Apple unlocks full-screen QuickTime playback, releases iTunes 7.3.1

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
In addition to a minor iTunes fix, Apple on Wednesday unleashed an update to its QuickTime media player software that lets users view videos in full-screen mode without a purchase upgrade.



QuickTime 7.2



The Cupertino-based company said QuickTime 7.2 includes a new version of QuickTime Player that unlocks support for viewing videos in full-screen -- a feature which was previously available only through a $30 QuickTime Pro license.



QuickTime 7.2 also bundles "updates to the H.264 codec" and numerous bug fixes, Apple said. It's available as 51.4MB download for Mac users and a 19.3MB download for Windows users.



iTunes 7.3.1



Meanwhile, Apple also released iTunes 7.3.1, which "addresses a minor problem with iTunes 7.3 accessing the iTunes Library."



iTunes 7.3.1 is available as a 33.8MB download for Mac users and a 47.6MB download for Windows users.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 59
    emig647emig647 Posts: 2,455member
    Hopefully iTunes 7.3.1 will fix the 1 second pauses I've been experiencing on songs not played before in the beginning. Once they play that pause goes away.



    It's about time they unlocked the full-screen. Every other movie player does it.
  • Reply 2 of 59
    kolchakkolchak Posts: 1,398member
    It's about time. It took way too long for Apple to realize that VLC can do everything QT Player can do (and more, like adjust audio sync), play fullscreen, play more media formats, and is completely free.
  • Reply 3 of 59
    RIGHT ON!

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kolchak View Post


    It's about time. It took way too long for Apple to realize that VLC can do everything QT Player can do (and more, like adjust audio sync), play fullscreen, play more media formats, and is completely free.



  • Reply 4 of 59
    g_warreng_warren Posts: 713member
    Woo. QuickTime Pro makes sense again - the Pro licence lets you make files, the normal version gives you all of the playback features. Why did it take them so long to sort this back to the way it was before?!
  • Reply 5 of 59
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    Now the wait until all the Pro features just come free with Quicktime. You'd think that Apple would do these things so that it's more beneficial to be on the Mac side. Let Windows users pay for Quicktime Pro but give us Mac users it for nothing.



    I wonder if the H264 update improves encoding performance. It is soooo slow.



    There is also a couple of other issues. I find a lot of movies come out desaturated. Also if I use Quicktime's movie to mp4 with H264 instead of movie to quicktime with H264, the movie turns out worse (very blocky at points). Sometimes I actually encode to mpeg-1 instead and that's not right, I shouldn't have to resort to using an older codec to get rid of blockiness but I actually get better results.



    It seems to me that it's because of the Quicktime with H264 slider, which looks like it does some sort of variable bitrate. The mp4 option doesn't have a slider. What I end up having to do is encode to Quicktime H264, then I open it again and export as MP4 but with a video passthrough - it's such a pain to do this on a lot of clips. I don't see why the MP4 option doesn't just have the same encoder options that the quicktime container uses.
  • Reply 6 of 59
    Ha, I was just playing with Leopard the other day and noticed the free quicktime (7.2) had full screen and was wondering when Apple would bring it to the rest of us. I even tried to use the leopard quicktime to no avail.
  • Reply 7 of 59
    That's too bad...I really thought it was a great revenue tool for Apple to get consumers to buy QuickTime Pro...now there's really no need to sell it (this is probably the most common reason for users to upgrade). The only other good feature in my opinion is the ability to download quicktime/wmv (with flip4mac) movies or clips.
  • Reply 8 of 59
    About Fucking Time!
  • Reply 9 of 59
    emig647emig647 Posts: 2,455member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by trevorlsciact View Post


    About Fucking Time!



    lawl... preach on brotha
  • Reply 10 of 59
    toyintoyin Posts: 58member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by trevorlsciact View Post


    About Fucking Time!



    No honestly tell us how you really feel
  • Reply 11 of 59
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ThinkExpensive View Post


    That's too bad...I really thought it was a great revenue tool for Apple to get consumers to buy QuickTime Pro...now there's really no need to sell it (this is probably the most common reason for users to upgrade).



    No, you let "pro" really be pro features. It has a lightweight audio and video recording feature, a lightweight clip editor, as well as an encoder.



    Pretending that full screen is a pro feature was stupid, greedy and arrogant.
  • Reply 12 of 59
    slewisslewis Posts: 2,081member
    Null.
  • Reply 13 of 59
    mr. hmr. h Posts: 4,870member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    The Cupertino-based company said QuickTime 7.2 includes a new version of QuickTime Player that unlocks support for viewing videos in full-screen



    At last! Someone at Apple grew a brain!
  • Reply 14 of 59
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by trevorlsciact View Post


    About Fucking Time!



    OMG... I WAS JUST GOING TO DO THAT 'EXACT' SAME THING!!!
  • Reply 15 of 59
    twistedtwisted Posts: 4member
    It has never been necessary to purchase QuickTime Pro to use fullscreen mode. AppleScript can direct QuickTime Player to present any movie in fullscreen. There are instructions on how to do this and example scripts on numerous Mac tip sites, and probably a dozen or more scripts compiled as applications on Mac software download sites.



    This makes it more convenient, and should have been done long ago, but anyone who paid $30 for QuickTime Pro solely to get full screen playback is just Steve Jobs' bitch.
  • Reply 16 of 59
    mr. hmr. h Posts: 4,870member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Twisted View Post


    It has never been necessary to purchase QuickTime Pro to use fullscreen mode. AppleScript can direct QuickTime Player to present any movie in fullscreen. There are instructions on how to do this and example scripts on numerous Mac tip sites, and probably a dozen or more scripts compiled as applications on Mac software download sites.



    This makes it more convenient, and should have been done long ago, but anyone who paid $30 for QuickTime Pro solely to get full screen playback is just Steve Jobs' bitch.



    Whilst the first paragraph and first bit of the second is all true, I don't agree with the last bit. We're all geeks here so we know about AppleScript and all that. But the fact is that most people don't know about that stuff and wouldn't think to themselves "there must be some way of using scripting to make QuickTime do full screen without me having to pay". They'd think "wow, Apple really are a bunch of penny-pinching bastards, aren't they?"
  • Reply 17 of 59
    eckingecking Posts: 1,588member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by trevorlsciact View Post


    About Fucking Time!



    Post of the month right there. Truer words have not been spoken.
  • Reply 18 of 59
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    I know this isn't exactly on topic but what I hope gets fixed is the strange superimposed pixillation garbled effect that I see all the time when watching the Apple TV commercials using QT plugin in Safari.



    It's some weird streaming cache thing at the beginning of the playback usually, but has nothing to do with any lack of bandwidth or computing power on my part because I have the ultimate in both cases, and it happens on all my other macs as well.



    Does anyone know what causes this problem?



    example image
  • Reply 19 of 59
    aegisdesignaegisdesign Posts: 2,914member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kolchak View Post


    It's about time. It took way too long for Apple to realize that VLC can do everything QT Player can do (and more, like adjust audio sync), play fullscreen, play more media formats, and is completely free.



    Really? Which formats?



    I can't remember the last time I had to use VLC to play anything. There's a lot of decent quicktime codecs now, especially after the Perian 1.0 release which has brought together most of the weird non standard proprietary crap like DivX and AC3.
  • Reply 20 of 59
    galleygalley Posts: 971member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by trevorlsciact View Post


    About Fucking Time!



    Ban Comic Sans
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