Why does everyone one the net hate quicktime?

[Faustus]

I've noticed alot over the years the everyone moans and groans when something is quicktime, but even before I used Macs I never understood why. Anyone know?

The only real arguement I've ever heard is they want it to intergrate with media player as a codec and not a entire program, well thats cool and all but if you know much about quicktime you realize that its WAY more then just a codec. You can do some neat stuff with quicktime.

Some people complain about quicktime grabbing file types... I dont get that. Quicktime has always been well behaved for me on file types, it takes only what I tell it and leaves me alone.

Unstable? Haven't heard that one, and have never seen it myself... so why does everyone hate quicktime?

[ghoster]

i never had a problem with it. just most of the video out there are mpeg and avi and that can be played with media player. no sence getting that when you all ready have something that will play those videos.

[rallynavvie]

Far from it: I love Quicktime. The latest version has MPEG4 support which is even cooler. I've never really cared that it's a seperate program. It's also totally worth the $30 I paid to upgrade to Pro for the export options. I couldn't have done my BMW Films authoring without it

[Faceman101]

For every Quicktime complaint, I've heard 1000 complaints about RealVideo.

[lloyd]

I think Quicktime's the best thing since sliced bread, especially in OSX!!! QT6.1 Pro is a dream. Try doing half the things you can in Quicktime in RealOne, even the gold or platinum version, or whatever the hell it's called now, and you'll get nowhere fast!

[Bravoxena]

i hate quicktime and realaudio and all that "unstandard crap".

[sterno]

Some people hate QuickTime because QT files used to be huge. But they were often high-quality, so it was sort of a "you get what you pay for" kind of thing. If you look around these forums you'll find plenty of people who are willing to watch video that looks only slightly better than a slide show and listen to audio that sounds like a telephone. This is less of an issue with the codecs added in the last few releases.

Some people hate QuickTime because you don't have a million free or easily-bootlegged software packages for working with it, like you do with various AVI formats. QuickTime also tends to be a bit proprietary. It's standardized to a very large extent, but it's sometimes standardized on proprietary/patented codecs with expensive licensing fees (remember the Sorensen codec?). Since QuickTime has a long history of catoring more toward the professional than the hobbyist or movie bootlegger it hasn't hampered its development any.. These things mean that on PCs it can be hard to get a recent QuickTime file in to some other format.

Some people hate QuickTime because of the player. Apple violated their own UI with the first brushed-metal-style player. As I recall it also took some ugly programming to embed a QuickTime movie in something without having that gaudy, over-chromed border and control set distracting people from the content you were trying to present.

But the number-one reason people hate QuickTime is because "this guy I know said it sucks and format is way better".

[devinemi83]

Quicktime gets better ever generation while Real and WMP get worse. It doesnt try to steal all the media on my machine for its own, it does crash up on me, it doesnt drain my comp of all its power.....in short I LIKE IT!


Quicktime video is just fantastic! Most real media and windows media is really shit in quality, even though they are smaller file sizes.


Each format has its place and use


Quicktime is for superb quality.
Real/Windows Media is for tiny files.

[defense]

Real/Windows Media is for tiny files.

Well..there are many other uses/benefits of Real Audio Player over quicktime, and vice-versa. Quicktime has gotten much better and although I don't use it often..it's a great program. Real Audio is EXCELLENT for listening to LIVE FEEDS off the net..mainly for NBA AND NFL broadcasts.

The NBA charges like $10 for the year, but the NFL LIVE Broadcasts are still free for the entire season. Real Player gets a good work out from me during the NFL season when I'm not watching games on Satellite. 8)

[Faustus]

Interesting replys, thanks. Strangely I find alot of others off on the next do hate it, heck over on fark if a link is posted in quicktime everyone moans and groans and its not just that site either.

Personally I've alway chalked it up to "its apple, so I hate it" but I figured I'd throw it out here and see what everyone though. Again, thanks for the replys.

[ChrisX]

I don't have a problem with Quicktime and very handy for .mov and .qt video clips in the computer.

The only thing, I have to wait for a while for the video file to download to view. Like for example, viewing the current movie trailers: http://www.apple.com/trailers/

Quicktime is very clear and better than most applications in use, however very limited. You can't use the DivX on Quicktime or vice versa and Quicktime isn't compatible with VirtualDub. You can't do anything else with it.

[zzyzzx]

i hate quicktime and realaudio and all that "unstandard crap".

I agree. Plus to doa proper install of Quicktime is usually a pain plus I hate the way it adds something to your startup menu (like I'm going to use it every time I run my computer??) and an icon in the task bar. Much to remove so that it doesn't slow down your computer.

[tgpo]

I love quicktime. Its is the only media player I use, other than my DVD player.

