In many years, this is the first time Apple QuickTime 7 software has gone for a complete overhaul, the 70% of the code is re-written for QuickTime 7 & for Mac OS X Tiger, it is a complete re-write
The installation is better then v6.5, this time, as it is Windows installer based, & installed everything possible component, which is also unwanted, as many people don’t need everything, Like I don’t use the Picture viewer or qttask.exe, which adds it self to Windows startup
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Main Window
There are many notable features, for first the interface is more glassy like, just like Mac, & iTunes like toolbar buttons, now this new look is subjective & might not appeal to all, but still it is easy on eyes & stable
The icon for various QuickTime file types have finally changed, just like those on Macs, the icons are taken directly from Mac, there are many essential features, but they are pro only which is a con to QuickTime, just to play full screen U need to go pro
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The requirement for QuickTime 7 isn’t that much higher compared to QuickTime 6.5, but for the playback of HD Content apple has stated that a 1.8 GHz system is recommended, other then that, when no HD playback is being done, which won’t be done yet, it runs really nice & smooth on even a Celeron 1.5 GHz or P3 1 GHz, even it is smooth when live resizing a mp4 AVC clip made by Nero recode, although it stutters sometimes, but that can be due to it’s beta nature
The preview release is not a production release, but still it’s quite stable, the H.264 rocks, a DVD when ripped to H.264 at the same resolution gives almost the same quality at 640 kbps bit rate, decreasing the file size by a noticeable margin, although sometimes, it gives the save dialog even for non pro license, automatically.
The Core Video technology on Apple Mac OS X Tiger is not available in QuickTime 7 for Windows I guess, as the video being played is not accelerated by the gfx card, CPU usage is same as QuickTime 6.5
There are a few bugs which I noticed, like this one, %20 instead of space in title name
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One important thing, it cannot be skinned with QuickTime or style xp or even the default XP skin engine
Pros
1) Support for HD-DVD, H.264 AVC Video Codec
2) Support for Mobile Phone 3GP clips
3) Support for up to 24 channels of sound, even 5.1 Channel AC3 based DVDs are supported with the QuickTime 7 mpeg-2 playback component
Cons
1) Even basic features like full screen playback require Pro license for $ 30
2) Movies don’t auto play when opened by double clicking in Windows Explorer
3) Cannot skin it, even with the Windows XP skinning engine, take a look at the Open file dialog
