PNG codec in Quicktime missing (Mountain Lion)

Question

I would like to know why Apple decided to omit the PNG codec from Quicktime under (Mountain) Lion.
There are lots of people in the video industry who use this codec for its lossless quality, AND even more important for its possibility to include an alpha channel.
This codec is hypervaluable to VJ's who need a fast decompressing codec while retaining a transparency in their clips.
Yes, there is the ANIMATION codec, which will also give you lossless quality with transparency, but for fast playback purposes this codec is way too processor-intensive and the filesizes are astronomical in comparison with what PNG used to offer.
Apple now decided to remove the PNG option. 
Even worse: clips encoded with PNG will no longer play!
Can someone tell me:
A. What was Apple's motivation for removing this?
B. Will it be available in an update of Compressor (which would effectively re-install the codec)?
C. Is there a possibility to install the codec as a third party product?
It seems the guys in charge of the video (and professional) services at Apple have lost all connection with the real world these days.
Best example : FCPX (Pro? Really?)
Too many developers, not enough people with practical knowledge?

Answer 1

I would like to know why Apple decided to omit the PNG codec from Quicktime under (Mountain) Lion.
They didn't. (Can you capture a still image from your display screen? If so, in what compression format is the image stored?)
There are lots of people in the video industry who use this codec for its lossless quality, AND even more important for its possibility to include an alpha channel.
This codec is hypervaluable to VJ's who need a fast decompressing codec while retaining a transparency in their clips.
Yes, there is the ANIMATION codec, which will also give you lossless quality with transparency, but for fast playback purposes this codec is way too processor-intensive and the filesizes are astronomical in comparison with what PNG used to offer.
On my system the Animation codec is faster than PNG (i.e., processes more than twice as much data as PNG per unit time) but, as you noted, its greater use of available data bandwith does create much larger target files.
Apple now decided to remove the PNG option.
Even worse: clips encoded with PNG will no longer play!
While I am not a "VJ" nor do I normally use PNG to create motion clips, a quick check (created a 26.70 sec PNG test clip using QT 7 Pro) produced a PNG/AAC MOV file that plays in both QT X and QT 7 players. If you are having problems, perhaps you need to provide more information about your workflow to better understand what is going on.
Can someone tell me:
A. What was Apple's motivation for removing this?
B. Will it be available in an update of Compressor (which would effectively re-install the codec)?
C. Is there a possibility to install the codec as a third party product?
As previously indicated, the PNG compressor/decompressor is alive and well on my system. And even if it wasn't, you whould have to ask Apple regarding motivation issues as this is a peer-to-peer forum and anything said here would be pure speculation. As to a third-party PNG codec component, since it is alreldy built into the QT current default codec component configuration, I know of none nor does a quick Google check seem to reveal any (that are actually for the Mac).
Too many developers, not enough people with practical knowledge?
(Chuckling and shaking head) I am sometimes forced to agree with these sentiments.