Encoding a video in FFmpeg to X264 and have it playable in Quicktime

Question

I am wondering which command line settings i need to explicitly set (or avoid) to make a video encoded into x264 (in the mp4 format) using ffmpeg by default playable in Quicktime. I find that a number of the predefined preset files work for me but some of them won't, for example I can't get any of the lossless ones to work and I'm interested in those ones as well. For example libx264-lossless_max.ffpreset will encode my video but it's only playable in VLC, not in Quicktime. In Quicktime the video stays black. I know Perian is an option but I want my file to be playable without installing Perian. Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

http://ffmpeg.org/trac/ffmpeg/wiki/x264EncodingGuide:

Keep in mind that Apple Quicktime only supports YUV 420 color space for x264 encoded movies, and does not support anything higher than the "main" profile. This leaves only 2 options for quicktime compatible clips: baseline and main. All of the other profiles are currently not supported with Quicktime, although they will play back in pretty much any other player.

Also, to the answer above: Quicktime is not a proprietary codec per se. Quicktime is a media wrapper capable of containing many different codecs. Quicktime itself is not a codec.