Quicktime 7.0.1 Released

[BobVB]

I Seem To Vaguely Remember....

Actually take a look at what they DO offer. Most companies offer an upgrade for people who bought their previous product - with QT Pro, Apple does NOT.

In fact, I bought QT Pro 5 a few days before QT Pro 6 was released. To get QT Pro 6 I had to pay the full price again.

edit: And no I'm no longer complaining. But if you put up a comment that asks people not to complain, but that doesn't acknowledge the reality of the situation, you'll get a reply.

Now wasn't part of the original 'licensing' fee because they have to pay the MPEG Consortium on every copy that can encode their codecs? If they gave out fully encoding capable software in every OS it would amount to a huge chunk of change in licensing fees? By making people buy a medium priced license they not only get revenue but can report a much lower number of encoders and pay a much smaller amount. At least that was a reasonable speculation at the initial charging - don't know if its still a reasonable excuse or is it they just figure we are used to the fee by now?

 

[MontyZ]

It's an awfully large file for a security update, and for an update that doesn't even fix any of the problems we're having with QT. I installed it, rebooted, and have noticed nothing different. I guess that's a good thing.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Something locked up good when I tried to restart after installing QT 7.01. Held down the power button and did a manual restart - after that, all was normal again.

 

[Mac_Freak]

After the update to 7.0.1, iTunes now playes videos a lot smoother, almost instantly. Also the full screen mode is more responsive
I haven't got a chance to test it out more but so far it is a nice update.

 

[jdechko]

Now wasn't part of the original 'licensing' fee because they have to pay the MPEG Consortium on every copy that can encode their codecs? If they gave out fully encoding capable software in every OS it would amount to a huge chunk of change in licensing fees? By making people buy a medium priced license they not only get revenue but can report a much lower number of encoders and pay a much smaller amount. At least that was a reasonable speculation at the initial charging - don't know if its still a reasonable excuse or is it they just figure we are used to the fee by now?

This is probably true, but the Pro Version of QT7 only does MPEG-4 Video. There is actually a separate plug-in/upgrade for MPEG-2 Content listed on the Apple Store page, which is $19.99 USD.

 

[MattG]

Well this is just GREAT

I installed this update on my PowerMac, restarted, and now I can't log in.

When the login screen used to come up, it used to show the pictures. You'd click on the picture for the person you wanted to log in as, then it would ask for a password. Now, it's just a blank space for user name and blank space for password. It does not accept my logon credentials. I even booted up with the Mac OS X Install disc and changed the password, and I still can't log in.

 

[Gasu E.]

Market share

As far as I know, h.264 is just a pre-ratified standard from the same people who brought you MPEG 1 2 and 4, and thus William H. Gates III can implement the codec for Windows if he cared to. Of course, he's shooting for a new Windows Mediocre Player format for HD content. Of course, that will work on the 40-50% of the windows computers in the world capable for actually keeping up with full-frame HD content. Market share is a piss-poor indicator of anything useful: I have 1 mac and 4 fully-legit XP machines at home right now. Of those 4 machines, only one is > 1GHz P4. Tell me that my 433 Celeron laptop is "legitimately counted" of market share - it won't even stream web content over wireless because its too cpu intensive.

Sorry for the rant... I'm tired of hearing about the "market-share" silliness.

"Market share" counts new sales over a recent period, not installed base of systems actually being used.

 

[BobVB]

that could be seen as additional support for the hypothesis

This is probably true, but the Pro Version of QT7 only does MPEG-4 Video. There is actually a separate plug-in/upgrade for MPEG-2 Content listed on the Apple Store page, which is $19.99 USD.

And if there are seperate licensing fees for both that reduces their amount paid the consortium even more.

I'm sure we both agree there is a 'desire for increase revenues' by Apple in the equation but I wouldn't be surprised if there was an even greater calculation for 'decreased expenditures' too. I mean its not like they make any effort at all to make sure each encoding license is only used on one machine...

