mplayer in the wings is a good idea.

moodymonster · Oct 7, 2005, 01:19 PM

if your smilies are chugging make sure you're running at least safari 1.3, beyond that - I don't know.

QT is a bit lacking of late. Having VLC and mplayer in the wings is a good idea.

willed · Oct 7, 2005, 01:37 PM

I've noticed the same thing; while I always expected MediaPlayer to be **** and RealPlayer to be mediocre, QuickTime (sorry, Apple QuickTime) always used to just work on this iBook 500. This is no longer the case. In fact, I'd say RealPlayer is just as reliable!

PacHead · Oct 7, 2005, 01:49 PM

I made the mistake of upgrading to quicktime 7 and it was a pain in the ass to revert back to the old one. I haven't had any problems with quicktime 6.x. Sometimes you do need extra codecs though inorder to play certain things. VLC is a bit too heavy I find, though I do use that or Mplayer when quicktime will not play a certain file.

Doofy · Oct 7, 2005, 01:49 PM

Yes, my recent upgrade to Tiger has shown that the suckiness was introduced in version 7.

Jim Paradise · Oct 7, 2005, 03:49 PM

I hadn't realized that QuickTime did not normally suck.

alphasubzero949 · Oct 7, 2005, 03:51 PM

QuickTime has sucked since 4.0.

Who could not have remembered that hideous volume control wheel?

stevesnj · Oct 7, 2005, 04:18 PM

Originally Posted by ink

I dragged the file over to VLC, and it plays (in fullscreen, no less) perfectly.

What's the deal?

Yeah this is an instance where Apple dropped the ball. Sometimes I have to transfer some movies to my PC because VLC, MPlayer, wont even play them. So sad that Apple has failed to install all the codecs for AVI's into QT. They should be ashamed.

sek929 · Oct 7, 2005, 04:42 PM

Originally Posted by alphasubzero949

Who could not have remembered that hideous volume control wheel?

<shudder> oh yeah, there's the mental image.

VLC for Prez!

gethigh · Oct 7, 2005, 04:55 PM

Originally Posted by stevesnj

Yeah this is an instance where Apple dropped the ball. Sometimes I have to transfer some movies to my PC because VLC, MPlayer, wont even play them. So sad that Apple has failed to install all the codecs for AVI's into QT. They should be ashamed.

VLC and MPlayer seem to play most all of the video files I encounter nowadays. The only exceptions are for some .avi stuff that are REALLY archaic, and can only be played with the Indeo(?) codecs in OS9 or Windows. Most of those old codecs are the fault of Intel et. al. who are too lazy to port and/or the codecs were hardware dependent on x86 architectures.

Anyone with more background in the field of codecs and computer architecture should correct me since I'm paraphrasing the arguments made about the seemingly lacking codecs made availible for Macs (especially in dealing with .avi files which are not uniform in their encoding methods).

Originally Posted by alphasubzero949

*snip* VOLUME WHEEL !!!!!!!!

Yeah. Thanks for reminding me of that.

King Bob On The Cob · Oct 7, 2005, 05:31 PM

Originally Posted by stevesnj

Yeah this is an instance where Apple dropped the ball. Sometimes I have to transfer some movies to my PC because VLC, MPlayer, wont even play them. So sad that Apple has failed to install all the codecs for AVI's into QT. They should be ashamed.

Well mainly because Apple can't install other people's property without getting permission, and I don't think Apple really wants to pay DiVX or Ligos licensing fees to use their codec when it can be downloaded by the end user for free.

ReggieX · 06:27 PM

Originally Posted by stevesnj

Yeah this is an instance where Apple dropped the ball. Sometimes I have to transfer some movies to my PC because VLC, MPlayer, wont even play them. So sad that Apple has failed to install all the codecs for AVI's into QT. They should be ashamed.

Baloney. Ashamed? Are you kidding?

Apple has no reason to include third party codecs for playing a rival format, I don't understand why people keep expecting them too. MS doesn't do it on Windows, and AVI is their container format! If you want to play something other than QuickTime, you have the choice to go get the codec of player by yourself, it's hardly difficult.

If you have to transfer files to your PC to play them correctly, maybe the files are the problem and not the player.

bad_quote · Oct 7, 2005, 06:22 PM

Probably about the time they wanted to charge you $40 to play something fullscreen.

