Apple to Integrate 'QuickTime Pro' Features in Snow Leopard?

[WATCHDOG]

+++

Applaud or Complain?

Flip a coin. Tails. Complain!

+++

Too Little, Too Late!

Once upon a time I'd purshased QT "pro". OK.

But when SoftWare Update gave me the next iteration of QT,
my $30 QT "pro" functioning was disabled; ergo, another 30 bucks.

Happened again.. So I said, 'to heck with the pro; this is a scam!'

In this current era of rapidly vanishing spending cash, expect to see
more & more "enticements", "perks", Price-Reduction Sales, and so-called "FREEBIES" -> from all those who need your dough else they perish.

+++

 

[MrCrowbar]

Wow.. that's great.. very unexpected from Apple.. i guess it's a way to get people to upgrade to Snow Leopard maybe.. that or their being nice.

That said it's always been extremely easy to just find a serial online. [Not that i'd every do such a thing.]

Or you could just go into an Apple Store or authorized reseller, open Quicktime, and write down the Volume Licence. Worked fine in the early days of OSX 10.4, dunno how it is now, I bought VisualHUB and love it. Much faster, output looks better and there's a queue for the "rare" occasion you're doing re-encoding multiple videos.

 

[50548]

Well, if someone is charged with illegally copying software, are they charged with theft? No, they are charged with copyright violation. We have a term for it already! (and copyright violation predates the digital world too, though of course it is much easier now.)

Especially since copyright does not equal traditional ownership; otherwise there would be no fair use rights and various exceptions...people seem to easily forget that, not to mention that media copying is a form of non-rivalrous good.

 

[8CoreWhore]

3 year old news? MS didn't do a very good job.

It's not "news", you sound bite addicted invalid.

 

[likemyorbs]

wow, i have pro but i didnt exactly buy it. its definitely not worth paying for, it should have always been free.

 

[mrkgoo]

Please please please, Apple, get rid of some of my options for playing movies.

• Quicktime
• DVD Player
• QuickLook
• iTunes
• iMovie

I don't know how they could simplify them, but at least get rid of DVD Player and give QuickTime a better DVD menu. Besides, they'd have to change it to BluRay Player soon. That'd just be a horrible name.

Anyone know if there's a disadvantage to watching a movie in QuickLook as apposed to Quicktime?

I don't understand the nature of your request. You want to REMOVE functionality from software? It's meant to be for convenience. Quicklook is fast, but doesn't have the same options as a proper player.

Why get rid of DVD player? it's totally different from Quickplayer - I guess you want the software to be integrated together. Still, no reason to completely get rid of software.

 

[apfhex]

it should have always been free.

Yes, it's about effing time. I always thought it was silly.

 

[kolax]

Thought this would happen.

 

[dawnrazor]

Hasn't QTP been available free, to anyone with half a brain cell, on the most unofficial official level for the longest time anyway?

 

[Eminemdrdre00]

What are some of these free apps that give Quicktime Pro functionality?

 

[lantzn]

Note, I'm not taking either side here, but that's an inaccurate comparison. If you take something from a store, they no longer have that item. That is stealing. If you pirate software, you are a copyright violator, not a thief.

Not defending pirating, but if you're going to criticize something, criticize it for what it really is.

You can call it what YOU want, but from the beginning, if you took something without paying for it (whatever the agreed payment may be), it's called stealing.

 

[lantzn]

Or you could just go into an Apple Store or authorized reseller, open Quicktime, and write down the Volume Licence. Worked fine in the early days of OSX 10.4, dunno how it is now, I bought VisualHUB and love it. Much faster, output looks better and there's a queue for the "rare" occasion you're doing re-encoding multiple videos.

R.I.P. VisualHub
Hopefully the opensource version will be just as good.

 

[clmason]

You can call it what YOU want, but from the beginning, if you took something without paying for it (whatever the agreed payment may be), it's called stealing.

The courts do not agree and in fact have ruled that copyright violation is *not* theft.

 

[kolax]

What are some of these free apps that give Quicktime Pro functionality?

HandBrake, MPEG Streamclip.

Not to mention the QuickTime Pro API's are actually free to use..

 

[Plymouthbreezer]

Thank god, this was the silliest and most outdated move Apple had been playing for a while... Good riddance QuickTime Pro!

 

[chr1s60]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

Some of the QuickTime Pro features should have been free a long time ago.

 

[bwilliams1188]

sounds to me like part of the plan to keep snow leopard expensive enough, maybe questioning the "cheap" upgrade. still pumped!!!

 

[michelepri]

HandBrake, MPEG Streamclip.

Not to mention the QuickTime Pro API's are actually free to use..

mpeg streamclip exports to various formats using quicktime compression. unfortunately.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I'd be interested in seeing this - I think QuickTime Pro is certainly interesting, but the way it's currently implemented is just annoying.

Perfect example: QuickTime Pro features are NOT enabled. I'm trying to hide the QuickTime Player app, and I hit G instead of H. A dialog comes up about Find Next, which you can't (as far as I know) dismiss with the keyboard.

