Filed under: Multimedia, Software, Video, Software Update, Snow Leopard
QuickTime X leaps forward in Snow Leopard
Seems like only yesterday that QuickTime was at version 7. Oh wait, that was yesterday. Among the many announcements surrounding Snow Leopard we saw a little more of QuickTime X, Apple's next-generation version of the venerable media player/technology/doohickey. While the interface has been totally overhauled, the changes are more than skin deep.QuickTime X is a significant update. For consumers, there won't be a Pro version. Any version will allow simple editing, video/audio capture, and allow you to "publish your media to MobileMe or YouTube -- without worrying about codec formats or resolutions." We're not sure if you'll be able to save as a QuickTime movie or source file as before, but the removal of some previous limits will make QuickTime the snappy iMovie substitute it could be. Plus, QuickTime X will allow you to use any web server to stream live video over HTTP. Can't wait to see what people do with that.
In addition to the visible changes, QuickTime X looks like a fundamental rewrite of the application and its underpinnings. Support for Core Audio, Core Video and Core Animation could mean some really interesting things for the future of media playback (not that we weren't promised as much a few years ago, of course). All of this comes wrapped up in Snow Leopard, and takes full advantage of the speed-tuning tech therein.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Andre said 4:57PM on 6-08-2009
Did they actually say there wouldn't be a Pro version? This X version sounds a bit limited.
If it was to completely replace Pro, shouldn't they just start giving the current version of Pro away now? I see it's still for sale.
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Tim said 4:57PM on 6-08-2009
Any mention about playlists?
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Anthony said 5:15PM on 6-08-2009
So any news on a release date for the rest of us? or is this ONLY available in snow leopard, because if that's the case, it's retarded.
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Tom said 5:18PM on 6-08-2009
It's likely Snow Leopard only, due to it using the new APIs. Just as iChat was 10.2 and above only, and Spotlight 10.4 and above, and so on.
Anthony said 5:36PM on 6-08-2009
No, I mean on windows as well.
Like, the other versions of quicktime.
jeffehobbs said 5:38PM on 6-08-2009
What about Windows? I love the Mac as much as anyone, but QuickTime adoption means cross-platform adoption.
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Miphnik said 6:07PM on 6-08-2009
I'm more interested in seeing (a) what video and audio codecs QuickTime X supports natively, and (b) how much work the Perian plug-in will require to work with it to fill in the inevitable gaps.
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ChrisM70 said 6:22PM on 6-08-2009
Will Quicktime now be comparable to other embedded video styles that allow you to go full screen when watching it online (like YouTube and Vimeo videos)?
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Navarro Parker said 2:05AM on 6-09-2009
Quicktime's new logo... a long erect pole diving into a pink hole. Uh. Ok....
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Jash Sayani said 7:16PM on 6-08-2009
Wow! Thats a great update! Video conversion without getting the Pro version, and online streaming! Will also see plug-ins from uStream and others later on....
Waiting to get my hands on....
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Ron said 9:47PM on 6-08-2009
Hopefully the current necessary codecs like Perian and Flip4Mac will still work, or be easily adaptable to the new architecture, otherwise it's a non-starter.
Why would anyone want the new player if it won't play the majority of videos available on the Internet?
Did Apple mention any solutions for playing AVI and WMV videos?
(I have hopes that Apple understands what they mean when they say they are enhancing QuickTime for the Future).
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babble777 said 8:46AM on 6-09-2009
"Why would anyone want the new player if it won't play the majority of videos available on the Internet?"
How many of those "majority of videos available on the internet" do you watch in QuickTime *now?* The vast majority of video on the web is being delivered through Flash, these days, not QuickTime or Windows Media. Honestly, I don't think it will happen, but if Apple wanted QuickTime X to really make a splash when it debuts, exporting to a great looking Flash player that played h.264 media would make more sense than worrying about whether or not there was a feature-comparative Windows port of QuickTime X.
Make the Mac the easiest, most beautiful platform for deploying flash-based embedded media that everyone ELSE can already play, using the Flash player they already have and let Mac *users* get the easiest experience for making them.
Babble777@gmail.com said 8:47AM on 6-09-2009
"Why would anyone want the new player if it won't play the majority of videos available on the Internet?"
