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Red Wolf · Jun 4, 2002, 10:25 AM

Apple has released a public preview of QuickTime 6. Download it before they change their minds =)

<a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/" target="_blank">http://www.apple.com/quicktime/</a>

thanatos · Jun 4, 2002, 12:36 PM

Has anybody tested mp3 sound in AVI files with QT6? Is the sound still broken in DivX files?

Joshua Johnston · Jun 4, 2002, 12:46 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by thanatos:
Has anybody tested mp3 sound in AVI files with QT6? Is the sound still broken in DivX files?<hr /></blockquote>Worse. Now the video's broken too. And sound is worse. :/

Demonhood · Jun 4, 2002, 12:54 PM

this is what we've all been waiting for (a legal version at least).
so post your impressions, problems, quandries, etc..

i'm about to install it right now.

funkboy · Jun 4, 2002, 12:58 PM

My biggest note on QT6 so far is the "Optimizing System Performance." It's taking... a long time. It's had to have been going fifteen minutes now and I'm only halfways done on my iBook 500. I wish I knew what this step was that every installer does, and why it takes so long...

Once it's actually in, I expect good things. I can be the G3 guinea pig.

Joshua Johnston · Jun 4, 2002, 01:10 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by funkboy:
My biggest note on QT6 so far is the "Optimizing System Performance." It's taking... a long time. It's had to have been going fifteen minutes now and I'm only halfways done on my iBook 500. I wish I knew what this step was that every installer does, and why it takes so long...

Once it's actually in, I expect good things. I can be the G3 guinea pig.

<hr /></blockquote>My machine is an iBook 500, too. It did take about 5 minutes, with 192M of RAM. What that optimizing is doing, as far as I can tell, is the prebinding step which has something to do with taking all the libraries the application needs and 'linking' them to make sure things will load more quickly.

Demonhood · Jun 4, 2002, 01:36 PM

optimizing took 3 minutes on my system (dual g4/500).

playback is smooth (movs and mpgs).

the only weirdness i've noticed so far is that when minimizing to the dock (using scale), there is some purple distortion and the dock icon doesn't update with the movie content until i mouse over it (original Radeon card).

[ 06-04-2002, 01:36 PM: Message edited by: Demonhood ]

Mr_Fantastic · Jun 4, 2002, 01:38 PM

Installed it on a 800mhz TiBook...
Yeap, it broke just about all my Divx movies. However, the ones I made with Divx Doctor work even better! One of my biggest complaints with QT 5 was poor MPG playability. That has been fixed and all my MPG movies play as well as MOV files.

The MP4 audio sounds nice, but I have yet to see the benefits of it over MP3 encoding. The file size seems the same.

Now the million dollar question: Will it play AVI files such as the myriad of divx movies found on Kazaa. Before, I had to either use Avi2mov or Divx Doctor and the results were always varied. Anyone tried this yet?

ckohler · Jun 4, 2002, 01:54 PM

I tinkered with it for a few minutes before heading to work this morning. My only complaint so far is that this preview doesn't play MPEG2 files?! There was an earlier beta floating around that did as does the one in the Jaguar builds.

Although, I did only try one MPEG2 file. I'll do more testing when I get home. Personally, MPEG2 playback support is one of the biggest features for me.

Oh.. and Quicktime Broadcaster looks neat. I need to be sure and grab my Dazzle DV bridge tonight and test it out some.

midwinter · Jun 4, 2002, 02:02 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by ckohler:
I tinkered with it for a few minutes before heading to work this morning. My only complaint so far is that this preview doesn't play MPEG2 files?! There was an earlier beta floating around that did as does the one in the Jaguar builds.

Although, I did only try one MPEG2 file. I'll do more testing when I get home. Personally, MPEG2 playback support is one of the biggest features for me.

Oh.. and Quicktime Broadcaster looks neat. I need to be sure and grab my Dazzle DV bridge tonight and test it out some.<hr /></blockquote>I've run into problems trying to compress mpeg4 video and audio "on the fly" when capturing video. The file that results isn't playable by QT, it says.... Can someone else give this a shot and see if they have the same problem? Exporting DV to mp4 seems to work great (god almighty those files are small!), but compressing on the fly is a no-go for me.

Any ideas?

