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After 7 years of publishing the Little QuickTime Page, we've decided it's time for a sabbatical. Unlike 1996, there are now other web resources for staying on top of the QuickTime world (such as QuickTiming.org). We're not necessarily closing the page forever; we promise we'll re-evaluate the need for a web site like ours sometime around the next release of QuickTime. We will also continue to make an attempt to respond to the email messages we receive with QuickTime questions. Thanks to those who've supported our work over the years, and to those who've used and created great QuickTime content and tools.
See ya!
July 22, 1996Apple finally released QuickTime 2.5! |
That was the first entry on the Little QuickTime Page 7 years ago... what a long strange trip it's been! (At that time there was no Final Cut, no iMovie, no Sorenson codec--all in our news this week)
Apple is offering owners of Premiere (with an original CD) a free copy of Final Cut Express or a $500 discount on Final Cut Pro. (This offer applies to both Mac and Windows versions of Premiere, but will be most useful to Mac users, since Adobe has ceased development of Premiere for the Mac.) Check out the Switch to Final Cut Page, for details of this offer, as well as an offer to purchase Final Cut Express for only $99 when you buy a new Mac.
Peachpit Press released titles in their new Apple Pro Training Series, covering Final Cut Pro 4, Shake 3, and Logic 6. There's a brief summary in a MacCentral article "First Apple Pro Training books released"; you'll find more info on the individual titles at the Peachpit web site.
There's a Macworld review of Sorenson Squeeze, in which they compare it to Cleaner. (Both tools are for compressing video.) One note from us: we disagree with a recommendation at the end of the review saying that you'll get equivalent quality with QuickTime Pro and the Sorenson 3 Pro codec; it's unlikely that you'll find this true, as QuickTime Pro can't access all the features of the codec (2-pass variable bit rate encoding, for example), nor can you do important things like crop and gamma correction with QuickTime Pro.
If you want to apply 3D effects to your iMovie clips (or other DVclips), check out MovieEdit3D, a shareware (only $7!) application. Go to the MovieEdit3D page for info and to download the software (limited until you pay the shareware fee).
Eric Hangstefer has updated miXscope for the Intel QX3 Digital Microscope (a very inexpensive microscope being used in schools) to version 1.3. Eric's software allows the microscope to work with Mac OS X (The Intel software didn't.). You can capture images and create time-lapse QuickTime movies (even adding text comments and/or timestamps). You can read more about the software at the miXscope page. (He's also working on an application for the Intel Digital Movie Creator)
Apple has released Soundtrack, a $300 music composition tool. Among other things, it lets you import QuickTime movies for scoring. Read more at Apple's Soundtrack page.
Techsmith, makers of Camtasia, say they're working on a QuickTime version of their screen capture-optimized codec. This could be very useful for those that need to do screen recordings. Go to TechSmith's Video Codec for QuickTime page, where you'll find more info and a link to be kept up to date on developments.
Lots of excitement about Apple's new products:
Ecamm has released a cool bit of software to allow iChat AV to work with some USB cameras. iChat USB Cam is in beta and can be downloaded from the iChatUSBCam page. (Make sure to follow the installation instructions to get the appropriate drivers.)
There's a great tutorial at O'Reilly MacDevCenter called "Making Movies with the Apple iSight" which (among other things) shows how you can capture video to your hard disk using Apple's free QuickTime Broadcaster and its new inexpensive ($149) iSight AV camera.
In other iSight news, Kaidan will be coming out with an iSight accessory kit (including a tripod and a lens adapter so you can attach other lenses). You can download a PDF Press release, "Kaidan Announces Accessory Kit for the Apple iSight Video Camera" if you want details.
Miscellaneous updates:
VideoScript (a tool that can be used to write scripts for analyzing and processing video) has been updated to version 3 (Now at 3.0.4b for Mac OS X, and 3.0.1b for Windows). Get it at the VideoScript Download page.
A MacCentral article, "Televio 1.6 debuts; TV tuner card for Mac OS X" provides details about the $149 Televio TV tuner card, (which can also capture QuickTime movies).
Apple has updated iDVD to version 3.0.1. You can get the update at the iDVD Download page.
iScreensaver Designer (for converting a QT movie to a screensaver) has been updated to version 3.1. Details are at the What's New in iScreensaver Designer Version 3.1 page.
There's a new encoding/compression tool on the market that Mac OS X users can use to create QuickTime MPEG4-compressed content (as well as content compressed with other audio and video codecs, though not Sorenson). Read a Popwire press release, "Popwire Technology and dicas team-up to sell Compression Master".
You can now get iShell (Tribeworks' interactive multimedia development tool that provides lots of support for QuickTime) for only $495. (Used to be that you needed to purchase a membership to get it.) You can see the pricing details at Tribeworks' How to Buy iShell page, and get lots more details about the tool at the About iShell page.
A couple of more items from the World Wide Developers Conference:
Go to the QuickTime State of the Union page to see a stream of the talk covering updates on QuickTime's market, the MPEG-4 front, Mobile Phones (3GPP), QuickTime for Java, QuickTime Streaming Server, QTSS Publisher (part of the Panther Server), Hi-Def Video (Pixlet), and QuickTime audio.
You can find out who were the winners of the Apple Design Awards for QuickTime Content contest at the Apple Honors Outstanding Software Products page. (Scroll to the bottom of the page; you'll find links to a number of the projects.)
There's a new version of Premiere out, but it's only for Windows. Read a MacCentral article, "Adobe drops Mac support in new version of Premiere" for more info.
Users of Cleaner XL (compression software for Windows) may want to get the cleaner XL Service Pack 1 (SP1), which can be found at discreet support cleaner XL web site.
It looks like Steven Gulie's QuickTime for the Web book (3rd Edition) is now available (as of yesterday), according to the Morgan Kaufmann Publishers page.
There's a really cool project going on involving QuickTime VR: QuickTime VR experts David Palermo and Dennis Biela will be creating QuickTime VRs of the aircraft and space artifacts at the Smithsonian's new Air and Space Museum facility. For more information, check out the NASM Photographic Archive Project page.
Be sure to check out QuickTiming.org. They've got lots of new features there, including a blog documenting the Smithsonian project we mention in the paragraph above this one.
We recently heard about a freeware site that has a number of QuickTime related utilities. Go to the Blank Rebel Productions download page where you'll find tools for creating SMIL code, for generating QuickTime embed tags, and for batch exporting using QuickTime Player settings.
Apple's World Wide Developers Conference is happening this week. QuickTime-related product announcements include iChat AV (easy-to-use video conferencing), iSight (inexpensive FireWire video camera) and Pixlet (a new high-end video codec which is part of Panther, i.e. Mac OS X 10.3; you'll find a paragraph about it if you go to the Panther page and scroll 2/3 down the page.) If you want to watch Steve Jobs' keynote, in which he demos these, go to the WWDC 2003 Keynote page. (All these products were announced in the first half of the talk: 27:40 for Pixlet, 39:51 for iChat, and 54:30 for iSight.)
Apple also updated the QuickTime Player AppleScripts. There's an updated script: the Present Movie Droplet now allows the setting of a background color (good for movies that are not the same aspect ratio as the playback screen). And there are a couple of new scripts: Set Matrix of Front Movie (which provides a quick way to flip, rotate, or skew a movie) and Save Export Settings (which lets you save your export settings so you can re-use them.) Download them at the Scriptable Applications: QuickTime Player page.
Other software updates:
Version 1.6.1 of QiPo (which stands for "QuickTime In Preview Out") has been released. This is shareware that will take a movie and generate a web page showing a sequence of frames from the movie. Go to the QiPo site for more information and to download the software.
Ben Bird recently announced an update to SecuritySpy, a multi-camera video surveillance software product for the Macintosh. The new version is 1.0b25. Details are at the SecuritySpy web site.
A shareware product, QuickTime Effects Pack, provides 6 effects that Mac OS X users can use with QuickTime Pro, Final Cut Express, Premiere, or Montage. Version 1.1 is available at the QuickTime Effects Pack v1.1 page.
And some information:
A few weeks ago we mentioned an article on QuickTime for Java. The second part of this article has been posted; read “A Gentle Re-Introduction to QuickTime for Java, Part 2”
A new AppleCare Knowledge Base document, "QuickTime: About Playing .AVI Files" offers an explanation for the problems you may run into opening AVI files.
One of Adobe GoLive's lesser known features is its extensive QuickTime editor, which lets you create interactive QuickTime movies fairly simply. Adam Pratt has written a nice tutorial, "Creating Interactive QuickTime Movies with Wired Sprites in Adobe GoLive 6" .
Once again, we'll be taking off next week for a short vacation. Back on July 8.
Apple's got a new technical publication, "What’s New in QuickTime 6.3 + 3GPP". It's primarily for programmers, but it's got information about QuickTime support for the 3GPP standard as well as some general information about what was new in QuickTime starting with version 6.0.1, all of which may be useful to media authors.
Apple is offering "QuickTime Professionals" a $300 discount to the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco. Visit the QuickTime Track at WWDC page and click the Registration and Pricing button.
A couple of items from the QuickTime VR front:
And a couple of items from Macworld UK on 3G (video over wireless networks):
Version 1 Preview of iStopMotion, a tool for creating stop motion and time-lapse movies, is available. Go to the iStopMotion page to download a free version and get more information..
The LiveStage Professional Showcase page has been updated. It's got all sorts of examples of the amazing things that can be done with LiveStage Pro, a tool for creating interactive QuickTime movies.
A MacCentral article, "QuickTime facilitates the making of lecture videos" briefly reports on some interesting things being done using QuickTime for online lectures. If you're intrigued, visit Jeff Weiss's page "Multi-Media Technologies That Enhance Teaching and Learning at the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, The City University of New York", where you'll get far more information and be able to check out some of the lectures.
We'll be taking off next week for a short vacation. Back on June 24.
Apple's QuickTime elves have been busy lately:
They released QuickTime 6.3 (For Mac OS X and Windows); it's available at the QuickTime download page. The Read Me lists as new:
- Automatic detection of streaming transport
- Improvements to DV audio and video synchronization
- Enhanced support for Keynote, iMovie, and iDVD
Additionally, they released a QuickTime 3GPP Component (For Mac OS X and Windows) that allows the creation and playback of files encoded in .3gp files format, which is for multimedia over high-speed wireless networks. Read more about QuickTime and 3GPP (and download the component) at Apples 3GPP page. There's also an Apple press release "Apple Announces QuickTime 6.3 with Support for 3GPP".
The QuickTime MPEG-2 Component was also updated for compatibility QuickTime 6.3, at least for Mac OS X. It seems to only be available thru the Software Update, and only if you previously purchased the component.. (If you're looking for details about the MPEG-2 component, read Apple's QuickTime 6 MPEG-2 Playback Component page, an older document.)
Apple has also created a handy QuickTime Version Availability chart, which lists (by operating system and by language) the most current version of QuickTime available.
Finally, (and we don't know when this happened) you can now license QuickTime 6. If you need to include QuickTime 6 with a product, take a look at the Software Licensing page at Apple.
iMovie has been updated to version 3.0.3; it requires QuickTime 6.3 and provides improved performance on G3 processors, among other enhancements. You can download and read more at the iMovie download page.
There are two new OS X tools out for building, managing, and playing playlists of video files.
Cinematics is a $25 shareware tool; check out the Einstein's Legacy Cinematics page.
QuickTime Playlist Assist is freeware (but they take donations!). You'll find a link to it at the NoName Scriptware page.
An eWeek article, “Apple Makes Mobile QuickTime Moves,” covers rumors about QuickTime 6.3 features, including. 3GPP support (for mobile devices)
A BetaNews article "'Blue Hawaii' Becomes AOL 9.0 Beta" says that AOL 9 will include a version of QuickTime 6.3. It also implies that AOL will be replacing the Real Player with QuickTime!
Anyone remember QuickTime for Java? Chris Adamson at O’Reilly has written “A Gentle Re-Introduction to QuickTime for Java”
Reviews and evaluations:
David Nagel at Creative Mac has a review of Live Channel Pro 2. The review of this QuickTime broadcasting ("TV studio") software is five pages and rates the program a Must Buy.
There are two reviews of Cleaner 6 (encoding/compression software for the Mac): A MacWorld review, “Cleaner 6.0:Video-Encoding App Is Faster and Supports New Codecs” and a MacHome review subtitled “Video compression king is a must-have app for serious videographers” Both give it very positive reviews.
Jeff Sauer at streamingmedia.com has written an Encoding Tools Product Review which covers Sorenson Squeeze, Canopus ProCoder and Discreet Cleaner XL, all tools available for Windows. (Squeeze is the only one that's also for Mac OS X.)
And yet another encoder review is Streaming Magazine's "Sorenson Squeeze Preview".
Gunnar Van Vliet at RecordStoreReview.com has looked closely at AAC audio and has authored a “Report on the relative quality of AAC audio to MP3 part 1” and a “Report on the relative quality of AAC audio to MP3 part 2”.
Software releases and updates:
VRTools has shipped version 1.2.2 of deliVRator, a Mac tool for optimizing QuickTime movies for web playback. Details and a download link are at the deliVRator page.
