QuickTime is free software created by Apple for both the Macintosh and the windows based PC to create, play and stream digital media content over the internet. Media can consist of text tracks, virtual reality (VR) tracks, Flash tracks and other types of multimedia. Quick time comes as both a browser plug-in and a media player that is installed on your computer.
Newer versions of Quicktime are not always backward compatible so it may be necessary to keep your older version when you upgrade. Unlike Windows Media player, you can have multiple versions of Quicktime media player installed on your computer. Quicktime can be annoying because it will repeatedly ask you if you want it to be your default player. That’s up to you. However, if you are running windows vista, you must download the latest version of Quicktime for many programs to run.
This article will discuss some of the common problems encountered when running Quicktime on the windows operating system.
Slow Playing or Stuttering Videos or Animations…
Usually when you experience this problem it is because your system is running low on either system or video memory. If you have at least 256 MB of RAM and 32 MB of video RAM on your graphics/video card, videos and animations should run smoothly.
If you are still having problems, you need to free up as much system memory as possible by closing any other applications currently open and turning off as many TSRs (terminate and stay resident programs) as possible if necessary.
Select Start -> Run , then type msconfig in the dialog box. The System Configuration Utility window will open. Select the Startup tab as shown below and click the Startup tab to see what’s loading into memory up at start-up.
You can remove any unnecessary programs to free up memory. To remove an item from memory, open the Task Manager, shown below by pressing CTL-ALT-DEL on the keyboard. Select the Processes tab and click on Image Name to list the processes in alphabetical order.
In the configuration Utility, I highlighted jusched. To remove this process from memory find it in the Task Manager, highlight it as shown above and select End Process. You will get the warning notice shown below. Select Yes to remove the process code from memory. The program will reload itself into memory the next time you reboot the computer.
Please note: disabling a process in the system configuration does not unload it from memory.
Garbled Sound, Snapping, Hissing, Popping, etc
Select Start -> Control Panel -> Quicktime. Then select the Audio tab as shown below.
Check that the correct device is being used by clicking on Select Audio Playback and Recording Devices. If the device is correct, you can basically experiment with different rates (codec speed) to see if the problem stops. You can also select Safe Mode by checking the box to see if that works. The safe mode is similar to running your monitor in VGA mode. It should work but the sound quality may be poor.
White or Gray Video
If you can hear the sound but only see a white or gray screen, Quicktime is missing some software it needs to play the file. Usually it is missing the video decompressor part of the codec. This means you don’t have a compatible codec. Most Codecs can decompress audio, which is why you can hear the sound. You should get the error message below.
This problem can also happen if the movie was encoded with QuickTime 7 using the H264 codec. Older versions of QuickTime cannot play these videos. Upgrade to the latest version of Quicktime. If that doesn’t work, try a different video player to see if it can play the movie.
Please note: videos bought from the iTunes store require Quicktime 7.1.3 or later and you must authorize the computer for your iTunes account.
iTunes quits, freezes or doesn’t launch properly
If you have problems with iTunes, try the following steps to fix Quicktime.
Remove iTunes Plug-ins – third-party iTunes plug-ins can cause lots of problems because they must be compatible with the version of iTunes you are running. iTunes plug-ins are located at:
- C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\iTunes Plug-ins
Remove iTunes Preference files – Your settings file could have become corrupted. iTunes has two folders where preferences are saved. One way to test them is to move one of the files to your desktop and see if the problem still exists. If it does, put that one back and remove the second folder. The files are located at:
- C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes
- C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes
Recreate your iTunes Library – your iTunes library may be corrupt. Try rebuilding it.
Check for Bad Files – basically you need to remove all of the files from the library and add them back one at a time to isolate the corrupt file. Use the following steps:
- Move the iTunes Library file located at C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Music\iTunes to your desktop
- Open iTunes.
- Select File -> Add Folder to Library.
- Go to your music folder, select a song.
- If the song is added successfully, continue adding back the rest of your songs. If you try to add a bad file, it will cause the problem to reoccur. Test each file after adding it to make sure it is ok.
Comments on this entry are closed.