Why no Quicktime?

Aldarion · Post by **Aldarion** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 2:40 am

I've been using handbrake for a while now and never really cared what was "under the hood".

Why doesn't Handbrake use the Quicktime codec?

realityking · Post by **realityking** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 5:20 am

Because x264 has more features, is faster and offers better quality. And there is no QuickTime for a lot of platforms that HandBrake supports.

PuzZLeR · Post by **PuzZLeR** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 4:29 am

I use a PC, and my first experience encoding to H.264 was with QuickTime Pro. It was so SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! On a D-Core processor, after letting QT encode overnight , I had to shut down a job after it was only at 19%! I don't have a whole week to encode a 90 minute film. $30 for this? What a waste. Forget it!

Since it was my first impression of H.264, obviously, I was disappointed. But things change don't they?

And along came HandBrake and all is well in PC-land...

Realityking, I have a question. I thought HandBrake maintains QT compatibility as best as possible. Can you explain this sentence for me?

realityking wrote: And there is no QuickTime for a lot of platforms that HandBrake supports.

Are you talking about the "Advanced Settings"? Thanks!

Anamonde · Post by **Anamonde** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 5:54 am

handbrake uses open source quicktime library's. this way its possible to encode movies on a linux machine... which does not have quicktime.

approximately... i think

realityking · Post by **realityking** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 8:13 am

[quote="PuzZLeR]Realityking, I have a question. I thought HandBrake maintains QT compatibility as best as possible. Can you explain this sentence for me?

realityking wrote: And there is no QuickTime for a lot of platforms that HandBrake supports.

Are you talking about the "Advanced Settings"? Thanks![/quote]

Alle the Presets are made to work with QuickTime, but HandBrake offers quite a few options that brake QuickTime Compatibility because the underlying x264 is more feature complete then QuickTimes h264 (however think there are couple of features missing that QuickTimes does).

However by this sentence I meant that HandBrake runs, for example, on Linux. but there is no QuickTime for Linux thus the developer can't use any QuickTime libraries without breaking the Linux version.

Anamonde wrote:handbrake uses open source quicktime library's. this way its possible to encode movies on a linux machine... which does not have quicktime.

approximately... i think

Not quite. HandBrake doesn't use QucikTime at all, it just uses Open Source Audio and video codecs. Some of them are available as QuickTime components also.

PuzZLeR · Post by **PuzZLeR** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 11:24 pm

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, the x264 engine that HandBrake uses has features that can superset QuickTime compatibility.

Although QuickTime can be limited, it serves as a "standard within the standard" of H.264 in many ways, and this QT compatibility is even respected in the land of M$ as well.

I asked this question because I find it important to keep my video within this compatibility and wanted to make sure.

Yeah, I know there are some nice feautures available outside this range (multiple ref frames, b-pyramids, etc.) that you can call in the advanced settings. But just to warn some readers in this forum, using these features may strand your video to only computer playback, with only apps like VLC, and not play anywhere else.

Just like the compromise of better quality vs. file size, you also have the compromise of advanced features vs. wide compatibility.