The Make Mine MPEG-4 AppleScript has been updated to version 4.2. This shareware tool automates the process of ripping iTunes CD tracks and encoding them with QuickTime 6 Pro as MPEG-4 AAC audio files. Unlike iTunes, it gives you control over the settings and lets you encode at better quality. You'll find it at the Make Mine MPEG-4 page. (iTunes 4, QuickTime 6.2 Pro, and Mac OS X 10.2 required)
Version 1.1 of AAChoo was released. This is another OS X shareware tool that converts MP3 files to AAC, giving you more control over settings and higher quality than iTunes. QuickTime Pro is not required for this one. Details and a download link are at the Ovolab AAChoo page.
Monkeybread Software has a free sound recording application named “Sound Recorder”. It records into QuickTime files and runs on Mac OS 8, Mac OS X and Windows. Find it at the Monkeybread Freeware Sound Recorder page.
Gary Fielke has authored two Mac OS X utilities: DVFileDateCM (a contextual menu plugin that shows the recording date and time of a DV file from the Finder) and DVTimeLapse (a tool that creates a QuickTime movie from frames taken at a user-specified interval). Both are freeware, haven't yet been tested under OS X 10.2, and can be found at Gary's Mac OS X Programs page.
BitJazz has updated its preview version of their faster than real-time and lossless SheerVideo Pro codec to 0.9.9.7 . This codec (for Mac OS 9 and X) is not a delivery codec, but is targeted for the production environment, i.e. when the video is going to be edited or manipulated before final export. Check out the SheerVideo Preview page.
Two new David Egbert tutorials on embedding QuickTime are available:
Apple's Knowledge Base document 93052 provides a little bit of information about what's new in QuickTime 6.2.
A BusinessWeek article titled "A Talk with iTunes' Conductor" is an interview with Phil Schiller in which he talks about the iTunes Music Store business model, and mentions that the same DRM (digital rights management) technology built into iTunes is built into QuickTime.
Two tools to convert to other formats:
Flix Pro 3.2 is now available. (Flix is a tool that converts QuickTime movies (and other video files) to various Flash formats, including but not limited to the latest version of Flash, Flash MX.) This version can import MPEG-4 files (with the help of QuickTime 6, of course) and has improved audio sync, among other features. Check out the Flix Pro page for more info.
Innobits has released a new beta of its BitVice MPEG-2 encoder, a Mac tool that can compress QuickTime movies into high quality MPEG-2 video. More info is at the Innobits web site.
Updates to tools for creating QuickTime content:
Isadora, a real-time graphics programming environment for digital media artists, has a new beta release. Read more at TroikaTronix’s Isadora page.
LiveStage Pro Version 4.1 has been released. This software for creating interactive QuickTime movies now includes features for making QuickTime VR movies more interactive. Read more, download a demo, or get the updater for LiveStage Pro 4.0at Totally Hip's LiveStage Professional page.
Version 1.5 of ScreenRecord , an OS X screen recording tool that saves as a QuickTime movie, is now available. You'll find more info and a link to download a demo version at the ScreenRecord page .
And a new tool for adding something to QuickTime movies:
Metadata Hootenanny is a new Mac OS X tool (now in beta) that you can use to easily add annotations and chapters to your movies. You can read more and download the beta at the Metadata Hootenanny page.
We'll be taking off the next 2 weeks. Back on May 27th
Apple released QuickTime 6.2 for OS X. With it installed, iTunes 4 can encode using AAC (a high-quality, low data rate codec) when importing. (Also, in the new iTunes Music Store, the songs you can try or buy are AAC-encoded.) Software Update should get both iTunes 4 and QuickTime 6.2 if you don't already have them. If not, get QuickTime 6 at the Apple's QuickTime Download page.
Apple also released QuickTime 6.0.3 for Mac OS 9. It's only available as a standalone installer. Your QuickTime updater won't get it, so you'll have to get it from Apple's QuickTime Download page. Read more at AppleCare Knowledge Base article # 93038.
Apple has posted a video of Frank Casanova speaking on "QuickTime at WWDC".
There were a couple of tools that were updated last week and then again this week:
Qtilities.com has an updated version of the QT Detection Pack (a set of movies and web pages you can customize so your viewers will either see your movie or get proper instructions for installing the right version of QuickTime)--this one works with QuickTime 6.2.
A newer version (2.6) of MorphX, a free OS X tool for creating a movie in which one still image transforms into another, is available at the MorphX page.
PianistEnvy (a program that accesses the QuickTime Musical Instruments) was updated to version 1.1. You can download it from the melonsoft PianistEnvy page.
Yet another QuickTime-based stop motion animation tool is available for OS X. This one's called iStopMotion and it's in beta. Check out the iStopMotion page.
National Public Radio (NPR) has dropped QuickTime as one of its formats. You'll find a short blurb and some comments in a MacNN article, "NPR responds to 'No QuickTime' decision". (However, WBUR, an NPR affiliate in Boston, is still streaming in QuickTime at http://live.wbur.org/feed/wburlive.mov.)
Apple has a new compression tool called Compressor; this is a stand-alone tool that's bundled with Final Cut Pro 4 and DVD Studio Pro 2. We haven't had a chance to play with this tool, but there's lots of information at Apple's Introducing Compressor page. (Sure seems like it would be a good idea for Apple to release a free version of this tool to compete with Real and Windows encoders.)
The WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) site now includes the schedule of the WWDC QuickTime events.
Whit Anderson (author of Macaw, a tool for captioning QuickTime movies) has released a QuickTime widget (a movie containing a sprite track), called "toggle_Text_Track.mov", that you can add to your own movies if you want a button that turns on and off text tracks. You'll find a link to a page where you can download the tool at Whit's Macaw site.
If you've created a great QuickTime movie, make sure to check out the Apple Design Awards page. There are 3 categories for the Apple Design Awards for QuickTime Content: individual, company and student. You need to get your submission in by Thursday May 15.
David Egbert has created several new pages related to embedding QuickTime movies. He's got a great explanation of why it's important to embed movies (and not just link to them) on his "Embed those QuickTime Movies!" page. This page contains a number of useful links, two of which are tutorials he's just posted: one tutorial called "Pasting QuickTime Embed Codes into an Existing Web Page" and another tutorial called "Embedding QuickTime in FrontPage 2002".
More new and updated software:
3ivx Delta 4 is distributed as a plug-in for QuickTime. It allows you to encode MPEG-4 video in .avi, .mov or .mp4 files (with AAC audio). More info and links for downloads for a number of platforms is at the 3ivx Delta 4 Download page.
The Make Mine MPEG-4 AppleScript (automates the process of ripping CD tracks and encoding them with QuickTime 6 Pro as MPEG-4 audio files) has been updated to version 4; you'll find it at the Make Mine MPEG-4 page. (OS X required.)
PianistEnvy is a little shareware program that accesses the QuickTime Musical Instruments. You can read about it and download it from the melonsoft PianistEnvy page.
A new version of SnapZ Pro X (Mac OS X screen capture tool, for recording both stills and movies) is available. An update to Version 1.0.7 is available at the SnapZ Pro X page.
Tribeworks has formally released version 3 of iShell, their cool interactive multimedia development tool. This tool makes extensive use of QuickTime. Find out more at the new release at a press release, "Tribeworks releases iShell 3, announces co–promotion with Intelligent Assistance".
Loud Motion has released Stop Motion Studio 1.4 (formerly known as Loud Motion Studio and before that Stop-Motion Studio). This a $39 Mac OS stop-motion animation tool. Download a demo at the Loud Motion Studio download page.
Version 2.5.4 of MorphX, a free tool for creating a movie in which one still image transforms into another, is available at the MorphX page.
Qtilities.com has an updated version of the QT Detection Pack, a set of movies and web pages you can customize so your viewers will either see your movie or get proper instructions for installing the right version of QuickTime.
If you want to see just how good a QuickTime movie can look, check out what master compressionist, Ben Waggoner, has posted at http://vcast.v4c23.net/web/servlet/PlayMovie?aid=1050505938282&fn=Biker_Boyz_800_96.mov. (Unfortunately, you'll have to wait for the movie to download, as it's not fast-starting.)
This week is the NAB (National Association of Broadcaster) Conference. A few QuickTime-related items:
Apple announced 3 updated programs at NAB: Final Cut Pro 4, DVD Studio Pro 2, and Shake 3.
The MPEG Industry forum has an NAB page with info on MPEG4-related show news.
CreativeMac has day by day coverage of NAB from the Macintosh perspective: here's Day One and Day Two.
JVC announced an adapter that enables their Streamcorder (a high-end miniDV camera) to produce an MPEG-4 video stream that's QuickTime 6 compatible. For details, read a 4/7 JVC press release.
Clifford VanMeter (of QuickTiming.org) has written two pieces for Mac Design Online: He's got a review of QuickTime Broadcaster and a review of QuickTime Streaming Server 4.1.1.
Apple finally published a couple of KnowledgeBase documents about the QuickTime updates they released last week: Article 42997, "QuickTime for Windows: About the QuickTime 6.1 Update" and, (for Mac OS X users) article 61776, "QuickTime: About the QuickTime 6.1.1 Update".
Version 1.5.1 of Pageot, a free tool that generates QuickTime EMBED and OBJECT code to use in your web pages, is available at the Pageot page. (There's now a Windows version as well as a Mac version.)
We'll be taking off next week for a short vacation. See you on April 22.
Apple yesterday released QuickTime 6.1.1 for Mac OS X and QuickTime 6.1 for Windows. (Lots of ways to get it: You may be prompted to get it if you run QuickTime Player. Mac OS X users will probably be prompted by Software Update. You can also choose Update Existing Software in QuickTime Player's Help menu, or run the QuickTime Updater. It's also what you'll get if you go to Apple's QuickTime Download page.) So what does this update do? According to the Mac OS X Software Update control panel, "QuickTime 6.1.1 delivers important bug fixes to MPEG-4 streaming." And, according to an Internet News Link article" Security Holes in RealPlayer, QuickTime", QuickTime 6.1 for Windows fixes a security issue. We haven't been able to find any more info. (Did Apple lay off its release notes writer?)
Other software updates:
Jan E. Schotsman has updated his Movie RAID tool to version .5. Movie RAID is a tool for old Power Macs that allows capture of high data rate movies. Check out the Home Page of JES to download and read more about this and other tools developed by Jan.
Version 1.4 of ScreenRecord, an OS X screen recording tool, is now available. You'll find more info and a link to download a demo version at the ScreenRecord page.
According to a MacCentral article, "Apple Design Awards to recognize QuickTime Content", you have until May 15th to submit your fabulous QuickTime movie to be judged at the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC). (This is all part of giving QuickTime a much bigger presence at WWDC.)
An insanely great mac article, "European Central Bank Goes QuickTime" reports that Apple will be using QuickTime to retransmit European Central Bank reports and data on Apple web sites.
Some learning opportunities:
Eric Blanpied (long-time QuickTime engineer emeritus) has dumped his QuickTime brain at the dvGarage. He's developed a tutorial (lecture and demonstration), delivered via QuickTime, that covers a number of QuickTime topics. Check out the QuickTime Pro Brain Dump page at dvGarage for more info, to view samples, or to buy it.
Frank Casanova, QuickTime's Lead Guitarist (Marketing Director, too) will be hosting a free web seminar covering streaming and broadcasting this Thursday (3/27). Sign-up for the broadcast at the Apple Internet Streaming and Broadcasting Webcast page.
If you want a gentle introduction to QuickTime VR, check out the TechTV 3D Tour Guide. You'll find a summary of a ScreenSavers show that covered QuickTime VR, and a link to a clip of the 6 minute episode (in Windows Media format, unfortunately.) You'll note that the software demonstrated is Apple's QuickTime VR Authoring Studio, no longer supported by Apple but used by many QuickTime VR professionals.
Plus, there's a bunch of new stuff at QuickTiming.Org, including a tutorial and review of Tatoo (for skinning movies) and a review of Stitcher EZ (for stitching panoramas).
Software news:
There's a new QuickTime broadcasting tool, called uplink, that runs on both Mac OS X and Windows. Check out the abstract plane uplink page. (You'll find a Demo link, if you're interested in trying the tool before buying.)
There's a new version (2.0) of CubicConverter (for converting to and from the QuickTime VR cubic format) You'll find information and a download link at the Click Here Design CubicConverter page.
BitJazz has updated its preview version of their SheerVideo Pro codec. This codec is not a delivery codec, but is targeted for the production environment, i.e. when the video is going to be edited or manipulated before final export. The company claims this codec is faster than real-time and lossless. You can get a copy at the SheerVideo Preview page and find out for yourself.
Apple has moved the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) both spatially and temporally, from San Jose to San Francisco and from May to June. They have also posted more information about the QuickTime sessions.
A MacCentral article, "Apple to unveil digital video strategy at NAB" says that Apple has invited journalists to a press conference during NAB (April 7 - 10) to learn about Apple's strategic direction for digital video production. Would this have anything to do with QuickTime? We guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Software updates:
Version 2.1 of MAGpie (for captioning and adding audio descriptions to QuickTime, Real, and Windows Media files) has been released, and is available at the MAGpie page. (MAGpie is a tool we've pointed people towards at a number of our talks on "Cool QuickTime Tools". We're pretty excited that it's finally available.)
