QuickTime Player is a free application for playing audio and video files that comes preinstalled on all Macs. An application that is becoming a bit of a victim of the passage of time, but which, like others, was a real revolution in its time. An application still very useful todaybut which has seen its use gradually dwindle in favor of streaming and other alternatives.
And why was QuickTime Player a revolution? Well, due to a combination of factors, among which the fact that be free, comes standard on all Macs and all the editing options it offers. Options that aren’t even meant to compete with Final Cut Pro or even iMovie, but are really useful in more than one situation. Let’s talk a little more about this interesting player.
A real revolution in its time
At a time when almost all of the video we watched was stored locally on our computer, either because we recorded it with our camcorder or iPhone or downloaded it from the Internet, we had a reader that could open almost any file it was essential. So much so that QuickTime Player was available for Windows and a version with more tools and possibilities was even marketed.
Fast forward a bit and we’re in a period, say around 2005, where we’re still consuming a lot of downloaded content, but there was a merger of the most varied format. Windows pushed its .avi format, open formats weren’t used as much, and compression was a must in order to place content on the web. Here QuickTime Player had its first big obstacle, that of compatibility with certain codecs.
Certainly considering the royalty fee that you would have to pay to be able to reproduce certain formats, QuickTime Player saw too many videos could not be opened. This caused many users to look for alternatives like VLC, for example. It wasn’t a design or performance issue or anything wrong with the built-in player, it was simply the need to open a file without having to convert it first.
To whom streaming has removed the feature, although…
We go back almost to today and we find the videos directly on the web. platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion and many more removed viewing from our computers. Subsequently, streaming platforms such as Disney+ or Netflix ended up tipping the scales and local reading became even less common. Yes, of course there were and there are people who continue to enjoy their video library or who are dedicated to video and use QuickTime Player day after day, but this is less common.
So is QuickTime Player still useful? A lot of. For people who are exclusively in the Apple ecosystem, the .mov or .mp4 format and others are common and we can open it in the application. Also any video that we recorded with our iPhone. And here’s the interesting thing: you can join several videos, cut them, reorder fragments and do some basic drag-and-drop edits.
As I said, a very basic edit, nothing to do with an iMovie, but interesting when we have several shots that we want to convert into a single file or when we need to delete part of the beginning of a video. Also interesting to do some conversions for, for example, decrease the quality and size of a video file or to convert it to audio only. This without going into the possibility of recording the screen of our Mac, the sound of our microphones or the screen of our iPhone or iPad directly on the computer.
QuickTime Player reflects the passage of time, yes, also the change in the way we work or enjoy video, but, as the saying goes, who held it back. It was a real revolution in its time and today, although its use is much less widespread, we are faced with a really useful application in various scenarios. An application that still goes to the cinema, if you allow me the pun.
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