QuickTime convert .avi to .mov with OS X Mavericks

In the past, if someone asks me what computer to buy, the answer was easy: buy a Mac and you will be satisfied.

Now I have to ask several questions, for example:

1.) Do you have videos? If yes: how many videos do you have and/or how long are these videos? And which video compression do these videos use? Do you just want to watch the videos or would you like to edit them? Is it okay for you if you might need to wait a shorter or longer time until you can edit the videos?

2.) Do you own a camera or would you like to buy one? If yes: did you or will you record videos? Followed by the same questions as point 1… and if you buy a new camera, then it might be helpful to take care…

3.) Do you have a iOS device or are you thinking about buying one? If yes: do you want to synchronize addresses, calendar and email accounts? Then you must use iCloud now - is this okay for you?

With Mavericks and the support of 32 bit QuickTime, it is currently not a big problem. Thanks to Apple for this! But how long will Apple support 32 bit and the old QuickTime features?

Local synchronizing (for people who do not want or are not allowed to use iCloud) is already gone. Without any warning - as far as I know.

My heat comes from a bad / irritating feeling: what will be next? And how long will my current Macs work? And what should I do if I have to buy a new computer?

In the past, Apple did a very good job (for nearly 30 years): moving from the old Mac OS to Mac OS X was straight forward. Every new Mac computer and every new Mac OS was a step forward.

If people ask me now what computer to buy: I can not answer this question anymore. It is too risky.

But I must aggree: for many people, all this might not be a problem. Unfortunately this does not make me feel better.

This discussion answered the original question and we could stop this discussion in my opinion now. Bad feelings still exist... and my belief in Apple and Macintosh is going to leave. Let's wait what the future will bring.

Hmmmm… The dilemma for a non-pro user, and that's the vast majority of users:

A) modify my workflow just because the new OS wants me to do so, spending big amount of time and storage space in the process, because of the conversion, with no real benefit reflected on my job. For example, I must keep my divx AVI files, my TV set doesn't read MOV, and converted MOV files are bigger than divx ones. Yeah, I could buy another TV set just because Apple wants it so, but current one works, it's only 4 years old, it's quailty is superb and costed around EUR 1.700 -that would be like USD 2.300-.

OR

B) DON'T UPGRADE TO MAVERICKS, keep my workflow and don't waste my precious time, storage space and money.

I've advised my wife to follow option B, as I did myself.

Saluditos,

Ferrán.

Some of you have the NERVE to call yourselves "Pros" and yet you seem to have not even the slightest clue about what's going on here. First off, you keep blaming Apple for something they have never directly supported. You didn't realize that because most of you had Perian installed and forgot you even installed it and it was Perian that was making all those formats work in Quicklook, etc. It is Perian that has abandoned the Mac Community entirely and left their codec wizard broken and largely unusuable with the modern Mac OS. And it's true that Apple would need to allow a 3rd party hack to retain the space bar Quicklook, but really, a good hacker wouldn't have a hard time coming up with a bypass solution or even creating a new file browser that does what you want. Finder isn't a very good file browser to begin with so it'd probably be a huge improvement. I remember using Diskmaster II (dual-pane browser) on my Amiga and it was SOOO much nicer than using Workbench's awful graphical icons. XtraFinder already makes a dual-pane option viable. Perhaps an author like that could be persuaded to add a 3rd party preview option? I don't think he should have to make it himself (he's done enough for FREE), but get two developers together there and I think you could have a better Finder preview than Apple would ever support.

Now as this talk of going back to Snow Leopard... WAKE UP. You will NOT have ANY software support in another year or two. NONE. I *had* to move on from my beloved PPC PowerMac Digital Audio (upgraded to 1.8GHz 7447 and Sata Drives) not because it was not still capable of doing the job in terms of CPU capability (it was), but because Apple dumped all iTunes support for it. All 3rd party browsers dumped all support for it even before Apple dumped iTunes support (which continued well into 2011, BTW). The Internet dumped support for slow computers. Should I SCREAM at the Internet for evolving??? Because that is what you are all doing. You want Apple to endlessly support every possible format that existed since 1977 on the Apple II. No? Then where do you draw the line? Either way, you will eventually have Firefox dump support for Snow Leopard. Safari support has already been dumped. Eventually, you will have old unusable software and beyond that one day the computer will be too slow to use the Internet comfortably regardless (I've already been there with my PPC machine which worked great until around 2009 and acceptably until 2011 but was a broken horse by 2012 so I caved and bought a new computer and 3TB USB 3.0 drives to move my media over to, which makes it easy to separate video libraries from a given computer.