Totally Hip released version 1.2 of HipFlics for Mac OS X. This compression tool can now compress using the MPEG-4 video codec and the AAC audio codec. Find more information and a link to download a demo version at Totally Hip's HipFlics page.
Mac:Method has released version 1.0 of AACelerator, which converts CD tracks or any audio files to AAC-encoded QuickTime files. This $12 program is at the Mac:Method AACelerator page .
Tutorials:
At the Tips page of the Teach Yourself Adobe GoLive 6 in 24 Hours site, Adam Pratt has a tutorial on Creating Clickable QuickTime Poster Frame Movies, covering how to do this using Adobe GoLive and other Adobe products. (Scroll down to the Tutorials section; it's Tutorial #14).
David Egbert has a new tutorial on Embedding a QuickTime Movie in FrontPage 2002 .
The JVC DM-NC40 seems like an interesting new box; it's a standalone device to encode/compress a video stream to an ISMA MPEG-4 (same as QuickTime) stream and send it out over an internet connection. Read a JVC Press Release for more info.
The VFXPro community at creative planet communities provides highlights of TrendWatch's second Visual Effects/Dynamic Media report which researches U.S. media production facilities of all kinds. One of the statistics cited is that QuickTime is used by 58% of these producers.
It looks like the EU is considering having Microsoft remove Windows Media Player from Windows, thus making it a separate download like QuickTime or Real is now. Read a Reuters article "EU Experts Believe Microsoft in violation - sources" for details.
There's an interesting article at Insanely Great Mac on Microsoft's Media-to-Go OS, an operating system for cell phones which will use MPEG-4, rather than Microsoft's own Windows Media.
Software updates (one big, one small):
Live Channel Pro has been updated to version 2. (Live Channel is an extremely cool "television studio" in a small --539k download--software package.) You'll find a list of new features at a New Features in Live Channel 2.0 page.
iMovie 3.0.2 is yet another software update from Apple with little information about what it fixes. You can download the update and read a bit about it at the iMovie Updater 3.0.2 for Mac OS X:Information and Download page. (Or, you can run Software Update, found in your System Preferences pane.)
Tutorials:
At QuickTiming.org, David Egbert has a tutorial on creating low-bandwidth QuickTime slide shows with iPhoto.
You'll also find links to a number of tutorials on using eZediaQTI (for creating simple interactive QuickTime movies) at the eZedia Support Tutorials page.
There's a review of our QuickTime 6 book at myMac.com.
Apple updated the QuickTime Broadcaster to version 1.0.1. (It seems that Apple is keeping details of this update a secret--there's nothing on Apple's site about it.) You'll find it at the QuickTime Broadcaster page.
According to an L.A. Times article, Apple plans to get into the music content distribution market, providing audio encoded with the AAC (MPEG-4 Audio) codec. You'll find interesting commentary in a Register article "Apple gears up to sell music online", and in an entry at PlaybackTime, "Apple to introduce Mac-only music service, MPEG-4 AAC support for iPod".
A PC Magazine article, "Streaming Media", provides a reasonable overview of various streaming solutions.
IOXperts announces released version 1.0.2 of its USB webcam driver for Mac OS X, enabling even more USB webcams to work under OS X. You can download a trial version at the USB WebCam Driver for Mac OS X page.
There's an eWeek article titled' "Flaws Found in Apple Streaming Servers", which reports that there are six vulnerabilities in QuickTime streaming server software versions 4.1.1 and 4.1.2. Apple has updated both the Darwin Streaming Server and the Quicktime Streaming Server to version 4.1.3. You can get them at the QuickTime Streaming Server page.
The QuickTime Live page now reports that you should "get your QuickTime Live fix" at WWDC.
A MacCentral article, "Boston NPR station now streams in QuickTime", reports that WBUR in Boston is streaming in QuickTime. Check it out for yourself--it's an MPEG-4 Audio stream--using the URL http://live.wbur.org/feed/wburlive.mov, which you can copy and paste into iTunes or QuickTime Player, in addition to simply opening in your browser.
There's a new forum, Panotools for Panofreaks, that may be of interest to QuickTime VR folks.
There's a PC Pro (UK) article "Apple pushing for MPEG-4 copy protection" about Apple trying to get DRM (digital rights management) into MPEG-4 and thus QuickTime.
Software updates:
MovieWorks Deluxe 6.0 has been released. You can read more about this easy-to-use QuickTime-based content creation and multimedia authoring suite of tools for Windows and Mac (OS 9 and OS X) at the MovieWorks web site.
A new version of DiVA is available; it's the third public release of this MPEG-2 to QuickTime tool. Check out the DiVA page.
Version 1.1 of ScreenRecord, an OS X screen recording tool, is now available. You'll find more info and a link to download a demo version at the ScreenRecord page.
Some of the best examples of interactive QuickTime use in education, done at Brigham Young University, have been missing in action for quite a while now. (Is it years?) David Egbert (creator of most, if not all) has just posted an archive of these. You'll find them at the BYU CDI QuickTime Examples page. (Thanks, David!)
Apple has an update to Final Cut Express, bringing it to version 1.0.1. You can download the update from the Final Cut Express Page.
Macbase has a little tutorial, "Creating Subtitles in Quicktime Pro". (Of course, if you have any of our QuickTime Visual QuickStart Guides, you already have this info!)
More and more Mac OS X applications:
SPARK ME from TC WORKS is an audio editor that allows you to add sound (frame-accurately) to QuickTime movies. Information and a download link can be found at the SPARK ME for Mac OS X page.
Montage is a new easy-to-use video and audio editing application for OS X. Check out the Arboretum Montage page.
PixelShox Studio is a relatively new 2D/3D video effects application, that's been recently updated to version 0.91. You can read more about it at the PixelShox Community home page.
Here are some QuickTime VRs for peace, from around the world:
London (a couple of multinode panoramas here; make sure to look for the VR hotspots!)
Apple World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) is coming (May 19th thru 23). New to the QuickTime track will be sessions on content creation, according to the short description at the WWDC Conference Tracks page. (They're using the "Develop, Produce, Deliver" tag line that was used by the seemingly defunct QuickTime Live Conference.)
A SlashDot article "Good News For Creating QuickTime On Linux", mentions tools for capturing and editing QuickTime video under Linux.
MacVCD X (a Video CD Player) has been updated to deal with QuickTime 6.1 issues. You can download version 4.1.6 from Mireth Technology's download page,
Loud Motion has announced Loud Motion Studio 1.3.1 (formerly known as Stop-Motion Studio). This a $39 Mac OS stop-motion animation tool. Download a demo at the Loud Motion Studio download page.
There's a new version of MissingMpegEdit (for editing MPEG-2 files, as long as you have QuickTime Pro and the QuickTime MPEG-2 components) at RNC’s Guide to SVCD on Mac.
A number of items on compression/encoding topics:
There's a Creative Mac review of Sorenson Squeeze 3 Compression Suite, software for QuickTime compression (as well as other formats).
There's an Streaming Media article, "Video Platforms For Handhelds" that covers the many options for encoding for handheld devices.
André Senra has compiled tips about using Cleaner for compression. You'll find these at the Cleaner Tips page hosted by Tietojoukko.
BitJazz has a preview version of their SheerVideo Pro codec available for download. This codec is not a delivery codec, but is targeted for the production environment, i.e. when the video is going to be edited or manipulated before final export .The company claims this codec is faster than real-time and lossless. You can get a copy at the SheerVideo Preview page and find out for yourself.
Some tool updates:
So now you can download three-quarters of your iLife from Apple. iTunes 3, from the iTunes page; iMovie 3 form the iMovie page; iPhoto 3 from the iPhoto page. (Note that MacInTouch has some reader reports on problems with iMovie 3.)
Version 1.5 of Pageot, a free Mac tool that generates QuickTime EMBED and OBJECT code to use in your web pages, is available at the Pageot page.
Version 1.0b15 of SecuritySpy (Mac video surveillance software) was released. You'll find info and a download link for a 30-day evaluation of the software at the SecuritySpy web site.
LeapFrog Productions has released a Mac OS X version of CCaptionPro. It's a tool for captioning QuickTime content. You can also run the Program on Windows and Mac OS 9, as well as caption other digital media formats. Check out LeapFrog's home page
iMovie VSS is a cool little Mac OS X tool to switch the video standard of iMovie 3 from NTSC to PAL (or vice-versa). Read the VersionTracker iMovieVSS page for more info and to download the tool.
If you haven't been to QuickTiming.org in awhile, check it out. There's a lot of new stuff--tutorials, reviews. forums, reports from Macworld--that's been added since we last mentioned the site.
Ben Waggoner's week-long workshop on video compression will be held June 30 - July 4 and again on August 11 - 15 as part of the Digital Media Academy on the Stanford University campus. You can read a description of the Mastering Video Compression class; general information (including the schedule for other courses you may find interesting) is available on the Digital Academy Courses and Dates page.
An O'Grady's PowerPage snippet titled "Safari Users Should Install QuickTime 6.1" reports that QuickTime 6.1 helps in loading some graphics in Safari.
MacCritric has, for lack of a better term, a Stupid QuickTime Trick. Check out Transparent QuickTime Movies.
A BusinessWeek Online article, "What's with the Hassles from Apple?" has a number of complaints about Apple's business techniques, including some about QuickTime Pro marketing.
Both OGrady's PowerPage and MacInTouch have lots of reader comments about viewing/digitizing video on the Mac. Check out the O'Grady's PowerPage thread, "The OS X Digital TV Experience" and the MacInTouch Reader Report on Digitizing Video.
Software news:
Check out Stop-Motion Studio, $39 Mac shareware for doing stop-frame animation using a FireWire video source.
Math Game House has released iStorm, a $20 shareware collaboration application, which includes iChalk, a shared electronic chalkboard that can save sessions as QuickTime movies.
For those of you wishing to get an iLife (or even a piece of an iLife, like iMovie 3) , you'll have to wait a bit longer, according to a MacCentral article, "iLife bundle delayed until Jan. 31".
Version 3 of Sorenson Squeeze (compression software) is now shipping, according to a 1/27/03 Sorenson press release.
The folks at digitallyOBSESSED have created QT HTML, a small application for Mac OS X that puts an interface on the creation of QuickTime EMBED and OBJECT tags. For more information and a link to download the software, go to the digitallyOBSESSED software page and scroll to nearly the bottom.
MacMegasite is reporting that a number of games have been broken by QuickTime 6.1. You'll find links to two of the vendors' sites with fixes at the posting, "Many Games affected by QuickTime 6.1"
Sorenson Squeeze 3.0 crashes when compressing to MPEG-4 if QuickTime 6.1 is installed. Sorenson has information about this on their "Crash when compressing to MP4 - Troubleshoot" support page.
IOXperts has updated their FireWire Webcam driver to work with QT 6.1, according to a MacCentral article "IOXperts FireWire Webcam driver adds QT 6.1 support".
Two new (inexpensive) products are at the Qtilities site. One is a QT Detection Pack, a set of movies and web pages you can customize so your viewers will either see your movie or get proper instructions for installing the right version of QuickTime. The other is a QT Remote Controller, a controller (that's actually a QuickTime movie) that can control another movie on the same page.
AppleCare Knowledge Base document 120175 has the QuickTime Streaming Server Admin Guide for Mac OS X 10.2 to 10.2.3, which provides information for setting up, configuring, and managing a QuickTime Streaming Server.
News from Macworld:
Apple released QuickTime 6.1. Get it by running your QuickTime Updater, or choosing Update Existing Software from your QuickTime Player menu (Mac OS X) or Help menu (Windows). Interface changes include:
- A return (from QuickTime 5) of a Present Movie item in the File menu. (In QuickTime 6.0 they renamed the item "Full Screen"; now, in 6.1, "Full Screen" simply plays the topmost movie fullscreen. Makes more sense this way.)
- You can now use key commands to control movies played via the Present Movie or Full Screen commands.
- When you choose Movie to QuickTime Movie or Movie to MPEG-4 movie in the Export dialog, you'll find new presets in the Use menu.
- In the Player Preference dialog, there's now a choice for showing the graphic equalizer in the LCD area. (Performance may be better when you don't show the equalizer.)
- The Audio panel in the MPEG-4 dialog has interface changes.
And, according to the Macintosh System Update control panel, other enhancements in QuickTime 6.1 include improvements to the MPEG-4 video codec, the AAC (MPEG-4 audio) codec, and the DV codec.
Apple also released new versions of three of their "i" products: iMovie 3, iPhoto 2, and iDVD 3. Along with iTunes 3, Apple is calling the package "iLife". All the products are well integrated. You'll be able to download for free iMovie 3, iPhoto 2, and iTunes 3, but will need to purchase iLife ($49) if you want iDVD 3. Start at Apple's iLife page for more information.
Apple also introduced Final Cut Express, a reduced (in both features and price) version of Final Cut Pro. More information is available at the Final Cut Express page.
