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September 13, 2006
QT7.1.3 and Flash
QT7.1.3 and Flash: This shouldn't become a serious issue, but it *is* a confusing issue, so here's a quick FYI. Long ago, Apple's QuickTime included a Macromedia Flash Player, about the time of QuickTime 5 and Flash 3. The engine has stayed among their codecs, even though there has been little real use of it. In yesterday's releases, Apple apparently disabled this codec in their prefs. Result: people who viewed SWF3 content via QuickTime would have to explicitly enable that codec to view it. Real result: there don't seem to be many people viewing SWF3 in QT, so it shouldn't have much effect, but it will probably hit Digg and Slashdot and people will get confused. You, however, know the dirt. ;-) I tried Apple's site for QT Release Notes and could not find info, but thanks to Martin Sammtleben for raising the profile on this issue. If you see any other public discussions, or possible impacts, then a note in the comments here would be a great way to bump it up, thanks! (Just to be clear, this is unrelated to the Adobe Flash Player that gazillions of people install each day -- it's about some limited SWF-rendering abilities within the QuickTime plugin -- two completely different things.)
Update: Apple docs here... "The version of Flash that ships in QuickTime is older than the version available from Adobe and used in Safari, therefore, while we still ship Flash with QuickTime, it is turned off by default." While this doesn't help those who have already deployed QuickTime projects which include SWF tracks, it does provide the company's current speech on the matter. MacFixIt links to this document too... MacInTouch has commentary... succinct wrap-up from Carol Caroling... Philip Hodgetts has what sounds like Apple text (from another document?): "The means that most interactive QuickTime material on the Internet will display with a gray or blank screen, without any warning to the user. Even if the user looks at the track properties there indication there is even a Flash Track to enable." Once again, this is .MOV files in webpages that we're talking about, not .SWF files in webpages.
Posted by JohnDowdell at September 13, 2006 03:44 PM
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Comments
Remember, QuickTime is a system-level architecture for media rather than just a plug-in like Flash, so this doesn't affect just SWF-rendering abilities in the plug-in -- this effectively kills the QuickTime Flash media type system-wide, whether it's used on a web site, as part of a web app, or as part of a desktop app.
This is a disaster for content developers who depend on QuickTime's Flash support to allow functionality that neither QuickTime or Flash can do on their own.
Posted by: Charles at September 13, 2006 04:59 PM
Mr. Wiltgen! How are ya!? :)
Correction to my prior paragraph: The Macromedia Flash Player code within QuickTime was updated at some point, and I think it read up to SWF5 files by the end.
As Charles advised, this will only affect SWF-in-QT use, not general SWF-in-browser use. (There's a QT preference to take over *all* SWF rendering on the system, but this is toggled off by default, and has not produced appreciable support calls the past two years.)
Charles, re: that "disaster": Do you know where these people talk? I did some searches, but mainly relied on Martin's links. Any place else you see people affected by this...?
tx, jd
Posted by: John Dowdell at September 13, 2006 06:12 PM
Just to be clear, my comment quoted is not from any Apple documentation.
Philip
Posted by: Philip Hodgetts at September 14, 2006 01:55 PM
Hey John,
Here's a search query for the QuickTime-Users list:
http://search.lists.apple.com/?q=%227.1.3%22&cmd=Search%21&form=extended&m=all&ps=10&fmt=long&wm=wrd&wf=2221&sp=1&ul=quicktime-users
Tried to do the same for the QTVR list but search was broken at the time, though it might be working now.
Best,
-Lewis
Posted by: Lewis Francis at October 3, 2006 11:12 AM
when I try to view .swf in my browser, I get a Q and a question mark image, cannot load/play. I checked file association in QT .swf is not checked, reinstalled Adobe Flash Player, but same result. any ideas on this?
Windows XP SP2, IE/Firefox (same issue in both browsers).
[jd sez: I don't know if you'll happen to check back here (weblogs are subject to search-engine drive-bys), but if you're seeing the actual QuickTime icon when trying to view a SWF, then it's likely your copy of QuickTime has its preferences set to try to render SWF (which it usually can't). Searching Apple docs with terms like "file types flash .mp3" or such should turn up their docs on where their prefs interface is kept. Bottom line: The Adobe Flash Player offers the strongest rendering of SWF files, and varietal engines may or may not work.]
Posted by: John Weidauer at October 26, 2006 10:49 AM