Snow Leopard & Quicktime

I just got my new Mini with 10.6. Upgraded to 10.61 prior to migrating everything over to the new Mini. It looks like Quicktime is v. 7.6.3 and I see that Quicktime 7.6.4 is available but it doesn't show up in Software Update.

Should I download 7.6.4 and install it?

The Quicktime version in OS X 10.6 is Quicktime 10. While you can have Quicktime 7 and Quicktime 10 co-resident on the system, the only one you need is Quicktime 10.

Originally Posted By: joemikeb

The Quicktime version in OS X 10.6 is Quicktime 10. While you can have Quicktime 7 and Quicktime 10 co-resident on the system, the only one you need is Quicktime 10.

There are some instances on Snow Leopard where both versions of Quicktime would be desirable. Apparently QT 7 can open some files that QT X cannot. Go figure.

More information on those 'instances' Ira refers to can be found in the Apple KB article Installing QuickTime Player 7 on Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard, and in the Macworld article Snow Leopard: QuickTime X. Generally, because QuickTime X does not work with any of the old QuickTime plug-ins, you might run into issues for which QT 7 may be a solution until those plugins have been updated.

Many thanks to you all. I think I now understand (sorta), but why Apple could not incorporate the lacking features of QT 7 into QT 10 is still a mystery to me. Of course, I know nada re coding & programming and such; perhaps that somehow relatesâ€¦

Originally Posted By: Pendragon

Many thanks to you all. I think I now understand (sorta), but why Apple could not incorporate the lacking features of QT 7 into QT 10 is still a mystery to me. Of course, I know nada re coding & programming and such; perhaps that somehow relatesâ€¦

It is not that the features are not there, it is because in the rewrite of Quicktime the interface for plug-ins was changed. The third party plug-ins have to be rewritten to conform to the revised interface. My guess is the revised interface is intended to enable 64 as well as 32 bit plug-ins.

Originally Posted By: joemikeb

... the only one you need is Quicktime 10.

While I don't use SL myself (never jump the boat too early..), I did some reading about it. From what I've seen so far, I got the impression that for many tasks QT7 will be needed for quite a while. Simply put, QuickTime X just isn't finished, yet.
See "Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: the Ars Technica review" by John Siracusa
The part about QuickTime X is here

Originally Posted By: joemikeb

It is not that the features are not there, it is because in the rewrite of Quicktime the interface for plug-ins was changed. The third party plug-ins have to be rewritten to conform to the revised interface..

Looks like the new interface doesn't exist, yet. Here's a quote from the article linked above:

Quote:

It also supports only "modern" video formatsâ€”basically, anything that can be played by an iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV. As for other video codecs, well, you can forget about handling them with plug-ins because QuickTime X doesn't support those either.