The International QuickTime VR Association had an awesome display of printed panoramic photos at Macworld; you can see the exhibit online at the IQTVRA Panoramic Print Gallery page.
eZedia announced eZediaQTI, a tool (for Mac OS X or Windows) that you can use to easily create very simple interactive QuickTime movies. Read more and download a demo at the eZediaQTI page.
Software updates:
The Make Mine MPEG-4 AppleScript (automates the process of ripping CD tracks and encoding them with QuickTime 6 Pro as MPEG-4 audio files) has been updated to version 4; you'll find it at the Make Mine MPEG-4 page. (OS X required.)
Apple has released a bug fix for its MakeRefMovie tool (for creating the reference movie that points to movie alternates) for Mac OS X. (The Mac OS 9 and Windows versions didn't need the bug fix). Get the update from the QuickTime Development Resources page.
Discreet released Mac Cleaner Updater 6.0.1; this updates the Kinoma Exporter for creating Palm movies from QuickTime files. (Discreet lists the file's size at 34.6 MB, but the archive is actually only about 9 megs.) You'll find it at the Cleaner Downloads page.
Codec Calculator has been updated to version 2.5. (This is a handy little Mac utility that predicts file sizes and data rates of movies, or will tell you how many minutes of video you'll be able to fit in a certain amount of storage.) Get it at the Codec Calculator page.
MacTV 1.2 is an updated version of an application designed to be used to tune into Cisco IP/TV broadcasts and mBone broadcasts. Get it from iwintnesstv.
You can now get version 1.0d6 of the Ogg Vorbis QuickTime component at the QuickTime Components Project page. (Ogg Vorbis is an audio compression technology; this QuickTime component lets you play back files that are encoded with Ogg Vorbis.)
Miscellaneous other items of interest:
Michael Shaff at Small Hands (along with others) created a cool new project for the band Superfluid. It's a wired, skinned, VRed movie. Definitely worth seeing if you're interested in how interactive QuickTime can be. Check out the Superfluid Load Album page.
Creative Mac has published an article "Interactive QuickTime Authoring, Part 4: There's QuickTime authoring built into what?", that covers the really cool QuickTime editor in Adobe's GoLive.
There's a new component for QuickTime (Mac OS X and Windows), that allows QuickTime playback of a wide range of 3D formats. More information and a download link is at the Kaydara FBX for QuickTime page.
This isn't our normal day to post. We'll have news on the 14th, but in the meantime, here are the slides from our Journey Through QuickTime Player Pro talk at Macworld (as promised to the folks who were there).
One other quick item: QuickTime 6.1 was released today. No major changes but a few interface changes, which we'll detail next week. Get 6.1 by running your QuickTime Updater, or choosing Update Existing Software from your QuickTime Player menu (Mac OS X) or Help menu (Windows). Looks like there's no update for Mac OS 9.
NTT DoCoMo (the largest cell phone service supplier in Japan) announced that it will support MPEG-4 on its new cell phones and Apple will release a version of QuickTime to support the these phones. For more details and analysis see a MacCentral Article "DoCoMo unveils MPEG-4 phones; new QuickTime coming" or a Online Reporter article, "Apple Strikes Major Blow in Streaming Media Market".
Ben Waggoner's new e-book on Cleaner 6 (the latest version of the popular video compression tool) is now available. You can get details and order it at the Ben Waggoner Compression Style Guide to Cleaner page.
TribeWorks has released a final candidate of iShell 3, their QuickTime-based multimedia authoring tool. Start at Tribeworks' Upgrade to Productivity page for information.
Jobs' Macworld January 7th keynote will be broadcast via QuickTime; check the Macworld San Francisco 2003 Keynote page .
For those who haven't seen the full extent of what you can do with QuickTime VR Object movies, check out the interactive animations at the Wacky Stuff Institute.
Evological has updated EvoCam (formally CoolCam, Mac-only shareware webcam software) to version 3.0.
A 12/15 ZyGoDigital Press release reports on their video broadcasting system (called ZyGoCasting) and notes that you can buy ZyGoVideo Pro (for QuickTime compression) for $59 (40% off) through the New Year.
More lawyer fun: check out an ExtremeTech article titled "Porn Kings Aflame Over Multimedia Patents" which reports that a company named Acacia Research has a number of patents on multimedia. This could theoretically affect anyone delivering content with QuickTime or any media other architecture. (We're not too nervous. Does anyone remember Compton's New Media patent claims of almost ten years ago?)
We'll be taking the next three weeks off to prepare for our Macworld Talk and enjoy the Holidaze.
The next Little QuickTime Page will be posted on January 14th, 2003.
A bunch of MPEG-4-related items:
Check out PlaybackTime's entry titled "Winner of 'NerdTV' MPEG-4 encoder showdown", describing a little contest in which Sorenson's MPEG-4 encoder did the best, and Apple's did the worst.
Radioio (an Internet radio station) is doing QuickTime MPEG-4 radio webcasts. Read a Macminute blurb "QuickTime 6 used to deliver industry's first MPEG-4 radio webcast" and a Radioio press release.
3ivx Delta 4 PR2 has been released for Windows and Mac OS. (This is an MPEG-4 codec that claims to work with QuickTime.) You'll find links to a press release and a download page at the 3ivx.com News page.
DV.com's "QuickTime and Windows Media 9 Series" covers both QuickTime 6 and windows Media 9. The QuickTime coverage is mostly about Apple's MPEG-4 implementation.
Miscellaneous Updates:
Apple has updated DVD Studio Pro to version 1.5.2, Final Cut Pro to version 3.0.4 and the Carbon Sound Manager to version 6.0.2. (This last one is a Mac OS X system level QuickTime component; it's not clear who needs it.)
For Mac Premiere 6.5 users, there's an updater for the capture component. Get it at the Premiere for Macintosh Downloads page.
Microscope (Mac OS X software for the inexpensive Intel QX3 Digital Microscope) has been updated to version 1.1. (This software allows your to capture images and create time-lapse QuickTime movies). You can read more about the software (and even where to purchase the microscope, if you don't already have it) at the Microscope page.
QuickTiming.org (the other QuickTime News site) has added two new features: a glossary and knowledge base (currently empty).
Sorenson announced three new versions of Squeeze (its video compression tool):
An entry at PlaybackTime, "MPEG LA releases MPEG-4 Visual Patent Portfolio License" provides a quick summary and commentary on the finally released MPEG-4 Visual license, which may affect QuickTime content distributors.
If you want to see something beautiful, check out VRMAG's "Parma Project"; you'll see some gorgeous VRs of an Italian church.
There's now a version of Seagull Video Player (video playlist maker) that will output to DV cameras and other devices, according to a MacCentral article, "Seagull Video Player goes Pro".
Macromedia announced Director MX; its new features (listed on the Director New Features page) include support for QuickTime 6.
Version 1.4.5 of Pageot, a free Mac tool that generates QuickTime EMBED and OBJECT code to use in your web pages, is available at the Pageot page.
Some neat tools for OS X folks only:
ChiperSoft Systems has created Simple Video Splicer; as the name implies, it's for simply putting clips together. Check out the Simple Video Splicer page.
D-Vision is a tool for creating DiVX-encoded movies . Start by reading the D-Vision FAQ.
Granted Software has released Still Life, a program that creates QuickTime movies by animating still images. Download the software from Granted Software Products page.
iVideo is a free multitrack video editing tool. According to the iVideo web site, the developers' "goal was to include all the features of QuickTime Pro and iMovie in one free software"
Apple released version 4.1.2 of both their QuickTime Streaming Server (for Mac OS X Server) and their Darwin Streaming Server (for Mac OS X, Red Hat Linux 7.1, Solaris 8, Windows NT Server/Windows 2000 Server). Both have bug fixes as well as the ability to control the QuickTime Broadcaster while running on Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar).
A variety of other software updates this week (Mac only):
Owners of the Mac version of Totally Hip's LiveStage Pro 4.0 will want to get the version 4.0.1 updater; follow the links from the Totally Hip home page. (If you're curious about what's changed, you'll need to download the updater and read the Read Me.)
Stupendous Software released new versions of four iMovie plugins: Color Effects, Crops & Zooms, Glows & Blurs and Smoke & Glass. Start at the Stupendous Software home page; they have 141 iMovie effects.
Aurora Video Systems has released beta Mac OS X drivers for its Igniter video capture card; you can download them from Aurora's Software and Drivers page.
MovieOut from Mien Software is a small, inexpensive ($20) Mac OS program to output movies to a DV device. You can get this program (recently updated to version 1.0.1) from the MovieOut page.
Qtilities.com has a new QuickTime widget, QT Slide Controller and a Windows version of the QT Tag Converter.
There's a MacCentral report, "Full screen QTVRs flourish", which covers the Worldwide VR Panorama Web site.
There's a good review of Ben Waggoner's book "Compression for Great Digital Video" at the Creative Cow.
It's been a while since we've posted a link to something about MPEG-4. If you're feeling like you need some review, check out a Newsfactor Special Report, "Where Is MP4?".
Schedules for the January Macworld Conference in San Francisco are posted. You'll find a number of sessions related to QuickTime. We'll be doing a talk on January 8, "Journey through QuickTime Player Pro 6".
We'll be taking next week off. The next Little QuickTime Page will be posted on December 3rd.
Some interesting content to look at this week:
Apple has posted two QuickTime VR panos from the new Harry Potter Movie. Check out the Lockharts pano and the Hagrids Hut pano. (And to think we thought Apple had forgotten about QTVR!)
Other World Computing has a compilation of spoofs of Apple's switch campaign.
There's an O'Grady's PowerPage article, "QuickTime 6 and MPEG 4: Great Sound, Small Files" that summarizes the use of MPEG-4 audio as a replacement for MP3 audio.
An AppleCare Knowledgebase article, "QuickTime: About the QuickTime 6.0.2 Update" lists what was new in QuickTime 6.0.2.
Another AppleCare Knowledgebase article, "Power Mac G4 (Mirrored Drive Door): QuickTime Movie Has Purple or Green Tint", suggests that OS X users upgrade to OS X 10.2.2.
A creativemac.com review of Discreet Cleaner 6 gives high ratings to the latest version (Mac only) of Cleaner, the popular compression tool.
Another article at creativemac.com, subtitled "Is LiveStage Professional Totally Hip?" (part of the Interactive QuickTime series), covers LiveStage Professional, the most significant tool available for creating interactive QuickTime movies.
Some new-ish tools:
Playlist Player is simple Mac OS X 10.2 QuickTime player.
Sync-Hole tries to sync out-of-sync QuickTime movies. We haven't tried it but you can get it from the Sync-Hole page.
And, there are more cool tools coming from the Qtilities site. This week they're widgets (small interactive controls you can copy and paste into your own QuickTime movies). One is a QT Video Controller, a widget to control movies in presentation mode, and the other is a QT Caption Button, so viewers can hide or show captions in your movie. (Each is only $7.95)
Apple has updated some of its QuickTime Developer documentation: Inside QuickTime: Interactive Movies and Inside QuickTime: QuickTime VR
The Qtilities site has a new OS X tool, called QT Playlist Maker, that creates QuickTime movies that play your audio or video clips in sequence. The playlist movie is created with a chapter menu so you can jump to a specific clip. Get more info at the QT Playlist Maker page.
A new tool for creating QuickTime animations is available at the Pencil Test site. It takes care of compiling your frames into a movie, allowing you to specify scale, rotation, and frame rate, among other properties.
QuickTiming.org debuted this week; it's a fairly extensive QuickTime news and information site. The site looks good. Hopefully it will last longer than other similar sites.
Eric Hangstefer has written Microscope 1.0 for the Intel QX3 Digital Microscope (a very inexpensive microscope being used in schools). Eric's software allows the microscope to work with Mac OS X (The Intel software didn't.). You can capture images and create time-lapse QuickTime movies (even adding text comments and/or timestamps). You can read more about the software (and even where to purchase the microscope, if you don't already have it) at the Microscope page.
Check out an article at Creative Mac, "Interactive QuickTime Authoring, Part 2: iShell, therefore iAm", which provides a good overview of the iShell multimedia authoring tool and explains its relationship to QuickTime.
There's at least one bug that we now know that QuickTime 6.0.2 (released last week) fixes: An Apple Knowledgebase document, "QuickTime 6: Embedded URLs May Not Work", explains that QuickTime 6.0.2 is the solution for a problem where some URLs in movies (e.g. in sprites, QTVR hot spots, or text tracks) don't work correctly.
Erik Goetze has started VRlog, a Virtual Reality news and analysis site. While not exclusively about QuickTime VR, much of the content is QuickTime-related.
There are also new items at the VR.refocus.de site--new QuickTime VR examples and new links to tutorials.
If you're looking for a tool to help organize your movies, check out David Ahmed's MovieHouse, a shareware application that has an interesting interface: it gives you a 3D gallery through which you can walk to view your movies. MovieHouse has recently been updated to version 3.
Flix Pro 3.1 is now available, according to the Wildform website. Flix is a tool that converts QuickTime movies (and other video files) to various Flash formats, including but not limited to the latest version of Flash, Flash MX.
