Apple to Integrate 'QuickTime Pro' Features in Snow Leopard?

[Mal]

This is smart, without quicktime pro is needed for fullscreen ( automator can be used with a script to get around that) so to have convenient fullscreen you need to buy quicktime pro, but if you have your mac serviced and your harddrive is wiped you loose your quicktime pro upgrade and have to buy it again.

How times in this thread has it already been pointed out that you don't need to do anything to enable fullscreen viewing in Quicktime? It's already enabled! Just click "View Fullscreen" in the menu!

Oh yeah, and if you don't record your serial number so you can enter it again if you lose it, that's your own fault. Don't blame Apple for your negligence.

The advanced features of quicktime pro are not advanced by todays standards and should be included by default like the other media players i have used. as it stands quicktime is somewhat independent of apple. they should merge or apple should come standard with its own brand player. because having an OS that cant play a video in fullscreen out of the box is a joke.

The advanced features that make up Quicktime Pro are not things that just any program can do, though there are of course free options that can do a good bit of it. Really though, $30 for the conversion and editing tools you gain isn't a bad deal. I have no problem with them including it if they do in Snow Leopard, but don't go talking about how horrible of a deal it is or how lame Quicktime is without the Pro, it's a very capable program and Quicktime Pro made it more useful to a lot of people. BTW, OS X has at least three different ways to play video files fullscreen right out of the box, iTunes, Quicktime Player and Quicklook. It also of course can play DVD's fullscreen using DVD player. You've got the best modern operating system out there right out of the box (Linux may be better at a lot of things, but it's not much "right out of the box" typically, even with some of the easier distros).

A similar thing happened to me, except that it only took having QTPro wiped out just once.

The flaw in Apple's system is that the updater for Quicktime on a "one dot" (not "dot one") upgrade will overwrite a QTP license with a non-Pro QT version, which logically is flat-out wrong.

The analogy would be to have Adobe Acrobat (Full license) v7.x wiped out by Acrobat Reader v8.0

Bad analogy. Quicktime Player is one program, with Quicktime Pro being a enabled feature set within that program. If you upgrade it, and your license is for that version, then of course the license will no longer be valid in the upgraded version. Adobe doesn't generally force you to replace Acrobat 7.x when you install Acrobat 8.0, so it's not a good parallel.

I've been "desiring" to buy the QT Pro upgrade for awhile now, but ever since Apple incremented to version 7.5, my decision was that Apple would promptly roll out v8.0 within 2-3 months of me finally biting the bullet. As such, I'm not going to pay anything until I see QT 8 (or QTX) rolled out.


...and while Snow Leopard buyers may get a free copy of QTP in their new OS, it also begs the question as to what's going to happen to PPC owners who (presumably) can't upgrade to 10.6?

If QTX goes free, it also needs to be on the PPC.

QuickTime X can't be free on PPC if it's not support on PPC. Of course, we won't know until it comes out, but QuickTime X very well might not run on PPC machines at all. If it does, I would expect it to be free, but perhaps with the Quicktime Pro following the same model (though likely not if those features are enabled by default in Snow Leopard).

jW

 

[twoodcc]

finally! i am very glad to see this happen! can't wait for snow leopard!

 

[Wondercow]

Ah, but how is "Intellectual Property" (from ideas through to software) actually property? They are non-excludable and non-rivalled. You cannot exercise dominion over them.

The very reason we have intellectual property legislation is to give the legal appearance of property to something which is NOT property.

So, if you want to use a natural law argument that piracy is theft, then you should also accept the natural law argument that intellectual property is not actually property... and therefore stealing it is not theft even in the vulgar definition.

To quote my own post (with added emphasis):

None requires that the property be physical; in fact, three don't even require that the stolen item be property.

And to roll two posts into one since no one's replied yet:

PROPERTY

Oxford Concise:
1. A thing or things belonging to someone
3. (Law) Ownership

American Heritage:
1a. Something owned; a possession
1b. Something tangible or intangible to which its owner has legal title [the sample sentence for this is actually properties such as copyrights and trademarks]
2. The right of ownership

New Oxford American Dictionary (Mac OSX):

1. a thing or things belonging to someone
• (Law) the right to the possession, use, or disposal of something; ownership

Merriam-Webster:
2a: Something owned or possessed ; specifically : a piece of real estate b: the exclusive right to possess, enjoy, and dispose of a thing : ownership c: something to which a person or business has a legal title

Intellectual property is property. One can exercise dominion over his thoughts or his art, but that's not even a part of the definition. Arguably this goes way back in history to when people first put their name to their art (be that writing, painting, or other).

