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Media (Apple) Businesses Media Apple

QuickTime To Get Boost From "More Accurate" Statistics 50

Posted by pudge from the statistics-is-as-statistics-does dept.
Justen writes "Nielsen is expected to release a new set of ratings for media players on July 1. Apple lobbied the firm to use new methods to form usage statistics. The new methods are expected to dramatically increase the reported market share of QuickTime. Nielsen says it doesn't reflect a dramatic jump in actual installations, just a more accurate picture of what's been there all along. The article also mentions the new beta of QuickTime 6 and its support for MPEG-4, ahead of Real and Microsoft."
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QuickTime To Get Boost From "More Accurate" Statistics More

QuickTime To Get Boost From "More Accurate" Statistics

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  • Get rid of the ad (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hackwrench ( 573697 ) <hackwrench@hotmail.com> on Monday June 24, 2002 @01:30PM (#3758319) Homepage Journal
    Now if only they'd get rid of the ad that pops up for QuickTime Pro almost everytime it launches.

    • Re:Get rid of the ad (Score:4, Funny)

      by PythonOrRuby ( 546749 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @01:35PM (#3758349)
      You can actually do that yourself. Just pay the $29 for Quicktime Pro and it goes away. ;-)
      • It really should be an option to have that disabled though. The Quicktime Pro package is not really needed by most general users, and the annoying pop-up is just that, annoying.
        • And having paid nothing for this high-quality software, you're certainly entitled to no annoyances, especially the well-known ones.

          If you don't like the ads, only use Real or Windows Media documents. I guarantee those players' annoyances won't be seen as prominently. I'll leave it up to you to figure out whether or not that's a good thing...

    • Re:Get rid of the ad (Score:2, Informative)

      by andya16 ( 304018 )
      to get rid of the ad, move up your system time a few years, start quicktime, click the 'later' button [for the last time], and reset your clock. you may need a restart in there.
    • Here is how to get rid of the ad: Change the system date of your computer to 10 years in the future. Launch QuickTime. Click "Later" on the banner. Quit QuickTime. Change the system date back to today. Launch QuickTime again, and enjoy!

  • What Quicktime Needs (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sentry21 ( 8183 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @01:59PM (#3758493) Journal
    Apple doesn't need statistics re-worked to get better market share. They have to do very few things.

    First, make the player on Windows not suck ass. As in, re-code the app. Right now it's too bloated. Make it more responsive. Optimize optimize optimize. Even MP7 isn't as slow, and that's saying a lot.

    Second, use native codecs when possible. MPEG-2, for example. If you're not going to optimize your codecs for x86/pentium (and that would take a lot of work, I'm sure) then use the work of those who have. In addition to quicktime formats, use the native windows CODECs. They're all registered already, all you have to do is hook in.

    Third, fix the plugin/associations. For people who know what's what, Quicktime isn't a problem (anymore), but for the average user, taking over PNG from the browser is stupid, especially since it doesn't add better handling anyway. Likewise for most other formats. Make all non-Windows non-Mac file formats open in or plugin with Quicktime by default, UNLESS there are other associations for them. Mac file formats open with QT. Windows file formats don't get touched unless the user requests it.

    Basically, QT does three things. Lags my system down, wastes clock cycles doing decoding poorly, and trashes my associations unless I'm careful. Fix these three things, and more people will install it.

    You can't get market share if your product sucks. Just ask Steve Case. Er, wait..

    --Dan
    • Apple doesn't need statistics re-worked to get better market share. They have to do very few things.
      First, make the player on Windows not suck ass.

      Point taken - using it on Windows isn't what it could be. I only wish Microsoft had to do such things in order to gain marketshare. Alas.
    • Mod the parent up, he isnt a troll, he should be informative. He has stated everything quicktime needs to do to be a better app. I totally agree with this guy! Please realize that not every app is perfect even if it is made by APPLE.

    • Re:What Quicktime Needs (Score:4, Insightful)

      by benwaggoner ( 513209 ) <.ben.waggoner. .at. .microsoft.com.> on Monday June 24, 2002 @03:46PM (#3759080) Homepage
      First off, Apple isn't trying to manipulate statistics - they were badly, badly undercounted before. In one study, only application launches were counted for playback, so any QuickTime viewed in-line inside a web browser didn't count. Since QuickTime by default works in-browser, while WM and Real go to the player by default, this erroneously hurt QuickTIme's ranking.

      Kudos to Neilson for recognizing their bad statistics, and trying to correct them.

      As for your other points, have you tried a recent version of QT Player for WIndows? While QT4 had an ugly UI, QT5 is quite nice, and QT6 is better yet. Also, QuickTime has a smaller installer download than either WM or Real now, when you run the web installer. How's that bloated?

      There is plenty of optimization for Intel processors in QuickTime. Sorenson Video 3, the main video codec, had a lot of hand tuning in it for Intel (bear in mind Apple didn't create it).

      It sounds to me like you haven't installed QuickTime since 2000 or so. Give it a whirl today and see if you like it better.
      • I'd second all of that. Bear in mind that QuickTime cannot just offer blanket support for MPEG2 without attracting a licensing fee from MPEG LA, and bear in mind too that QY OPlayer is an infinitely more capable application than Media Player or Real player.
      • It sounds to me like you haven't installed QuickTime since 2000 or so. Give it a whirl today and see if you like it better.

        In fact, I've used every version of QT for Windows since 2.0, up to and including the latest 6.0 beta.

        For comparison, my P120 can play MPEG-2 encoded music videos at what I would consider entirely an reasonable playback rate (our G4 is not much smoother) in Windows Media Player. In Quicktime (any version), it is literally unwatchable. I get most of the audio track, and the occasional frame. Usually, I get one frame and it stays like that until I get sick of it and stop the playback.