How many of those "majority of videos available on the internet" do you watch in QuickTime *now?* The vast majority of video on the web is being delivered through Flash, these days, not QuickTime or Windows Media. Honestly, I don't think it will happen, but if Apple wanted QuickTime X to really make a splash when it debuts, exporting to a great looking Flash player that played h.264 media would make more sense than worrying about whether or not there was a feature-comparative Windows port of QuickTime X.
Make the Mac the easiest, most beautiful platform for deploying flash-based embedded media that everyone ELSE can already play, using the Flash player they already have and let Mac *users* get the easiest experience for making them.
Ron said 11:37AM on 6-09-2009
Actually, way over 90%.
We already have a Flash player... why on earth would Apple invest in making sure Flash is better?
The vast majority of videos I download off of the internet are in AVI or DIVX format, and quite a few of them are also WMV.
These ones don't have a lot of support on the Mac, or on the AppleTV at all, so having support for these in QuickTime X is crucial.
SCOTT said 4:55PM on 6-11-2009
@Ron...
there is a great apple script called "Apple TV Fooler" that does a great job of using QuickTime to add a second of AppleTV recognized content to the beginning of the avi or wmv files you get from the torrent sites...oh did I say that...lol
and then you have a .mov file that goes right into iTunes and syncs directly with the AppleTV no problems...check it out...it's a great little thing...but there is one thing that needs to be tweeked in the script and if you look down the comments/notes page you will see where me (now4real954) has talked about fixing it...don't think they ever changed the actual script
before it would only do one video at a time and then it would not delete the temp file...so once I fixed that script it converts multiple files dropped on the droplet at the same time and deletes the temp file
check it out...I just hope it will still work with QuickTime 10
Ron said 7:17PM on 6-11-2009
Awesome! Don't you love enterprising people?? Yes!
samuel said 1:13PM on 6-09-2009
If there is anybody reading who has had access to OS X Snow Leopard's QuickTime X please could you tell me if the 'Show Movies Properties' option (which allows for metadata entry) has been revamped. Currently its so cumbersome to use. While there is hope in the UI revamp I can't test it myself.
I miss the brushed metal and blue theme.
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Babble777@gmail.com said 1:21AM on 6-11-2009
I'm not saying Apple should invest in making Flash better. Please note I said Apple should deliver h.264 (MPEG-4) in an easy-to-deploy Flash container. It's one of the few places where Apple's Not Invented Here past tends to rear its head, but Apple *could* (but won't) do the following:
1. Aggressively optimize h.264 encoding in Snow Leopard (I suspect they're already going to do this, probably with OpenCL).
2. Make deploying the whole thing in a Flash player a one-click export out of QuickTime player, much as you can upload to YouTube out of iMovie now, with one important difference: a QuickTime X-generated flash player could support whatever extras Apple chose to implement (easy download of the source video, packaging iPod or iPhone-ready versions along with the original, delivering the whole thing through MobileMe, etc.) and they could make it *beautiful*.
In so doing, plugin issues and browser support becomes totally irrelevant. They'd deliver to what the rest of the world is already using to watch video *on the web* (totally leaving aside from the folks bittorrenting stuff illegally, which is irrelevant to this discussion entirely) and make QuickTime and the Macintosh the easiest platform for doing this sort of thing for end users who don't want to bother with learning to package stuff for flash delivery "by hand."
If the argument against this is that by doing this Apple would somehow "benefit" Flash, that argument works just as much - if not more - for doong one-click delivery to YouTube, which Apple is *already* doing.
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Babble777@gmail.com said 1:31AM on 6-11-2009
If you're worried about AVI and DIVX support these days, you're torrenting television and movies; people are going to do whatever they're going to do, but expecting Apple to support that is silly. There are already free, open source players (seriously, you've never heard of VLC?) for those things NOW. You're not Apple's target customer for those things, you never were, and - given that Apple is utterly dependent on film and television copyright holders for content - you very likely *won't be Apple's target customer* for this sort of thing *for the foreseeable future.*
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SCOTT said 5:00PM on 6-11-2009
WOW...on the soapbox much...lol
but you are completely right...there are certain things that torrenting is good for...but stealing is not...thank you for putting us in our place