[GEM-dev] [ pd-gem-Bugs-3517368 ] gem 0.93 does not play .mpg files on Mac OS X

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On 10/23/2012 10:31 AM, chris clepper wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 10:18 AM, Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans at at.or.at>wrote:
> 
>>> as chris has pointed out, it's probably better to drop mpg support on
>>> OSX, rather than trying to fix it (esp. since i don't have too much
>>> time right now).
>>>
>>> it _is_ a regression, but with a low priority.
>>
>> I think we should leave it open for someone to fix rather than removing
>> it, but I agree, it is low priority.
>>
>>
> I suggested removing the alea.mpg file (and maybe replace the other
> antiquated media files too).

That sounds like a great idea!  I've been shipping Pd-extended with
midr-mjpeg.mov, its in pure-data SVN under doc/media.  You're welcome to use
that one if you want.

> There is no way to remove MPEG-1 support as it's part of Quicktime.
>  There's also no way to play an MPEG-1 in an 'alternate' way than just
> straight ahead QT calls other than completely changing the code to whatever
> half-assed Cocoa replacement Apple is trying to sell this month.  QT used
> to be a feature rich API for professional media creation, now it's just
> something that plays video on a phone.

You've captured the problem with Apple these days in a nutshell.  Seems like
they are going Final Cut X on everything, or worse: its all about selling
stuff in iTunes, and everything takes a back seat to that.

After using NeXTSTEP/Mac OS X as my primary OS since 1995 (I was that weird
guy with a NeXTSTEP/i386 box at work in 1998), I will never upgrade past Mac
OS X 10.6, and these days I'm in Linux Mint 80-90% of the time.

But ultimately, while I'm sad to see NeXTSTEP end like this, I'm happy Apple
is going this route because that means they will drive away the people with
skills, and send them to free software :)  I'm planning on getting involved in
etoile/GNUstep to help build a better NeXTSTEP that is also free.

.hc