 

[LenVegas]

Quicktime FIX

FIX FOR ANYONE HAVING SAFARI "?" BUG:

Hi, I registered just to help out anyone else having this problem. I was having the "question mark bug" until Googling turned this up:

FROM: http://acm.cwru.edu/pipermail/sigmac-talk/2005-May/001634.html


"The solution, however, is pretty simple...
(Credit to: http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@755.zRgUaIiDRmC.
10 at .68a45f50.68ad2224.68adc062)

1. Exit Safari

2. Navigate to the [Hard Drive Name]\Library\Internet Plug-Ins folder

3. Remove the "QuickTime Plugin.webplugin" file

4. Restart Safari

Everything seems to work without that file... Not sure why, but if
you're having the problem, this ought to take care of it."

AND - Yes the 2 'Help' menus go away if you un-install the DivX Quicktime plug-in. So, these two bugs, at least, have simple fixes.

cheers

 

[zv470]

Actually take a look at what they DO offer. Most companies offer an upgrade for people who bought their previous product - with QT Pro, Apple does NOT.

In fact, I bought QT Pro 5 a few days before QT Pro 6 was released. To get QT Pro 6 I had to pay the full price again.

edit: And no I'm no longer complaining. But if you put up a comment that asks people not to complain, but that doesn't acknowledge the reality of the situation, you'll get a reply.

Hmm... true, I guess they could offer an upgrade at cheaper cost... but I think its fair that they charge something. I could afford it eventhough I'm on a low income.

Anyway... QT Pro... is dirt cheap, and if someone is too scroogie... they can always find a reg code for free somewhere... for those who want to steal from Apple.

 

[swheeler]

Anyway... QT Pro... is dirt cheap, and if someone is too scroogie... they can always find a reg code for free somewhere... for those who want to steal from Apple.

I, umm, know someone who didn't really mind stealing QTPro after giving Apple very large amounts of money for his second high end powermac.

 

[byokitis]

What is it with the two Help menus in QT7? A minor annoyance I know, but I thought they'd have rectified that in 7.0.1. Seems not.

I have no idea what your talking about.

 

[MacTruck]

FIX FOR ANYONE HAVING SAFARI "?" BUG:

Hi, I registered just to help out anyone else having this problem. I was having the "question mark bug" until Googling turned this up:

FROM: http://acm.cwru.edu/pipermail/sigmac-talk/2005-May/001634.html


"The solution, however, is pretty simple...
(Credit to: http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@755.zRgUaIiDRmC.
10 at .68a45f50.68ad2224.68adc062)

1. Exit Safari

2. Navigate to the [Hard Drive Name]\Library\Internet Plug-Ins folder

3. Remove the "QuickTime Plugin.webplugin" file

4. Restart Safari

Everything seems to work without that file... Not sure why, but if
you're having the problem, this ought to take care of it."

AND - Yes the 2 'Help' menus go away if you un-install the DivX Quicktime plug-in. So, these two bugs, at least, have simple fixes.

cheers

THANK YOU! My problem is finally fixed. I was having trouble with mpeg movies in safari and that fixed the problem.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I have no idea what your talking about.

It's a DivX plugin bug. If you don't have the DivX plugin for QuickTime, you'll never see it (I don't have the plugin).

 

[swissmann]

Hope it's faster.

Especially on the H.264 front.

 

[asterizk]

Of course this statement totally disregards the fact that it has been almost three years since QT 6 was released (and you didn't have to repurchase an QT Pro update between the initial 6.0 release up to the most recent 6.5.2 update).

The new codecs are of course nice-to-have. The main problem I have is when I have to re-pay for functionality I already had. The reason I paid for Quicktime 4, and 5, and 6, was that I wanted to be able to play movies in full screen. Now I have to pay for that same functionality again. Really, the full-screen functionality should be part of the free player -- it is with the free versions of the other Mac media players (Real, WMP).

 

[asterizk]

The new codecs are of course nice-to-have. The main problem I have is when I have to re-pay for functionality I already had. The reason I paid for Quicktime 4, and 5, and 6, was that I wanted to be able to play movies in full screen. Now I have to pay for that same functionality again. Really, the full-screen functionality should be part of the free player -- it is with the free versions of the other Mac media players (Real, WMP).

