Why does Quicktime suck so much?
:: Thursday, August 3rd, 2006 @ 11:01:55 am
:: Tags: Computers
104% complete is an impressive feat indeed
Someone I know once accused me of being overly negative about computers, but I can’t help it because I know these companies can do better.
My hatred for Quicktime and iTunes increases. Quicktime is sluggish even on my modern Windows box with its lightning-fast video card, while Zoomplayer (my player of choice) and Windows Media Player both respond quickly. iTunes responsiveness is horrible when playing video, and Quicktime is only marginally better [rant rant rant]. ZP and WMP both play video smoothly even when I am using the machine heavily. Quicktime and iTunes both stutter, and can’t even be resized smoothly when video is playing.
Using Quicktime, I’m now trying to export a time-lapse movie out of a series of 9842 still images that have all been resized down to something manageable (640×480 pixel jpgs). The job has been running for about 10 hours, and now says that it’s 108% complete! I always knew Apple went above and beyond the call of duty when it came to software. Do I kill the process, or let it count up even higher?
UDATE: After 24 hours and a display of 144% complete, I killed the job. Doing so deleted the temp files that were made, but I had copied them before-hand, just in case. It looks like one of them is the video Quicktime was trying to make. Anyone have suggestions for another utility I can use to build a movie out of 10,000 still images? :(
UPDATE: I used Quicktime Pro to export a H.264 .mp4 file at 1080HD resolution. Zoomplayer Pro can play it scaled up to 2560 x 1600 @ 30fps without even a hickup, while Quicktime Pro struggles even when playing it in a window.
UPDATE: Hey, so how does one associate a .m4v file with Quicktime? It will play the file, but you can’t make it the default player for that file type.
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I believe it is reasonable to assume that Windows Media might be superior performance-wise on a PC. And Quicktime on a Mac. I won’t disagree that sometimes software from various reaches may frustrate us, thus reactions such as yours, for better quality software, are warranted.
I read this post with interest. For me, Quicktime and associated iTunes runs very nicely, and despite my prodigious use of it, I’ve never seen the symptoms you describe (on my Mac). Sometimes I find the Export bar isn’t accurate (it sometimes doesn’t fullly scrub across before it’s done compressing), but the performance and stuttering you describe work well on a Mac.
Ce la vie, for now.
Eric, don’t whine like a baby. :) I think you are running into the fact that Quicktime is the lowest of the low end as far as authoring is concerned - rendering 10K images into a movie is not a small feat.
Actually, iMovie and iDVD do this pretty well. Why don’t you just admit that you miss having a Mac, and get one for this type of thing. Final Cut Pro would also do this easily for you.
Have you seen my movie of my Alaska pictures (iPhoto generated, via export): http://web.apple.com/adamnash/Alaska
:)
Whoops… got the URL wrong: http://web.mac.com/adamnash/iW.....laska.html
Adam - that isn’t the type of thing I want to do. I can make movies like that in about 5 minutes. :)
This is a time-lapse with 10,000 sequential movies. Quicktime can open a sequence of images. It has to be high resolution as well, so iMovie isn’t going to cut it!
iPhoto 6 seems to have a mode that offers a variety of sizes, up to full resolution… I know, because I accidentally made the movie first in that mode, and it was 680MB.
You were only trying to do 640×480 right? It definitely supports that. I lowered the size and added transitions just to produce a 60MB web version.
I think you are trying to use the wrong product here. If you want to bring over a drive, I’m willing to lend you my G5 to try doing it. I have to admit, doing 10K photos sounds like it would take days… the 78 photo movie, full size, took about 1/2 hour to render on my machine (although dual G5 is getting long in the tooth).
I like your blog, it’s fun to tease you in public.
is this time frame of the building work at long last ?
Nash: iPhoto makes a slideshow, but will it automatically take a sequence of images and render it into a movie, with 1 sequential image per frame? (just curious) I ultimately need it at 1920×1080 resolution.
On my $700 Dell, 10,000 frames of 640×480 images takes hours, not days. QT Pro finishes the renders; it just refuses to quit. I can salvage the movie by copying the temp file before I cancel the job.
I did a test at full HD resolution (500+ images, which took less than an hour), and it looks damn cool. And QT Pro even quits properly when only using 500 images. :)
I got it now. If you want one picture per frame, then you’d need one of the movie applications, iMovie HD, Final Cut Express, or Final Cut Pro.
I don’t know the rendering times for those applications.
I’m pretty sure your $700 Dell matches the recent Intel Macs in speed/architecture, so not sure you have a reason to be so fussy with Macs. You did work for Apple, after all… :)
This makes me think there must be a “one trick pony” application that does just this - it seems like a relatively simple task. I’m suprised there isn’t a shareware or other inexpensive program that just does this (pictures * fps -> movie)
I always thought Quicktime Pro was that one trick pony, since it has an “open image sequence” option. I’m sure Final Cut Pro does this very elegantly, and will probably go Mac if I start getting more serious about video.
While QuickTime works fine for me on a MacBook Pro, I sympathise with your export progress niggles.
Exporting 480×270 QT movies from Final Cut Express, while not reaching the dizzying heights of 144% progress, does sit at between 7-12% for around three quarters of the 15-20 minutes it takes to churn out the average 2-3 minute movie. If you haven’t been there before, it can look like you’re in for a long, long wait.
So if (when!) you go Mac, be prepared…
If you can successfully render 500 photos, why not simply render this amount 20 times and then combine the resulting video files into one? It may not be ideal, but rendering that many at one time is asking for trouble anyway in that a computer crash would destroy all progress.
I tend to take the slightly longer approach when doing things such as this as it removes the stress factor.