Curiousity: Windows Media vs. Quicktime

[ladysycamore]

I was on a newsgroup earlier, and a discussion came up about media, and which one was best to play videos online.

While I am in no way computer savy enough to go toe-to-toe with some of you guys about this, but I just wanted to ask a question.

Here is some of the conversation:

"I hate to be a whiny bastard, but I refuse to install QuickTime on my
computer. That horrid program cannot be installed without utterly
dominating my Windows registry and file associations. It's downright
evil.

It's gotten to the point where I will install QT just to watch one
vieo, then go through the painful process of deleting every vestige of
it immediately afterward. But I won't even do that anymore. I now
treat QT files like I treat AOL program files - just not worth the
headache. I skip them. (note: Adobe GoLive! cries for a QT5 or better
installation every time I start the program, but I refuse to feed it.
Heh.)

I still don't understand why Apple does this. They finally have a
chance to infiltrate Windows with a flexible, powerful media program.
So what do they do? They create a program that violates all the file
associations and ruins all the work a user has previously invested in.
QuickTime doesn't even give you the option of manually setting file
associations. In one instance, I told it to associate with qt files
ONLY. As soon as I rebooted, it had monopolized my MPEG's, MP3, etc.

So, just a word from a multimedia hound:

Please do not compose media in QuickTime. Do it in MPG2, MPG3. DIVX or
a common AVI codec."

The response

"The MPEG 2 and 3 codecs come somewhere within spitting distance of being "common" formats, but they are still bit-rate pigs and best used by people with many gigs of online storage available (not me!) and home-T3-line owners. For your information, my file, though created with QT, is in MPEG4 format, duly annointed by the Motion Pictures Experts Group. QT just happens to be the most commonly available player for it. Feel free to use another player if you want. I originally had it as an actual mp4 file, but that caused the whole thing to download before playback began, which I kinda thought would irritate people.

If you want to get into nuts and bolts, AVI is an utter technological horror. As I understand it, there IS no single "AVI codec". An .avi file might use any of dozens of codecs, and for users of non-Gates-worshipping computers, even Microsoft's pathetic attempt at a WMP for Mac doesn't support them all - or even half of them. It's more than a little ironic to accuse Apple of trying to monopolize people's computers, when the alternative is using something written by Microsoft - the company synonymous with monopoly. You want to talk grudges? When MS bought its block of non-controlling Apple stock in the 1990s, they tried to force Apple to stop development on Quicktime and adopt MS's WMP standards instead.

As for hijacking file type associations, Realmedia is every bit the system-wrecker that QT/Win is. You can't make QT play nice? I can't make RM play nice. I'll watch an RM file before a WMP file, but only as a last resort. And granted that WMP is the default player for ALL media formats, on ALL windows systems, I would hope we can take it as given that it's a bit of a format-hog too?

The house of MS-Windows is made of frail glass, my friend. Watch it when you throw stones."

No worries: no one was harmed in this discussion. However, I was curious about something. I recall when I was doing data entry about four years ago, and I had downloaded RealPlayer on my work computer. Later on, I found out that it had changed some of the Windows files to RP files (I was immediately horrified, and quickly uninstalled RP). My question is: Is *that* what they are talking about when they mention "hijacking files", and if so, WHY does that happen (and does it happen often)?

Personally, I love my WMP. Quicktime is good, but I don't like it if the only way to view a particular video is *ONLY* QT (like on the Depeche Mode website...the webowner works only with QT).