QuickTime deprecated for Windows. 2 new critical vulnerabilities

With the end of Apple's support for QuickTime in Windows, we need a replacement. The US Department of Homeland Security has placed the application on its blacklist, recommending your uninstallation, and two new critical vulnerabilities were announced, leaving us vulnerable. What to do?

References:
https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA16-105A
http://zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-16-241/
http://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-16-242/
http://blog.trendmicro.com/urgent-call-action-uninstall-quicktime-windows-today/

 

What in heck do you need it for? I haven't had QuickTime installed on my Windows machines in many years. Never had any need for it. Actually I have nothing from Apple on my current Windows machine and I don't think my Windows machine from 8 years ago does either.

 

The answer is obvious. Uninstall Quicktime.

Also, be sure your Flash player is updated, since there have been similarly scary security vulnerabilities in Flash player recently.

 

If only it were that easy since Quicktime is needed to import and use MovieTextures:

http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-MovieTexture.html

 

The alternate solution would be to just uninstall windows.

 

It is definitely time for Unity to change that requirement. Unity should not require a developer to install an end of lifed piece of software with known security vulnerabilities.

 

I wouldn't be so sure of that, you've probably got that Apple bonjour background infested rubbish (mDNSResponder.exe) somewhere on your pc, as I'm sure many have.

And yeh having to use apple craptime for movietextures in unity..aah NOPE.

Perhaps they'll do something about improving that issue now. Like I dunno actually supporting modern codecs as movie textures on all platforms instead, probably not though.

 

It's not likely because I keep a pretty close eye on what is on my machines.




But it's always possible I guess. Although I seem to remember specifically removing Bonjour when I first got this laptop (just because the name seemed bad to me). The first thing I do is look at a new machine to see what all junk has been preloaded onto it and then I start clearing it off and disabling Windows bloat services as well.

 

It's also required to make a lot of export options in earlier versions of Adobe Premiere (Like, every version pre-CC I'm pretty sure) work. Uninstalling isn't really an option there if Premiere and After Effects are part of your workflow for cutscene production/trailers.

 

Wait a minute.... Why not bink, theora, or just ffmpeg?

 

It's probably a remnant of when Unity was a Mac exclusive engine. The entire movie texture system needs a total overhaul, to be fair.

 

I believe that it gets converted to theora on output to a bunch of the supported platforms and that Quicktime is a purely Editor requirement. The latter is probably for exactly the reason Murgilod raised.

 

Yes, QuickTime is purely an Editor requirement, and you can ditch it completely if you transcode the video files to Theora (*.ogv) before importing in Unity.

Use ffmpeg (Windows builds here) or any other converter you want. I use this batch script on Windows - just drag a video file onto it:

Code (ffmpeg_transcode_ogg.bat):

1. @echo off
2. ffmpeg -i %1 -codec:v libtheora -qscale:v 7 -codec:a libvorbis -qscale:a 5 %1.ogv
3. echo %1.ogv
4. pause

UPDATE:
See post below

 

So true. They should really hire Brutal Doom guy and some of the best Doom map makers, give them access to the code and dev tools and they'd get best Doom possible. Because at this point, unless Romero and Carmack want to get back, only Doom's mod community could make proper Doom game.

 

What's this? lol
I think two forum threads just got merged...

 

Autosaved drafts strikes again!

 

So... quicktime is used to convert the video to theora?

I think it would be simpler to just let user handle the conversion.
----

Which remiinds me. I think back in the day ID software actually rolled out their own video format.

 

Not quite. I've actually was posting this into Doom thread, 100% sure. I think it's forum glitch or something.

 

And this is exactly the reason, why i installed it only two weeks ago, with unpleasant feelings.
I would rather uninstall it quickly, but then i can't have and work further on the Movietextures.
So what to do now?

 

Convert manually to OGV (Theora). Others say it works.

 

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/qu...critical-vulnerabilities.397860/#post-2599564

 

Thank you @darkhog and @Ryiah have uninstalled Quicktime now and will try that solution with Theora!!

 

Could somebody maybe provide a more detailed step by step of how to do this? I don't usually have to play around with video formats, so I'm a little lost. Running the example .bat code just gets me "'ffmepg' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."

 

Without quicktime installed, how do you actually use the *.ogv movie though, as its not showing up as something usable in Unity. Thanks

 

Guide: Video conversion using FFmpeg (Windows)

Prerequisites:

• Download and install FFmpeg:
  • Choose stable version, static linking
  • Download and extract contents
  • Copy the contents of the ffmpeg-folder to C:\ffmpeg\
  • You should now have the main executable located at C:\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg.exe
  • (Optional) Add the bin-folder to your system-wide PATH environment variable.
• Create conversion script:
  • Open Notepad
  • Copy the script code below
  • Save the file, making sure it has the .bat extension:
    • File name: ffmpeg_transcode_ogg.bat (or whatever you like, ending in .bat)
    • Save as type: All Files (*.*)
    • Encoding: ANSI

Script:

Code (ffmpeg_transcode_ogg.bat):

1. @echo off
2. PATH=%PATH%;C:\ffmpeg\bin\
3. ffmpeg -i %1 -codec:v libtheora -qscale:v 7 -codec:a libvorbis -qscale:a 5 %1.ogv
4. echo %1.ogv
5. pause

Converting video files:

• Simply drag each video file (one at a time) onto the .bat file in Windows Explorer.

You can have two Explorer windows open and drag between them, or you can simply copy ffmpeg_transcode_ogg.bat to the same folder as the video files (it's only 140 bytes anyway).

Adjusting quality/size:
You can change the qscale values in the script to adjust VBR (Variable Bit Rate) setting for video ("-qscale:v") and audio ("-qscale:a"). In both cases of libtheora and libvorbis codecs, VBR qscale is in the range 0-10, with higher value producing better quality and larger file size.

The script sets qscale 7 for video (typically 5000 kb/s for 1080p) and qscale 5 for audio (appr. 160 kb/s for stereo).

You could configure CBR (Constant Bit Rate) instead of VBR.
Consult the FFmpeg documentation here (libtheora) and here (libvorbis).

 

Yep, I recently tinkered with video textures, basically conversion via ffmpeg to ogv is the way to go. If the video is ogv or ogg, unity doesn't even try to start Quicktime. Which is a good thing (as far as I can tell, latest quicktime available from apple doesn't even work reliably - it kept crashing on my sample video).

 

If your .ogv movie does not import correctly in Unity, perhaps the video and/or audio stream is in an unsupported format. The .ogv filename extension identifies the Ogg container format, which can contain multiple streams of audio, video, text and metadata. There is a limited collection of audio and video codecs intended to be used with Ogg, but I think you can mux pretty much anything into the container.

Using Theora for video and Vorbis for audio works with Unity without Quicktime installed. The imported .ogv file is presented as a MovieTexture with a nested AudioClip (if there is an audio stream).