Topic: I hate Quicktime.

[Quemaqua]

I was searching for a good alternative player and just typed in "I hate Quicktime" into Google for kicks.  Look what popped up!  It's pretty funny.

I have no idea why anyone chooses to host a video using quicktime. It takes forever to load, and the program is unstable, ala 1996. Fuck you steve jobs, go snort some more coke with your black turtleneck and shove your ipod and shitty software up your ass.

That made me laugh.

This just in - Apple today released a new version of its awe inspiring QuickTime. This little piece of wonder software takes care of all your multimedia needs and will automagically set itself up so you won't have to hassle with actually having to choose a media player. "We've even figured out how to keep our audience captivated with a little blue 'Q' in the corner of our users screen." said Steve Jobs. "It's called an 'icon' and it helps people remember us." he says. When asked what the purpose was for this little blue 'Q', Jobs says "I just said it helps people remember us. That's it! It doesn't do anything else and most people just can't understand the incredible genius behind this little marketing miracle. Better yet, it helps them remember to upgrade to QuickTime Pro." Jobs, referring to the highly advanced QuikTime Pro, made mention of the god-like talent necessary to author this derivitive piece. "I liken the experience to Genesis 1:1 when God created the heavens and the earth" says Jobs. When asked what the difference was between the Regular and Pro versions, he replied "The Pro version is extremely advanced. It took a team of 18 of our engineers a period of 2 years to come up with a piece of code that I like to sum in 3 words... Full Screen Baby!"

That made me laugh even more.

[ren]

A good alternative player is called "Quicktime Alternative"

It's so logical that you wouldn't even think of it!

[Xessive]

Yep, just like Real Alternative

They allow you to play Real and QT files in other media players (WMP, MPC, Zplayer).

[Quemaqua]

Do Real files even exist anymore?  That's like the most dead format ever.

[Cobra951]

It's the most crap format ever, other than Bink.  Now if we could only make MOVs die too . . .

[Xessive]

I hate Real, but apparently a lot of Arab idiots can't seem learn that it was dead when it started and move on. They still encode Arabic TV shows in stupid ass Real, and they still release Arabic music in RealAudio, and it sucks ass. I think I'm a rare specimen of Arab who actually cares about quality, clarity, and accessibility.

I don't mind MOV mainly because I'll take it over streaming video anyday.. I especially dislike WindowsMedia streaming. With YouTube, MetaCafé, and Google Video streaming videos have become more popular though.

[Cools]

They need to fix Quicktime on Windows. It's a good application, with great quality codecs, but Apple keeps fucking it by bundling it with iTunes (because it's needed by it internally) and with all little retarded things it does when you install it.

Then again, I'm on a Mac, and work with Quicktime all the time...

My least favorite format is ASX. It's a WMV streaming header file to be used with a streaming server. There is this one site I know that always puts up videos in that format, but because (I guess) they don't know how to configure their server properly it never works for me. Works on PC, but never on anything else.

My only complaint with Flash based players is that if the window isn't in focus (selected), then it [Flash] automatically reduces the framerate which makes it hard to watch while doing something else. Google solves this by giving you a standalone video player for their own GVP format (which, if you download it, is nothing more than a text file that contains a link to the real AVI file, but alas they mess up the headers so it doesn't play in Windows Media, but plays fine in something like VLC).

[iPPi]

I still use .RM and .RMVB files because that's what Asian TV series are encoded in.  It's terrible, but I don't watch 'em, so whatever.

I just use zoomplayer for all my media needs.

[Quemaqua]

Zoomplayer is awesome.  Does that do QT?

[Xessive]

Yeah ZoomPlayer is awesome. It caters to my every media-related need.

EDIT: It basically uses WMP, so it can do anything WMP can do. If you have QuickTime Alternative installed you'll be able to play QuickTime movies in ZoomPlayer.

[Quemaqua]

Wicked!  I'll have to get that again and start using it as my main player.  Don't really know why I never did before.  Had other things I used and discovered it late in the game, I guess.

