QuickTime Components

Fixes and improvements:

• Fixed leaking memory when handling files containing Theora streams (#1379);
• Added code to make Ogg exporter work with iMovie '08;
• Added code to properly handle bigger packets in Theora decoder allowing XiphQT to handle HD content without visual artifacts.

Fixes and improvements:

• Fixed regression in Vorbis decoder, introduced in 0.1.7, that caused freezes and crashes when playing some Vorbis files (#1154, #1155);
• Resolved issue of video stalling during progressive loading of Theora files (#1151);
• Updated MIME and file extension mappings in Ogg importer to be more up-to-date with the recently proposed changes;
• Some small improvements in export settings handling in Ogg exporter.

Note: recommended QuickTime version for this release is 7.1.3 or later.

New features:

• Exporting Oggs - XiphQT can now be used to produce Ogg files; two encoders are included in version 0.1.7:
  • Theora,
  • Vorbis;
• Multichannel audio - XiphQT now uses correct channel mappings for Ogg files with multichannel (up to 5.1) Vorbis and FLAC audio;
• Progressive loading - progressive loading in Ogg importer has been mostly finished, and is enabled for network sources and local files larger than 7.0 MB.

Fixes and improvements:

• XiphQT builds as a single statically-linked bundle, which simplifies installation and makes embedding in other applications much easier (see e.g. Democracy Player);
• Ogg importer uses bulk-update API and does it less frequently;
• assembly optimized code is on by default for the Theora decoder and encoder on Intel platform;
• other small fixes.

Known problems and limitations:

• while Ogg Theora files are progressively loading video stalls once a second until the loading process is completed - we're working on this;
• metadata/tags support in Ogg exporter is not implemented, yet;
• XiphQT still does not support native FLAC file format.

Note: recommended QuickTime version for this release is 7.0.4.

New features:

• Universal Binary - XiphQT now works on both PPC and Intel Macs;
• FLAC - FLAC decoder and importer for Ogg FLAC (no support for native FLAC file format yet);
• Theora - Theora decoder and importer; this is the youngest component - some glitches are expected.

Fixes and improvements:

• meta-data - XiphQT is now able to import user tags for all supported Xiph formats;
• small audio decoding performance improvements:
  • audio samples are now decoded in larger chunks - decreased polling frequency and associated overhead,
  • release binaries are bow built with compiler optimisation flags switched on;
• increased offsets accuracy for chained Vorbis and Speex streams;
• fixed a bug in Speex decoder that prevented many valid Speex files from being properly decoded;
• fixed a bug causing audible clicks near beginning of Vorbis and Speex files.

Big changes and changes a bit smaller:

• win32 port - now XiphQT should work on all the Windows flavours on which you can get QuickTime 7 to work;
• progressive downloading - ogg files can now be opened directly from a network location, using e.g. 'http://' URLs; as a side-effect most of the "live" ogg streams can now be treated as remote files (of undefined size) and listened to directly in e.g. QuickTime Player;
• web browser integration - QuickTime plugin MIME preferences now should include options for Vorbis and Speex files, allowing you to have these formats handled by QT plugin directly in a browser window (note: some browsers, like Camino or FireFox on Mac OS X, won't automatically update their lists of mime types handled by browser plugins - you will need to do it manually);
• Vorbis comments - XiphQT now supports all the tags mentioned in the Vorbis documentation;
• multi-stream ogg files importing significantly improved.

Mainly - full binary installer: frameworks included.

Also, improved sample rate support: no longer limited to 65.535 kHz.

Meta-data importing now works correctly - just the way intended in the initial release 0.1.1.

Only Mac OS X support in this release. Requires QuickTime 7 and tested with all its latest minor revisions up to 7.0.3. Tested on OS X 10.4.2 and 10.4.3, but theoretically should work on all system revisions starting with 10.3.9.

Things implemented:

• Ogg demuxing, implemented as a QuickTime Movie Importer:
  • Vorbis and Speex streams recognized and imported;
  • multiple logical streams (grouped and chained) partially supported: the current implementation imports them all as starting at time 0 - the beginning of the file;
  • progressive loading (partially) implemented, but disabled in the code by default for most data transport types;
  • Vorbis stream comments imported as meta-data into resulting QuickTime movie and tracks.
• Vorbis and Speex decompression, implemented as CoreAudio AudioCodecs:
  • two actual codecs per each format: one for compressed packets framed in ogg pages (as received on the output of the ogg importer) and one for "pure" format packets (relies on QT mechanisms for providing the framing information);
  • two types of output: integers and floats (avoids unnecessary conversions in some cases).

Any functionality not explicitly mentioned above is not yet implemented.