Why does anybody use Quicktime?

I admit that when given a choice of download formats, I will choose Quicktime over others. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I like the player. Maybe it's because the video quality seems better somehow. Maybe it's because I can actually step forward and back through the video smoothly rather than with the huge delays you get with Windows Media Player.

But damn. I just tried to encode a video with it, and it took at least a half an hour to get a THIRD of the way through the encode! The video is only three minutes long, and takes only FOUR minutes to encode to Avi using either the Divx or Xvid codecs!

Quicktime is so painfully slow to encode, that there's no way in hell I'm gonna use it to encode ANYTHING! I don't care if it makes my video look pristine. It's not worth my time for a small increase in picture quality.

Given that it is so very slow, 15x as slow as avi, why does ANYONE use it? Does it actually encode fast on a Mac, or is it just as slow there?

I never liked Quicktime, however, the ability to handle .mov files is a necessary evil.

I use Quicktime Alternative.

Me too. I thought Quicktime installation was a mess. adding autostart entries and background tasks. snorking in my hardrive and such. Not really the kind of software a sinking ship should release.

But I agree, in that time the buttons were looking top.

The codec isn't bad. Other than mpeg2 and 4, this is like realmedia useful for small web clips with a low framerate and a very low filesize.

I think it is the QuickTime framework why people use QuickTime.

QuickTime is still only optimized for PowerPC Macs, and the PPC version runs circles around the Intel port.

I don't like quicktime either, never have. I know its a cool framework and everything, but it doesn't get used much on the PC. I much prefer WMV for quality and filesize when streaming off the web. Or Xvid if it's played back localy.

I'm not keen on the player either and have tried to keep it off my puter, occasionaly something comes up that doesn't seem to work well on quicktime alternative players and recently gave in too.

Actually, for anyone editing video with Adobe Premiere, QT is almost a necessity. Excellent HD and DV codecs.

I avoid QT and .MOVs like plague... and the player sucks royally, and I definitely don't like the way Apple forces me to install Itunes too (luckily I can uninstall that afterwards). WMV rules.

i hate it,it just seems to take over.

The possibility to pan forward and backward in near realtime even on old machines is a great plus.

Quality, widespread browser plugin, came bundled with other software

easy enough

In first place Quicktime is a container and not a codec. Secondly quicktime is easy to use, offers wide services, good video codecs like h.264 or on2VP6 if you have Flash installed. I like it.

I don't like Macs, and Quicktime has "Hello, I originate from a Mac" all over it. I'd say: Mov for Mac, AVI for PC, and keep it like that..

What do you say if you want a crossplatform solution?

I think a minority should make itself compatible with a majority (just as in cultures/countries, and heck, just software anyway, you aren't going to release OS/2 software today, do you?). A Mac (a minority) being able to play PC formats (a majority) makes more sense to me than a PC-user being required to install some player coming from another minority culture. And if a xplatform solution must be made, let it be designed by some independent open-platform people who'll optimize it for all CPUs and systems, let them make sure every standard mediaplayer has its codec built-in and let it just be a codec, not some over-GUI'd player no-one wants to use.

ohwell, €0.02

I was more thinking about client work and not so much about nerd stuff...

@Mustang: You can download&install QT without iTunes. No need to uninstall anything...

Well, Quicktime Player on a PC runs like a dream compared to Windows Media Player on a mac...

God, that's the truth. WMP is an abomination on the Mac. I had to search out codecs so I could play WMV and AVI files through QuickTime and ditch WMP entirely on my Mac.


What's over-GUI'd about it? You double click the movie, the player comes up, you click the "Play" button which is big, round, and in the middle of the control panel at the bottom.

If you set movies to autoplay, all you need is the initial double click.

I guess for me it's over-GUI'd in the way that I don't want a player that plays one file. I'd rather use QT Alternative and continue using Winamp or Media Player to view them.

I use Media Player Classic - it's a single small EXE, no installation, and it plays anything perfectly, even quicktime .MOV and realplayer files, in a full-screen window with no menus or lists or ads or other rubbish.

I can't see why anyone would ever use anything else.

A couple of download links for it:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Media_Player_Classic.htm
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/video_players/media_player_classic.cfm

Provided you have QT or Real Alternative installed, just like for any other DirectShow based player.

I use QT Alternative and Real Alternative -- but I tend to avoid both formats whenever I can. When I have the option, I use Windows Media through Mediaplayer Classic.

Real looks like crap, and quicktime seems to be a major resource hog.

Especially the native QT player is abbysmal -- the free version doesn't allow some of the most rudimentary features such as full screen playback.

I use GOM Player, because it's the only player that plays everything I need it to play without crashing or telling me I need to unlock DRM or anything of that stuff.

Any DRM file just flags up a little window telling me I need a new codec. I delete any such files.

VLC Media Player is what I use, seems to work fine, plays tracked music as well which is nice.