        This is what I'm talking about. I don't expect to be able to play movies on a P120, but WMP handles it fine and QT chokes badly.

        As for the installer, that means nothing, it's a web installer. It downloads stuff later. The UI (again, on a P120) is almost unusable, it's so laggy, while Media Player 6.4 is fine, perfectly responsive, and functional without trying to be pretty. QT is beautiful, sure, but unusable because of it on my baseline system. Again, I don't expect it to run perfectly on a measly P120, but WMP does, because it's ugly, it's boring, and it works fine.

        I'm not saying the statistics weren't flawed, I'm saying to hell with the statistics, basically. Still, it's nice to see Apple with a great showing. QT is beautiful on Macs, it just sucks on Windows.

        It sounds to me like you have the money for good hardware. Not everyone does. I can't expect Apple to work on shitty computers, but WMP does, so I'll keep using it until something better (hardware- or software-wise) comes along.

        --Dan
    • And one other thing—get rid of the purposefully annoying features.

      Remove the "Do you want to upgrade to QuickTime Pro?" window that appears each time you start the program. Most people want to use QuickTime to view a movie; the free version does this fine, so there's no reason for most people to upgrade to the Pro version. All the nag screen does is annoy people.

      And while they're at it, make it not put the "Upgrade to QuickTime Pro" icon on my desktop each time I launch QuickTime. If I wanted an icon there, I'd put it there. I certainly don't want an Apple ad there. It even comes back after I delete it!

      These two annoyance features make me avoid QuickTime if I possibly can.

      --Bruce
    • > Second, use native codecs when possible. MPEG-2, for example.

      QT 6 final is supposed to have MPEG-2 encode and decode support. Supposedly, it barely missed being included in the preview. Just wait, it is comming.

  • For you Windows users here... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by inkswamp ( 233692 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @02:29PM (#3758669)
    ... who are compaining about the annoyances with QT for Windows, you have two simple options.

    1. Send your suggestions/compaints to Apple. The current Apple isn't the same as the circa-1995 Apple that wouldn't listen to its users. Apple seems strangely eager to cater to users nowadays. Go to their site and make your thoughts known.

    2. Get a Mac. I'm not being a smart-ass or a nutball Mac advocate, but Apple specializes in Mac software. Their Windows version of QT is so-so, but the Mac version is beautiful. I've used WMP, Real and QT on both platforms, and QT on Mac is light-years ahead of any other combination (with the possible footnote that Real's audio streaming seems to have a *very slight* edge, although QT's audio stream doesn't litter your drive with those annoying .rm files.)

    I have a feeling that Apple will likely never make Windows QT better or equal to QT on the Mac and I can't say I totally fault them for it (not justifying it, but I can't see the rationale.)

    --Rick
    • I have a feeling that Apple will likely never make Windows QT better or equal to QT on the Mac and I can't say I totally fault them for it

      I don't agree. I believe Apple would love to make their own player the best one for the Windows platform. If they fail at that it's either because the apple developers messed up, or because the MS engineers put them at a disadvantage with "secret API calls" and the like which the MS player technology gets to have but nobody else does. I understand that some people will put zero credence in that last point while others will be sure it's true automatically. But one thing I think is obvious - Apple has no dis-incentive to making QT the best Windows media player there is.

  • Windows Media Player (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Have any of you who are whining about QT on windows ever used WMP on a Mac? I think not, it's bloated, only supports the WMP native format, and not responsive at all. Yet, I never hear any one on the mac side complaining, that's because we know it's there just so Microsoft can say it is.
    • it doesn't even support ALL of the native Windows Media codecs. It's really fucking shoddy. Having said that, at least there IS one (hello Real? where is your OSX player please?)
      • don't forget that it wants to be a classic app, it doen'st perform well unless i renice it -18, and even then the interface is slow and unresponsive, with the spinning wheel of death up 2/3 of the time :puke:

  • When companies can lobby to change stats in their favour, what stats am I supposed to believe? Very interesting coming on the heels of "Macs Now Found To Be Cheaper Than PCs".

    • Read the article.

      Apple got them to recalculate the stats in their favor because their earlier algorithms were, um, erroneous.

      Then think about this quote, from Mark Twain I believe. "There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damn lies, and statistics."

      Statistics is all about taking raw data and making predictive or explanatory statements from them.

      How can you count Quicktime usage?

      How about downloads per month?
      How about upgrades per release?
      How about hits to Apple.com/quicktime per month?
      How about number of .movs downloaded per month?

      All of them are reasonable.

      Would you believe, that until now, Quicktime .movs streamed to web browsers weren't counted? That's what Apple convinced Nielson to do. Count embedded .movs.
    • You do what you always do: read the fine print about how the study was run, and what it measured.

      Apple lobbied Neilson because their methadology was really, really, bad, and way overcounted Real and way undercounted QuickTime. The linked article shares some details about what went wrong before, and what they changed.

      Draw your own conclusions from that about how the final numbers are relevant to what you're trying to do.

      Honestly, it's hard to say what decisions these kinds of studies help us understand. They tell us how many individual users watched what file types. That doesn't really tell us all that much.

  • Statistics have already been released. (Score:4, Informative)

    by finnatic ( 105191 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @04:59PM (#3759464)
    There are two *newer* stories on cnet than the one referenced:

    http://news.com.com/2100-1023-938423.html [com.com]

    and

    http://news.com.com/2100-1023-938827.html [com.com].

    The result? Apple is closer to it's competitors, but Real still leads, and is losing it's lead to MSFT.

    A better link for Nielsen/Net Ratings (or whatever they're called - at least it's not "monday"):
    http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/ [nielsen-netratings.com]

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