As a part of my Blender animation workflow, I render OpenGL animation previews for downstream composite tests. These “quick and dirty” renders I prefer as Quicktime files. (Final animations are always image sequences.)
With the removal of QT export in 2.79, I’m using AVI containers instead. I find the AVI codecs more limiting than what QT offered. Granted, I’m a Mac user, and am more used to QT than AVI. But am I the only one that regularly used QT exporting as a part of my Blender workflow?
The developer’s thread (here: https://developer.blender.org/D2333) suggests that Apple has deprecated QT. But Adobe’s video programs (After Effects, Premiere) use Quicktime containers and associated codecs all the time. In fact, most theatrical-release projects I’ve worked on used Quicktime as a part of their workflow, particularly with Apple’s ProRes codecs or Avid’s DNxHD codecs. Right now, I’m sending 4K ProRes 4444 files for a theatrical release project and 2K ProRes 4444 files for a television project.
In short, there remains a large constituency of professional users who use Quicktime Pro regularly, and Apple continues to support it (if only obliquely, see this short thread on Apple’s site: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7872579), even in their latest OS. Most pro apps still support it. I think Blender should as well, if possible. The fact that we’ve removed QT entirely from the Blender interface was surprising to me. I haven’t found much conversation on this on BA or elsewhere, so I thought it was worth bringing it up.