Cheers
Scott

funkboy · Jun 4, 2002, 02:58 PM

Well, it seems okay for me. The mp4 files aren't playing as well as I would hope... for some reason they'll start playing but then just fizzle out and stop showing video while the audio continues. At least, the first few times I tried to play them.

I'm going to try playing some of the big 640x480 videos from ign.com which used to be unplayable on my system (they wouldn't play smoothly at all, seemed the ibook didn't have enough horsepower). Crossing my fingers...

sprynmr · Jun 4, 2002, 03:25 PM

MPEG 4 does a good job with compression, but I'd have to say at lower data rates, I'm still getting better compression with Sorenson 3.1 Pro Developer. I was excpecting this to blow that away. Thoughts?

ckohler · Jun 4, 2002, 05:23 PM

I'm going to do some tests on LIVE streaming tonight.. an area which has been poorly lacking compaired to what's available in the Windows Media and Real formats. In particular, what is MPEG-4's streaming performance at modem speed bitrates? You'll notice that Apple didn't bother posting any streaming examples at 56k.. only 300k and 500k. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

I'll post more tonight when/if I find out more.

typoon · Jun 4, 2002, 05:27 PM

I installed QT 6 and am having a problem playing MPGs. I'm not sure why it is not working. These MPGs I'm trying to play are MPEG2's from a VCD. :-(

[ 06-04-2002, 05:29 PM: Message edited by: typoon ]

Red Wolf · Jun 4, 2002, 05:31 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by ckohler:
I tinkered with it for a few minutes before heading to work this morning. My only complaint so far is that this preview doesn't play MPEG2 files?! There was an earlier beta floating around that did as does the one in the Jaguar builds.<hr /></blockquote>The FAQ on QuickTime 6 states that they didn't include the MPEG-2 decoding feature which will be available once Jaguar is out. Naturally they aren't going to give us a full version that uses out current QT 5 Pro keys for free =) I believe Apple mainly wanted to show off MPEG-4 and maybe put some pressure on the MPEG LA group and the licencing disbute.

A note for everyone using QuickTime Pro...the final version of QT 6 will require a new key. But for me $30 is worth MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 decoding. Just be aware if you are looking at buying QT Pro this summer.

hmr · Jun 4, 2002, 05:38 PM

Wow, MPEG playback is greatly improved! The Lord of The Rings movie trailer played at 15-18 frames per second in QT 5 on my PowerBook G3 400 FireWire (Mac OS 10.1.4) but QuickTime 6 plays it at full 24, even though I drag the window around. I can even have OmniWeb partly over the movie window (with shadows over the playing area) and I still get full 24 frames per second. This is great!

Minimized movies play fine in the Dock... No problems here.

[ 06-04-2002, 05:40 PM: Message edited by: hmr ]

juanvaldes · Jun 4, 2002, 06:56 PM

Well, I have run into a million problems. First off, no new icon, same as QT 5.

Next I guess Palm Desktop uses some QT components because it will not launch now, complaining about some shared library.

Then I can't get online (I'm on cheerios iMac now), I can see the router everything is setup right, I can ping the other systems in our LAN and they respond and they are online but I'm not.

On first launch it crashed. Finally got it up and it played a tool video just fine, I can PAUSE AGAIN!!

Now, does anyone know how to UNINSTALL it?

Footy · Jun 4, 2002, 07:22 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by juanvaldes:


Now, does anyone know how to UNINSTALL it?<hr /></blockquote>Hey Juan, there's a download on Apple site to RE-install Quicktime 5. It's over on the Quicktime 6 info page.

juanvaldes · Jun 4, 2002, 08:53 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Footy:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by juanvaldes:


Now, does anyone know how to UNINSTALL it?<hr /></blockquote>Hey Juan, there's a download on Apple site to RE-install Quicktime 5. It's over on the Quicktime 6 info page.<hr /></blockquote>cool.

But after the 10.1.5 update QT has been cooperating better so I'm giving it another chance, I can finally PAUSE my movies, something QT5 always had a hard hard time doing.

OwlBoy · Jun 4, 2002, 11:58 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Joshua Johnston:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by thanatos:
Has anybody tested mp3 sound in AVI files with QT6? Is the sound still broken in DivX files?<hr /></blockquote>Worse. Now the video's broken too. And sound is worse. :/<hr /></blockquote>Hey are you useing The divx.com codec or the 3ivx codec? cuz I use the 3ivx codec and my video pops up fine with al the movies I tryed.

