Hi,
We have recently upgraded to Softimage 2010, using Vista 64 and now we are having a problem writing out .mov files from Softimage. One of the guys in our studio mentioned that we need to have Quicktime Pro installed in order to write out .mov files but we never had this problem before with 7.5 on XP (32 or 64 bit).
Is this really the case? Is there any workaround? We’re in South Africa and purchasing even a single license of quicktime pro is a major hassle as they do not seem to sell it to this area. You have to have a European credit card. Which is unbelievable!!

Cheers,
Mike

Quicktime is only available in 32-bit applications
there is no 64-bit version of Quicktime.

What other format are people using for video in 64 bit? I like quicktime because you can step backward and forwards in the player, and it seemed to be the industry standard here.
Is there a better format for 64 bit?

I still use Quicktime though on a 64bit OS. I render out frames, then open the sequence in Quicktime. It can then be saved as a Quicktime movie. I guess it’s one extra step, but it works for me.

You can also open the sequence and save it as a Quicktime reference which is just a pointer to your rendered frames (typically only a few dozen kilobytes in size). This video can then be imported just about anywhere a regular Quicktime movie can be used. Nice.

Mike,

I have the same issue. I’m running Vista 64 Ultimate with Softimage 2010 and Softimage 7.5 and I can’t render out an .mov file from either version. Any .avi comes out just fine, but I get nothing when I set Quicktime for Post-Process Movie Creation in Softimage. I also have the latest 7.6.4 Quicktime installed, but that doesn’t seem to matter. I think .mov generation may turn out to be a bug when Softimage is installed on Vista 64.

The work-around is easy though; you just pull your image sequences, like .tifs for example, into Premiere Pro or After Effects and then export from there to an .mov. I personally prefer this method anyway as it gives me more control over codec choices and compression. Having said that though, it would be nice to be able to save out an .mov from Softimage if speed was situationally my preference over quality.

From Stephen Blair: There is no 64-bit version of QuickTime, so you cannot get QuickTime out of 64-bit Softimage, on any OS.

VFX Media 23 October 2009 01:15 PM

From Stephen Blair: There is no 64-bit version of QuickTime, so you cannot get QuickTime out of 64-bit Softimage, on any OS.

Yes, that is what Luc-Eric said above.

Thanks for all the advice! I’ll try the quicktime reference idea and see if it helps. Otherwise I guess we’ll just go with avi s and frame sequences.

StephenBlair 23 October 2009 03:05 PM

VFX Media 23 October 2009 01:15 PM

From Stephen Blair: There is no 64-bit version of QuickTime, so you cannot get QuickTime out of 64-bit Softimage, on any OS.

Yes, that is what Luc-Eric said above.

Question is that still right with windows 7 media player (x64 included) has the ability to play quicktime files - without - quicktime being installed. So the codec must be in there right.

thoughts?

Please.  Stop.

You can’t create Quicktime in a 64-bit app because the Quicktime SDK is not available in 64-bit and therefore the 64-bit application doesn’t have any code to write Quicktime in it.  There is nothing you can install on your computer to enable that function in the app.

Hmmm...apparently it is possible to use 32bit QT through 64bit applications.

I asked this question on CGTalk. It turns out that 64bit Cinema 4D can read and write QT and it’s been suggested from another source that it uses the command line app ffmpeg to do the conversion in the background.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=6093653#post6093653

So, it’s over to you Autodesk!

I already know that one can launch a 32-bit in the background to convert to and from Quicktime, but that doesn’t help with Softimage right now.  :P

I find it bizarre that on your CGTalk thread there are people arguing that Quicktime doesn’t need to be 64-bit. There is a huge performance overhead to going through a pipe to a 32-bit app to read and write video and audio, copying data back and forth between two processes.  It cannot sustain real time playback of audio and video.  It’s a work-around, not a sustainable solution.

What I’m irritated about are the suggestion about Quicktime Pro, Quicktime Replacement and the other solution that focus on the playback.  It’s not what makes the .mov format unavailable in the software.  It’s the fact that the code isn’t in the app to do it. :P

Good point, it’s a problem that the option is still available in the Render Option, and that there is no note in the online doc that it won’t work.  Quicktime is removed from the user interface everywhere in 64-bit, except in that render option property page.

What’s gonna happen when After Effects is x64 ONLY next version.....  Which lossless format/codec do you guys in x64 apps use to deliver for broadcast NTSC? 

Nobody has told me (at Nickelodeon) about changing specs for HD, but I wonder if that will get dropped on me soon… And I worry…

Didn’t Adobe added their own compression utility suite in CS4? I guess they just hop around the 64/32bit issues and create a perfectly good QT.

There’s probably not enough complaining at Apple HQ about this, because most of the Apple users are still on 32 bit. Even the “mighty” Snowleopard is limping in the 64bit area.
So until OSX becomes truly 64bit in all area’s of the OS, it will be an issue till then.

rob