A news.com article, "Group extends MPEG-4 patent deadline", reports that the MPEG-LA (the group that deals with MPEG-4 licensing) has moved the date for patent submissions for the new H.264 (AVC) codec from October 11, 2002 to January 31, 2003. We guess we won't be seeing this very high quality codec as part of QuickTime's MPEG-4 QuickTime implementation anytime soon. (Maybe QuickTime 7?)
A WorldTechTribune article, "ALERT: Porn pop-up virus hidden in free e-greeting email" describes a virus that can infect your computer while downloading a legitimate program. The article gives an example of a user downloading QuickTime! More info on the virus can be found at Symantec's W32.Friendgreet.worm page.
Today we received our first copies of our QuickTime 6 book. You can order your copy of QuickTime 6 for Macintosh and Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide; it should ship very, very soon.
There have been over 25 million downloads of QuickTime 6, according to Apple press releases and various articles, including a PC World article, "Users Quick to Switch to QuickTime 6", all of which also say that this is good for the adoption of MPEG-4.
QuickTime 6.0.2 is available. It's what you'll get it if you now download QuickTime from the QuickTime download page. (Some of you may find that QuickTime offers to get this update automatically, but most of you will probably have to download and install manually). Apple hasn't released any information about what's new or fixed with this release. (Note that, according to the QuickTime System Requirements page, Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro users shouldn't be upgrading to any version of QuickTime 6 via download.)
Cleaner 6 (compression tool) for Mac started shipping this past week, too. Details (including upgrade pricing) are in a 10/16 Discreet press release.
A recent article at O'Reilly Network, "Digital Killed the Video Star", covers how Mac users can create a documentary movie using only still images and inexpensive tools. (One of the most important tools is the $10 Photo to Movie, which we mentioned in August when it was first released, and which is now at version 1.8.)
The Make Mine MPEG-4 AppleScript (automates the process of ripping CD tracks and encoding them with QuickTime 6 Pro as MPEG-4 audio files), has been updated to version 3.5; you'll find it at the Make Mine MPEG-4 page. (OS X required.)
If you're a K-12 teacher Apple will give you the latest version of Mac OS X ("Jaguar") for free. (It comes with QuickTime 6 and iMovie.) Check out the X for Teachers page.
Well, we're back. It's been over two months since we last updated, so the news below goes back as far as mid-August (though we've emphasized more recent items). We're sure we missed something; if you notice something we've missed, drop us a note. Also, over the next week or so we'll be changing ISP/Hosting to cliq.com, though we don't anticipate any problems.
PlaybackTime.com is a new digital media new site, brought to you by Charles Wiltgen, a man who's been involved with QuickTime for many years (he was the keeper of the original QuickTime FAQ, Apple's QuickTime evangelist, and Product Manger for Media Cleaner when that product was still at Terran. Plus, he tech-edited one of our QuickTime books.).
PlaybackTime.com has an article on the new MPEG-4 codec, AVC (also known as H.264). It's supposed to be quite a bit better than MPEG-4 Video, the MPEG-4 codec available in the current QuickTime implementation, as well as the codecs currently available from Microsoft, Real, and Sorenson.
If you want more details about AVC, read an EE Times article, "H.264 codec jeopardizes MPEG-4's ascendancy".
Additional information on MPEG-4 can be found in a News.com article, "Apple gives MPEG-4 a new shine".
There's a flaw in the ActiveX control that came with QuickTime 5, which could allow hackers to cause major problems to your system. Details are in an internetnews.com article, "ActiveX Flaw Bugs Apple's QuickTime".
What's the impact of Microsoft's launch of Windows Media 9 on QuickTime? See an Insanely Great Mac article, "Jobs on WMP 9: 'Nobody Can Be A Gatekeeper'", and a MacCentral article, "Apple: Windows Media Player shows anti-standards behavior".
Apple has a new technical training class on QuickTime Streaming. It's a 3-day course, price is $1575, and the next one being offered is in NYC. Looks jam-packed with all sorts of information that you'll need to know if you want to stream QuickTime or MPEG-4 from a QuickTime Streaming Server. Details are at the Apple Customer Training page for QuickTime Streaming.
If you're interested in creating QuickTime VR Object movies, check out a MacWorld article, "Easy-to-Use VR-Object-Creation Software Lets You Take Things for a Spin"
If you recall, Sorenson and Apple were suing each other. Well, they've settled, according to a detail-less 10/2 press release, "Apple and Sorenson Media Settle Lawsuit"
TribeWorks has a preview version of its iShell Mobile Edition tool for authoring interactive media for playback on Palm OS devices with the Kinoma Player. (Kinoma and TribeWorks both have a long QuickTime history and both products support QuickTime video as source material.)
There's a major new release of LiveStage Pro (released about a month ago). Version 4 of this software for creating interactive QuickTime movies is considered significantly easier to use than version 3. More details (including an interactive tour) are at.Totally Hip's LiveStage Professional page.
Some additional software updates:
QT Tag Converter, for adding appropriate object code to existing QuickTime embed tags, has been updated to version 1.6. Find it at the QT Tag Converter page.
The Make Mine MPEG-4 AppleScript (automates the process of ripping CD tracks and encoding them with QuickTime 6 Pro as MPEG-4 audio files), has been updated to version 3.1; you'll find it at the Make Mine MPEG-4 page. (OS X required.)
SecuritySpy version 1.0b11 was released. This is multi-camera video surveillance software for the Macintosh, that can capture QuickTime movies when motion is detected. Check out the page SecuritySpy page.
Feelorium's Textation (for creating text tracks, href tracks, and chapter tracks) has been updated to version 1.1.1. More info is at the Textation page.
Channel Storm released version 1.4.2 of its Live Channel QuickTime broadcasting software ("TV studio in a Mac") . And, you can now get a deal if you purchase both Channel Storm's Live Channel and eLine Technologies' VideoClix (for creating video with interactive hotspots). Whether you buy them together or purchase one of them (if you've already bought the other), you can save (between $100 and $300). More info is on the Channel Storm News and Events page.
Sorenson Squeeze (for compressing QuickTime movies using the Sorenson codec) has been upgraded to version 2.0.2. If you already have Squeeze you can get an upgrade at the Upgrade to Sorenson Squeeze 2.02 page.
If anybody's still checking this page: We finished our QuickTime 6 Visual QuickStart Guide last night! (It'll be available in bookstores in 3 weeks.) We'll be back next Tuesday night (10/15) with news.
Judy and Robert
The Little QuickTime page is six years old. We’re going to take a rest from doing the page as we finish our New QuickTime 6 Visual QuickStart Guide. We'd like to hear from our readers as to what you think the future of this page should be.
Thanks, Judy and Robert
A new useful little $10 utility is Photo to Movie (for Mac OS X). With it you can create a movie by panning and zooming over a still image. More info and a trial version are at the Photo to Movie page.
Tool updates:
A new version of SnapZ Pro X (Mac OS X screen capture tool, for recording both stills and movies) is available. Version 1.6 is compatible with both QuickTime 6 and Mac OS 10.2. Information and a link to download the software is at the SnapZ Pro X page.
Retiarius Enterprises released QT Tag Converter version 1.5 (now for Mac OS X as well as Mac OS 8 and 9); this is a $20 tool that will go through all your HTML pages and convert all your QuickTime EMBED tags into the necessary OBJECT tags. You can find out more and download a preview version from the Retiarius Enterprises QT Tag Converter page.
Some online tutorials on QuickTime VR and Flash:
How to add Flash menu to a QuickTime VR file.
Assembling a Multi-Node QTVR Tour with Embedded Flash Navigation
And, some live learning opportunities:
The QuickTime Kitchenette, a half-day $50 seminar in Atlanta, Georgia at the end of August, which covers all things QuickTime, including how QuickTime works with other media creation tools, as well as about QuickTime Streaming Server and QuickTime Broadcaster.
The Ultimate Streaming Seminar, a two-day $895 workshop that'll be held in New York City in September, covering Real, Windows Media, and MPEG-4 as well as QuickTime.
A News.com article, "Will Real feast where Apple failed?" compares Real Network's recent open source efforts with Apple's.
A TechTV article, "QuickTime 6 Embraces MPEG-4" and an associated video clip (encoded as Windows Media) give a light introduction to QuickTime's MPEG-4 support.
A Digital Media Journal article, "What You Need to Know about MPEG-4" is considerably more substantial in it's coverage of MPEG-4, though it was written just before QuickTime 6 was released.
Miscellaneous software updates (for Mac users):
The Make Mine MPEG-4 AppleScript we mentioned last week that encodes CD Tracks using the MPEG-4 audio codec (AAC), has been updated to version 1.4; you'll find it at the Make Mine MPEG-4 page.
Square Box Systems has released version 2.5.8 of CatDV, their DV logging tool. You'll find more information and a free demo at the CatDV home page.
TruPlaya 1.01 was recently released. Get this fullscreen QuickTime movie player at the Lost Minds TruPlaya page.
A new product, Tekadence Magik, was recently released. This tool (for Windows and Mac OS X) lets non-programmers drag-and-drop to build interactive Java applications that can contain all kinds of media (including QuickTime, of course.). Find out more and download a free 30-day trial version of the software at the Tekadence web site.
Did you know that we started publishing the Little QuickTime Page this week in 1996 when QuickTime 2.5 was released!
Some more QuickTime 6-related items:
You can now play MPEG-2 video in QuickTime 6, but you'll need to spend $19.95 US per platform (Windows, Mac OS 9 and/or Mac OS X) for the QuickTime 6 MPEG-2 Playback component, available through the Apple store--do a search for "MPEG" and you'll find it. (Note: this is only for MPEG-2 playback. MPEG-1 and MPEG-4 playback are part of the standard QuickTime installation.)
Apple released version 4.1 of both their QuickTime Streaming Server (for Mac OS X Server) and their Darwin Streaming Server (for Mac OS X, Red Hat Linux 7.1, Solaris 8, Windows NT Server/Windows 2000 Server). They both support Instant-On Streaming (which reduces buffer time for broadband users) and MPEG-4 streaming.
The "What's New in QuickTime 6" technical document located at the QuickTime API Site Updates page, is no longer "preliminary" documentation. (This one was updated 7/17.)
There's an Apple press release, "Apple’s Macworld Keynote Is First Major MPEG-4 Streaming Event" that talks about the success of Steve Jobs' keynote last week.
There's a new version of MakeRefMovie that lets you set up a reference movie that delivers QuickTime 6 movies only to those that have QuickTime 6. Find it on Apple's QuickTime Tools & Utilities page.
New tools for Mac OS users:
Mickey-San has written an AppleScript to play QuickTime movies full screen, it's available from macscipters.net.
Another new AppleScript automates the process of ripping CD tracks, encoding them using the MPEG-4 audio codec (AAC), and then adding them to your iTunes library. This is one of Doug's Applescripts, and you'll find this script at his Make Mine MPEG-4 v1.3 page.
Then there's a new tool called AACelerator, which also converts (CD tracks or any audio files) to AAC-encoded QuickTime files. This one's at the Mac:Method AACelerator page.
Channel Storm announced version 1.4 for Mac OS X of Live Channel, their tool for live QuickTime broadcasting. (It's actually much more than just a broadcaster, however. It lets you synchronize various types of media with your live broadcast, and more!) Check out the Channel Storm web site for more info.
Today, Ben Bird announced the release of version1.0b1 of SecuritySpy, a new multi-camera video surveillance software product for the Macintosh. Details are at the SecuritySpy web site.
Discreet has announced Cleaner 6 for Macintosh. (Cleaner is their popular video compression tool.). More information at the Cleaner 6 page.
And then some new tools for both Mac OS and Windows folks:
Kaydara has released a public preview of a new QuickTime component (for Mac OS X and Windows) that enables QuickTime to open files in the FBX format (Kaydara's 3D animation format). Get it at Kaydara's FBX for QuickTime page.
In a similar vein, MindAvenue has released an AXEL component for QuickTime, so you can use QuickTime Player to view interactive 3D content created MindAvenue's AXELedge and AXELcore authoring tools. Check out MindAvenue's press page for a press release about this.
Adobe announced an upgrade to Premiere 6.5. Details are at Adobe's Premiere page.
Kinoma has released version 1.1 of their Player (lets you view movies on a Palm OS device) and Producer (for making these movies). Read the Kinoma Producer 1.1 Announcement.
And last but not least: In April, Apple sued Sorenson and now Sorenson is suing Apple; only the lawyers are happy! You can read more about it in a MacCentral article "Sorenson Media countersues Apple"
Apple released QuickTime 6 yesterday! You can download it at the QuickTime Download page. If you use QuickTime Pro, you'll want to also visit the Get QuickTime Pro page where you can purchase a new Pro key. (Your old one won't work.)
Information about QuickTime 6:
For a good summary of what's new in QuickTime 6, check out the QuickTime 6/QuickTime Player page.
If you go to the QuickTime API Site Updates page, you'll find a link to a "What's New in QuickTime 6" technical document. The one there now was updated on June 18 (more recently than the last time we mentioned this document, but it's still "Preliminary" documentation.)