[Gazorgan]

QT, I remeber it when You had to CAP on a MAC because the PC was too slow (200 MMX system was $4000). Boy did it show interlacing!!!

This was all before MPEG2/4. I think QT is just a dinasour. Yes it has some good features, but as soon as The Apple version of Bill Gates came up with a good thing, he tied it up into a standalone program. I mean if I want to author something in QT, I gotta jump through hoops to do it. Whereas I can do MPEG2 or MPEG4 in dam near any codec I want, MPG or AVI. All the advanced features in QT aren't readily available to any of the 1/2 dozen apps I have installed. Sucks to be on a Linux/M$ platform.

[sterno]

I hate the way it adds something to your startup menu (like I'm going to use it every time I run my computer??) and an icon in the task bar. Much to remove so that it doesn't slow down your computer.

It seems like almost everything I install in Windows these days adds something to the startup menu, the system tray, and/or the list of autostart items in the registry, and none of them ever ask. A while back I read an editorial that actually called that computer vandalism, which is pretty accurate in some cases.

The worst offender has to be RealPlayer. The last time I made the mistake of installing it my 800MHz machine kept freezing for a second or so, when I checked some piece of RealPlayer was responsible. I'd already told RealPlayer not to run in the system tray, this was some other piece that you couldn't disable. I took it out of the registry and rebooted, no more problem - until I opened the RealPlayer application. It promptly started the program and re-added it in the registry. The only solution is to take it out of the registry, reboot, and rename the executable.

[Betamax]

i hate quicktime and realaudio and all that "unstandard crap".

Hear... Hear...

[dcsos]

How cum if you use CINEPAK to make a quicktime movie
it will play in the WINDOZE MEDIA PLAYER.
Why will no other quicktime file type play in WINDOZE MEDA PLAYER?
And why won't MPEG-4 play in QuickTime..
the only MPEG-4 my quicktime pro 6 will play had to be made by the player itself. Any file from the web that claims to be MPEG-4 will only play in the windoze player...
GO FIQQURE

[flaninacupboard]

yep, Real one player is a hate of mine also. after installing it to watch bbc news 24 feeds, it very quickly pissed me off. stupid thing in startup, and one day i left my machine capturing 11 episodes of farscape in a row on scifi, and even though i had ctrl alt deleted -everything- real player bought up a pop-up, telling it was some clebrity tossers birthday and this one window sucked up 100% resorces. suffice to say i was not pleased when i returned to the computer some 10 hours later. it was uninstalled immediately.
i dislike the quicktime format, mianly because of music cd's. if i buy a music cd that says "free video of such and such!" i go "oo!" until i see the quicktime logo. i assume it's because of the sheer expense of the QT codec, that the files on these discs are -always- old crappy compression systems, i'm talking a 5 minute song, being an interlace 320X240 movie, looking like utter shite and being 80 megs!
i'll see if i can find an exmple, here we go, from the King Adora album, a shot with -no- motion.
this is the original resolution,

and this is a shot with lots of motion, and no detail at all,

and of course i can't do anything with it, it's small and crappy and not worth comverting, and it cost the band an arm and a leg!
as for media playing, i use good old fashioned Mplayer2 (alive and well even in XP, just trot off to c:\program files\windows media player\ and there it is mplayer2.exe!) and i would still be using Mplayer1 if you could full screen video with it. i never ever use wmplayer, i hate the shitty look and the skins and the interactive online content crap. i just want a media player!

[Amish Electrician]

I dont hate QT it works ok it seems the problem is that if i make a file QT & start passing it out people say i cant play it on my computer then i got to tell them you need the QT player & 90% of the time they never want to take there time to F around on QT site to find the free DL of the program & then watch all the nags to buy there player.
Much easyer if i just encode to WMV that works on all windows system by defalt .Call it the MS monoploy but to me it just is easyer if you dont got to jump thru hoops to play a file.
People are lazy & i dont blame them here cause its a pain to put in progams allways needing reboots & removing startup crap & the worry about is that progam gonna screww my system up.

[ChrisX]

I agree that QuickTime and also RealOne Player is a pain as some guys in this forum are saying. The key is switch off the unwanted and annoying features by using your preference settings after installation of any application.

Yes, they do take up the computer’s resources and I must remove or delete the unwanted programs running in the computer start up and the system tray.

Winapp is another annoying app; this one wants to take over all of the computers music and video file attributes. Usually WMP is enough as a default application with another app for Mp3 music. I have to switch off auto files select in preferences.

I use QuickTime only to view their video files, .mov and .qt and the unwanted settings are switched off. I have a firewall and there was an annoying unknown signal telling me an app was trying to access for updates. I now know what it was, QuickTime and the auto updates are turned off.

