Sony vs Microsoft vs Apple

[Durandal]

I know QT is an architecture - my complaint is that it doesn't even attempt to expose parts needed to DirectShow (which is the Windows architecture for the same basic subset of features ie. playing the content). It could easily leave advanced functionality (how much of it is redundant on the Windows side is open to question) to itself while providing codecs and other necessary filters so that any Windows player could play the content (similar to the VfW and DirectShow dichotomy), but it doesn't.

The QuickTime APIs expose everything necessary to do so. You can implement a QuickTime Player that does fullscreen, exporting, transcoding and everything that QuickTime Player Pro does as well as supporting Windows Media by using Microsoft's APIs.

And I of course knew it provides a facility for making thumbnails (it would be a pretty piss poor if it didn't), however that possibility isn't exposed, as far as I can tell (again, using alternate personally), in the system through explorer or otherwise.

Did Apple write Windows Explorer? No. So how is this Apple's problem? Nothing is stopping Microsoft from grabbing the poster frames from QuickTime movies. Hell, if Microsoft allows plug-in development for Explorer, someone can write a plug-in that does exactly that.

Both of which I would expect to be done if QT developers wanted it to be a quality solution on Windows that seamlessly provides its functionality. If non-recognition is a problem it could always display a watermark in the decoded video (like divx does).

How a thumbnail is generated is entirely up to Windows Explorer.

Because it doesn't we have the problem of mp4 (who's playback is usually provided through QT)

MPEG-4 playback is provided through whatever player the user wants.

is quite a bit less optimally supported then avi and (especially, its a Microsoft container after all) wmv/asf for the most common scenario - regular playback of video/audio.

Again, not Apple's problem.

So you're acknowledging that instead of giving consumers what they want (which, despite its drawbacks and the source of the content, seems to be avi) the big three of this arena are waging a pointless kulturkampf against pirates.

It's not a war against pirates. They want to establish new formats as the standard. Formats which pirates are perfectly free to use in distributing their products. If all pirated media on the Internet was suddenly being distributed in, say, WMV, Microsoft would probably dance a jig. I doubt they'd start trying to push an entirely new format. This is about phasing out an archaic format.

Funny how the makers of all those cheapo DVD players go to the trouble of providing avi support despite its drawbacks, while the big three (MS, Sony, Apple) don't.

The set of people who actually use AVI playback on their DVD players are limited to the ones who go through the trouble of burning an ISO CD image containing an AVI file. That is, not many. The people who are in love with AVI are not representative of the entire market. Besides, the DVD player makers have no interest in which format wins out. They respond to the market. Microsoft, Apple and Sony are trying to lead the market.

[Durandal]

And it can't play the trailers on Apple's Quicktime site.

Yes, it can.

HP in QT

That is VLC on Mac OS X, playing the HD trailer for Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix.

You're hair-splitting.

No, I'm not. There is a difference between a container and its contents. This is not hair-splitting. It's fact.

Why is it that DIVX files, even when they are actually formatted as AVI files, are still called DIVX files? Oh yes, because that's the codec. Only Quicktime apologists get to pretend that it's an open format even though proprietary codecs are usually used.

QuickTime is the container. Whatever streams are inside are inside are the contents. There are a wealth of QuickTime files out there that contain video and audio encoded with fully-documented codecs.

And aside from that, all video distributed by Apple is encoded with MPEG-4 video and audio. Why do you think VLC is able to play QuickTime movie trailers? Because they implemented a decoder for the QuickTime file format (since it's fully documented, they were able to do this) to grab the video and audio streams, and then they can be passed on to VLC's own MPEG-4 decoders, which are totally independent entities.

[MKSheppard]

QuickTime is the container.

And so is AVI; look at all the uber formats available like DIVX, MPEG-2, etc.

[phongn]

And so is AVI; look at all the uber formats available like DIVX, MPEG-2, etc.

Yeah, but as Durandal noted, AVI is crap

Did Apple write Windows Explorer? No. So how is this Apple's problem? Nothing is stopping Microsoft from grabbing the poster frames from QuickTime movies. Hell, if Microsoft allows plug-in development for Explorer, someone can write a plug-in that does exactly that.

Actually, that functionality should be exposed - Adobe uses it to make thumbnails of PDFs and PSDs. For that matter, QuickTime (2.X and earlier) used to interoperate very nicely with the Windows media framework (MCI, at the time) and it was only QuickTime 3 and later that broke this interoperability. Why doesn't Apple just Make It Work in the Windows world and have it integrate with DirectShow?

You're hair-splitting. Why is it that DIVX files, even when they are actually formatted as AVI files, are still called DIVX files? Oh yes, because that's the codec. Only Quicktime apologists get to pretend that it's an open format even though proprietary codecs are usually used.

Well, to be fair, Sorenson was pretty much the only game in town for years that had reasonable quality and bitrates. Apple has since (belatedly) switched to MPEG-4 for most of their content and the production industry always used whatever they want. Personally, I've never heard of QuickTime files specifically referring to QuickTime containers with Sorenson video stuffed in it - I usually heard of QT files in the container sense (the same goes for AVI or ASF)

[Durandal]

QuickTime is the container.

And so is AVI; look at all the uber formats available like DIVX, MPEG-2, etc.

Yeah, and it's shit. Codec issues are completely independent of the container. The AVI spec doesn't even include support for VBR audio.

Actually, that functionality should be exposed - Adobe uses it to make thumbnails of PDFs and PSDs. For that matter, QuickTime (2.X and earlier) used to interoperate very nicely with the Windows media framework (MCI, at the time) and it was only QuickTime 3 and later that broke this interoperability. Why doesn't Apple just Make It Work in the Windows world and have it integrate with DirectShow?

Who knows? I'm not a part of the QuickTime group.