Now what about AVIs? Yes, there are some cameras that use it, etc., but it's mostly an OLD video format from the Microsoft Universe. The reason it's SO ingrained is that it was (and oddly still is) the preferred format of pirates everywhere and so people end up with huge collections of these things that IMO they would probably not otherwise have. I encoded my own DVD/BD libraries and I used Handbrake and M4V because those are what work with iTunes + AppleTV which is what I use around my house. Yes, some cameras (including one of mine) use AVI, but it's old I should upgrade that camera. Besides, converting the occasional home video to M4V isn't that hard or time consuming. I believe the real problems are when people collected TV Shows and the like by the thousands in something like AVI and that would be a PITA to convert. Had they bought their shows legitimately, they wouldn't have had that probelm. They'd either already be iTunes or you'd have to dump/convert them anyway and M4V would be the obvious choice for a Mac person. If you're downloading MKV, well that's another attempt by the rest of the non-Mac world to AVOID Mac protocols. Yes, there's MP4, but it doesn't support tagging, etc. like M4V, which is pretty much wholly Apple. But then I know of no legitimate source of MKV commercial titles and so you can't expect a commercial company like Microsoft or Apple to support it.

The SOLUTION to playing AVI, MKV, etc. is to simply associate those files with another 3rd party player in the Finder using GetInfo. That has been mentioned several times in this thread and people just keep ignoring it. Yes, you lose Quicklook, but my god, Quicklook has only been in OSX since Leopard. Did any of you own a Mac with Tiger or earlier versions of OSX? I mean what did you do until they offered that spacebar preview? How did you live with a machine running Tiger? Nevermind it was a FASTER more efficient OS and supported Classic Mode to run old legacy OS9 and earlier type software (yeah, we lost that in Leopard and Rosetta in Lion and few were pleased about that either, but you can't expect Apple to support that crap forever. At some point 3rd party emulators take over. I can still run all my C64 and Amiga software due to emulators. The same will be true of Classic.

You guys do know there are other browsing viewers out there, right? XBMC and its derviative Plex can organize and view most file formats out there from a graphical interface, even from your couch. And believe it or not, you can convert AVI to a smaller format (i.e. MP4/M4V with H264), which is what people and developers should have been doing all along for the past several years instead of propogating a dead format with very few features. VLC even supports DIRECT commercial Blu-Ray playback on a Mac (with a few extras installed). Apple has no interest. So you go 3rd party sometimes.

Now I saw FLAC mentioned on here too. Why are you using FLAC? There's simple tools to convert FLAC to Apple Lossless out there and they lose nothing. Why did you use FLAC in the first place? Apple lossless has been around for a long time now. You can't play it back in iTunes so why use it ifi you use iTunes? Why do you expect Apple to support an open source 3rd party format? They used to use Samba, but then the Samba folk went and changed their license to try and pry source code from Apple and that wasn't going to happen and yet people blame Apple for dropping Samba and writing their own (that doesn't work so well). Well, sometimes the Free Software folk make life miserable for all of us with that kind of crap. Their lifestyle and vision of a free information world interferes with the rest of us having easy compatibility. So no, I wouldn't expect Apple to support free/open software in the future as they keep getting burned by it.

iTunes has NEVER supported a load of formats. Quicktime only supports a load of formats because it had 3rd party plugins, but it's not realistic to expect those plugins to work on smart phones and like it or not, smart phones and tablets are the future. Desktops are for geeks like myself. I don't like either, but having been a computer geek since the early 1980s, I'm used to the idea of the average person not knowing how or why a computer works and wanting a simple appliance that "Just works". Well, even with such basic tech things like cars, time moves on. You can't buy leaded gasoline that some high compression older cars require to not blow their pistons up with pre-detonation. You have to go out of your way to buy either a lead additive or octane booster for EVERY TANK if you want to keep driving these cars with their original motors. That's a lot of bother. Too bad. Lead is bad for the environment and so it was right to ban the crap even if it is a hassle for a few. And go ask Windows users what they think/thought of Quicktime. Most HATE it with a passion. It's extra crap they have to install to get Mac videos to work. Yeah, the platform hate works in reverse too. Fortunately, H264 isn't a part of Quicktime and so it's an ideal format for both platforms. But some refuse to use it. And some use it, but use MKV containers that aren't supported commercially and so commercial software usually doesn't support it. Well there you go. You use something unsupported and then complain that it's unsupported....

