Help! My Quicktime crashes when...

...I try to listen to stuff posted on the forum. Anyone know what's going on? It plays the first second or so, freezes, then I have to shut down all my windows.

 

The latest versions of Quicktime don't handle Mp3's so well. You'll see a runbar in the middle of your screen, then it will hault everything.

I would strongly suggest uninstalling Quicktime and try the alternative:

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alternative.htm

The free Apple download of Quicktime is as buggy and attention-needy as Realplayer. They hound you to buy the full version. The alternative version is less buggy and doesn't bother you. No spyware either.

If you DO this and you have Winamp installed, go through its Options, Preferences and make sure Mp3 is enabled (and most sound playback file types) so that Winamp will handle the sound files from sites. You can do the similar thing to Windows Media Player to do the same thing...

 

Oh, their RealPlayer Alternative is equally as good, IMHO.

Both are vital products for multimedia content on sites, but the "free player" from each is a real pain in the whoopsidaisy. The alternative's done well and less heavy for the system.

 

Thanks Sckott! I'll try it.

 

Worked a treat. Thanks again!

 

Glad it did. Gotta love software that leaves the user alone.

Less is more!

 

It's funny, I downloaded Quicktime just last night to listen to some sound files on Rhino's Handmade site. For the life of me, I don't understand why Rhino uses this thing, any other sites you go to use Windows Midea Player and/or Real Player. Quicktime has never worked right on my other computers and always ended up taking the program off. Sckott, thanks for the heads up, I'm going to uninstall my Quicktime and go for both the alternate Quicktime and Real Player!

 

I'm glad it worked.

Quicktime is not for everyone, but the compression lends itself well to different speeds of download. It's a good codec to make things really small, and that helps in bandwith use and lack of patience! Same with video. That's why Hollywood sites love to use Quicktime for their trailers. Nothing else works as efficiently. Even for people on sappy old dialup.

 

I have to admit, on my computer now, Quicktime never gives me an ounce of trouble. And it does work great with the movie trailers, even with my kids hitting "play" a dozen or more times to watch the same clip over and over.

Still, their plug-ins are a bit intrusive and, left to its own devices, Quicktime will try to hijack your MIME types and take over as your default player for some media types. (It's not as intrusive as the RealPlayer...and I have to thank Sckott for recommending the free codecs so I can avoid dumping that RealNonsense onto my 'puter. )

 

Quicktime works incredibly well on Macs (big surprise), and Windows Media Player is a POS on a Mac.

The reverse is true for PC's.

BTW, Almost all plug-ins seem to want to hijack the a/v mime types. I've had to hand scrub Windows Media Player and RealPlayer from IE plenty of times.

 

Some hijack MIME types worse than others. I remember my last run-in with RealPlayer was a couple of years ago. It not only seemingly reinstalled itself to "auto start" after I specifically cleansed all that trash out of my registry and .ini files, it also butted in and became my default CD player after I had uninstalled another CD player I didn't care for. It seemed like it was waiting in line to become my default player for any other application I decided to get rid of.

Maybe it's just my configuration, but Quicktime has worked better for me on my PC than Windows Media Player (which I only use if there are NO other player options...it's also a POS on a PC, IMHO). As a rule I stick to Winamp whenever I can. I rarely play any video, but Quicktime is actually what I prefer as a default on my system. In my latest rig here, it plays back wonderfully...none of the "hiccups" I used to get on older systems (freezing video, dropping audio, etc.).

 

Well, I just downloaded Alternate RealPlayer and it works, I like the idea of having it, if I need it.

Unfortunately Quicktime Alternate is down, so I'm going to, hopefully, I can download it later on this afternoon.

 

That sounds like they are blocking the ports that Quicktime uses, where downloading and listening locally probably just uses port 80.