Introduction

A couple of weeks ago I published some news items about Apple’s launch of new notebooks. I had to install their QuickTime Player to allow me to watch their video press releases. I have to say, I had both good and bad experiences with it. It took me more than half an hour to completely install it on my system; however, in the end, I simply love the playback it offers.

 

QuickTime 7.5.5 is a fully featured multimedia player from Apple. It is very easy to download, install, and use (except that it takes a while to download since it’s a 64MB file with iTunes). But the best part is the streaming of the video; it can automatically determine your connection speed and deliver the best possible quality.

QuickTime can play QuickTime movies (.mov) and is also capable of playing various formats of music, digital video, media clips, text, animation and even numerous types of interactive panoramic images. It also features the latest high definition H.264 video compression and delivers high definition video playback employing this technology.

The extent of its usefulness is limited; however, since it can’t play the.avi format which is a very common format for sharing video files. QuickTime is essential for playing videos on Apple’s site and also for playing some movie trailers which requires a QuickTime player, but it is a disappointment for anyone who uses Bit Torrent or other file type of file sharing.

QuickTime is available for the Classic Mac OS, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems. If you have bought any of Apple’s products (iTunes on an Apple iPhone, iPod or Safari browser on MacBooks) then by default QuickTime will be automatically installed on your system. If you don’t already have iTunes on your system you can download a free copy of QuickTime with iTunes from Apple’s site: www.apple.com/downloads.

Requirements and Features

The minimum requirements for downloading the QuickTime player for Windows users are:

• A Pentium processor based PC or compatible computer

• Minimum 128 MB RAM or more

• Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Vista

The QuickTime Player 7.5.5 has these features:

• Image files and movies file playback

• Playback of MPEG-4 video, AAC audio & Instant-On media

• Supports AIFF, WAV, MOV, MP4 (AAC only), and CAF formats

• High definition H.264 multimedia playback

• Full screen mode and automatic resizing the screen

• 24 channels of surround sound

• Better Audio/Video controls

• New Improved interface

• Controls for Bass and treble soundtrack

• Balance control

• Streaming media support

• Capable of viewing Virtual Reality

• Interactive content through iTunes store.

• Additional shortcut keys for example J, K, or L to rewind, pause or resume playback at variable speeds