So you're all left with one decision and that is whether to keep using your computers from 2010 or earlier for the rest of your lives or deal with the fact that the future is changing and adapt. I liked the AppleTV Gen1 design with built-in hard drive and (coincidental) DTS Music support. Well, it doubles as a space heater and can't handle HD video too well without a Crystal HD card added, but hey it's got storage and it easy to hack (because Apple stopped updating it they don't have to fight them anymore to hack it). But you can't buy them new anymore and it won't support newer Apple features so you're stuck with XBMC or the like which has its own limitations (e.g. it STILL doesn't read M4V video tags a half DOZEN years later and so will ignore your nice organized library and use a scraper instead and inevitably get many foreign movies and poorly labeled files names WRONG. Oh joy what fun that is to try and fix! And like Apple, their developers DON'T CARE what YOU want. If YOU want it, YOU learn to program and add it yourself is their attitude. They did it, so why can't you? You're just a user? Well you're getting it for FREE so can it.

Yeah, I too miss Quicklook for AVI, etc. It's very handy. It's very Apple in that it's an amazingly simple way to scan a file. But honestly, it only takes an extra second or two for VLC to come up (and no time at all if you leave it running in the background). Is it really worth never having a new computer and all the newer features of Mavericks that ARE nice (e.g. usable multi-monitor support for the first time ever in OSX's history! Simply awesome!) just to keep a space bar press to preview AVIs? That's just crazy talk, IMO.

And unfortunately, smart phones and tablets, etc. are the future because they're simple devices that don't require a working knowledge of computers to operate. Being a computer geek since the 1980s, I don't get the massive interest in tablets except as a couch surfing remote type thing (I'd rather have a Macbook Air than an iPad for travel), but that's what people want. A SIMPLIFIED system that just works in and of itself. And that's what they're getting. The reason the whole of computers is threatened to go with it is that's where all the money is right now. BILLIONS want a smart phone. Only maybe 10s of millions at best want a full blown computer and half of them would be satisfied with a Plastation 4 or XBox One (i.e. many of us computer geeks got into computers in the first because computers like the C64 had SOO many games for them. We eventually branshed out into modems, etc. and then Internet communication. But none of that means squat to the generations becoming adults now. They didn't live that era. They don't see what's so great about Pac-Man and Galaga (which thankfully can be played in their original form on an emulator too). 😀

Magnus:

I think this is the best post I've EVER read ANYWHERE. I'm a virtual virgin when it comes to video, so I'm not very familiar with all the protocols and formats. Audio is my province. The only problem I've had with QT X is the "stuttering audio" glitch, and it turns out its source is the driver for my PreSonus FireStudio!!

You are spot on with your common sense about keeping pace with the times. I think the impetus for those who hang on to the older stuff is that they're just plain cheap, and want their computers to last for 20 years. They use crappy third-party junk because it's generally free. Personally, I was using an old G4 running Tiger for years (mostly because I'm poorer than Kenny from South Park), but last year I bought a new MacMini for $600, and it's GREAT!

I LOVE your take on FLAC! What a piece of krap! I've never been enamored of any compressed audio formats. When I have a session, I always record in at least 24 bit 48 kHz. The bigs go even higher. Unfortunately, you have to downsample to 16 bit 44.1 kHz to burn CDs, but that's a **** sight better than an mp3 or AAC. As a matter of fact, with disk space so plentiful and cheap, I'm changing all my music libraries back to AIFF.

Smartphones and tablets are not only the future, they're the present. And Apple's in business to make money (nothing wrong with that). I'm like you...I'm a 60-year-old fart geek, so I don't see the attraction, but like Dylan said, the times, they are a-changin'.

Thank you for your down-to-earth editorial.

(BTW, if I ever find myself in a stuation where I must convert video formats, what should I use and how?).

