3 ms·

Supporting actual quicktime from what I recall is a massive massive faff. The colleges that have dealt with QT first hand all seem to loath it with a passion.

jfb 3y ago
The file format is pretty good, though, and that's largely what's being discussed here.
- deleted 3y ago
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- eschaton 3y ago
  Thanks, I’m glad someone understood my post. :)
  - jfb 3y ago
    I played some games with QuickTime when I was at Apple, loved the format, even loved the stack, as creaky as it was in (gasp) 2004. The idea that the file can carry tracks that the given reader might not understand allowed me to, for instance, put codec metadata back into intermediates that would otherwise be lost, for PQ analysis purposes.
deleted 3y ago
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parl_match 3y ago
QuickTime is a very legacy format, one that even apple seems to have internally pared down heavily. It's one of the first, and it's going to have rough edges.
- jfb 3y ago
  The container is a great format, battle-tested, easy to parse and generate. It's really good!
- wut42 3y ago
  A legacy format... that still lives on as the mp4 container.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    that's not entirely accurate. quicktime has been extended after MP4 container was standardized. so, the MP4 container was based on the version of QT at the time. For example, the color atom was added after that to help players with knowing how to interpret SD/HD colors. They've deprecated using the CLASP and other older features as well. So QT isn't just a locked format living along as MP4. Some apps like MediaInfo will report an MOV with prores and pcm audio as MP4 though, so some people still seem confused.
- CharlesW 3y ago
  If the word "legacy" comes to mind I'd guess that you're thinking about 90s-era video codecs. This article is about the file/container format, which was directly adopted as the MPEG-4 file format, which becamse generalized as ISOBMFF (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_base_media_file_format https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_base_media_file_format), which won an Emmy in 2021. It's a modern, flexible, extensible format, and so is likely to be around long after we're gone.
- eschaton 3y ago
  The only significant rough edge in the QuickTime container format that I know if is the means for extending atom sizes and data offsets to 64 bits. Otherwise it’s extremely clean, especially given that it was designed almost 35 years ago.

jfb 3y ago

The file format is pretty good, though, and that's largely what's being discussed here.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
eschaton 3y ago
Thanks, I’m glad someone understood my post. :)
- jfb 3y ago
  I played some games with QuickTime when I was at Apple, loved the format, even loved the stack, as creaky as it was in (gasp) 2004. The idea that the file can carry tracks that the given reader might not understand allowed me to, for instance, put codec metadata back into intermediates that would otherwise be lost, for PQ analysis purposes.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

parl_match 3y ago

QuickTime is a very legacy format, one that even apple seems to have internally pared down heavily. It's one of the first, and it's going to have rough edges.

jfb 3y ago
The container is a great format, battle-tested, easy to parse and generate. It's really good!
wut42 3y ago
A legacy format... that still lives on as the mp4 container.
- dylan604 3y ago
  that's not entirely accurate. quicktime has been extended after MP4 container was standardized. so, the MP4 container was based on the version of QT at the time. For example, the color atom was added after that to help players with knowing how to interpret SD/HD colors. They've deprecated using the CLASP and other older features as well. So QT isn't just a locked format living along as MP4. Some apps like MediaInfo will report an MOV with prores and pcm audio as MP4 though, so some people still seem confused.
CharlesW 3y ago
If the word "legacy" comes to mind I'd guess that you're thinking about 90s-era video codecs. This article is about the file/container format, which was directly adopted as the MPEG-4 file format, which becamse generalized as ISOBMFF (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_base_media_file_format https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_base_media_file_format), which won an Emmy in 2021. It's a modern, flexible, extensible format, and so is likely to be around long after we're gone.
eschaton 3y ago
The only significant rough edge in the QuickTime container format that I know if is the means for extending atom sizes and data offsets to 64 bits. Otherwise it’s extremely clean, especially given that it was designed almost 35 years ago.