 

[Wondercow]

Okay, I guess we're just down to semantics at this point. But if "copyright violation" is as bad as you say, shouldn't the term "copyright violator" have the same moral and linguistic impact as "thief"? Just because I'm saying it shouldn't be called theft does not mean, necessarily, that I'm saying it's "less evil" or anything.

I understand your point but it's really a moral judgement that each individual must make as to which crimes are worse than others. All I'm saying is that if one takes something that he is not entitled to he has stolen that item.

It could even be worse. Maybe someday thieves (of physical stuff) will say, hey, don't call me a "copyright violator" I'm not that bad, I'm just a thief!

It could happen—rape and pillage used to be the norm!

By calling them different things, we as a society can then evaluate them differently, otherwise we *must* equate them. So, I guess I'm really making a linguistic argument here, not a moral one. Rape and murder are both horrible, awful crimes, but we still distinguish between them, and they have different consequences (horrible in both cases, of course.)

I don't disagree, not at all. In fact I think you're on to something—since taking a copyrighted work to which one has no rights is stealing it should be equated with any other theft. This is what the various organizations have been trying to get into the collective consciousness for a few years now. The fact that the law generally separates these acts into different categories doesn't necessarily change the "OKness" of them, as you said both rape and murder are horrible crimes.

 

[Wondercow]

--deleted--

 

[-hh]

Bad analogy. Quicktime Player is one program, with Quicktime Pro being a enabled feature set within that program....Adobe doesn't generally force you to replace Acrobat 7.x when you install Acrobat 8.0, so it's not a good parallel.

Yes, it is a poor analogy, since Apple's QT does force a replace. But people should understand the basic point I'm making: a loss of paid-for features.

If you upgrade it, and your license is for that version, then of course the license will no longer be valid in the upgraded version.

Understandable, but does the 'upgrade' installer actually WARN you of that 'gotcha'? No, it does not.

And FWIW, I recall trying for awhile to have both the new (QT) and old (QTP) versions installed on OS X ... long story short, OS X doesn't like that.

QuickTime X can't be free on PPC if it's not support on PPC. Of course, we won't know until it comes out, but QuickTime X very well might not run on PPC machines at all. If it does, I would expect it to be free, but perhaps with the Quicktime Pro following the same model (though likely not if those features are enabled by default in Snow Leopard).

Understand & agree. There's simply a healthy number of longtime customers who are quite concerned about the rapidity with which Apple is ditching PPC in OS X (not necessarily just Quicktime).

This concern is not necessarily because its not something that we can't handle at current. It is a concern because it sets a disconcerting precedence for our long term platform decision-making.

I'm willing to go with Apple's oft-proprietary and expensive platform when there's evidence of long term stability so as to compensate as "value-added", but the crux of the matter is that Apple's current trends are suggesting that they are becoming significantly less reliable as a long term partner.

As such, Apple is in the process of losing this product differentiation 'value added', which obligates me to consider going back to 'commodity' PCs.


-hh

 

[clmason]

I understand your point but it's really a moral judgement that each individual must make as to which crimes are worse than others. All I'm saying is that if one takes something that he is not entitled to he has stolen that item.


It could happen—rape and pillage used to be the norm!


I don't disagree, not at all. In fact I think you're on to something—since taking a copyrighted work to which one has no rights is stealing it should be equated with any other theft. This is what the various organizations have been trying to get into the collective consciousness for a few years now. The fact that the law generally separates these acts into different categories doesn't necessarily change the "OKness" of them, as you said both rape and murder are horrible crimes.

Ok, well, I think we're mostly in agreement, but I still don't think the term "stealing" should be used for the reasons mentioned. At this point I think we'll need to agree to disagree.

 

[charlituna]

+++

Speaking of constantly upgrading thingees which shudda been free by now,
when is Roxio Toast 10 Titanium expected to arrive?

when. well i bought it 2 weeks ago from my local apple store.

as for the whole Snow Leopard and QT Pro etc issue (since that's the subject of the thread). I have no knowledge but I have a theory. Although I never take rumors as fact no matter who says them, I do think that this 'upgrade' of QT to eliminate the need to pay for what is right now "pro" is possible.