 

[aaronsullivan]

Best reasoning on here is the Cocoa transition. It will be DEAD easy to create a Quicktime clone once it is all hooked up with a Cocoa API. Any non-developer with an hour to spare will be able to hook one up if the API is as useful as I'd expect.

On top of that, it was a hold over from when Steve Jobs came back and demanded that all Apple projects need to be viewed from a profitability standpoint. Quicktime needed a way to support itself and the resulting ill-conceived plan for Pro upgrades took WAY too long to go away. (Video players/codecs were SO much more important back then, too.)

As for the piracy debate here, I applaud those that bring attention to the details. Simply saying "It's stealing" covers up the real issues and doesn't help anyone.

From the developer's viewpoint it IS close to stealing with an important caveat. The developer sets a price for using her hard work. Some one who knows he needs/wants it comes and uses it without paying. The net effect to the developer is that she lost a sale. Same as if you made something and someone stole it. Work put in. Work not paid for. Loss.

However, "piracy" is more complicated than that. For instance, it's so easy and inconsequential to the person who uses the work without paying that he may not even need/want what he is using. Plus, with software, no additional work is needed to replace it (as long as it was downloaded via a means that is at no cost to the developer.) In this case, there is no loss. If it was impossible to use the work without paying, this person would not have paid anyway (remember, they don't need or want it for its intended use.)

Of course, it gets deeper...

That said, I don't care what you call it, or what your understanding is:
I'm a developer, and I'd prefer it if you paid for my software. If you didn't, you'd better not be enjoying it. If you are enjoying it, still unwilling to pay, and that makes you happy inside, you are morally bankrupt and need to address that. Just saying.

 

[Maury]

I guess they're trying to justify the price tag for 10.6 by adding some tangible benefits.

Can you imagine the average punter paying $80 or whatever for an OS that looks pretty much the same as its predecessor apart from apparently being more efficient 'under the hood'?

Are you tetched in the head? People pay thousands of dollars for this all the time. It's called "new computer".

I was considering buying a new computer this year, when mine reached it's three-year anniversary. From what I have heard, 10.6 will offer performance benefits that are, for general use, at least as great as a new machine.

So yes, I can imagine the "average punter paying $80". Duh.

Maury

 

[Maury]

So, what about MKV?

A more interesting question for most of us, I suspect, is whether or not QTX will support MKV out of the box. If it does, that might imply that the ATV will, at some point. And that would be VERY nice.

Maury

 

[Wondercow]

Note, I'm not taking either side here, but that's an inaccurate comparison. If you take something from a store, they no longer have that item. That is stealing. If you pirate software, you are a copyright violator, not a thief.

Not defending pirating, but if you're going to criticize something, criticize it for what it really is.

Pirating is stealing:

Oxford Concise:
1. Take (something) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it
2. Give or take surreptitiously or without permission

American Heritage:
1. To take (the property of another) without right or permission

New Oxford American Dictionary (Mac OSX):
1. Take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it

Mirriam-Webster:
1: to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice

None requires that the property be physical; in fact, three don't even require that the stolen item be property.

As a matter of law one is not charged with theft since taking IP doesn't meet the legal definition, but that does not change the definition in vulgar language and vulgar society. Pirating music, movies, software, etc. is theft—every major dictionary supports this.

 

[clmason]

Pirating is stealing:

Oxford Concise:
1. Take (something) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it
2. Give or take surreptitiously or without permission

American Heritage:
1. To take (the property of another) without right or permission

New Oxford American Dictionary (Mac OSX):
1. Take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it

Mirriam-Webster:
1: to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice

None requires that the property be physical; in fact, three don't even require that the stolen item be property.

As a matter of law one is not charged with theft since taking IP doesn't meet the legal definition, but that does not change the definition in vulgar language and vulgar society. Pirating music, movies, software, etc. is theft—every major dictionary supports this.

Well, then we're back to what the other poster mentioned. Can you be considered to have "taken" something from someone, if that person still has it? Not with any common use of the word take, I don't think. If I take something from you, you don't have it anymore.

But I can copy your "IP" and you can say, hey, he's violating my copyright! I didn't give permission for that copying! But even that's not absolute. Say I am quoting you to criticize you or review your work, or I am making a satire. That is permitted.

The behaviour and social relations (if you want to call it that) involved are different from the case where, say, I steal your car and now you have to take the bus!

 

[wesleyh]

Are you tetched in the head? People pay thousands of dollars for this all the time. It's called "new computer".

I was considering buying a new computer this year, when mine reached it's three-year anniversary. From what I have heard, 10.6 will offer performance benefits that are, for general use, at least as great as a new machine.

So yes, I can imagine the "average punter paying $80". Duh.

Maury

Hahah, you think snow leopard will offer an increase in performance similar to buying a new computer? One word: delusional.

I'll be happy if we get a 5% increase..