Controlling QuickTime playback by media types

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You can control (to some extent) what media types QuickTime will play back in the preferences file. Sorry, there is no UI for this currently so this is only recommended for users who are comfortable modifying preferences files directly. To do this you need a plist editor such as "Property List Editor" installed with XCode (requires free ADC account) or "PList Edit Pro" (has a free trial period).

If you want to get your hands dirty, do the following.

DISCLAIMER:
This is not officially supported and is completely unwarranted.
In other words: PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!


First, quit the application if it's running. This will ensure the app does not try changing things behind our backs, which could cause problems while you're editing the file.


In the Finder:
- Open /Library/Preferences, use Command-Control-G to go directly there without browsing around
Picture 1.png

- Click once on tv.sage.SageTV.plist and press Command-I, this will bring up the Get Info dialog
- Make sure you have write privileges, at the bottom of the window. You may have to authenticate first, which means you need administrator access to the machine.
- Press Command-D to make a backup of the file. If things get messed up, just delete the file and rename this backup to restore the original settings.
- Open the file in your editor


In the plist editor:
- Expand "Root"
- There should be an entry under Root named "QTKitSettings" (See Picture 2), expand this so you can see its contents.
Picture 2.png

There will be three entries under QTKitSettings:
- DisabledMedia: Disables specified media types
- ForcedMedia: Circumvents checking and forces QT to try to play the specified media types
- PlayedMediaTypes: Media types that have successfully (or partially successfully) been played through QTKit

Each of these entries is an array of strings. They must only be strings, if any other type is added to the array, bad things could happen.

PlayedMediaTypes will contain oddly formatted strings like the following:
mp4 | Quicktime | H.264 | AAC
First field is the filename extension.
Second field is the container type.
Third field is the primary video stream type.
Last is the primary audio stream type.

This example was a .mp4 (Quicktime compatible) file with a h.264 video stream and aac audio stream. The stream types are for the primary streams only, only one stream is reported per file and it's generally the first of each encountered.

The video or audio stream types may be blank if those tracks do not exist.

Do not edit the entries under PlayedMediaTypes, they are managed internally.


DisabledMedia and ForcedMedia can contain:
- Filename extension including the dot, e.g., ".flv" to disable flash video
- Container name, e.g., "Matroska" or "AVI"
- Full media type as listed in PlayedMediaTypes, just cut and paste for an exact match.

NOTE: DisabledMedia takes precedence over ForcedMedia. Even if you use different types in both lists, e.g., if you have .mkv disabled and Matroska forced, it will not play .mkv files.


When done editing the file save it then close the file in the editor and re-launch the app. QTKit should honor the new settings. Please note that just because you can force it to attempt playback of a file type does not mean that it will successfully play it back. As a general rule, you must be able to play the file in QuickTime player or it won't work in our application.

Picture 3 shows an example of what this could look like. Note that these settings are for reference only and are not meant to be used directly.
Picture 3.png

[sandor]

thanks for this.

i was just testing the latest beta, and am assuming that it is using QT (Sage is using a lot of processor time, and mplayer no longer appears) but i ran into an issue with mkv and mpeg*** files, and was just going to post asking how to limit the file types QT plays vs. mplayer.

**the issue with mkv and mpeg files is that QT requires indexing of the entire file before playback can start, resulting in a 5-60 second delay depending on the length of the file

[sandor]

works brilliantly. i was able to disable mkv in QT for now.