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Starship Titanic for Mac and QuickTime 4 Preview Release Problem

22.May.1999

If you have downloaded Apple's "QuickTime 4 Preview Release" software from their website, you may experience problems running Starship Titanic for Macintosh. The problem occurs immediately when running Starship Titanic. An error dialog box is displayed, which says that there was a problem starting up, and Starship Titanic exits.

The reason is that QuickTime 4 Preview is now available in (at least) 3 different install sizes: "Basic Playback", "Deluxe Playback", and "Authoring". Starship Titanic uses a codec that was available under QuickTime 3, but is only available under QuickTime 4 Preview if you choose to do an "Authoring" install. If you have problems, the solution is therefore to go to Apple's web site, and re-install QuickTime 4 Preview, this time choosing the "Authoring" installation option (and not the "Basic Playback" or "Deluxe Playback" installation options).

Please note that even if you could play Starship Titanic fine with QuickTime 3, Apple's QuickTime 4 Preview software deletes/disables the required codec when it upgrades your Macintosh from QuickTime 3, unless you choose the "Authoring" installation option, as described above.

We're sorry for the problem, but it's out of our control.

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