Stanley, I have had great luck using an open source package called FFmpegX to transcode my *really* old mpg-1 and -2 videos. http://www.ffmpegx.com/ do read up on it's useage and start with some small files so that you can play around with the settings to find what suits your needs best.

As to your re-encoding of music to .aiff, at your age, that's really not going to be very efficient - simply because of the hearing loss - and YES WE ALL have it after 30 it starts to pack in, this is part of aging no one can halt.. to have your files in that format is just wasting hard drive space when you can get into the iTunes preferences and have whatever files you want changed to .mp3, 320k, VBR (variable bit rate which can go up to 448k in some songs) highest quality. That leaves you with files that sound to adult - I'm talking OVER 40 - ears just as good as the .aif CD rips. Also, as an .mp3, you're open to putting the files into as many devices as possible, so you're not stuck with an iPod/iPhone music player..

When I was in my early 20's yeah, FLAC recorded at 24bit/96khz would have been the way to go.. At my age now? Eh, not so much - what's the point of frequencies that you cannot hear?

God bless you, Deborah! You make a very valid point about hearing. Regarding AIFF, however, I guess my ears are atypical. I was in radio for 30 years. I still do my own DJ and karaoke shows, and have my own studio. If I A/B an AIFF and an mp3, I can instantly notice the change in quality. And if I can, so can my audience, which is generally considerably younger. I often hear and read about a similar argument regarding the recording process. I have a friend who's an Emmy award-winning composer. He records at 96/192, and he gets the same analogy about 16/44.1 being "just as good". Even when it's downsampled, the higher recording resolution is markedly better. Same with HDTV vs. non-HD. I'll bet you'd be interested in researching Neil Young's efforts to raise the quality of the consumer experience. Perhaps we will have to agree to disagree. But I've read a lot of your posts. You are very erudite and polite in all. Thanks for your kind reply. I'm trying not to get older!!

Not here to rekindle this discussion. Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed reading your comments as we obviously think so much alike—even down to the mention of disatisfaction regarding non-leaded (and alcohol added) gasoline (which is virtually all you can get in my area). Thank you for expressing my thoughts so cogently. Like you, I want to enjoy the best of both worlds—a modern, efficient system yet one that still is compatible with most of my software applications, projects, documents, and hardware. Unlike some, however, I am willing to make some consessions and compromises to achieve these goals. For a while there, I was beginning to believe that maybe it was I who was in the manority in my way of thinking. Unfortunately, since about the only people who use this forum are those with problems and those who are trying to provide solutions, it is very difficult to tell which opinions are in the majority regarding this topic.

In fact, following the last few pages of comments by those on the other side of the controversy, I brought the issue up at the last meeting of our South Jersey Apple User Groug (SJAUG) on Saturday, 23 November 2013. We are a group of Apple product users composed of roughly equal numbers of professional and casual; male and female; retired and non-retired; very experienced (20 years plus on Apple //, Macs, and everything in between), reasonably proficient (5 to 20 years) and novice (less than 5 years) users. While we may or may not represent a typical pool of Apple users, I thoulght you might be interested the results of a poll we took.

1) Users who have installed Mac OS X v10.9 on one or more systems and/or boot drives:

31%

2) Users who have and use AVI media file types on their systems:

25%

3) AVI users (having Apple and/or PC/Windows systems) for whom the AVI media file type is their primary file format:

0%

4) Users who use QL as their primary multimedia player:

0%

5) Users who use QL as thier primary multimedia preview option:

0%

Basically, my media files are targeted for my own use which just happens to keep them compatible with the Mac OS X v10.9, as well as, all of my Apple mobile devices, UPnP/NAS/Media Player devices. Frankly, I am not really worried about what others do and only joined in on this topic to provide some possible workarounds that might satisfy those in dire need here. I feel there is room for compromise on both sides of this debate which would keep everyone happy if they simply look at all of the alternatives. My father-in-law doesn't give a "fig" about computers, codecs, or file types. All he wants to be able to do is play his Sony camcoder files (muxed MPEG-2/AC3) on his (my old) HDTV. So I got him a combo UPnP/NAS/Media Player that stores and plays not only his camcorder files, but AVI and my Mac/mobile device files. Plus I can even access his files on my computer for viewing and/or moving files to/from his hard drive if I so desire. Everyone else in the house uses TVs for streaming playback. In fact, I even gave TVs to relatives a few years ago as Xmas gifts and will be giving battery operated UPnP/Media storage/servers to the same people this year to satisfy multiple viewers who cannot agree on a single video to watch while on vacation, motoring to/from the shore, or when not in a "hot spot" where they can access files streamed from home on thier mobile device. In short, I think there are enough workarounds out there to keep everyone happy if they simply make a few concessions and stop acting as if they are the target of some sort of dedicated Apple conspiracy.

