01-11-2007, 12:48 PM

First, i have an iMac and love it. Question on quicktime:

It's nice and evedently used by some of the Mac's other apps from time to time as needed, but what would one use it for straight-up? I mean, i use Front Row or DVD player to view movies.

Also, why does Quicktime seem to stop and start so much when it attempts to play something like a news report on a web site - or even Apple ads on the Apple site? I never have a problem with Windows Media player doing this and it's quality seems so much better than that of Quicktime.

01-11-2007, 06:40 PM

allow time for the movie to load, and you'll be fine. You're obviously on an intel machine since you use Front Row, so you should have all the power there that you need.

I use quicktime for downloaded movies. I'm a big console gamer, so I'll often download a video review to watch later, rather than sit and wait for the website's media player to buffer and take it's time. This way, I can watch it anytime, and not have to worry about placing it somewhere Front Row likes it. Quicktime can also be used for video podcasts, or other iPod movies. Basically, I use it instead of Front Row, since I can search for my files faster than it can, and I may not always want them viewed in full screen. Great to watch movies while you're doing something else.

The reason it stops and starts is likely because you're not allowing it to load fully before you start playing it. The timeline also corresponds to the download completion. You'll see the grey bar scrolling across as it completes. Also, when you referred to Windows Media Player, did you mean on a PC or a mac? I would guess you meant windows, since I found it horribly slow on OS X, as it always attempted to stream movies outside the app I tried to play them in. eg. in Safari, it would launch Media Player, sit and think streaming for a while, and often not work. Flip4mac cured that, but that's another story.