The audio bug is still there

. (use divx doctor <a href="http://www.3ivx.com" target="_blank">http://www.3ivx.com</a> to "fix" that bug on your complely downloaded / NON CORRUPTED Divx movies)

But wait sec, don't start demanding (I'm not saying you are) Apple to fix this bug for us so we can pirate Movies and watch porn? I use VLC for that and it works great.

Why would Apple wanna fix stuff so that it will then "Support" a Rouge MPEG4 codec when it is promoting its own now...

NOTE: With VLC and QT 6 set your monitor to 16 bit (Thousands) so that the video will show, this is a fix till VLC is fixed to work when QT6 is in.

-Owl

[ 06-05-2002, 12:01 AM: Message edited by: OwlBoy ]

OwlBoy · Jun 5, 2002, 12:17 AM

Dude!

Look at these:

I know you may not like nickelback but these are good mpeg4 examples.

<a href="http://stream.qtv.apple.com/events/jun/preview/nickelback/remindme_ref.mov" target="_blank">http://stream.qtv.apple.com/events/jun/preview/nickelback/remindme_ref.mov</a>

<a href="http://stream.qtv.apple.com/events/jun/preview/nickelback/toobad_ref.mov" target="_blank">http://stream.qtv.apple.com/events/jun/preview/nickelback/toobad_ref.mov</a>

ok ok, "Aw those are small" Resize them! look how well the fookin scale! wooooo hoooooo!

[Edit: AND THOSE ARE STREAMS!!!!!!!!!]

[Edit2: hmmm the "How you remind me" one looks better than the other...]

-Owl

[ 06-05-2002, 12:21 AM: Message edited by: OwlBoy ]

mitchell_pgh · Jun 5, 2002, 12:20 AM

At least now we will be able to see what Steve is doing during his keynote. The video quality should be 4X better.

RJLawrence · Jun 5, 2002, 01:01 AM

Like Mitchell and others, I too have been waiting for this day and I am very pleased with what I have seen so far.

FYI, the MPEG-4 codec is also available in iMovie but not the AAC. Of course your video will be in a .mov wrapper.

The MPEG-2 issue is a licensing issue. Because we will have to download twice, that would be twice as many MPEG-2 licenses to pay for.

Not only will MPEG-4 be a boon to adult content producers and those who choose to share movie files with the masses, MPEG-4 will be great for institutions like colleges which can really bring streaming lectures to everyone. From my tests, a talking head video at 280 x 210 is less than 250k/minute. Superb indeed. Your results might be even better!

lucylawless · Jun 5, 2002, 03:58 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by OwlBoy:
Dude!

Look at these:

I know you may not like nickelback but these are good mpeg4 examples.

<a href="http://stream.qtv.apple.com/events/jun/preview/nickelback/remindme_ref.mov" target="_blank">http://stream.qtv.apple.com/events/jun/preview/nickelback/remindme_ref.mov</a>

<a href="http://stream.qtv.apple.com/events/jun/preview/nickelback/toobad_ref.mov" target="_blank">http://stream.qtv.apple.com/events/jun/preview/nickelback/toobad_ref.mov</a>

ok, I only tried the first one but I'm very impressed with the scaling. how did you do that? and can you give us some stats on the files (A/V total size, bitrate, native res, little tricks), or direct download links, maybe?

ok ok, "Aw those are small" Resize them! look how well the fookin scale! wooooo hoooooo!

[Edit: AND THOSE ARE STREAMS!!!!!!!!!]

[Edit2: hmmm the "How you remind me" one looks better than the other...]

-Owl<hr /></blockquote>

ckohler · Jun 5, 2002, 04:36 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by RJLawrence:
From my tests, a talking head video at 280 x 210 is less than 250k/minute. Superb indeed. Your results might be even better!<hr /></blockquote>Are you sure about that? To create a file one minute long that is only 250k... the file would have to be encoded at 4k per second bitrate. That's too low even for audio only. Maybe you meant to say 250k a second?