Stanley,

To add to what Deb had to say regarding FFmpegX, it is best used for files you need to transcode to a wide variaty of target formats. However, for ease of use when targeting H.264/AAC/AC3 DD5.1/Chaptered content in anamorphic or non-anapmorphic formats, I really prefer HandBrake which is based on the FFmpeg and X264 codec packages. As to "trying not to get any older," I believe many of us are out here doing the same. Unfortunately, while the mind may still be thinking in a youthul manner, the body is creaking more and more with each winter season.

Take care all & have a happy holiday...

Why thank you Stanley for your kind words! Kudos to you that you've still got the 'ears' for music. I can see that yeah, doing the DJ work it's a necessity to keep high quality music on your system.

I have a living room G4 with one of the old Avid Audiophile 24/96 cards and I use it to rip vinyl - and I'll admit that I'm a bit of a snob that I actually prefer a well cut LP recorded on analog enqipment over the noise-reduced digitally sampled product available today.

What baffles me is the notion that a 128k .mp3 is considered the 'standard' quality bitrate to sell and use - and it's junk! I rip all my vinyl to 320k VBR .mp3 and for the mono LP's I have I just set them for 160k. Even with a new stylus on one of my Master Disk Collectibles, the sound quality is still inferior - even at 96khz - than the straight vinyl.

I find that yes, there's more noise on an LP but the audio *fidelity* is SO much better and the mid-ranges of course are much warmer.

I think a lot of the problems with the early CD catalogs was based on the fact that the RIAA standard EQ curve applied to a recording that would be pressed to vinyl just didn't translate well to CD. Also, I think there's just a lot less production going on with the really high-end mixing that was the standard 40 years ago. Part of the shifting center of the Recording Industry that they don't get the top engineers or producers into as many sessions as in the past. From a mixing perspective, I haven't heard much in the past decade that was exceptionally well done. Then again, with the state my hearing is, sound becomes a jumble if it's not well mixed and separated, so there's a large amount of genres that I just can't hear well anymore.

I'll go check out Neil Young and see what he's up to.. I'm always interested in seeing where the technology is going, even if my tired ears can't hear so well! Thanks!

FIrst of all, nice to meet another Amiga user over here. I've been one since 1987 and I still use my AmigaOne.

That said, I looks from what you say that we users MUST accept whatever Apple wants us to use, no matter if it is useful t us or not, just because it is Apple. Looks like we don't have even the right to complain.

QuickLook was an useful feature, and you seem to say that "evolving" implies to ditch useful features. Now it cannot play AVI/divx/other formats that I need to browse my files. Yes, thanks to Perian, but right now there's no alternative to it, and it seems there will not be one in the near future, thanks to Apple closing the possibility in the new framework.

Oh, yes, and every other format not made by Apple is EVIL, MUAHAHAHAHAHAAA… Please. 😐

iTunes has NEVER supported a load of formats.

But it supports MP3, a non-Apple format. Why? Because it is popular. Simple. And AVI container containing divx, xvid, etc. is still popular, .FLV is still popular. But now Apple has decided not only don't support those formats by themselves, but to disallow 3rd party developers to add custom codecs to AVFoundation. Why? And this should be considered "evolving"?

Agreed, Apple is a business, it's here to make money, but, hey, I AM a customer, it's me who puts his money to buy Apple gear because it does what I need, and if it does not, I'll buy stuff from another maker. Easy peasy.

Saluditos,

Ferrán.

This discussion topic has gone on long enough. There won't be any solution that would be beneficial to all.

As consumers, we have the options to direct our loyalty and money to whoever we want. We should not expect businesses to always be able to satisfy all our needs. There are just too many diverse interests to satisfy. Businesses are in for the money... after all there are stockholders they have to answer to.

Unless those QT add-on developers step up to respond to the needs of some few complainers in this thread, the matter should be settled. If not, I say to them to move on to whatever platform they think they would be treated better! And I say good luck!

