Perian is a free plug-in that works discretely in your system preference pane. It allows Quicktime to play formats which are currently unavailable to play. Keep me updated if you have any queries.

Helpful info from Apple:

"A Mac OS X v10.6 and OS X Lion-compatible version of QuickTime Player 7 is available for use with older media or with AppleScript-based workflows. QuickTime Player 7 can be used to playback formats such as QTVR, interactive QuickTime Movies, and MIDI files. Also, it supports QuickTime 7 Pro registration codes for access to QuickTime Pro functionality."

Some of what you want to do can be done in MPEG Streamclip -which is free- Cut & edit and convert movies. Also the only program I've seen that allows you to fix timecode errors. And it's FREE. Love it.

I may be misinterpreting. Assuming you already have Quicktime 7 installed in 10.6x, does it no longer work when you upgrade to Lion?

My QT 7.6.6 installation that was installed under 10.6 still runs under 10.7, although I haven't used it since installing Lion since QuickTime X (under Lion) has all the features that were in QuickTime 7 Pro but not in QuickTime X under Snow Lion.

Ok, I upgraded from SL to Lion and Quicktime 7 was on my HD than and is still on my HD and works fine. I checked and the version is 7.7.1 (2246). It must have upgraded with the Lion install (I had no reason to check before). If that was the case, than this release is to bring SL users up-to-date. My two cents.

Except, apparently it's only for Leopard users, not Snow Leopard--how do SL users upgrade?

My bad. I checked Apple's website and for SL, QT 7.6.6 is the current version. QT 7.7 is only for Leo users.

According to Jon Walker in the Apple Support Communities:

"Since the changes are predicated on OS and not feature enrichment, the changes are issued as needed to improve performance and/or security concerns for the associated operating system."

So, if you are using SL, than you are fine with QT 7.6.6. If you are using Leo, you should upgrade to QT 7.7. And for Lion, all I can say is that the version that is on my HD is QT 7.7.1.

My two cents. :-)

I should have explained that I did a clean install of Lion (wiped the HD, then installed it) in order to obtain the system speed improvement that only a clean install can deliver. Even when there’s no OS update, I still back up and clean install the OS every 10 months or so because it defrags your HD (sort of) and nukes all the cruft accumulated from installing & uninstalling new apps, working with large video files, etc. Afterward, I usually startup from a different drive and open Disk Utility to fix my new Lion installation’s permissions and run Repair Disk, then I run DiskWarrior on it — all of which are now NECESSARY after installing Lion — especially DiskWarrior — because its installer does a worse job of optimizing and cleaning up than previous OS installers (don’t know why). Then I run CleanMyMac or some other such program to get rid of all the language files, the PPC component of 3rd party Universal Binary apps. etc.

This time ‘round I got a substantially larger increase in speed compared to the 3 Snow Leopard clean re-installs I performed during its tenure on my machines, which IMHO verifies up Apple’s claim that Lion is an overall faster beast than previous cats, though that may simply be a function of switching to a more or less pure 64-bit system, but I doubt it.

Anyway, clean installing Lion means you will trash everything from the previous OS — including QuickTime 7.6. So now I have to find and separately install it.

Thanks for all your help and opinions!

GeogProf, did you try to install "QuickTime Player 7.6.6 for Mac OS X v10.6.3" ?
=> http://support.apple.com/kb/DL923

To clarify, there are two version #s associated with QuickTime... that for QuickTime Player (which under Lion for me is 7.6.6 (1710)) and that for QuickTime itself (which under Lion for me is 7.7.1 (2246)).

Can anyone with 10.6.8 tell us what those versions # are for them (load QuickTime Player 7 and choose "About").

Also, any reason to really use QT7 under Lion anymore? I used it a lot under SL for the Pro features, but those are now in QuickTime X 10.1 under Lion.

On 10.6.8:

QuickTime Player 7
Version 7.6.6 (1709)
QuickTime™ Version 7.6.6 (1783)
Copyright © 1989-2010, Apple Inc.,
All Rights Reserved.

Well, now I'm really confused.

I'm on 10.6.8 and I have two versions. The last one has two names:

Version 10.0 (128)

Version 7.6.9 (1680.8)
QuickTime™ Version 7.6.6 (1783)

Jean-Loup, no I didn't try to install "QuickTime Player 7.6.6 for Mac OS X v10.6.3" because everyone's great replies to this post got me to thinking that QT X in Lion may be more functional than I thought it was, so I checked it out more thoroughly and discovered that you're all right -- QT X now has everything QT 7.6.x had on Snow Leopard. My post, which kicked off this thread, was written when I thought QT X in Lion is still hobbled like it was in SL -- dopey me!

VLC is great, try Perian with QT=awesome.
QT Pro wil let you do quick edits and all kinds of crazy stuff, well worth the 30 bucks but it should be included for free IMHO.

I'm having the same problem. 10.4.11 ... Finder crashing constantly.

Woops, didn't see that you could reply to other comments, but yeah, I'm having the same problem in 10.4.11, and it did auto update.

I don't think it's a sytem version issue, because I just installed the Tiger version linked at the top of the page, and I'm still having the same problem.

Two things:

!) I've noticed it's not just changing the system's focus, it's actually restarting the finder every couple minutes. Icons blink, system focus changes, and any open finder windows close.

2) Reverting back to an older version of Quicktime doesn't stop this from happening.

Here's a fix for anyone still needing it:

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20090121223437550

Use VLC player and you'll be able to see your MP4 content! It has pretty much replaced Quicktime Player for me.

I'm having issues as well. Apple sends me an email to check out the the MB Air, which of course I do. Video plays fine but no audio.

Other sites are working, however. So I, too, have to figure out what is going on here.

Not good for Apple from a PR perspective, however.

I finally found a way to fix my app and now exporting from MPEG formats to QuickTime is working again as it worked before...Had to write some lines of new code but all is fine now...I hope Apple will fix these glitches with 7.4 in next update...