Is it just me or is QT 7.5 STILL broken?

[lapri73]

Hi all,

Just grabbed 7.5 of QT tonight, installed, made sure that Perian was installed and on multi-channel output, audio/midi output is 2-channel 16bit 48k and ac3passthru is "1" (numberic) in com.cod3r..... that godawful buzzing/crackling sound is coming through my speakers again...is this QT7.5 at its best again? I went back to 7.4.1 after 7.4.5 did the same, and looks like nothing is fixed yet I won't pacify until I hear from someone else telling me it is Apple, not me

CHeers

Lap

[dynaflash]

Well, afaik apples QT player had never natively supported AC3 pass through (particularly in an mp4). So, it appears its a perian/qt issue. The only "official" support of ac3 passthrough in an mp4 I know of is the AppleTV which works just fine.

[lapri73]

well I've just rolled back to 7.4.1 so the Perian/QT issue is unresolved

Damn you Apple....can't you fix this?

So I guess this has now become a warning....don't upgrade to 7.5, it breaks everything

[nightstrm]

well I've just rolled back to 7.4.1 so the Perian/QT issue is unresolved

Damn you Apple....can't you fix this?

So I guess this has now become a warning....don't upgrade to 7.5, it breaks everything

How is it Apple's fault? Shouldn't you ask the Perian people to fix it?

Or am I missing something?

[remyhelsinki]

Like others have mentioned you should see if Perian is aware of the problem. I know there is a 1.1.1 beta of Perian that is being worked on. The only fixes I could find on it though are the following:

1.1.1

- H.264 in avi fixed
- Some anamorphic AVI files supported
- Performance problems due to PIC fixed with new Xcode
- Fix a decoding bug with H.264 i-frames
- Better character set detection
- Problem with multiple update checkers fixed
- Several parsing and rendering bugs with subtitles fixed
- Subtitles don't cause the player to pause when the first line is shown
- Audio fixed for some older MKV files with AAC/FLAC
- Strange values in MKV chapters or video sizes are handled better
- Support for SAMI subtitles and VP6+alpha and DosBox video codecs
- FFmpeg fixed crashing on G3s and Fraps decoding problems

[lapri73]

I'm happy to beaten up by others about this, however I figured it would be up to Apple to ensure compatibility with existing plugins at the very least.

Mind you...the person who wrote the plugin that works with Perian to enable ac3 passthru (http://www.cod3r.com) wrote this:

"In my previous post, I discussed how to do AC3 passthrough using Perian. Unfortunately, this method is really a hack, and doesn’t work in all situations. There is a better solution though.

Apple has enabled AC3 passthrough with Quicktime. They have enabled it on the AppleTV to support playback of their HD movies. The code for passthrough is even in the latest version of Quicktime on the desktop, but the celebration ends there. Apple has not exposed a method for enabling passthrough on the desktop either through the user interface, or a hidden preference. They have not even exposed a method for developers to use it through Quicktime (I’ve tried)." He goes on to say he has raised the issue with Apple and invites everyone to add their complaints to his ticket.

If he says to blame Apple....I'm blaming Apple

[dynaflash]

that "person" is none other than gbooker and if he says its so, then it is likely so. Having said that, I did ask him directly about the reports of 7.4 breaking Perian's ac3 pass thru, he said that it was not broken, though folks did report issues with it. I believe gbooker but cannot really elaborate further. I might suggest taking it up with Perian to see if the issue is solved.

Note: After reading the OP I did try one of my atv encodes with the ac3 surround track enabled instead of the aac track using qt player 7.5 and Perian. Frankly I did not notice anything odd about the sound (of course it wasnt true dolby out of my mbp) but none of the issues mentioned in the OP. As I pretty much only use the atv, I cannot elaborate much more than that though.

[lapri73]

Dynaflash...I didn't want to name him, because I figured that emblazoning that across my post would indicate some sort of endorsement on his part...which of course I do not have.

The incident seems to have sprung up since 7.4.5 and a number of people are experiencing the same issue. Regardless in the end of whose fault it is...it would be nice to be rectified. I saw information I take to be authoratative on the matter so if they say the fault is x...because of their broader experience in the matter I will also add my voice to that.

and Sony could do a little more to support ac3 passthru in an .mp4 file too

Who do you petition at MPEG to get a standard changed? lol

[dynaflash]

Fair enough. gbooker is a valued contributor on the HB forums and as far as I am concerned, his word is golden on the matter (as you seem to agree).

[djcraze]

Hello everyone, no one knows me here on these forums and I'm not part of any team or project, so I could understand if you don't believe me on this.

I will admit, I'm not much into the whole understanding of how Audio Codecs work, or Video Codecs but this is all true what I'm about to tell you.

Anyways, I came across this thread late last night and read that the current version of QuickTime does indeed have AC3 Pass- through (same as the version from AppleTV), but there is no available option to turn it on. I disagree with this statement completely.

I did some looking in the AppleTV main OS, and from that I was able to get AC3 Pass-Through on my Mac without the use of Perian (Yup, I uninstalled Perian). What I had done was (and I don't recommend doing it, unless you know what you're doing... Or don't care to BOTCH your OS), Delete every file or just delete the folder:
~/Library/QuickTime/
~/Library/Components/
~/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/
/Library/QuickTime/
/Library/Components/
/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/
/System/Library/QuickTime/
/System/Library/Components/

After this, copy over the equivalent from the AppleTV OS... I will admit after I did this, I didn't work at all.. I had no sound no nothing.. But as I was restoring the original files from Time Machine, I came across success. (I THINK) It was in the file (/System/Library/Components/AudioCodecs.component), once I copied over the one that came with Leopard I was able to get AC3 passthrough in MP4 containers. However, sadly, there was a cost.. I was unable to play any normal audio file in the MP4 container (AAC Stereo). Nothing would happen, no audio would come through.

I was going to record my success by plugging my camera into my macs FireWire and open up QuickTime, but since I botched all the components I was unable to record anything. QuickTime just showed a black image from my Camera.

So, in conclusion, I think its actually a component/plug-in for QuickTime that Apple makes to have AC3 Pass-Through.. Not Actually inside of QuickTime.

I hope this helps out some of the devs out there, and for the people that aren't afraid to botch their System (Which after some time, I wasn't able to get any audio at all (I copied back all the components and plugins from Time Machine but It didnt work so I had to do a full system recovery))..

Thanks,
Kyle

--EDIT--
Also for got to mention that at the time, I thought my QuickTime was up to date, but looking at it now, it is not.. I have 7.4.5 , But I was unable to get AC3 pass-through to work in 7.4.5 using Perian and the AC3 component.