QuickTime encoding for System 7 68k

Oct 19, 2021
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I am looking to convert a small clip into A QuickTime format that a 68K Mac can decode.

with tools like sheep shaver and basiliskII at hand, what is the best method of doing this conversion?
What software is recommended to do the encoding ?
Thanks !
 

eric

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Staff member
Sep 2, 2021
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scsi.blue
If you want to go really old you can use http://www.macflim.com/

If you're looking for your color classic - I did some quick googling but it does appear ffmpeg can output to older quicktime formats with the right combiation of flags - but it's not 100% clear how old of quictime it supports.

I vaguely remember Quicktime being able to play MPG2 as well which modern converters should support.

Sorry no definitive answers but maybe some leads or someone else can tell me I'm wrong and give you a better answer :D
 

rjkucia

Tinkerer
Dec 21, 2021
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Madison, Wisconsin, USA
If you want to go really old you can use http://www.macflim.com/

If you're looking for your color classic - I did some quick googling but it does appear ffmpeg can output to older quicktime formats with the right combiation of flags - but it's not 100% clear how old of quictime it supports.

I vaguely remember Quicktime being able to play MPG2 as well which modern converters should support.

Sorry no definitive answers but maybe some leads or someone else can tell me I'm wrong and give you a better answer :D
Wow - MacFilm is incredible! I'm honestly shocked with how good it looks even on the Mac Plus!
 
Oct 19, 2021
24
30
13
If you want to go really old you can use http://www.macflim.com/

If you're looking for your color classic - I did some quick googling but it does appear ffmpeg can output to older quicktime formats with the right combiation of flags - but it's not 100% clear how old of quictime it supports.

I vaguely remember Quicktime being able to play MPG2 as well which modern converters should support.

Sorry no definitive answers but maybe some leads or someone else can tell me I'm wrong and give you a better answer :D
Macfilm is amazing!
I am looking for Quicktime so i can host small videos on my website and play them on a Color Classic or equivalent machine.
 
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Yes, Quicktime had an MPEG2 codec too. But that requires some oomph on the Mac-side.
What's the raw material you want to encode? A modern mp4 container to Quicktime?

For ease of use, I'd use Quicktime Pro and use Cinepak as codec. I don't know if that is still supported on modern Quicktime versions, I seriously doubt it. I'm doing all my conversion on my Power Mac G4, so I'm not sure. You may want to setup a QEMU PPC Mac emulation as a bridge if you lack a real PPC Mac.

After a lot of testing, the conclusion is that Cinepak offers the best quality vs. file size on 68k Macs and it's what I encode all low-res (68k) movies on Cornica as well. Plays well on Macs with a 68030 or 68040. For Plus, SE etc. use Macflim as suggested.

Here's a small tutorial on Cornica about the settings I recommend to folks who want to upload movies: http://www.cornica.org/how-to-convert-quicktime-video
 
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