Oooh... well, I take that back. Guess I haven't been paying attention -- just discovered you can play videos in fullscreen via iTunes (though you have to clutter your iTunes library with video if you want to do it)...

 

[SiliconAddict]

Which would play into the whole 'year of HD', iTunes Movie Store deal. But surely they'd want to test the windows version out in the wild before they opened their movie download app, no?

Hmmm Jobs did say at "D: All Things Digital" conference that a new iTunes would be out "within about 60 days". Maybe this is a bigger release of iTunes then anyone expected? All the other iApps got a major update at MW in January. God knows a number of us were bumbed out that all we got was a sad little update. Could we see iTunes 5.0 at WWDC?

 

[VanNess]

FIX FOR ANYONE HAVING SAFARI "?" BUG:

Everything seems to work without that file... Not sure why, but if
you're having the problem, this ought to take care of it."

AND - Yes the 2 'Help' menus go away if you un-install the DivX Quicktime plug-in. So, these two bugs, at least, have simple fixes.

cheers

Thanks for the fix. I always wondered why the Quicktime plugin info was duplicated twice when viewing the "Installed Plug-ins" window (from the help menu). Removing that plugin resolved that and quicktime plugin failures with Safari on some sites.

I've been less than thrilled with the QT 7 update so far. I like alot of the new features and layout, but unfortunately, once again there is a little "gotcha" for QT 7 Pro users. The video adjustment controls (tint, sharpness, brightness, etc) which were always a feature of previous versions of QT Pro have been quietly removed for QT 7 Pro users who don't have core graphics capable GPU's. Not a word about it on the minimum system requirements for QT Pro on Apple's Quicktime Pro download pages. You find out about it after you purchase and go digging into Apple's tech notes for an answer. I can understand that with H264, you would probably need some significant horsepower to render such controls in HD, but this is the throw-the-baby out-with-the-bathwater solution. How hard could it have been to engineer a fallback path for non-HD content on machines that previously supported those controls on QT 6? Or, if they don't want to do the fallback option, how about at least a little footnote on the QT web page that identifies the graphics card requirement for those controls? Finding out about this stuff the hard way - after the fact - isn't going to endear Apple to it's customers, especially upgraders.

I have to admit that I always trusted Apple when updating/upgrading my stuff, and any surprises along the way have almost always been good ones. But with Tiger and QT 7, there seems to be a almost wholesale shift towards core image technologies. That would be fine if some kind of fallback path existed for Macs that don't have the latest high end video cards (Macs that are less than 2 years old fall into this category) so entire sets of previous features don't go missing. And Apple originally sounded as if Tiger core image would optimize itself on the fly for the hardware present on Tiger compatible machines, but its looking more and more like that "optimization" really means: check to see of core image capable card exists - if yes , proceed, if no , stop and remove feature/effect. I don't think anyone is going to buy a new GPU or Mac just to see the dashboard ripple effect or color adjustment controls in QT Pro, but i do think this kind of stuff will piss people off, especially when Apple makes no effort to clearly identify the hardware requirements for specific features that have been anchored to core image/graphics card technologies.

Nice effects, really nice effects. But don't forget your customers.

Sorry if I got a little off topic for this thread.

 

[Mac_Freak]

FIX FOR ANYONE HAVING SAFARI "?" BUG:

Hi, I registered just to help out anyone else having this problem. I was having the "question mark bug" until Googling turned this up:

FROM: http://acm.cwru.edu/pipermail/sigmac-talk/2005-May/001634.html


"The solution, however, is pretty simple...
(Credit to: http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@755.zRgUaIiDRmC.
10 at .68a45f50.68ad2224.68adc062)

1. Exit Safari

2. Navigate to the [Hard Drive Name]\Library\Internet Plug-Ins folder

3. Remove the "QuickTime Plugin.webplugin" file

4. Restart Safari

Everything seems to work without that file... Not sure why, but if
you're having the problem, this ought to take care of it."

AND - Yes the 2 'Help' menus go away if you un-install the DivX Quicktime plug-in. So, these two bugs, at least, have simple fixes.

cheers

Thank you a lot, this finally solved my problem (everyones)