Apple also released QuickTime Broadcaster (for Mac OS X only). You can download it, and get more information at the QuickTime Broadcaster page.
If you're curious about what happened with the MPEG-4 licensing (largely what was holding up QuickTime 6 and QuickTime Broadcaster), you'll find an ok summary in a News.com article, "Licensing decision ends MPEG-4 tiff".
If you feel a need to go back to QuickTime 5, go to the QuickTime Support page.
Macworld New York starts tomorrow with Steve Jobs' keynote (in which he's sure to talk about QuickTime); you can see the keynote live and in QuickTime from the Macworld New York Keynote 2002 page. Also, check out a news.com article "Microsoft tries to steal Macworld thunder".
Streaming Media World has an interview with Steven W. Gulie, author of the "QuickTime for the Web" book.
News.com had a June 19 story "Statistics firms revisit QuickTime counts" that reports that Nielsen/NetRatings will change how they count the number of viewers of streamed content, likely resulting in a higher percentage for QuickTime's market share. (The article says that new research was supposed to be released on July 1, but we haven't seen anything yet.)
Additional new software:
Streambox Inc. released Streambox ACTION a tool for compressing video using the Streambox ACT-L2 codec (which is part of the QuickTime component download program). Check out the Streambox ACTION page for more info and to download a trial version.
ZyGoDigital released ZyGoVideo Pro 2.0, another QuickTime codec that's part of Apple's Component Download Program. Details are in a July 8th ZyGoDigital press release.
Feelorium has new versions of a number of their QuickTime shareware tools:
- Tattoo 1.2 (for creating media skins with controls)
- Textation 1.1 (for creating text tracks, href tracks, and chapter tracks)
- Full Screen Player 1.1.4 (for playing movies full screen without QuickTime Player Pro)
Squamish Media Group is offering the VR Enhancement Suite, a $295 software bundle including SoundSaVR, NodeSaVR, MapsaVR, and revolVR . More info is in a MacCentral article, "New product suite offers QTVR tools".
Virtual Composer (a QuickTime music composition tool) has been updated to version 3.2. See the Virtual Composer page for more information.
Educators may be interested in eZedia's new Zoom-ed page which has information about educational pricing for eZediaMX (multimedia authoring software that has pretty good QuickTime support), as well as various resources for educators.
Master compressionist Ben Waggoner has made available (as PDF files) his many articles on compression; check out the Ben's Online Article Archive. You may also want to check out Ben's Bookshelf where he lists his favorite compression-related books (including ours!). Speaking of books, you can now pre-order Ben's book, "Compression for Great Digital Video" at Amazon.
New software from Apple (finally!):
Apple has released a Public Preview of QuickTime 6. You can download it at the QuickTime 6 Public Preview page. On that page you'll also find various links to information and samples. Particularly worth checking out are the MPEG-4 samples, the AAC samples, and the Instant-On samples. You may also want to read the QuickTime 6 FAQ.
If you go to the QuickTime API Site Updates page, you'll find a link to a "What's New in QuickTime 6" document. While much of it is very technical and written for developers, there's information of use to media authors as well.
Apple also released a public preview of their new QuickTime Broadcaster for Mac OS X only. You can download it, and get more information at the QuickTime Broadcaster Public Preview page.
A good summary of the features of the Broadcaster can be found in a osOpinion.com piece, "QuickTime Broadcaster - Future of Streaming Audio and Video"
Some of the issues concerning QuickTime 6 and MPEG-4 are covered in a News.com interview, "One-on-one with Steve Jobs".
If you're running your own QuickTime Streaming Server, and you want to check out the Instant-On feature for your clips or want to try communicating with the QuickTime Broadcaster, go to the Darwin Streaming Server page, where you'll find Streaming Server 4.0.2 Development Snapshots (compiled binaries you can download).
Of course, there are also complaints about QuickTime 6 surfacing. See QuickTime's 20 Easy Steps, in which each of the steps for installing QuickTime is documented (and you are urged to contact Apple if you agree that it's too many steps.)
If you decide you're unhappy with QuickTime 6 Public Preview, you can always re-install QuickTime 5. Mac OS 9 and Windows users can get the QuickTime 5 installers at the QuickTime Download page; Mac OS X users will need to go to the AppleCare Knowledge Base Document 120084, where there's a QuickTime 5 Reinstaller for Mac OS X
Another interesting osOpinion.com piece, "QuickTime 6 Could Kill RealNetworks on the Mac" talks about Real's lack of support for Mac OS X.
And, in other news (not directly related to QuickTime 6):
There's interesting new Mac-only QuickTime authoring software that lets you create interactive animated talking characters, which play back (on Mac and Windows computers) using only QuickTime. Check out the MacHeadroom Says Hello page (and be sure to check out the Gallery).
Henry Mason has released QuickTime codecs that allow OS X QuickTime users to view AVI files compressed with the MS-MPEG4v1 and MS-MPEG4v2 codecs . Find them at the MS-MPEG4v1 for Mac OS X page and the MS-MPEG4v2 for Mac OS X page.
Slightly old news: There's a Final Cut Pro 3.0.2 update. Find links to download pages at the Final Cut Pro Download page. (Mac OS 9 users should note that future updates to Final Cut Pro will be only for Mac OS X.)
eZedia released eZeScreen, a Mac OS X iMovie 2 plug-in for overlaying QuickTime movies over iMovie clips-- you can adjust the transparency and fade levels of any selected color. More information is at the eZeScreen page.
Wildform has released Flix Lite for Windows and Mac. Use Flix to convert your QuickTime files to Flash (the new Flash MX or older versions of Flash). Details are at the Flix page.
Looking for QuickTime on a PDA? This is the closest you're going to get: Kinoma released Kinoma Producer and Kinoma Player for Palm OS. (This video looks awesome on a Sony CLIÉ with its high-resolution screen! For those up on QuickTime history, it's using an updated version of Cinepak!)
Time for a vacation. We'll be back July 16.
Mac OS X users looking for alternative movie players: There's now a Mac OS X port of MPlayer (The Movie Player for Linux). Go to the MPlayerOSXgui HomePage.
New versions of VideoScript (version 2.2.13) for Windows, Mac OS, and Mac OS X are available at the VideoScript Download page. (VideoScript is a tool that can be used to write scripts for processing video.)
Check out the Nuts & Bolts of QTVR CD page, if you're interested in a CD-ROM that can teach you lots about QuickTime VR. (It's only $39.95 until the end of May, and then goes up to $49.95.)
Here's some non-news about QuickTime: an article in MacCentral, "Washington Post article ignores QuickTime" . More interesting than the article, if you have the time, are all the responses...
For some interesting case studies on the use of DV (including QuickTime) in the sciences, see Apple's Digital Video in Science and Technology Page.
It's been a pretty light couple of weeks...we'll be back in two weeks, June 11, and then we'll be off again until July 16.
It looks like we'll be waiting at least a few more months for QuickTime 6. A CNET News.com article, "Despite hang-up, QuickTime 6 launch set" reports a late-summer release. And, according to a May 6th press release from Apple QuickTime 6 has been distributed as part of the developer preview of "Jaguar" (the next version of OS X, which will also be a late summer release),
A CNET News.com article, "Net video's obstacle to a steady stream" provides some good background information for understanding limitations in the quality of streaming video, including QuickTime.
And, a CNN.com article, "Digital video forecast goes fuzzy" provides a review of all the issues surrounding MPEG-4.
There's a Streaming Media World article, "VideoClix: Interactive Video Authoring" covering the development and features of VideoClix, software that allows you to add interactive hotspots, chapters, and time-triggered actions to QuickTime movies.
Trying to make sense of QuickTime compression? A Streaming Media article, "Guide to Great Web Video: Preprocessing Video" doesn't explicitly cover QuickTime (or even a tool that outputs QuickTime), but it does provide a pretty good primer to all the settings you can tweak with QuickTime compression tools such as Cleaner.
Apple is suing Sorenson over Sorenson's release of the Spark codec for Flash MX, saying it allows Flash to compete with QuickTime. A good summary can be found in a MacCentral article, "Sorenson responds to Apple lawsuit"
New and updated software:
A beta of MAGpie 2 is now available. This is software you can use for making your movies accessible to persons with disabilities; it allows you to provide captions and audio descriptions for video (QuickTime as well as other formats). You can get more information and download from the MAGpie 2 registration page.
Wildform has released Flix Pro for Windows and Mac according to a Wildform 5/8 press release. (Flix converts QuickTime video to video that can be played back using various versions of Flash.)
Version 5.4.1 of BTV Pro ($40 shareware capture and editing software for the Mac) has been released. You can read more the tool on the BTV Pro Overview page, and download it from the BTV Download page.
daQtApp is a new shareware tool that you can use to create customized players that you can freely distribute with your movies.
Eskape labs has released updated Mac OS X beta drivers for its line of "My" products (which include a number of QuickTime-compatible capture cards). Check out their beta fish page.
Apple's iPhoto 1.1.1 was released. It allows export of slide shows with sound to a QuickTime movie, according to Apple's iPhoto download page.
Apple has received some awards for its technology, according to a MacCentral article, "QuickTime Streaming Server gets 'Well-Connected' awards"
Updates to the Little QuickTime Page will be sporadic for the next couple of months; we're working on our next book and have some time off planned, too. We'll try to keep you informed on whether or not they're be a posting each week; we'll not post a page on May 21.
Thanks, Judy and Robert
Digital Producer has a review of Squeeze for QuickTime (compression software).
On the MPEG-4 front:
A fairly positive overview: a Macworld UK article, "MPEG-4 in vanguard at streaming-media show"
A bit of hope that the licensing issues may be resolved: a 4/24 press release, "MPEG-4 Visual Essential Patent Holders Meet to Discuss Licensing Terms"
A fairly negative perspective: a News.com article "Real: Licenses could kill MPEG-4".
While you're waiting for the release of QuickTime 6, you can learn a bit about it at Think Secret's article, "Another look: Mac OS X 10.1.5 and QuickTime 6 (with images)"
Lots of background information on QDesign, the most-used low bit-rate audio codec for QuickTime, in a Streaming Media World article, "QDesign: Audio Compression Innovators".
Of interest to Mac users:
eZeMatte, a Mac OS X iMovie 2 plug-in for overlaying images over iMovie clips, has been updated to version 1.0.2, says VersionTracker's More Info page for eZeMatte.
VersionTracker also reports upgrades to BTV (Mac video capture and editing products. (The VersionTracker More Info page for BTV calls the product BTV X; the "X" refers to both versions, BTV and BTV Pro, not to Mac OS X.)
And, of interest to Mac OS X users only:
Missing MPEG Tools is a simple front end to a bunch of tools for dealing with MPEG 1 and 2 under Mac OS X; you can download it from the MMTools page.Want to view DivX movies? Read "How to play DivX;-) video files with Mac OS X ?" at Project Omega. (Beware: it's not as simple as "double-click and view a DiVX movie".)
Feelorium, makers of QuickTime utilities for OS X, are now offering a $35 bundle that includes all 4 of their products: Textation (for creating text tracks, href tracks, and chapter tracks), Tattoo (for creating media skins with controls), Full Screen Player (for playing movies full screen without QuickTime Player Pro), and Picture-in-Picture X (a floating movie playing application).
(No Windows tools this week. Sorry.)
We won't be publishing a page next week; we'll return on May 14, 2002
Interested in compression? An article at StreamingMediaWorld, "The Art of Compression", is essentially an interview with Rhonda Stratton, the QuickTime Product Line Manager, in which she explains various facets of streaming and compression.
Ben Waggoner, master compressionist, is once again offering hands-on compression workshops. They'll be in July and August at Stanford University. Information is at Digital Media Academy's Video Compression Course page.
Flix 2.1 was released a few weeks ago. This is a tool that allows you to convert video (including QuickTime, of course) to the Flash format. You can convert to Flash 3, 4, and 5, as well as (with this new version) to the new Flash MX format. It also allows you to convert video to vector data. Current Windows owners of Flix 2.0 can upgrade for free; Windows owners of Flix 1.x can upgrade for $30 until April 30th. Non-owners can download a Windows demo version. (Version 2 hasn't been released yet for Mac users.) For information on Flix, see the Wildform Flix page.
Feelorium has updates for their Mac OS X QuickTime tools:
Mac OS X WebCam items:
Yet another Mac OS X tool (updated last week to version 0.14) is mpeg2dec, an MPEG2 to QuickTime converter. You'll find it at the Protocol 7 Software page.
There are new plug-in filters for iMovie that let you zoom in on portions of your video, as well as put a spotlight on specific areas of the video or blur certain areas. Check out the Virtix Zoom Filters page.
You can now get version 1.0d5 of the Ogg Vorbis QuickTime component at the QuickTime Components Project page. (Ogg Vorbis is an audio compression technology; the QuickTime component lets you playback files that are encoded with Ogg Vorbis.)
Apple's World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) is in a couple of weeks (May 6 - 10 in San Jose, CA), and there are lots of QuickTime sessions, many not just for programmers. (Conference registration is a hefty $1595, however.)
