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Filed under: Games, Photos, QuickTime, Slow News Day, iPhone, iPod Touch
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If they really had balls, they would have taken this before running it
I consider myself a fan of QuickTime VR, despite the fact the technology is largely relegated to sprucing up boring real estate sites and amateur “canyon vacation” VR’s. In fact I am one of the few people who seems to care if QTVR shows up on the iPhone/touch. I came across this fairly kick-ass QTVR shot of the inside of a dishwasher I just thought I’d share. It’s very well done, and I have no idea how they lit this, but of course like all QTVR, it is ultimately useless… To see an insanely giant version, click here.
Bitch and you shall receive – Apple fixes “Adobe-killing” QuickTime bug
Filed under: Awesomeness, QuickTime, Updates, whining
Apple today released QuickTime 7.4.1, an update which
“addresses security issues and improves compatibility with third-party applications.
This release is recommended for all QuickTime 7 users.”
I have done a test to see if this “improved compatibility with third-party applications” fixes the Adobe After Effects crashes I’ve been bitching talking about, and I am happy to say the answer seems to be “yes”. Where After Effects had been crashing at almost exactly the 10-minute mark on any QuickTime render, I have been able to render successfully a 23-minute sequence without issue.
Coincidentally, 23 is also how many days it took Apple to fix this…
Why QuickTime 7.4 sucks: Reason 23 – It ate my codecs
For those of you wondering what the first 22 reasons QuickTime 7.4 sucks are, they are the 22 days Apple has not issued a fix for the “bug” QuickTime 7.4 introduced which has caused Adobe After Effects and Premiere to crash on export (Click here to read a thread on Apple’s support site on the topic with over 19,000 views).
But I will now add another reason why QT 7.4 sucks to the pile – it ate my codecs. Without warning, upgrading to QuickTime 7.4 from 7.3 knocked out about 14 of my available export codecs – codecs I used every day. (Ok, it turns out it didn’t really delete them, but I thought it did for about a week. So I’ll tell you the story, in case you are going through the same thing, or have not yet upgraded to 7.4 and want to save yourself some pain.)
I upgraded my system to QT 7.4, seeing as how it was “recommended for all users“. The next day, I opened up a QuickTime movie I had made and attempted to export it. But instead of my usual arsenal of codec options, I was presented with about half of my usual selection.
Above: QuickTime 7.3’s codec list (left) and 7.4’s (right). Audio got a similar hammering, going from 12 to 7 codecs.
I happen to have a ton of video codecs installed for various reasons, like Black Magic support Read more
Apple choosing iTunes Movie Rentals over its Professional customers
Filed under: QuickTime, Software, You Bet I'm Pissed, bugs, iPod Touch, whining
Is QuickTime 7.4 the worst QuickTime update Apple has ever released? That’s a tough question. 
It certainly has produced the most problems for me personally. I have mentioned before that I am an Adobe After Effects user. It’s how I feed my family, and pay for my house. Having a working copy of After Effects is a close third behind food and water on my short list of things I need to survive.
Unfortunately for me, and many other professional users, Apple’s newly announced iTunes Movies Rentals (and its 24 hour viewing limit) are apparently at the root of a problem which is crippling After Effects, and many other professional applications which rely on QuickTime.
From what I can piece together from various Adobe forums I may or may not be a member of, the newly released iTunes 7.6 and the accompanying QuickTime 7.4 download (required to use it) do a check every 10 minutes or so to verify that QuickTime is not being messed with. This is apparently to protect the new DRM scheme Apple is using for the iTunes movie rentals. The problem is, if you are rendering out an animation that takes longer than 10 minutes to render (which most of mine do, even on our 8-core system) you will get this error:
Apparently incomplete QuickTime files are viewed as an attempt by you to do something bad to QuickTime, and Apple assumes that thing is break its latest DRM. The problem is, when rendering out a .mov, After Effects does not write the final .mov specification until the end of the render, which is causing QuickTime to scream “rape!”. Read more
No QTVR on iPhone or iPod touch? WTF?!
Filed under: Not Cool, Opinion, QuickTime, iPhone, iPod Touch
The fact that the iPhone has been out nearly 6 months now and I have not seen anyone bitch about this yet likely means I am wasting my breath, but who cares? It wouldn’t be the first time.
Why is there no QuickTime VR support on the iPhone/iPod touch? I just happened to be trolling Apple’s site this evening on my iPhone, and thought, “Hey, it must be kind of cool to pan around a QTVR using the iPhone’s touchscreen! Lets check it out!”. (Yes, I am also easily amused by shiny objects).
So I fired up Apple’s QTVR site, all wide-eyed and full of anticipation (and Doritos), only to be told “This movie could not be played”.
Hmmm.. COULD not, or WOULD not, Apple?
I next tried downloading the Times Square VR from Apple’s site, loading it into iTunes (where it plays very nicely, thank you) and then syncing that to the iPhone via the “Movie” checkbox under iTunes’ Video tab. While the QTVR MOV file shows up fine there as an iPhone-syncable item, it does not actually sync to the iPhone.
Finally, I tried e-mailing the QTVR to myself and opening it in the iPhone’s Mail app. I thought I had outsmarted the iPhone when Mail recognized the attachment as a QuickTime and attempted to open it when clicked, but then ultimately I was presented with the dreaded “This movie could not be played” error I had seen before.
As far as I know (which is admittedly not very far) QTVR has been a part of QuickTime since QT 2.5 made its debut, back in 1996 or so. And while perhaps only I and a couple realtors still think it’s cool, there can be no denying that scrolling around VR panoramas on an iPhone’s touch screen will bring hours of fun to the simple minded, such as myself. In fact, it seems like the kind of gesture-based activity the touch screen was designed for.
So please, Apple. Perhaps QuickTime VR is the ugly red-headed step child of the QuickTime world, but that’s no reason to strip it out of the iPhone’s bag of tricks. I guarantee a Jobsian QTVR demo at Macworld 2008 will bring Steve almost as many ego-boosting “oohs” and “ahhs” on stage as “finger-spread” zooming into a still photo did.
The Doc has spoken, so make it so, Number One. Seacrest out.
