Apple no longer supports some old quicktime codecs

Just a heads up for people as we move forward towards the SA V5.5 release.  Apple no longer supports some of the old quicktime movie codec formats.  And they love their long time customers so much that they provide no way to import the old formats either.  It's like they never existed (as far as apple computer is concerned).  The past has been erased.

Unlike apple computer, we actually do care about our long time customers. So i'm guessing that there are many of you who have quicktime movies using some of these older codecs on your hard disk.  In fact, there are probably some of them inside of your Studio Artist Brush folder (associated with old presets that were movie brushes, or movie background texture brushes).

It appears that the old 'animation codec' is one of the no longer supported formats.  Which as you may recall was the default codec when you first booted up Studio Artist.  Since it provided some compression for simple frame images while also providing lossless compression at the same time, which was useful for output if you wanted the highest quality in a rendered movie file that you might then re-compress and export for output to the web, or where ever.

Certainly the Catalina and beyond 'Quicktime Player' (which is a misnomer since it does not use the quicktime api at all) does not open these older quicktime files.

And Studio Artist V5.5 does not open them either. Since while we abstract our code base from the winsome fortune of underlying computer platform apis, ultimately we are stuck with offering support for the video formats that the platform supports.  Apple does not support the old quicktime codecs, so we don't either, since we are ultimately riding on top of apple's underlying support.

So, it is essential that you make copies of every old quicktime file you would ever care to look at or god forbid use in an actual project (don't tell apple you did that or they will disable your iphone remotely).  Old quicktime movie files with codecs apple no longer supports, if it's mp4 you are probably ok, same for the apple blessed codecs (blessed for how long you should be thinking???).

I'm currently gearing up to do that for all of the movie brushes ever associated with the Studio Artist universe since the dawn of time (back when hard disks were the size of toaster ovens). Since they are all in animation codec (because again we wanted uncompressed movie frames playing back in movie brushes for the highest quality for Studio Artist painting).

And then i need to run through my personal library of old movie files (which is huge so it's a huge task) (thanks a lot apple!).

I have to say that apple's behavior on this reminds me of how they treat their developers. Rather than putting one or apple 2 engineers on providing an easy interface solution to developers for some problem they created, they love to force ever single developer to hand write it themselves from scratch.  Because they have us over a barrel i guess?

Perhaps there is a magic incantation in Premiere or some Final Cut version that can do the conversion needed?  I had read something at some point implying Adobe was going to write importers for some of the older quicktime codecs no longer supported by apple.  Speak up if you have any suggestions for people.

I'm using Quicktime Player 7 Pro on a machine that will still supports quicktime api to do all of the movie file converting i need to do.  So we'll handle all of the movie brush files associated with older versions of Studio Artist for you. So you don't need to worry about that stuff on your hard disk.

But if you made custom movie brushes, you will need to do the conversions.

I would suggest doing this sooner rather than later, because at some point you will no longer have access to an older machine with an older os version on it (maybe you are already at that point).

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  • John,
    I am still with High Sierra on all my Macs, I absolutely need QuickTime 7 Pro to do much of my work, in and out of Studio Artist. Years ago, I started using Facebook as a creative tool, that means using all the images I post there (thousands, in various albums), as well as people’s reactions to them, to create image sequences later imported in Final Cut Pro and used to rework the movies the images were extracted from.
    Am awaiting the delivery of a 27” iMac i9 (with the Radeon Pro Vega 48 graphics card) this very morning (Montréal time), I assume it will have Big Sur installed, that will kill much of what I have taken for granted for so long, so I will use it to do the Final Cut Pro heavy lifting (and SA 5.5?), and preciously keep my older Macs to do whatever requires QuickTime.
    I also dislike what Apple is doing to the interface, working on a Mac computer is now resembling more and more “playing” on an iPhone or iPad.
    Maybe I am just showing my age?

    • No, you are absolutely right about the mac starting to look and feel like an ipad.

      I heavily use an ipad pro when i'm in grad school mode here, so because of that i keep reaching out to the new M1 powermac screen and touching it, and then wondering why nothing happens.

      Modeling scrolling of mac window contents on what they do on ipad is a mistake in my mind, it's cognitively disconcerting to have a in window scroll act that way on an imac screen for example.  I think that's a perceptual issue, not an age issue.

      It is obvious to me that everyone who does product design at apple is young and do not have the very typical vision issues you get as you get older.   

