Perian is going bye-bye

Perian has announced that they're ceasing development. But they're doing the right thing and making it open-sourced on Google Code or GitHub so tell any developers you know.

Perian is really an essential tool to the roaming editor especially those who cut a lot of documentaries where people tend to hand you bizarre formats. Hopefully someone will take up the reins and continue it's development.

Removing GoPro Cineform Studio's Menubar CodecStatus

UPDATE:

In the latest version of GoPro Studio (v2.5.7 as of this updated post) on OS X 10.11.3, the method easier, yet a bit hidden.

1. Launch GoPro Studio
2. Hit COMMAND + COMMA to open it's Prefs (or go to the menu bar and select GoPro Studio . Preferences...)
3. Uncheck "AUTOMATICALLY IMPORT FROM GOPRO CAMERAS"
4. The annoying menubar icon should be gone.

Sneaky, eh?

The old post below...

If you have a GoPro camera you've likely installed GoPro Cineform Studio. However it also installed a menubar item that deals with codecs and whatnot. If you've never asked for it to be there and don't use it it can be hard to get rid of it as it shows up every time you boot up. I'm not even sure what it's officially called but at the bottom of the menu it reads Check Codecs or something.

If you look at Activity Monitor you'll notice a process running called "StereoModeStatus" which is located in /Applications/GoPro/Tools/StereoModeStatus.app (technically it's inside the package here /Contents/MacOS/StereoModeStatus).

Now I don't like things being installed without my asking and I really dislike not having a way to uninstall specific things or at least permanently turning them off. You can select to quit the menubar item but it'll come back upon a reboot.

Also note that it's standard operating procedure to be able to hold down Command and then drag a menubar item around and OUT of the menubar. This thing doesn't let you Command + Drag it out of the menubar. Evil.

Here's what I did to get rid of the CodecCheck menubar thing.

Before this however, you can head to System Settings and look for "Cineform" pane and under the Process tab at the bottom you'll see "Show Stereo Status Menu". Now while this will hide the menu, it doesn't seem to always prevent the process from running. If you're like me and want the process to never run, continue reading:

1. Launch Activity Monitor (Hit Command + Shift + U to open up your utility folder and then hit A to highlight it then Command + O to launch it).

2. Look for "StereoModeStatus". Highlight it.

3. At the top of Activity Monitor's window hit Quit Process. Notice the menubar item vanishes. Yay!

4. Close Activity Monitor.

5. Navigate to your Application folder. (Hit Command + A to open it) Drill down to GoPro folder then inside there open up the Tools folder.

6. Right click on StereoModeStatus and select "Compress "StereoModeStatus".

7. After a second you'll see a new file called "StereoModeStatus.zip". This is your backup copy in case you ever need this thing again. Once you've confirmed this .zip file is there right click on "StereoModeStatus" (the original, not the .zip) and select Move To Trash.

It may ask you for your admin password to put it in the trash; further evidence of it's evil nature.

8. Empty your trash (Shift + Option + Command + Delete) and you're done.