Jason Dunn
11-30-2009, 08:00 PM
<p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//dht/auto/1259451505.usr1.png" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p><a href="http://www.picasa.com" target="_blank">Picasa</a> is a truly superb program for digital photo management, and the fact that it's free makes it even better. I'm using it more and more now that I've added <a href="http://apps.facebook.com/picasauploader/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> and <a href="http://www.smugmug.com/help/picasa-smugmug-uploader" target="_blank">Smugmug</a> functionality into the program, but I noticed something odd when I installed it on a Windows 7 system: it refuses to recognize any sort of MPEG4/h.264 videos unless Quicktime is installed. This made sense on a Windows Vista computer, where native support for those file types was lacking, but Windows 7 has superb support for MPEG, h.264, Divx, and Xvid video files. So why would Picasa require Quicktime to be installed in order to support playback of these files? I don't know enough about how the MPEG4 codecs are implemented in Windows 7, but I'd be very surprised if there was no way for third-party applications to take advantage of them. So come on Picasa, make the most of what Windows 7 has to offer and free users from having to install the always-in-need-of-an-update Quicktime. Please?</p>