Quicktime : the dying and abandonned file format

[D.T. Nethery]

I guess you're right and probably the Quicktime could die in a few years. But at the moment Proress422 as interchangeable codec and h264 for web, are still the first choice by a lot of professionals, especially if your work on OSX.

I agree. The university where I teach still requires H.264 as default codec for video files submitted online and to the industry spring show.

I think because Quicktime is clearly not being supported or developed any further by Apple it is probably not high on the list of priorities to fix this issue in TVPaint , but I will just say it is obviously not impossible to fix the issue because other animation apps like Digicel Flipbook, Toki Line Test, and iStopMotion can remember the user's previous video export setttings (QT, H.264 , 24 FPS) and will stay at those settings every time the app is launched until the user changes them to something else.

The .avi export in TVPaint works fine although what I don't like about the .avi files is that .avi can't be saved as Looped movie (set to Loop in QT Pro 7.6 and Save , means the movie will always open as a looped movie, very convenient for viewing student submissions of Walk Cycles , among other things, but .avi files wont' save as a Looped movie) . The .avi file exported from TVPa is easily converted to a .mov file with H.264 compression using Quicktime Pro 7.6 , but it's an extra step .

[Paul Fierlinger]

H264 is carried by all sorts of other players. I've uninstalled QT from my computers a long time ago but have continued to export H264 as an mp4 file -- isn't that the same thing in different clothing, or am I mistaken? At least anyone who asks me for an H264 file gets an mp4 from me and I never hear any complaints yet I know these people are looking at my files in their QT players (how gosh!).

[Elodie]

among other things, but .avi files wont' save as a Looped movie

You can choose the loop mode on any player.

Moreover, I remember H264 was really not a good codec, because it changed Gamma values.

I agree. The university where I teach still requires H.264 as default codec for video files submitted online and to the industry spring show.

Just bad habits to break

[Thierry]

Also, with QTPlayer you can view a video frame by frame, whici is its main strength and why there are still people that use it.

[schwarzgrau]

Paul is absolutely right, you could nearly always use MP4 as container-format for h264. And you can avoid the gamma-shift if you use x264, the free and optimized version of h264. If you use mpeg streamclip to convert you won't notice a gamma shift anyways.
But h264 is/was intended for web-purposes, nothing you usually export straight out of TVpaint.
I'm not a big fan of Apples policy and it's possible Apple will kill/ruin the quicktime format in some years, since they're really fast in getting rid of old habits. But don't act like apple and call the MOV-format dead, ignoring the fact, that nearly all new professional cameras use this format. Even if you don't like it, cause it's really annoying to implement, please understand that's really important for Mac Users to get support for this format.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Elodie, what would you then recommend as a replacement for H264? My clients ask for itto check my WIP and I presume that this is only because they are in the habit of watching QT videos. If I would place myself into the position of changing their habits, what other codec would I have to use that could be played in QT? I've been pondering this issue for some time now, because I am aware of mp4's reputation, though I must say that I haven't spotted any grave issues with color changes. After all, it's just WIP. In the end, I usually deliver uncompressed AVIs.

[slowtiger]

IMO there's nothing wrong in using h.264 as long as everybody is aware of its shortfalls. Good enough to send preliminary stuff, but never use it to discuss colours or details like textures etc.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Markus, I tend to agree. Both you and Elodie are familiar with my WIP from private e-mailings (I am not permitted to post these on public fora) and they were all rendered in Mp4 from Vegas. Nevertheless, I am still curious to hear from anybody a recommendation for an alternative codec -- is there anything else? Mp4 seems to work flawlessly across platforms and particularly well for streaming purposes from Google Drive, for instance, though the colors can be somewhat off when merely streaming but quite adequate in the cases when recipients have downloaded our files to their hard drives.

Currently we are working on a children's short for Weston Woods based on a children's book written and drawn/painted by Patrick McDonnell, and both Patrick and the producer at Scholastic are very pleased with the way Sandra has been matching the book's colors.

[slowtiger]

For stuff I publish online I use h.264 and, if I find it necessary, an additional colour filtering pass for the whole movie, increasing saturation and contrast about 10% to make up for what's lost through the codec. Mind you, this is by far not as sophisticated as a real colour timing, but it does the job.

[Paul Fierlinger]

But is it possible that what you do is because you export your WIP directly from TVP, or am I mistaken? In other words, is it possible that I am not experiencing this color deficiency because I render my mp4's in Vegas -- though on second thought, some Vegas users also consider mp4 a lesser codec, but that could be so for their live action cases versus our 2d, "abstract" colors, less critical of subtleties. As anyone can see, I am too insecure of the issue to have formed my own opinion.

[slowtiger]

No, I'm speaking of exporting from FinalCut - from TVP I only export lossless since these files still go to other programs.

[schwarzgrau]

As mentioned above I recommend MPEG Streamclip for compressing files. It's free and does a great job. I once compressed the same file to h264 with Quicktime Pro, Apple Compressor, ffmpegX and Mpeg Streamclip for testing purposes and Mpeg Streamclip was not only the fastest, the file was a lot smaller and it's image quality was better than all other. I don't know how they managed to get such great results, with the same codec, but it's really worth trying.

[Fabrice]

I'm not a big fan of Apples policy and it's possible Apple will kill/ruin the quicktime format in some years,

it's done already in terms of development, since no real 64 bits dev libs ...

[Thierry]

The Quicktime format is already dead, it won't evolve.

- Apple has not ported the QT libraries in 64 bits, they only exist in 32 bits, and the recent Apple computers can't compile in 32 bits, only 64.
- Apple refuse everything in the App Store that has QT code or calls some QT code.

[schwarzgrau]

ok that sounds really dead. But what's apples replacement? And why is MOV still used by all the new cameras? Or is it something which isn't the MOV-container-format but Quicktime itself?