ReggieX · Oct 7, 2005, 06:31 PM

You can still use the old QT 6.5 Player with all the QT 7 components installed, just rename or zip up the Player before you install 7.

yukon · Oct 7, 2005, 08:06 PM

Quicktime used to be good. Hell, it used to be standard, a draw to the mac "multimedia" platform. If I remember correctly, version 3 was good, but it was declining as a standard. Version 4 was part of the decline of the actual program, and by then it couldn't play some of what I tried it with. By version 5, the rest of the world had changed formats, Quicktime wouldn't play them. Now, every time I open a video in Quicktime accidentally, it has no codec for it, despite my having the fusion, 3ivx, and msmpeg codecs installed.

It doesn't even support OGG without a 3rd party OSS codec, and it still won't work properly. OGG, an open standard, come on. Apple stopped pushing Quicktime a while back, but they're starting to again now, and I really don't know why.

Doofy · Oct 7, 2005, 08:40 PM

Originally Posted by ReggieX

You can still use the old QT 6.5 Player with all the QT 7 components installed, just rename or zip up the Player before you install 7.

Know anywhere I can get 6.5 from?

Salty · Oct 8, 2005, 01:22 AM

QT isn't that bad, and it's still better than anything else out there. Full screen is lame as far as not being allowed but other than that.

demograph68 · Oct 8, 2005, 01:23 AM

I'm not having issues with quicktime since the last update. Just download divx. ink, send a link to the video so that I can take a look.

Rolling Bones · Oct 8, 2005, 01:23 AM

Always suxxed.

stevesnj · Oct 8, 2005, 01:37 AM

Originally Posted by ReggieX

Baloney. Ashamed? Are you kidding?

Apple has no reason to include third party codecs for playing a rival format, I don't understand why people keep expecting them too. MS doesn't do it on Windows, and AVI is their container format! If you want to play something other than QuickTime, you have the choice to go get the codec of player by yourself, it's hardly difficult.

If you have to transfer files to your PC to play them correctly, maybe the files are the problem and not the player.

If the codecs are free to VLC and mPlayer why doesn't Apple use them? Plus when I pay $30 for QT pro I would expect to have paid for some licensing fee to have those missing codecs installed. And if the file was the problem why would they play fine on PC not on Mac?

besson3c · Oct 8, 2005, 03:19 AM

Originally Posted by gethigh

VLC and MPlayer seem to play most all of the video files I encounter nowadays. The only exceptions are for some .avi stuff that are REALLY archaic, and can only be played with the Indeo(?) codecs in OS9 or Windows. Most of those old codecs are the fault of Intel et. al. who are too lazy to port and/or the codecs were hardware dependent on x86 architectures.

Anyone with more background in the field of codecs and computer architecture should correct me since I'm paraphrasing the arguments made about the seemingly lacking codecs made availible for Macs (especially in dealing with .avi files which are not uniform in their encoding methods).

Yeah. Thanks for reminding me of that.

I think that VLC won't play new WMP 10 stuff either (or whatever the latest version of WMP is, you can tell I care a great deal

yukon · Oct 8, 2005, 08:32 PM

Indeo (IV30 and IV50) are the problems, you can't play them on OS X....MPlayer etc would reverse engineer them, but they're created different than almost all other codecs, so it would be a lot of work I'm told. there's also i263 (If I remember correctly), but that's recently been available in MPlayer. WMV3 is the Windows Media 9 codec that we can't play....Windows Media Player 10 is out AFAIK, but I don't believe it adds another codec. Codecs like WMV3 are available in MPlayer/VLC on x86, because they're sorta hacked out of Windows Media Player and the communication between the codec and the program was reverse engineered, so they use the pre-compiled codec that won't run on PPC.

King Bob On The Cob · Oct 8, 2005, 08:45 PM

http://www.flip4mac.com/ that plugin plays Windows Media Files 7, 8, and 9 just fine... (You have to get them out of the AVI wrapper though)

ink · Oct 8, 2005, 10:39 PM

Originally Posted by ReggieX

Where'd you get these trailers from, I'd like to check them out.

It's called "cm_famicom_wars_qthigh.mov" (25.8 MB); I've been trying to find where I downloaded it from, but can't seem to find it (I downloaded it on my iBook months ago). It's in Japanese, and it has a bunch of army guys running around in their underwear. It's pretty silly, the soldiers are in a washroom cleaning it, and then suddenly they're playing Advance Wars DS on their handhelds.

JoshuaZ · Oct 8, 2005, 10:44 PM

Originally Posted by ink

It's called "cm_famicom_wars_qthigh.mov" (25.8 MB); I've been trying to find where I downloaded it from, but can't seem to find it (I downloaded it on my iBook months ago). It's in Japanese, and it has a bunch of army guys running around in their underwear. It's pretty silly, the soldiers are in a washroom cleaning it, and then suddenly they're playing Advance Wars DS on their handhelds.

Oddly enough... that sounds exactly like Japan. Its a silly place.