I tried doing some modem bitrate MPEG4 encodings using the Broadcaster and was very underwhelmed. Windows Media offers so much more quality at the same 36k bitrates. It's very possible I didn't tweak things right, but if I did MPEG4 was clearly never meant for modem speed streaming delivery... only broadband.

<img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="frown.gif" />

phobos · Jun 5, 2002, 04:50 AM

For the AAC subject. Apple says that at 128K on AAC is indistinguishable from the original source. The quality of AAC at 128K is indeed better than MP3's at 192K. The MP3 filesize was 4.4MB and the 128K AAC was at 3MB. Not that great difference but quite good if you look at it from the perspective of the number of MP3's you have.

lucylawless · Jun 5, 2002, 05:38 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by OwlBoy:

<a href="http://stream.qtv.apple.com/events/jun/preview/nickelback/remindme_ref.mov" target="_blank">http://stream.qtv.apple.com/events/jun/preview/nickelback/remindme_ref.mov</a>

<a href="http://stream.qtv.apple.com/events/jun/preview/nickelback/toobad_ref.mov" target="_blank">http://stream.qtv.apple.com/events/jun/preview/nickelback/toobad_ref.mov</a>

-Owl<hr /></blockquote>.....ok, I didn't know you had to wait to be redirected after you post before closing the window or it will cut off half your post....

I was going to ask you for the stats on these movies (like the A/V track sizes/bitrates, the actual res, or any special encoding notes, what were all those choices in the mp4 export maze set to), or maybe even a direct download link so I could compare and contrast.

Oh yeah, I'm blown away by the scaling. how is that even possible?

Group51 · Jun 5, 2002, 06:03 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by typoon:
I installed QT 6 and am having a problem playing MPGs. I'm not sure why it is not working. These MPGs I'm trying to play are MPEG2's from a VCD. :-(<hr /></blockquote>I can't get my (legal) MPG 1 VCDs to play either. Input/Output error it says. mp4 on broadband rocks however.

Group51 · Jun 5, 2002, 06:09 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by hmr:
Wow, MPEG playback is greatly improved! The Lord of The Rings movie trailer played at 15-18 frames per second in QT 5 on my PowerBook G3 400 FireWire (Mac OS 10.1.4) but QuickTime 6 plays it at full 24, even though I drag the window around. I can even have OmniWeb partly over the movie window (with shadows over the playing area) and I still get full 24 frames per second. This is great!

Minimized movies play fine in the Dock... No problems here.<hr /></blockquote>I (iBook 600/384/Rage 128) am looking at the CPU monitor. As I type this in Netscape 7 with Park Wars playing at double-size, the CPU monitor, which always used to max out at everything, is at 50%.

OwlBoy · Jun 5, 2002, 12:27 PM

Direct file links are not possible

here is the highest quality one for How you remind me:

rtsp://a7.q.kamai.net/5/7/574/v0001/1a1a1ab12597fc5dcaf869dd5381e252c22e93c12493002f94 0a6fdd51c4f35dd2406fdf51b62c95fa71a00e77da45aa1678 d93ca7/remindme_700.mp4

its on a rtsp server, and you would need an app that can use that protocal to download it.

But here are the links to the individual streams, option click the links to download them, then you can open them in QT player.

<a href="http://stream.qtv.apple.com/events/jun/preview/nickelback/remindme_ref_100.movkelback/remindme_ref_100.move.com/events/jun/preview/nickelback/remindme_ref_300.movttp://stream.qtv.apple.com/events/jun/preview/nickelback/remindme_ref_300.movlback/remindme_ref_700.movnts/jun/preview/nickelback/remindme_ref_700.movbr /><a href="http://homepage.mac.com/owlboy/remindmeinQTPlayer.jpg" target="_blank">http://homepage.mac.com/owlboy/remindmeinQTPlayer.jpg</a>

It would seem that the fps is a variable thing in these streams. Neat.

-Owl

[ 06-05-2002, 12:37 PM: Message edited by: OwlBoy ]

maguirer · Jun 5, 2002, 03:44 PM

Non-Apple MPEG-4 samples can be found here:

<a href="http://www.envivio.com/solutions/etv/sample.jsp" target="_blank">http://www.envivio.com/solutions/etv/sample.jsp</a>

Warning, only the files linked within the Interoperability section worked for me. Trying some of the others actually crashed OS 9 for me, while some just gave interesting errors.

