Quicktime is an iTunes requirement if you download podcasts

I recently created a virtual machine and installed iTunes. I then proceeded to download some videos from iTunes U, but every time the video had been downloaded it disappeared. iTunes was showing the videos as downloading, I could tell it was being downloaded as a “download.mov” file was appearing in the “Downloads” directory underneath “iTunes\iTunes Media”. I first thought it might be a permissions issue as the iTunes library is on a file server, but even giving full rights to the relevant directories made no difference. Searching the internet I found a thread named “podcasts are downloaded but disappear afterwards” on Apple’s support forum. The problems mentioned were the same as mine. One of the posts suggests to “Update QuickTime to the latest version and the video downloads will appear.”
Interesting, I did not have Quicktime installed at all, I only need iTunes to select and download relevant videos, I’ll be watching them elsewhere (using xbmc). So I installed Quicktime, and lo and behold, the downloads no longer disappear. How odd that iTunes does not complain about Quicktime being absent.