Although we're still waiting on QuickTime 6 for MPEG-4 creation and native MPEG-4 playback, you can now (actually since the beginning of March) get a plug-in that will let QuickTime play back MPEG-4 files. (Windows only, currently.) Go to the Envivio TV page to find out more.
Sorenson Squeeze for QuickTime (compression software) is now available. If you previously used Sorenson Squeeze, think of this as version 2 of the product. (Sorenson is simply calling it Squeeze for QuickTime, since they now also have a Squeeze for Flash.) According to the Squeeze for QuickTime product page, this new version has batch processing and cropping.
There's a short piece at Insanely Great Mac, "Opinion: Is streamed QT dead?" which comments on a reduction in QuickTime support by content producers.
However, an article at NewsFactor Network, "Is Apple's QuickTime King of the Digital Media Hill?" discusses the advantages QuickTime has over Real and Windows Media.
The deadline for entering the iFilm Festival (a film festival for students in grades 8-12 using iMovie or Final Cut Pro) is next Tuesday, April 23rd. You can find out more at the iFilm Festival Home page.
Miscellaneous software updates:
If you've been following the MPEG-4 licensing saga, you'll probably be interested in a News.Com article, "MPEG-4 rival raises antitrust specter".
Windows users wanting to play back QuickTime movies in PowerPoint may be interested in an O'Grady's PowerPage article, "Native QuickTime in PowerPoint for Windows" explaining how to do it with Apple's ActiveX control and little bit of Visual Basic coding. (We haven't tried it yet, ourselves; let us know how it works for you. If it doesn't, keep in mind that there are other ActiveX controls for QuickTime: Skylark's Skylight and QT4Delphi's QTVRControlX -- not just for QTVR.)
According to a Sorenson Press Release "Sorenson Vcast is Now More Scalable and Secure Than Ever" the company is improving its Vcast webcasting service and lowering the monthly rate to $25.
IOXperts has released beta versions of Mac OS X drivers for USB webcams and still cameras. (This means that Mac OS X users can use a number of USB hardware devices that previously were unsupported.) Start with the IOXperts Products page to get more information.
If you're a Mac user looking for a way to present movies full-screen that doesn't require QuickTime Player Pro, check out Roland's ThankYouWare web page, and look for his free PresentMovie utility. Drag and drop movies onto the app, or put the app in a folder with movies and double-click. Or, for a few more options (but at a price of $12 and for Mac OS X only) check out Feeloriums' Full Screen Player, now updated to version 1.1.1
Apple's offering a 3-day workshop this month in New York on QuickTime Streaming. Targeted for system administrators, the workshop costs $1575 and cover media preparation as well as use of the QuickTime Streaming Server to serve QuickTime, MPEG-4, and MP3 files. Details are on the Apple Customer Training - QuickTime Streaming page.
Version 2.0 of VideoClix (for adding interactive hotspots, chapters, and time-triggered actions to QuickTime movies) has been released. More information is at the VideoClix Authoring Software page.
Tribeworks and eline (makers of VideoClix) are offering a special $999 promotional bundle of VideoClix and Tribeworks' iShell multimedia authoring software. There are also discounts for current owners of either product. More information at the TribeWorks promotion page.
DVD Studio Pro (Apple's higher end DVD authoring tool) has been upgraded to version 1.5 and now runs on Mac OS X. Go to Apple's DVD Studio Pro page for information.
A new high-end product from Apple, CinemaTools, is an extension to Final Cut Pro 3 to allow work with 24 fps material
digitallyOBSESSED Software has a tool, QT HTML, that generates proper EMBED and OBJECT code for a movie. It's an AppleScript Studio application (i.e. Mac-only).
Polyphontics 1.1.1, for creating DLS and SoundFont files (both formats supported under QuickTime 5's music tracks), was released. More info and a demo version is at the Polyphontics web site.
April is Education Month on BlueAbuse (the web site devoted to interactive QuickTime). Check out the Blue Abuse Developer page, which has interviews with folks in the education world that are using QuickTime in interesting ways.
If you're interested in making QuickTime VR object movies, you may want to check out the newly available 30-day trial of Autolycus' SpinImage DV. Go to the SpinImage DV site, where you'll find links to the download page as well as to more information about the product.
Another product (combination of hardware and software), for creating both QuickTime VR panoramas and objects, has been released. Read about it in a MacCentral article, "Accupan Image Capture System now available".
Virtual Composer (a QuickTime music composition tool) has been updated to version 2.9.3. See the VersionTracker Virtual Composer More Info page.
There's a new beta version (2.1b9) of MegaSeg, a DJ music automation tool which allows you to dynamically set up a list of MP3 or QuickTime sound files and mix them on the fly. You can download a demo and find links to information about the product at the MegaSeg Download page.
We won't be publishing a page next week; we'll return on April 9, 2002
The Sorenson web site has been updated, as have Sorenson's products. There's now a Windows version of Squeeze (their compression product). Squeeze has also been split into two different products: Squeeze for QuickTime and Squeeze for Flash MX. (You can read more about the Squeeze products in a MacCentral article, "Sorenson updates Squeeze for Flash MX, QuickTime".)
If you want to read more about the history of Sorenson Media products (including both Sorenson Video for QuickTime and Sorenson Spark for Flash MX), check out a Streaming Media World article, "Sorenson Media: Video Compression Software".
There's another video codec available, Streambox ACT-L2. (The decoder's been available for the last month, as part of the QuickTime component download program.) The encoder costs $499 (introductory price.) You'll find examples of video compressed with it at the Streambox ACT-L2 Content Page. (It looked good on their sample clips containing water, grass, and animal fur--all typically hard-to-compress.) More details are on the ACT-L2 Encoder for QuickTime page.
The CODEC Shootout site has been updated to include Sorenson Spark (the compressor for Spark MX) and Streambox ACT-L2.
If you've checked out ZyGoVideo (the QuickTime codec that's good for low data rates), and liked it, you may be interested in a March 19 press release, "ZyGoVideoH™, QuickTime Video for Handhelds".
PTMac Version 1.0 has been released. This $50 shareware ($70 after March) is a Macintosh front end for the free, powerful, and sometimes difficult-to-use Panorama Tools. For more info (and downloads) go to the PTMac page and the Panorama Tools page.
Virtual Composer (a QuickTime music composition tool) has been updated to version 3.0.3. See the VersionTracker Virtual Composer More Info page.
There's an interview at Mac Help Radio with Frank Casanova (QuickTime Product Marketing Director) in which he talks about future technologies: QuickTime 6, MPEG-4, and QuickTime Broadcaster.
If you've been trying to learn LiveStage Pro (for creating interactive QuickTime movies), you may be interested in purchasing (for $150) the authoring workbook and CD-ROM used in Totally Hip's workshops. For more info, see the LSP Authoring Workbook and CD ROM page.
The Friends of Time site has been updated. Check it out.
Check out a review of streaming video products (QuickTime, Real, and Windows Media) which basically gives QuickTime highest marks. It's in a Network Computing article, "Hardware or Software? Wading the Video Stream .".
Master compressionist Ben Waggoner has created a Cleaner 5.1 tutorial CD-ROM, as part of a 2 CD-ROM set. Find out more at Safer Seas' Cleaner 5.1 tutorial page.
We mentioned a few weeks ago that Adobe GoLive 6 was shipping, and noted its extensive (for a web page editor) QuickTime movie editor. We neglected to mention that it has another feature useful for media authors using QuickTime: when you insert a movie, it generates the proper HTML to run in all browsers (i.e. it creates both <OBJECT> and <EMBED> code). Read more about GoLive at Adobe's GoLive page.
Some software updates:
There's a new 1.3.2 version of Live Channel, live broadcasting software. You'll find a free evaluation version at the Channel Storm Download page, where you can also download a demo presentation that gives you a good idea of how the software works.
There's a new version (1.0.4) of CubicConverter (for converting to and from the QuickTime VR cubic format) You'll find information and a download link at the Click Here CubicConverter page.
Feelorium released version 1.0.5 of Textation, software for creating QuickTime text tracks, HREF tracks, and chapter tracks. You'll find it at the Textation page.
Version 2 of Codec Calculator has been released. This is a handy little Mac utility: You tell it the settings you plan to use (codecs, frame sizes, frame rates, audio rates, etc.) and it predicts file sizes and data rates of movies, or will tell you how many minutes of video you'll be able to fit in a certain amount of storage. Get it at the Codec Calculator page.
Until now, the only practical way to combine interactive Flash data with video was to was to combine them in a QuickTime movie. This week, however, Macromedia announced Flash MX, which will let you import video (in a variety of formats, including QuickTime) into Flash, and have it compressed with the the new Sorenson Spark codec, allowing you to include the video as part of the Flash file. For more details, see a MacCentral article, "Sorenson adds a Spark to Flash MX"
The past week also saw the release of Flix 2.0. Flix was previously the only tool that would allow you to convert video (including QuickTime, of course) to the Flash format. This new version goes a step further and enables conversion of video to vector data. For information on Flix (including a link to a page that explains why you'd want Flix if you get Flash MX), see the Wildform Flix page.
A decent summary of the MPEG-4 licensing issues can be found in an Internet News article, "Oh, for Streaming Out Loud!"
The video clips at filmmaker David Lynch's subscription and pay-per-view site, davidlynch.com, are QuickTime files. Read about the site in a StreamingMedia.com article, "See David Lynch Stream" [registration required].
If you're a Mac user and are frustrated by the fact that Sorenson Pro 3 with bi-directional prediction turned on, yields movies in which the audio and video are out of sync, you may be interested in an AppleScript that will shift the audio the necessary 2 frames. You'll find it at Roger Howard's ReSync B-Frames page.
Version 5.4 of BTV Pro ($35 shareware capture and editing software for Mac OS 9) has been released. You can read more the tool on the BTV Pro Overview page, and download it from the BTV Download page.
Feelorium released Tattoo 1.0.3, OS X software for making it easy to create a media skin for your movie. This update has even more new interactive control buttons you can use as part of your skin. You can get more info, download a demo, or buy the software (just $23) at Feelorium's Tattoo page.
There's now an alpha version of DivX for Macintosh that works as a QuickTime component. You'll find it at the Download DivX for Mac OS and Linux page.
There's a new easy-to-use QuickTime video editing program (Mac only) coming on the scene, called Looking Glass. (Unlike iMovie, it can capture from sources other than DV.). You'll find lots of information on the Looking Glass page, where you'll also find a link to download a beta version.
The Codec Shootout page (which provides comparisons of a large number of video codecs, including those for Windows Media and Real, as well as QuickTime) has been updated, with new codecs, plus a newsletter and email discussion list you can sign up for.
Software updates:
There's a 5.1.1 updater for Cleaner, for both Mac and Windows versions. The Mac version is OS X native. If you go to the Cleaner downloads page, you can get more details, and download the updater.
There's a new Windows version (2.3) of Panoweaver (QuickTime VR software for Mac and Windows) that can create QuickTime VR panoramas. Go to the Easypano products page for info and to download an evaluation copy of the software.
Feelorium released Tattoo 1.0.1, OS X software for making it easy to create a media skin for your movie. (This update warns you if you if you're going to create a skin that might crash viewers' systems, and provides a few new interactive control buttons you can use as part of your skin.) You can get more info, download a demo, or buy the software (just $23) at Feelorium's Tattoo page.
There's a new version (1.0b4) of the MNG component for QuickTime (a good codec for animated graphics) There's now a Macintosh Classic version, as well as the OS X version we mentioned last week. You can get more info and find a link to download the component at the MNG stuff page.
Release versions of CubicConverter (for converting to and from the QuickTime VR cubic format) and CubicConnector (for linking QuickTime VR cubic panoramas either as multi-node movies or HTML-linked single-node movies) are now available. You'll find links for information and downloads at the Click Here Design Products page.
conVRter and deliVRator, tools for editing and optimizing QuickTime VR panoramas, have been updated, and are now free, at the VRTools web site.
Apple updated their MakeCubic utility (for making Cubic QuickTime VR movies ) a couple of weeks ago; it's available from the QuickTime Tools and Utilities page.
Adobe has shipped GoLive 6, of interest to QuickTime folks because of its fairly full-featured QuickTime editor (lets you add all sorts of tracks, including sprite tracks with simple interactive buttons).We haven't tested it yet, but it looks like the QuickTime editor has been enhanced and that there are new features for SMIL editing. Go to the Adobe GoLive page for more information (but note that the Tryout version available is still GoLive 5).
There's a LiveStage Professional 3.1 updater available for LiveStage Professional 3.0.0 or 3.0.1 owners. Details and download links are at LiveStage Developers Network Tech Note 0024.
ZyGoVideo (a low-data-rate codec for QuickTime) will be used as the codec for a pair of photo ID security products : Nstant ID Maker (for creating photo IDs using a Mac and Firewire camera) and ID SpotChecker (which runs on a Palm device, allowing in-the-field identification). More details are in a 2/25 ZyGoVideo press release, "ZyGoVideo™ Powers New "Homeland Security" Products"
A MacCentral article, "'Travel the world' via QTVR panoramas" reports on a website devoted to VR Panoramas from around the world.