A QuickTime.exe file is available for offline installation, a word of advice with this one, you don’t have to give QuickTime your name and e-mail address and the app is a success in the computer.

RealOne is most annoying of them all with their unwanted features of promos, alerts and their Message Center. The RealOne was an annoyance constantly ringing up on dialup for the Internet on times not wanted. They disrupt my work on my computer and slow it down. Everything in preferences are unticked and don’t forget to check for anymore hidden in the app to turn off.

Starting the app manually takes a while to load with all that info on RealOne’s browser as I am on Dialup. I use RealOne Player for Netscape’s Radio.

I prefer to update the computer manually on just about everything so it won't disturb me. Some apps ask for auto start when the computer is switched on, I say “no”. Unfortunately, some are so rude on installation without telling me of this auto start of the player and I have to set it in preferences.

The “Auto CD insert” is another annoyance, all the applications respond at once and this overloads the computer. By default the WMP auto plays the CD and I can’t switch this off and I have to use the keyboard to stop this happening.

[pacmania_2001]

The one thing that annoys me the most about Quicktime is that icon it places in your system tray. I tried blocking it by using 'msconfig' and also getting rid of the shortcut in the start up folder but it still comes back up. Plus I have searched in all the preferences/settings and it doesn't seem to be able to be turned off.

Well that is my pet peeve about Quicktime, apart from that the quality of their files are great.

[Faustus]

hrm...unstandard? The only standard I know is MPEG, that means AVI, WMV, Quicktime, and Real are all non-standard. And as far as encoding in WMV so its compatible, I guess personally I take too much into consideration, I use MPEG for that, that way its nice and platform inspecific.

[thxkid]

1. it great for a mac and that about all
2. no control over loading into your toolbar
3. loads that MOV crap every time you get on the net with it, which is a real pain with cable users.
4. since its made by apple they just thinks its the best, just because they are mac snobs.

[SatStorm]

Quicktime is a good alternative. The only problem is that for various reasons, people stop using it and replace it with Real media products. On PCs, not Macs
I believe that gonna change soon. This new f*cking stupid bullsh*t they call real player managed to destroy all the real video/audio fans. I know that almost everyone search now for an alternative to stop using this sh*t and Quicktime is the first which comes in mind!

[Faustus]

I do feel the need to point out that the system tray Icon can be disabled in about 10 seconds, I tend to see that as a complaint alot, but its not hard.

[ChrisX]

I do feel the need to point out that the system tray Icon can be disabled in about 10 seconds, I tend to see that as a complaint alot, but its not hard.

To remove it from the system tray, all you have to do on QuickTime is pulldown "Edit", then select "Preferences", then select "QuickTime Preferences", then the "QuickTime Settings" dialog box popped up, then select "Browser Plugin", then untick "QuickTime system tray icon".

The QuickTime icon should be gone until you tick this again.

[energy80s]

Indeed, whenever you install a programme, always choose the "advanced" or "custom" option rather than automatic install - this lets you disable a lot of the auto loading crap right from the outset. Also if you are using Win98 go to Start>Accessories>System Information>Start Up and disable ALL the crap that you don't want autorunning whenever you boot up Windows. This makes a helluva difference. As for RealOne, I've never installed it - I still use RealPlayer Plus 8, with all the reporting crap disabled.

[TheSeven7hSon]

I use QT when I need to but it's not my default. I don't dislike.

The one I don't like is Real-Virus-Video. (try saying that 10 times.)

Seven

[ChrisX]

Using Win98 go to Start>Accessories>System Information>Start Up and disable ALL the crap that you don't want autorunning whenever you boot up Windows. This makes a helluva difference. As for RealOne, I've never installed it - I still use RealPlayer Plus 8, with all the reporting crap disabled.

Using Win98, the quickest way to disable all the unwanted autorunning at startup is to find MSCONFIG: In folder Windows\Systems\msconfig.exe and create a short-cut of the link and access into it and click start up, then untick the unwanted and unimportant programs running such as MSWORKS. Be careful, some are essential such as ScanRegistry.

Another way: On Desktop, click start>programs>startup, then delete the unwanted short-cuts there such as for example Microsoft Office. Be careful there, if you are using Outlook's calender for auto day to day reminders, better leave as is.

Sure does makes a difference having the "unnecessary startups" disabled or removed and the system tray cleaned out of unnecessary icons running in the system. As a result, the computer got more memory and faster for essential tasks.

[Faustus]

Little off topic but I used to consider Real the kings of internet software scum (this was before gator and stuff obviously) but to me it seems lately they are trying to clean their act up alot. I think I read somewhere they are not actually making a profit off of their different subscription based service... not that I would subscribe personally but like I said I had the feeling they were getting better.