Back when QTPro started, not many folks were using said features. But now with iMovie and Final Cut Express and the new marketing (have you been in a store lately) everyone is going to be going pro.So I think that the new QT will be more inline with the current Pro and a new Pro might grow out of it. Perhaps something like setting up an arrangement to bundle all the decoders for things like mkv and divx into one installer. Or creating what they can natively and making you 'upgrade' to activate. Or just making all of of native and free. Who knows at this point.

As for Snow Leopard. it seems to me like they are trying to trim things up some. make it a leaner and meaner Mac OS rather than just tossing a few more tricks and PhotoBooths into the works. Microsoft Windows was boo'd for a long time as bloatware and even they are trying to trim the fat in the code. Hopefully this 'biggest loser' mentality will move into the software as well. I drives me nutty that Apple came up with an event based system for imovie so I don't need 12 copies of that one clip to use it in 12 projects and yet when you use iweb (at least in the '08 version) if you duplicate a page it makes a copy of all the images instead of referring to a common 'images' folder.

but if you have your mac serviced and your harddrive is wiped you loose your quicktime pro upgrade and have to buy it again.

or you copy down your serial number in a text file or a keychain item that is backed up when you are backing up your computer like a smart computer geek

I have only had to buy a new license once. when QT 7 was released. After that the same key has worked through every upgrade Apple has done. I never even had to re-enter the key to keep it working. I did transfer to a new computer once and did a selective migration off a backup from the night before so I had to re-enter the key since I didn't move my preferences folder but I had the key recorded so no big deal.

 

[Mal]

Yes, it is a poor analogy, since Apple's QT does force a replace. But people should understand the basic point I'm making: a loss of paid-for features.

Except you're not losing what you paid for, which was the features in the previous version.

Understandable, but does the 'upgrade' installer actually WARN you of that 'gotcha'? No, it does not.

And FWIW, I recall trying for awhile to have both the new (QT) and old (QTP) versions installed on OS X ... long story short, OS X doesn't like that.

Granted, but it's not very difficult to revert back to a previous version. You simply lose the advantages of the new version, at which point you decide whether you'd prefer to purchase the new Pro version or deal without the new features. Not really any different than most other software.

Understand & agree. There's simply a healthy number of longtime customers who are quite concerned about the rapidity with which Apple is ditching PPC in OS X (not necessarily just Quicktime).

This concern is not necessarily because its not something that we can't handle at current. It is a concern because it sets a disconcerting precedence for our long term platform decision-making.

I'm willing to go with Apple's oft-proprietary and expensive platform when there's evidence of long term stability so as to compensate as "value-added", but the crux of the matter is that Apple's current trends are suggesting that they are becoming significantly less reliable as a long term partner.

As such, Apple is in the process of losing this product differentiation 'value added', which obligates me to consider going back to 'commodity' PCs.


-hh

Apple has no choice but to ditch PPC's as soon as it is feasible to do so. If they continue to offer new software releases to accommodate them, it will slow down development for their Intel-based releases. The benefit is too small and the cost too high to try to keep them both continually updated (especially since, as has been pointed out, most of the new features in the Intel-only releases to come will not be beneficial to PPC's as it stands even if they would allow installation). Removing bloat (PPC code) is more important than preserving upgradability for computers that are out of their service period (few G5's remain that could be covered under AppleCare, and most will no longer be covered once Snow Leopard comes out).

jW

 

[clmason]

Apple has no choice but to ditch PPC's as soon as it is feasible to do so. If they continue to offer new software releases to accommodate them, it will slow down development for their Intel-based releases. The benefit is too small and the cost too high to try to keep them both continually updated (especially since, as has been pointed out, most of the new features in the Intel-only releases to come will not be beneficial to PPC's as it stands even if they would allow installation). Removing bloat (PPC code) is more important than preserving upgradability for computers that are out of their service period (few G5's remain that could be covered under AppleCare, and most will no longer be covered once Snow Leopard comes out).

jW

Note sure about this. They *may* drop PPC for 10.6, but I doubt they'll stop building it internally. Remember they built PPC/Intel for *years* and no one knew about it.

Ensuring you build on more than one platform ensures you'll still be able to down the road if you need to (The x86/extension line will not live forever.) It encourages good programming practices and also helps to catch a lot of bugs.

And of course, they have to build on arm as well for the iphone (at least in its present state.) So it's never going to be intel-only, even if they only sell an intel version of the Mac OS X desktop operating system.

 

[-hh]

Except you're not losing what you paid for, which was the features in the previous version.

Keyword being "except".

Bottom line is that I had the a software package that I paid for overwritten by a less fully featured one...with NO clear warning.