      I can relate, because i was probably the same way when i was young and at apple. I remember Ivan Sutherland making some snide comment at a meeting about how we need to make the fonts more readable, Ivan being way older at the time and wearing thick coke bottle glasses at the computer, and i was thinking dismissively 'what is he talking about'.  Of course i get it now.

      You will enjoy the new imac with SA V5.5.

      • John,
        Gad to "see” you’re as weird as I am! ;-)
        Yes to the thick coke bottle glasses, I just had my third eye surgery, and if that improved my vision a bit, it is waaaaaaay from what “it used to be”.
        Still waiting for FedEx, they promised to deliver the iMac before 1:30 p.m., it a little past noon here.
        Should be one huge improvement for video work compared to the old 2013 27” i7 and the 2014 15” MBP.
        Looking forward to SA V5.5

      • John,
        I also have a 12.9” iPad Pro, 1st generation (a gift, like new, really), running the latest iPadOS 14.3.
        Can this thing run SA?
        New iMac is here and as expected, it is frozen.
        But the packaging, wow, I have to say that the intelligence that went into designing it is amazing.

        • I certainly understand what you are asking.  I heavily use an ipad pro ever single day.

          But boy, you're a dreamer.  Sure, the chip on an ipad pro has the power to do it. And the next gen ipad pro will essentially be an M1 variant (if you believe what you read in the press). So kin of the equivalent of what is in the M1 powerbook.

          However...

          Studio Artist has menus, and a dock-able palette based user interface designed to work on a computer screen that you interact with using mouse clicks that makes heavy usage of hot keys associated with mouse clicks.  We make heavy usage of things like scanning folders for presets, images, brushes etc. We store assets in the file system for easy access by users, as opposed to hiding them all in some internal database.

          And even if we did port it (severely mangling it in the process), why do you think apple would actually approve it for their closed eco-system ios app store? 

          We may very well release some ios and/or android apps at some point. But they would not be Studio Artist the application proper.

          There are other factors that play into this as well.  How many serious sophisticated pro apps do you see on ios? 

          Now let's compare that to 1-trick ponies.  Yep, there sure are a lot of them.

          And apple goes out of their way to encourage developers building 1-trick ponies on ios.  Why is that?  Expected pricing of ios apps limits what you can build into an ios app, because you would never be able to charge what you would need to charge for feature packed serious pro apps.  Especially  ones that are niche.

          Developers do not have access to their ios customer base information.  This also plays heavily into the economics of what is needed for pro apps to actually function.

          If you talk to ios app developers, they will bitch endlessly about how apple is always requiring them to modify their code with every single ios release. So you have less time to do cool stuff, and need to spend more time dancing doing busy work that doesn't really move your product forward at apple's whim.

          It's not just me that feels this way.  This has been heavily discussed on the web over the years by developers who create pro apps for creative professionals.

          So, apple has put together an ecosystem for ios that essentially encourages developers to dumb down what they ship on ios.  People want to get in with as little effort as possible, try to make some money quickly, and then move on.

          You are also highly encouraged (sometimes forced) to nickel and dime people by selling a subscription, since apple really wants to make their 30% cut (which is obscene by the way) on an endless occurring basis by charging your credit card from now to eternity.  That is their real business model at this point.  They are a credit card company.  the computers are expensive dongles for charging your credit card as often as possible.

          Now after all of that negative rant, yes, we will be doing something on ios at some point.  For ipad most likely.  Since i use it heavily.  And because i designed our SA version 6 framework to be truly cross platform, so we can target mac, windows, linux desktops and ios and android mobile all from the same core code base.

          Just don't expect it to be what you conceive of as Studio Artist.

          • John,
            The beauty of that iPad Pro gift is, for me, the possibility of resuming something essential for my work, but which I had to abandon when I suddenly became extremely allergic to natural media (not just turpentine, varnishes and all, but even airborne charcoal or graphite dust can mess me up): going back to drawing anywhere, anytime, “on the motif” as Cézanne used to say, which is the very foundation of what I can now do with computers.

            For years, both through and after Art school, I committed myself to doing at least 30 drawings per day, am looking forward to resuming that kind of “breathing” (waiting for spare Apple Pencil tips to arrive in order to start in earnest).

            I have been looking for software to use for drawing/painting on the iPad Pro, what I have found so far is lame compared to Studio Artist (or even Painter), and I am not talking about features here, I am merely looking at "brushes”, and omigod, what I can find and configure in SA really makes what I have so far found for the iPad look pretty pathetic.