[DrSbaitso]

I installed QuickTime on my Windows PC (well, iTunes actually, but QT came with it) last week and was very surprised how shit it was. It took a full 10 seconds to start up, added a bunch of crap to my startup and system tray, and looked much uglier than the Mac version.

I can wholeheartedly understand how people can hate QuickTime (although it runs like a dream on OS X).

[Quemaqua]

(although it runs like a dream on OS X).

Gee, what a shocker.

[Xessive]

Surprisingly enough thatr's how Microsoft Office runs on OS X as well! It's even more aesthetically pleasing!

[gpw11]

But aparently WMP sucks even more on macs.

I'm not a big quicktime fan at all.  Seriously, just  include a fullscreen option.

[Xessive]

Yeah, the 'free' version of Quicktime on WIndows suck royally. So many features are disabled. I tried out a cracked version of Quicktime to see the difference, and it's nice to have fullscreen and the ability to save files.

Ever since Quicktime 6, the fullscreen feature has been weird and really heavy for some reason. I think they added something to re-render the video when it stretches to fullscreen, instead of just using the standard overlay filter. In contrast, when I watch Quicktime videos in Zoomplayer, and I fullscreen it, it runs just like any other video.

[Cools]

Just use VLC people!

It's funny how there are at least a dozen Quicktime alternatives on the Mac itself, there are even scripts that enable most of the features in the Pro version.

And yeah, WMP version on the Mac is basically dead, but at least now you can get a free plugin for Quicktime that lets you play WMVs in it.

[TheOtherBelmont]

I pretty much just use VLC, ZoomPlayer, and Windows Media on occasion, but mostly VLC.

[Xessive]

VLC is pretty sweet, but I mainly use ZoomPlayer because of its multi-screen and aspect ratio options. My PC is connect to my TV, and the TV resolution is smaller than my PC, so it helps to have screen presets to switch around.

I'm pretty sure VLC has some of these options as well, but with ZoomPlayer they're very easily accessible. For example: Alt+Enter goes to fullscreen with the primary screen's preset (or the screen ZoomPlayer is currently active on), and Z zooms into fullscreen with the last used preset. The 1 key is bound 1024x768 (which is my TV's resolution) and the rest of the # keys are bound to different presets as well.

I have resorted to using these presets because ATi did this really retarded thing where they changed their Theatre mode aspect ration from 640x480 (4:3 ratio) to 720x480 (4˝:3 ratio), and everything generally looks vertically stretched. They won't change it, or even atleast give us the option because their software division are assholes.

[scottws]

Yeah, on Jennie's computer, anything played in Quicktime is all staticy.  After installing it, MP3 files were associated with it for some reason (even though I set it to only do Apple-only stuff).

People on the Apple support forum were like, "We don't care about your system specs, that stuff is useless.  Learn what a codec is and fix it."

I'm like, "Uh, it's just a regular MP3 file, and it plays fine when I open it in WMP or any other media player except Quicktime.  Don't think it's a codec problem..."

Jackasses.

[Cobra951]

Their attitude toward PC users stinks.  That hasn't changed in forever.  They think that we are lucky they threw us a bone in the form of the crap ports of their Apple software.  The solution is not to use the crap ports of Apple software.  VLC Media Player 0.8.5 plays every form of QT stuff I've thrown at it, including the recent H.264 stuff.

That it tries to seize control over all your media files, and bogs down your system with needless shit running in the background, just adds insult to injury. 

[Pugnate]

I use Quicktime from time to time - pun intended - and never had any problems.

[Xessive]

The only real reason I use was is to download .MOV files when I few them. But now that I ahve the VideoDownloader plugin, it's pretty much obsolete. However I still use iTunes, so QT has to stay.

The only reason I use iTunes is to add album art to my MP3's. Is till use Winamp as my primary player, and thanks to Toaster I can view the album art in Winamp

[Cools]

People on the Apple support forum were like, "We don't care about your system specs, that stuff is useless.  Learn what a codec is and fix it."

You talking about the discussion boards on Apple's site? If so, most people there are end users, not actual Apple technicians. It's just a forum like any other, so you'll probably meet the worst of the Apple propaganda army.

That's like me going to some Windows forum to complain that they don't offer a good WMV player for Mac.