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Quicktime Player and HD (H.264)
18.12.2005
Once again, Apple is kicking the ass of Microsoft in their own Platform. I'm talking about Video Players.

For years Mac (David Notario) was always complaining about Quicktime because wasn't really an open format that you could play with another player and he was always defending .wm9. In fact, when we (he) did all the videos of all the threepixels demos, he didn't want to save them as .mov mainly because that.

But, as you can see, .mov is now a very used video format in for anything. In xplsv.tv for example 90% of all the content is in Quicktime, looks like everyone using mac or After Effects (win or mac) always export as quicktime. And I say "thanks god!". Whenever you try to see a video streamed in a website using the shitty Windows Media Player I get quite angry, my conection sometimes isn't fast enough and the video stops.. and says streaming... 20% 45% 76%... that sucks. I can understand that they do that with a TV stream, but not with a video! Quicktime instead saves all the video information, and you can play it without any stops whenever you want. Somehow, the quicktime player that is used for online files looks more profesional than the shitty windows media player.

Some months ago they released Quicktime 7 with the new HD technology (H.264). This simply rocks! As we have finally internet at home and one of the firsts things I did was to try the speed of it watching a lot of Movie Trailers in HD. And where else to check trailers at this resolution better than Apple Trailers? Again, a very clever move by Apple. So, what I was actually doing was watching all the trailers at 1080p definition. This means 1920x1080 pixels. So I was watching almost in realtime Trailers from internet at 1920x1080 (filling for first time totally my screen (1920x1200)) without resizing anything. Isn't that impressive?! I was even able to see a lot of bad texture mapping in Ice Age 2.

Something I really hated is that I'm not able to download Quicktime alone now, I have to download it with iTunes which I really hate (tho I'm starting to find usefull (the shop for CD previews and because we have some airtports at Spring which can connect directly to some speakers and with iTunes in your computer send the music to play in the speakers).

Talking about the technology, definitelly this has been a very big step that will really change a lot of things from now on. The PAL resolution is just starting the final days now. And again, thanks god! as I went the other day to a Dixons shop, where they had all those super screens and they were just doing a very crap interpolation of the PAL signal. The texture was so disgusting.

Btw, meanwhile writing this post I realized that Microsoft is working in this technology as well but they have the links to an EXE that you have to download and it's actually a zip, unzip and play.. Very useful, isn't it? :D MICROSOFT! LOSERS!!!

Here is a screenshot of my desktop so you can understand easier what I'm talking about.
posted by ricardo cabello at 19:06
3 comments written so far

Yo los videos en columbia, desde 1999 los he ido haciendo en Quicktime. Tampoco comprendo esa aprensión hacia este formato, más cuando lo mezclas con conversores como los de Sorenson para hacer streaming... wmv suxx bastante.

Un ex-compañero mio decía que no tenía nada en contra del formato. Solo que odiaba el player en si. La verdad es que el interface no es que sea una maravilla, pero bueno, tampoco es para tanto...

Y desde luego, antes que grabarlo en wmv, prefiero dejarles un avi en div-x y que se lo descarguen XD

PD. Lo del itunes+qt tampoco acabo de tragarlo... por eso me bajo el qt pro registrado de donde todos sabemos... pq viene solo ;)
posted by humphr3y
19.12.2005 , 08:39

i hate wmv & avi's because they always are complicated to play on non-windows machines... each one has a different encoding algorithm and you need to update the player or get a plug-in for it (and most of the times they do not work or you have to pay for them). that simply sux...! mpg or mov forever!

And relating to your topic I must admit that the player impressed me. It's a very great quality. I wonder when will they start using it for DVD's (if it's possible :D) although i presume it's not very useful for existing dvd players...
posted by sole
19.12.2005 , 10:03

http://www.apple.com/quic ktime/download/standalone .html

Gotta read the small letters :-)
posted by Jcl
22.12.2005 , 17:04

SORRY!
Is not that I don't care about what you have to say, of course I do, but they are speaking louder and I lost my patience :(
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