durandal_1707

Algr_Myx said:

Ugg. What was the point of inventing Thunderbolt? They took away firewire, and told us about all these amazing things it could do. Then shipped nothing but boxes that charge you $200 for a SATA port.

Thunderbolt can do a lot of really cool things. You can even buy an external PCI-Express expansion box, which would let you do pretty much anything. I was super stoked when TB came out. Unfortunately, the price for pretty much everything TB is just too high for any of it to matter, and it seems intrinsic to the technology itself (even the cables need fancy circuitry in them).

Duck autocorrect. Duck it strait too he'll.

I'd just like to continue to listen to music / play a game / talk with someone while having the phone plugged in. Oh well, that's progress I suppose. :-/

macapfel said:

Definitely awkward at the moment. And confusing for the average customer (i.e. not AI reader). I just hope they come up with a more considerate line up. MacBook is fantastic, and so is the MacBook Pro. But the MBA? I would like to have a new Mac, but am currently unsure which one to buy. The MBA seems not to be a sensible option any more. And I bought two of them since it came out, incl. gen 1.

The MacBook Air:

- is cheaper
- has a real processor instead of Core M
- lets you plug in a USB flash drive without a bulky adapter (yes, I know USB-C is the future, but for now, most people's devices are still old school)
- Is still ridiculously thin.

I think the MBA will continue to sell just fine. I wish it had the Retina display, but really, that's the only problem with it now that they've finally fixed the RAM floor (4 GB is pretty painful to use on modern versions of OS X).

command_f said:

I regret that move by Apple. I don't use Windows and I don't have a Windows machine but it still affects me. I have lots of friends who use Windows exclusively; I used to be able to send them video from my Mac without worrying: they would have or could get Quicktime. Now I have to worry about the video capabilities of Windows. Bah!

As others have said, just save as .mp4. Done.

cmpmatthews said:

This is really maddening. The files from my stepdad's action cam are in QuickTime MOV format and won't open in Premiere Pro on Windows without QuickTime installed. -_-

MOV is just a container. The actual file is, most likely, just compressed with H.264 for video and AAC for audio. With ffmpeg, you can convert them losslessly to .mp4 like this:

ffmpeg -i /path/to/original.mov -acodec copy -vcodec copy /path/to/converted.mp4

Since the conversion is lossless, there's no re-encoding, and the process will only take about as long as a file copy. You could even make an Automator workflow for it—in fact, I decided to do it for you. Unzip the attached file and put it in your ~/Library/Services folder (or just double-click it and opt to Install when asked), and it'll show up in the Finder's context menu. The script assumes ffmpeg is installed in /opt/local/bin, which is where it'll be if you install it via MacPorts. If you install it somewhere else, alter the script as appropriate.

If you install both ffmpeg and this workflow, you can just right-click on any .mov file that's encoded using H.264 and it will quickly be converted to MP4 losslessly.

jdw said:

If they don't have an internet connection and are stuck in the dark ages, then you may need to buy Flip4Mac like I did.  That software allows you to save in older Windows video formats with ease, and play those videos back on your Mac too, assuming your recipient cannot playback mp4 videos for some reason.

I would be very, very surprised if anything from this century were unable to play mp4 files.