            Here’s the “best” thing I have found thus far: Artstudio Pro

            John, maybe you could cook us a very simple drawing/painting app which would put to shame all that I have been able to find for the iPad thus far.
            No need for a vast array of special features (I can use those on my Macs), but super sensitive brushes which would enable people who enjoy manual drawing and painting to live in their preferred world, but on very portable devices this time.

            The Apple Pencil supports pressure and tilt, the ios drawing and painting apps I have tested thus far do not seem to take advantage of that (I’ve been using drawing tablets for nearly 20 years, thanks for great support from Wacom, I would love to be able to do, on the iPad, the kind of marks I can make on my Macs via Intuos Pro tablets, that would bring me back to what I used to be able to do with natural media before those #$%&! allergies).

            One last question: my new iMac runs Catalina, which version of SA should I install on it?

            Thanks.

            • SA V5 64 bit for Catalina if you are installing today.

              SA V5.5 when it becomes available (soon).

              • Thanks John, just did.

                Oh boy, it's going to take a bit of (re)learning to use SA in its 64 bit garb.
                I have folders of favourite presets saved over the years using SA (It ls adding up, I think it started in 2001), some work, some don't, some work in really weird ways.
                Haven’t yet looked at my SA main workhorse, Paint Action Sequence (lots of those as saved, you helped bring my work to yet another level when you added that John, brilliant stuff).
                I may try a clean start with 5.5 when it becomes available, and continue to work with the SA I know on the machines that still run High Sierra.

                Thanks Apple (not).

  • One thing to be aware of as you convert any old movie brushes to alternative codecs that still run on apple systems.  Lossy compression can pretty radically modify the brush behavior in Studio Artist of some movie brushes.

    Here's the rub.

    The Brush Source in the paint synthesizer clips at pure white (pixel = 255). So no Fill To passes through if the brush is 255.

    Brush = 254 is going to pass through 100% Fill To.

    Brush = 0 is going to pass through 100% Fill From.

    Values in between do a smooth linear mix.

    We're talking Paint Fill Setup terminology here with 'Fill From' and 'Fill To'.  You can specify what they are in the control panel.

    If you have a brush with an alpha channel , and you are using the Alph Source Brush option in Brush Type control panel, then the same considerations apply to the alpha channel image, since that is what is defining the 'brush'.

    So, if lossy compression messes with the pixel values, that can change the brush behavior and associated visual appearance.

    Some special paint synth presets, like some of the older wood cut ones, use special tracks in how the brush image is setup to insure spacing between wood cut strokes.  It happens in real life in a wood cut because otherwise the cut out strokes in the wood block would touch, and mess up the print. We make it happen in simulation by using a value of 254 in the brush to not paint any Fill From on the canvas, but at the same time, to paint in the blanking buffer for both the Fill From core part of the brush, and the surrounding larger circular brush that is set to 254 that paints no Fill From.

    If you naively use a lossy compression for this brush, the painting behavior will be radically different.

    Apple apparently made a questionable decision about not initially supporting an lossless compression in AVFramework.  Which was a definite fuck you to existing users of quicktime, since quicktime offered several different options to do this.

    My guess is that their thinking was that they only wanted wizzy real time video stuff on apple computers, and a hearty fuck you everyone doing 'out of real time video processing' on the platform.

    It's fine to optimize your video pipeline to support real time stuff. But not providing import functionality from existing long time heavily used codecs, and not supporting lossless encoding options out of the gate, shows how little they care about their existing customers.

    • Geez!
      My friend Bruno Herbelin is right now creating from scratch a 64 bit reincarnation of his great GLMixer (he calls it “vimix”)  and he designed a way to record whatever video one outputs using that software, and to do so instantly (fascinating as that will allow me, in live concerts, to bring in the actual session bits of what just happened and was recorded in the application that created it).
      But, I normally work with ProRes 4444, and with that codec, a 1 minute session takes over 20 minutes to be saved, while with h.264, it is just about instantaneous.
      So there’s no question, if recording a session in real-time work, I wil go with h.264.
      But if SA 5.5 (thanks to Apple) does not play nice with compressed videos, I will have to do one more step and convert the h.264 file into something else? (Is ProRes 4444 okay?).
      That would only apply to “studio” work, but obviously, with my new iMac, I intend to do a lot of that.

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