LC 8 Random crash with QT set the filename of player on OS X

[Fraser Gordon]

On 6 Jun 2016, at 10:08, Tiemo Hollmann TB <toolbook at kestner.de> wrote:

> I filed a bug report, but I could reproduce it only in my complex live stack and not in a test stack with a handy recipe.
> It is LC 8.0 and yes it is QT. I know about all the QT hassles and have waited for years for a solution from Edinburgh.
> 
> My main product includes about 20000 videos, which I have compressed 7 years ago with a Sorenson codec, which is not supported by AVFoundation and on Windows we don't have a LC productive release with the new player yet.
> 
> Even if LC 8.1 is released, I can't create just a program update for my customers, because of the non supported codec, I have to supply complete new videos (about 8GB), so I can't make a  only update for my product, actually It has to be a major version upgrade, shipping again on DVD. Even if I will have some day compressed all 20000 videos with a new codec (yes I have batch compressor from Sorenson) I have to develop an upgrade strategy for all my customers. All in all it will probably take me a year from now on, until I got rid of QT.
> 
> It is especially annoying for me, that I have a new product, which is shortly before shipping, which I also only could develop depending on QT, because this product depends on the same 20000 videos being installed on the users machines and there was no alternative.
> 
> ">  - QT can not be supported on Mac 64 bit"
> What does this mean exactly? I have an iMac with a Intel Core i5 processor and I thought up to now, it would run as 64 bit. I don't find any system information about 32/64 bit. But QT is running fine on this machine and I haven't had any complains about Mac users up to now. What does this mean? Where can I check, if my system is running in 32 or 64 bit?

Apple have no longer support QuickTime on Windows and it is deprecated on OSX; it has seen no substantial changes since the release of AVFoundation in OSX 10.7. Additionally, it has never been available to 64-bit applications on any platform. Apple strongly encourage all apps on OSX to use AVFoundation instead of QuickTime.

LiveCode pre-8.0 was a 32-bit only app and wasn’t directly affected by the deprecation of QT. However, since 8.0, we have also offered a 64-bit version, which offers performance improvements and, in future, will allow increased functionality (many interesting frameworks on OSX, like MapKit, are 64-bit only). Basically, 64-bit is now the norm on OSX and 32-bit no longer sees any new features from Apple. By default, the IDE runs in 32-bit mode (it can be switched to 64-bit mode by changing the app’s properties in Finder). Standalones can be built to include 32-bit mode, 64-bit mode or both; if you select 64-bit mode, QuickTime will not be available.

The DirectShow framework that the new player on Windows uses supports user-installed codecs; if your users were to install a Sorenson decoder, they would retain the ability to play your videos without you having to re-encode. As far as I can tell, the decoder is proprietary to Sorenson and is not something LiveCode can supply; you may have access to it as part of your Sorenson compressor, however. 

Unfortunately, AVFoundation does not support installing additional codecs and does not support the Sorenson codec. For this reason, we maintain the ability to use QuickTime in 32-bit mode on OSX (even in 8.1) but there is nothing we can do to make it work using AVFoundation or in 64-bit mode. Apple could remove QuickTime entirely in some future OSX. If re-encoding your videos is a major undertaking, it might be better to start now in readiness for when QT is no longer available.

Fraser