MagnusVonMagnum hit it on the head! Move on or move over! Stop ********. Quit posting on this thread! Let it die a sudden death.

>That said, I looks from what you say that we users MUST accept whatever Apple wants us to use, no matter if

>it is useful t us or not, just because it is Apple. Looks like we don't have even the right to complain.

>QuickLook was an useful feature, and you seem to say that "evolving" implies to ditch useful features.

I'm not saying any such thing. My point is that Apple never supported the file formats in question directly and so blaming Apple for removing something they never had to begin with makes no logical sense. Without Perian (a 3rd party add-on), you cannot view those formats in Quicklook on older versions of OSX either to my knowledge. Now you can blame Apple for not supporting 3rd party codecs additions to QuicktimeX (and yes I call it Quicktime X, not AV Foundation because that's what Apple calls it and it's their product to name), so THAT is where people should be directing their comments to Apple if they want to see these codecs "return" to Quicklook, but even then you NEED a 3rd party to provide that support. Those who made Perian decided to call it quits, so you either need to find someone else to do it or convince them to let someone else update it. But asking Apple to support something the NEVER directly supported isn't a likely solution, IMO. My point is that several people on here don't understand that Apple never supported AVI in the first place in Quicklook. Quicktime (the old one) simply allowed 3rd party plugins. There's no reason that QuicktimeX couldn't be modified to allow plugins also, but the question is whether there are people even willing to do the work if they allowed it. The Perian team is done so it might not work even if they allowed a plugin since the Perian plugins would need to be updated to 64-bit and you can't blame Apple for wanting to move everything to 64-bit in the long run, IMO.

Yes, iTunes supports MP3, but Apple supported it because they figured it would be failure without it plus iTunes began before there was an iTunes store. AVI isn't in the same league as MP3 in that regard and most people probably still use physical discs at least part of the time or else AppleTV and similar products would be all the rage and they are not. I like having a whole house A/V system and yes, I wish iTunes did support AVI as my own (admittedly out of date) camera uses it and converting results in at least some quality loss. If iTunes had 3rd party plugin support, that would be great, but Apple are known for being control freaks. Sadly, that comes with buying Apple products. I had to hack my AppleTV to be able to use XBMC for other formats (and frankly it's great for locking out pRoN since Apple has NEVER provided any end user tools to block your own added videos from being viewed on AppleTV that I know of whereas XBMC does provide locks).

No, Mavericks isn't perfect. But it's still V1.0. Mountain Lion wasn't perfected in 1.0 either, but was pretty darn stable by 10.8.3 and then broke again in 10.8.4 with that stupid sleep bug that ruined a lot of hard drives, but was OK again in 10.8.5. Sometimes it pays to wait to upgrade. I use CCC and so I can STILL go back to Mountain Lion right now if I want or even use it off the external drive while keeping Mavericks on the internal. But I wouldn't want to go back to Snow Leopard as too many things are already dumping support. And I do like the new multiple monitor support in Mavericks. To me, that's better than Quicklook for AVI files (and yes Quicklook still works for true supported Apple formats; the feature never went away).

For the person who asked what I would convert to right now, I would convert to M4V as it's MP4 with tagging and works on any regular MP4 capable player out there which are many and yet auto-tags for things like iTunes if the tags are there (I tagged with MetaX and use Subler to set the "HD" flags, etc.)

OG wrote:

This discussion topic has gone on long enough.

I would like to agree - no new ideas but just statements from one side or the other. But if I read the posts, then I see very much misunderstanding.

MagnusVonMagnum wrote:

Some of you have the NERVE to call yourselves "Pros" and yet you seem to have not even the slightest clue about what's going on here.

I tried to get this idea: someone called himself pro? What ever this might mean (professional may be) - I have not found this. May be I missed something?

But it is alway a good idea to listen to someone who knows what's going on here.

Sorry, Apple's discussions had a problem so half of my post was lost…

First off: I (and I would like to suggest all the other users who got problems) are not interested in blaming Apple. We just want to watch (and not convert) videos.

And yes: Apple never directly supported many video compressions. But they made it "open": developers had the choice to extend. And that is what we are missing.