Granted, but it's not very difficult to revert back to a previous version. You simply lose the advantages of the new version...Not really any different than most other software.

I disagree - there's a fundimental difference, which stem from Quicktime installer's behavior acting much like Highlander's 'there can be only one'" - - the QT install will wipe out every other QT revisions that it can find, and it doesn't clearly warn you that its going to go do this.

And while replacing existing is relatively 'normal' when installing a software update for going from revision A.x to A.y, it most certainly is not the norm for "full dot" upgrades: Adobe Photoshop CS4 doesn't blindly erase Photoshop CS3, Mac-Office 2008 vs -2004, etc. Nor does Acrobat Reader ever dare to overwrite a full Acrobat Licence.

Personally, I would have liked to have kept QT-Pro v6 around while I decided if I liked QT-7 (Player) enough to re-purchase the Pro upgrade. Realistically, it wasn't an option because of how QT's installers work: re-running the QT6 installer (so as to re-enter my Serial# to get Pro back) wiped out "all other" QT's, which means that QT-7 'Reader' was taken out.

But you don't have to believe me: go try it yourself.

I did find a way to fool the system, but it was a royal nuisance and every time that a Quicktime update would appear in OS X's software update, it would invariably get messed up again. The bottom line is that Apple basically doesn't want you to have more than one version of Quicktime installed, ever.

Apple has no choice but to ditch PPC's as soon as it is feasible to do so. If they continue to offer new software releases to accommodate them, it will slow down development for their Intel-based releases. The benefit is too small and the cost too high to try to keep them both continually updated (especially since, as has been pointed out, most of the new features in the Intel-only releases to come will not be beneficial to PPC's as it stands even if they would allow installation).

Yes, that's the business case we keep hearing. I also hear that there's a nice bridge for sale in Brooklyn...

Removing bloat (PPC code) is more important than preserving upgradability for computers that are out of their service period (few G5's remain that could be covered under AppleCare, and most will no longer be covered once Snow Leopard comes out).

Expiration of Apple's legal liability under AppleCare service warranties is a pretty poor business service model, particularly since it doesn't allign very well with Apple's published definitions of "Vintage" and "Obsolete" products.

Apple's definitions and lists can be found here.

In a nutshell,
Obsolete = products discontinued more than 7 years ago.
Vintage = products discontinued between 5 to 7 years ago.

Feel fee to review the list. You'll find that:

• There's not a single PPC G5 Mac on Apple's Obsolete list.
• There's also not a single PPC G5 Mac on Apple's Vintage list.
• Also absent is every Mac mini model ever made.

So if on Apple's hardware side they're not yet even calling these PPC products "Vintage" (let alone "Obsolete"), then why is the software side walking a different walk?



-hh

 

[Wondercow]

At this point I think we'll need to agree to disagree.

I don't agree to that

 

[clmason]

I don't agree to that

/me pulls out hair!

 

[lPHONE]

Help!

I upgraded to Snow Leopard and Apple stole my Quicktime Pro! it's gone and I can't cut and paste video!

 

[bretm]

I understand your point but it's really a moral judgement that each individual must make as to which crimes are worse than others. All I'm saying is that if one takes something that he is not entitled to he has stolen that item.


It could happen—rape and pillage used to be the norm!


I don't disagree, not at all. In fact I think you're on to something—since taking a copyrighted work to which one has no rights is stealing it should be equated with any other theft. This is what the various organizations have been trying to get into the collective consciousness for a few years now. The fact that the law generally separates these acts into different categories doesn't necessarily change the "OKness" of them, as you said both rape and murder are horrible crimes.

since there are legal uses of copywritten material for many different purposes and situations it deserves a different designation. And the violator may not realize they are commiting a crime. They may have purchased a license and may be violating the specific terms. They may think it falls under fair use or educational purpose. They may simply be ignorant of course. I don't think there isso much potential grey area in rape or murder, but there's always "manslaughter" and rape between married couples so...

 

[charlituna]

Help!

I upgraded to Snow Leopard and Apple stole my Quicktime Pro! it's gone and I can't cut and paste video!

you need to re-install Quicktime 7. it's an optional install on the Snow Leopard disks.

 

[scooterguitar]

So quicktime pro IS included on any new imac purchase then?

 

[charlituna]

So quicktime pro IS included on any new imac purchase then?

yes and no.

quicktime 7 is included. but the standard, not the pro. you still have to have or buy a key to upgrade it.