Red Wolf · Jun 5, 2002, 04:58 PM

Is there a site where I can get a break down of various combinations of bit rates and key frames and all that fun stuff verses quality and size? Thanks.

funkboy · Jun 5, 2002, 05:07 PM

I downloaded some big 640x480 movie files from ign.com, tried playing them on my iBook, and they just won't work. They seem to keep up a little better than before - the frame rate is like 1 fps in comparison to the previous 0 fps - but it's still very unwatchable. I was really hoping 6 could alleviate this problem somehow.

It's very strange that my iBook can play DVDs without a hitch - and let me do other stuff in the meantime without dropping a frame - but yet it can't play a 640x480 quicktime movie fast enough. I suppose compression is bigger on .mov files, though.

Also, top said it was taking about 55% of CPU time. The other programs weren't taking up enough to total 100%. I wish QT could hog the processor more to really have a chance at playing the movie smoothly... sigh...

Will just have to wait until I get a new iBook/PowerBook

berlin chris · Jun 6, 2002, 09:46 AM

on my first tests mpg4 at high quality encoding is nearly as good as sorenson 3 pro. s3 movies had more contrast and stronger colors than the original. mpeg4 at fast encoding looked not acceptable to me - maybe it's ok for streaming. mpeg4 had a lot of jpeg-like artifacts where s3 stayed smooth. mpeg4 high quality was nearly as fast in encoding as s3 pro. (G4 400 / os x / macmpeg2decoder 1.0b8 / 400x208 25fps 65kBps / from DVD mpeg2)

so if you're disappointed by the quality of mpeg4 in qt4 pb then make sure you selected "slow encoding / higher quality".

maybe the big advantage of mpeg4 over s3 is not the quality, but you'll still be able to watch your movies when no one remembers s3 (or dvix) ...on my first tests mpg4 at high quality encoding is nearly as good as sorenson 3 pro. s3 movies had more contrast and stronger colors than the original. mpeg4 at fast encoding looked not acceptable to me - maybe it's ok for streaming. mpeg4 had a lot of jpeg-like artifacts where s3 stayed smooth. mpeg4 high quality was nearly as fast in encoding as s3 pro. (G4 400 / os x / macmpeg2decoder 1.0b8 / 400x208 25fps 65kBps / from DVD mpeg2)

so if you're disappointed by the quality of mpeg4 in qt4 pb then make sure you selected "slow encoding / higher quality".

maybe the big advantage of mpeg4 over s3 is not the quality, but you'll still be able to watch your movies when no one remembers s3 (or dvix) ...

esc · Jun 6, 2002, 12:34 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by phobos:
For the AAC subject. Apple says that at 128K on AAC is indistinguishable from the original source. The quality of AAC at 128K is indeed better than MP3's at 192K. The MP3 filesize was 4.4MB and the 128K AAC was at 3MB. Not that great difference but quite good if you look at it from the perspective of the number of MP3's you have.<hr /></blockquote>I was involved in some AAC work a few years ago. Among other things there was quite a bit of double blind testing among good and golden ears. What was found was that AAC was always scored as the best codec. mp3 did rather poorly in comparison, but it is an ancient standard.

Trained listeners were able to detect artifacts in AAC at 128kbps, but "transparency" among golden ears was achieved at 160kbps and above. Normal people were quite happy with 128kbps and the same group was able to identify artifacts in mp3 at 192kbps.

I would have no trouble archiving my library at 160kbps (note that QT Pro users have the ability to encode in the public beta).

Hopefully we will see AAC in iTunes and the iPod soon. I wonder if there will be iTunes Pro and iPod Pro ... The EETimes article on the iPod suggests that mp3 decoding is done in silicon precluding a firmware upgrade to other codecs. I hope not ...

nitram_at_work · Jun 6, 2002, 07:22 PM

QT6 on my work PC: downloaded quickly,installed easily (no reboot required on Win98!), played all the demo MP4s well. Mmm, nice.

QT6 on my home Mac (G4-350, 384 MB RAM, OS 9.1):downloaded quickly,installed easily (reboot required... <img border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" title="" src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" /> ), but movies freeze up with monotonous regularity. It also broke iMovie - scrubbing across a movie caused a hard crash. I uninstalled and went back to QT5. Oh well life goes on.