And this is my point of view: I am not blaming Apple, they are doing a very good job. But I am missing some features - like giving developers the possibility to extend "AV Foundation".

With Mavericks, there is a new feature (class) to get informed if a movie is compatible to "AV Foundation" (or - if you prefer - the good old name QuickTime). This is a huge upgrade. Thanx!

I just hope they will go on that way - and may be they might think about a feature to extend the current 64 bit stuff (call it QuickTime or AV Foundation) so we will have great people like the Perian developers who will extend the current state. That's it.

I am not a profesional. I am a regular joe.

my first computer was a sinclair ZX81 then atari,bbc,tandy,tandy,ibm pc, ast pc followed by a whole host of pc's and laptops all of which were windows based.

The number one reason I switched over to apple was that their new computers were able to run windows stuff and they were stable and didnt get viruses that windows computers used to get. I remember I used to have to reformat my hard drive at least once a year.

So I switched over to apple but if I had been unable to open a microsoft office document in a mac in the first place I would not have bought it.

If I coudnt play my music and videos that i had on my pc I would not have bought an apple.

If I was unable to connect my scanner, printer to my mac I may have reconsidered.

It was the ability for a mac to play/run 3rd party stuff that made it what it is today or should I say what it was up to 4 months ago.

Today the vast majority of macs sold are for general home use, music, videos and general web surfing. Not "cad/video editing" in studios

The vast majority of computers in the work place are still windows based. I am in the pizza delivery business. Recently I had my business computers upgraded and bought 75 windows based pc's because proffessionals in this business and most business including the healthcare sector and all goverment sectors still prefer pc's over macs.

With that in mind it is obvious that the vast majority of mac are sold to average joe's, virtually all my staff in the pizza delivery stores now have macs at home.

With this in mind why did apple create mavericks????

Efficiency...better....???

Quick time now has to convert .mov files which I used to play on quick time to files that I am able to play on QUICKTIME. THE ONLY DIFFERENCE IS the file are now more than "DOUBLE" in size...

READ THAT AGAIN YOU PROFESSIONALS....

It takes a file and more than double the size for the same resolution to be played on the same player that was previously used.

THATS RIGHT,, SO IF YOU HAD 500GB OF VIDEOS YOU NOW NEED 1TB FOR THE SAME FILES FOR THE SAME RESOLUTION TO BE PLAYED ON THE SAME PLAYER..........

Thats my problem with quick time.

JUST ANOTHER POINT ON APPLE'S FUTURE IN THE FORM OF MAVERICKS..

I know this is not the correct post but I must add this to show the crazyness that goes into Mavericks..

When I "upgraded" to mavericks I had an external backup drive connected. A western digital 6tb mybook studio.

It has two 3Tb hard drives inside.

It was setup in a raid 1 cofiguration. This means that the drives are split all you see is 3tb the other 3tb copies what is written on the first drive, so if the first drive fails you have a back up on the second drive..

Mavericks destroys the controller for most external hard drives. This meant that I lost all data on my "safe" external back up drive.

I have recieved a free copy of backup software from western digital but have lost thousands of files.

Secondly my 2009 hewlett packard officejet does not work with mavericks. HP won't support it anymore so its a dead duck. It worked before mavericks but now the driver and software are no longer available.

I have an HP 5MP laser printer from the 90's that still works on a windows pc.

Basically what im trying to say is if stuff that "JUST WORKS" on my mac today ie external hard drives, printers, scanners, videos etc etc should "JUST WORK" after an upgrade.

My Imac is a 2009 model..If I had bought it earlier this year then upgraded to mavricks and my peripherals stopped working I'd be truley annoyed.

BUT GETTING BACK ON TRACK.

APPLE QUICK TIME NOW TAKES A VIDEO CLIP OR WHATEVER .mov clip DOUBLES ITS SIZE FOR THE SAME CLIP TO BE PLAYED ON THE SAME PLAYER.......END OFF

IF IT COULD HALF THE SIZE OF THE DATA REQUIRED THAT WOULD BE SOMETHING...BUT NO...IT MORE THAN DOUBLES IT?????????????????

THIS IS TRUELY THE BEGINING OF THE END.......

Just an update....

If you are going to have to convert your .mov files do them in batches of 4.

If you do 5 or more the imac sometimes hangs....

You can't even force quit because the curser stays in a coloured spinning think mode.....