For those following the MPEG-4 licensing saga, Jason O'Grady at the PowerPage has posted "MPEG-4 Licensing Fees: MPEG-LA Reponds", it's a letter from Larry Horn, VP of Licensing at MPEGLA. Be sure to read through the comments.
Last week, at the QuickTime Live keynote, Apple announced that QuickTime 6 was ready for public preview, but that they couldn't release the software until the licensing terms for MPEG-4 were improved from what was proposed last month by MPEG-LA. You can get more details in Apple's press release, "Apple Previews QuickTime 6 with MPEG-4". MPEG-LA's proposed licensing terms can be found in an MPEG-LA press release, Terms of MPEG-4 Visual Patent Portfolio License Announced". During the keynote, Phil Schiller suggested that folks send mail to licensing@mpegla.com expressing their displeasure with the proposed terms as well. You can watch the keynote yourself at the QuickTime Live Keynote page (go to about 23 minutes into the stream to hear the QuickTime 6 announcement)
Other Apple announcements at QuickTime Live included a free QuickTime Broadcaster from Apple for OS X (also not released yet due to MPEG-4 licensing issues), and QuickTime Streaming Server 4 (available now). If you're interested in the Broadcaster tool, read an Apple press release, "Apple Previews New QuickTime Broadcaster Software", You can download QuickTime Streaming Server 4 from Apple's QuickTime Streaming Server page.
News about other products shown at QuickTime Live are on an Apple QuickTime Live Hot News page.
Apple's announcement of QuickTime 6 was followed by announcements from Totally Hip regarding future support for MPEG-4 in both their compression tool, HipFlics, and their interactive authoring tool, LiveStage Pro. Read about these in press releases, "Totally Hip Software Announces Support for MPEG-4 Video and Audio Encoding with HipFlics" and "Totally Hip Software Announces Support for MPEG-4 Video and Audio Streams within Interactive Content".
The week before QuickTime Live, an Apple press release, "Apple's QuickTime Surpasses RealNetworks' RealPlayer" announced that in 2001 there were more new users of QuickTime Player than new RealOne and RealPlayer users combined.
In more good press for QuickTime, this month's Streaming Magazine features QuickTime.
If you're an educator in the UK, and you pick up the Times Educational Supplement, you can get a free CD with various resources for using QuickTime, including a free QuickTime Pro Licence. More details are on an Apple QT Pro for free page.
Feelorium released Tattoo 1.0, OS X software for making it easy to create a media skin for your movie. You can get more info, download a demo, or buy the software (just $23) at Feelorium's Tattoo page.
Feelorium also release version 1.1 of their Full Screen Player (a little OS X utility that allows you to drag and drop movies to play back full screen). Go to the Feelorium Full Screen Player page for info and download.
Final Cut Pro users may be interested in Joe's Filters for Final Cut Pro, shareware image processing plug-ins.
LeoBairn.com released Picture Browser 3.1, a $15 Mac utility for creating slide shows from collections of images. Check out the LeoBairn.com website.
VersionTracker also lists a bunch of recent QuickTime-related updates:
VideoClix, a tool for creating clickable hot spots in a QuickTime movie, has been updated to version 1.2.7.
eZediaMX, a multimedia authoring tool with good support for QuickTime, has been updated to version 3.0.3
Aurora Video Systems has released version 4.6 of the driver software for the Igniter card.
Seagull Video Player, a video playlist maker, has been bumped to version 2.
Square Box Systems has released version 2.5 of CatDV, their DV clip tracker tool.
Matthias Krauss has released version .4 of WC, a Mac OS X USB driver for the Philips and CPiA Web Cam (the only USB Web Cam driver for Mac OS X we know of).
In QuickTime component news:
Tarkvara Design has written a QuickTime component for Multiple-image Network Graphics (MNG, pronounced "ming"). MNG was designed for motion graphics and thus makes it a good candidate for use in movies in which you might have used the Animation and Graphics codec in the past. It's not part of Apple's component download program (as of yet), and it's Mac OS X only. You can get more info and find a link to download the component (still in beta) at the MNG stuff page.
You can now purchase a $129 bundle of ZyGoVideo Pro (a good low data rate codec that's part of Apple's component download program) and HipFlics (compression software) for Mac OS 9 and Windows. Check out a 2/8 ZyGoVideo press release.
Apple has finally moved the Indeo codec into the component download feature of QuickTime. This means that if you run across Indeo-compressed content (often in AVI files) QuickTime should be able to play it. (The appropriate component should be downloaded automatically if you don't already have it.) Indeo's not listed on Apple's Component Download page, but you'll see it listed if you use your QuickTime Updater application and click Custom.
On the QuickTime Component Download page you will see a new codec listed: Streambox ACT-L2 . We don't know much about it, yet.
The Friends of Time site has been updated with message boards, a People Connection, and photos from the 10 year anniversary party.
If you're interested in what's going to happen with MPEG-4, read a streamingmedia.com article "Proposed MPEG-4 Licensing Draws Fire"(registration required). It reports on an announcement last week that there will likely be licensing fees for players, encoders, and data streamed. If this proposal becomes reality, it's sure to affect how Apple charges for QuickTime, as well as whether QuickTime developers choose to use MPEG-4. The MPEG-4 Industry Forum has a press release "M4IF Opens Debate on MPEG-4 Licensing", which includes a link to join a discussion list.
ZyGoVideo™ Pro Version 1.2 for Mac OS and Windows has been released. (This is a good low data rate codec that compresses quickly). Read more in a 2/4 ZyGoVideo Press release.
A MacCentral article "Toon Boom Studio 1.1 for Mac OS X 10.1 arrives" reports on an animation tool that can output as QuickTime, and can be used in conjunction with iMovie to combine video with animation.
Roxio has released an update to their Video CD encoder which works in conjunction with their Toast software and allows you to use export to MPEG-1 from QuickTime Player Pro. You can get it at the Toast Support page.
New versions of VideoScript (version 2.2.9) for Windows, Mac OS, and and Mac OS X are available at the VideoScript Download page. (VideoScript is a tool that can be used to write scripts for processing video.)
Rodney Tamblyn has created a stack (its been a long time since we wrote that word!) to convert EMBED tags to OBJECT tags. It's created with MetaCard and so will run on Mac and Windows. You should be able to get it from the Update QT web tags page. Be sure to read the "Please read this carefully" section.
There is a new beta of CatDV, digital video cataloging software (for Mac OS 9, X and Windows). You can download it from the CatDV Download page.
We won't be publishing a page here next week. Hope to see you at QuickTime Live!
Last week we mentioned that we there didn't appear to be a QuickTime playback component for Ogg Vorbis. Well, there is. It had just moved; you can now find it at the QuickTime Components Project site.
A streamingmedia.com article, "MPEG for All", (registration required) provides a good summary of what MPEG-4 is, and how it relates to QuickTime.
A new tool (for both Mac and Windows), still in pre-release stages, supposedly converts certain files (subtitle files of the form .ssa, .srt, and .sub) to QuickTime text files (allowing you to edit the content and style of the the text). You'll need to add the finished QuickTime text file to your video using QuickTime Player Pro. You can find out more at the TitleLab page.
If you're looking for a different QuickTime editor (one that seems to be good for adding visual effects, without the overhead of a full-featured effects editor), check out MediaEdit from iMedia Software.
Various software updates:
If you use LiveSlideShow (the easy-to-use tool for making QuickTime slide shows), you'll want to go the LiveSlideShow site to get a 2.0.1 Updater.
There's now available a 1.0 version of QTBatchExporter (Mac tool for doing batch QuickTime exports in the background). Get more info at the QTBatchEncoder Info page. Download the software from the Channel D Software Download page.
Snapz Pro X (Mac OS X version of Ambrosia Software's screen capture utility) has been updated to version 1.0.2. You can read more and download a demo at the Snapz Pro X page.
Version 2.0 of Sound Studio ( a sound recording and editing tool that can import and export various QuickTime formats) has been released. You can get more info and download a trial version at the Felt Tip Sound Studio page.
QuickTime Live attendees can rent an iBook or Titanium G4 PowerBook during the show. For details, see the QuickTime Live -- Borow A Book page.
If you go to the QuickTime Components page you'll notice that there's a new component listed: Zoomify. This means that the component (necessary for viewing files that can be zoomed extensively) should download automatically when needed. (For example, check out the Zoomify QuickTime Demo page.) If you're interested in creating "zoomified" files yourself, you'll want to go to the Zoomifyer Authoring Tool page.
A petition has been started to encourage Apple to upgrade its QuickTime VR Authoring Studio application, a great tool that hasn't been updated in many years (and so, for example, can't be used to create cubic VRs). If you want to add your name, go to the Immersive Imaging News page, click on the link for QTVRAS v2 Petition and post a message of your own in support of QTVRAS.
There's a new version of Ogg Drop, a Mac tool for converting existing QuickTime audio to the Ogg Vorbis format (a high quality audio compression technology); you'll find it at the Ogg Drop for Mac page. (While there currently doesn't appear to be a QuickTime playback component, there probably will be one soon.)
If you're a Final Cut Pro user, you may know that Final Cut Pro 3 requires and includes QuickTime 5.0.4. If you check your QuickTime version, however, you'll see that it still says 5.0.2. For an explanation, read AppleCare Knowledge Base Document 61028 (but you'll need to have or create an AppleCare id, to access this page).
Version 1.4 of iView MediaPro (cataloging software that can handle all the file formats QuickTime can, plus more), has been released. More information and a download link can be found at the the iView Multimedia Online site.
There's a new beta version of MegaSeg, a DJ music automation tool which allows you to dynamically set up a list of MP3 or QuickTime sound files and mix them on the fly. You can read more and download a demo at MegaSeg home page.
Apple's big announcements last week were the new completely redesigned iMac (which includes iMovie, iDVD, and built-in FireWire for only $1,800), and iPhoto (software, that among many other features, can export images as a QuickTime slideshow).
According to an Apple press release, "Apple Delivers Record-Breaking Webcast of Macworld Keynote", at one point in Job's keynote at Macworld 81,000 people were watching the talk via a QuickTime webcast.
A streamingmedia.com article, "The Other Side of Compression" (registration required), reviews On2 and ZyGoVideo, two codecs you can use with QuickTime, and which are part of the Apple's Component Download program (so if you compress with either, viewers with QuickTime 5 will have the necessary decompression software downloaded automatically).
Here's our table of "cool QuickTime tools" (the tools we mentioned in our Macworld talk last week).
QuickTime VR authors may be interested in a 3 day conference in Boulder Colorado, focusing entirely on QuickTime VR. See the Summit in the Rockies page.
New products announced in the last few weeks:
QTBatchEncoder is a $14 Mac shareware application that will do a batch conversion of QuickTime movie files to a variety of formats (all the formats you can export to, using QuickTime Player Pro), and can do it while you're using your Mac (even under OS 9) for other tasks. You'll find information and a download link at the QTBatchEncoder FAQ page.
A new product that allows you to create a QuickTime VR panorama with a single camera shot won "Best of Show" at Macworld. Read more about the product, 360 One, in a January 8 press release, "Kaidan and EyeSee360 Announce One-Shot Panoramic Photographic VR Solution. This and other QuickTime VR related new products from Kaidan are also covered in a MacCentral article, "MWSF: Kaidan makes lots of announcements".
A new little shareware utility, Full Screen Player, allows you to drag and drop movies to play back full screen.(You can set a variety of options and control the rate of playback using the application, too.)
Tribeworks, the company that makes the QuickTime-based iShell multimedia authoring tool, will be developing a set of MPEG-4 authoring tools, according to a MacCentral article, "iVAST, Tribeworks team up for MPEG-4 authoring app".
Plus lots of recently updated software:
Version 3.1 of Realviz Stitcher was released at Macworld last week. (This is software that can be used for stitching together images to make QuickTime VR panoramas.) You can read an article at MacCentral, "MWSF: Stitcher revved for Mac OS X"
VidVox has released VDMX2, their real-time video processor for performances. You can read more about this software and download a demo version at VidVox's website.
Feelorium released version 1.0.2 of Textation, software for creating QuickTime text tracks, HREF tracks, and chapter tracks. You'll find it at the Feelorium web site.
Channel Storm announced version 1.3 of Live Channel , their tool for live QuickTime broadcasting. Read a January 8 Channel Storm press release.
Version 5.3 of BTV Pro ($35 shareware capture and editing software for Mac OS 9) has been released. You can read more the tool on the BTV Pro Overview page, and download it from the BTV Download page.
eZediaMX 3.0 was released at the beginning of the month. This is an easy-to-use no-scripting-required Mac and Windows multimedia authoring tool. From a QuickTime perspective, it's interesting because you can create projects in which QuickTime movie playback affects other objects, and other objects interact with QuickTime movies. You can find out lots more and download a demo version at the eZedia website.
MovieWorks Deluxe 5.2 has been released. You can read more about this easy-to-use QuickTime-based content creation and multimedia authoring suite of tools for Windows and Mac (OS 9 and OS X) at the MovieWorks web site.
ZyGoVideo™ Pro Version 1.2 "Preview" for OS/X was released last week. This is a good low data rate codec). Find out more at the ZyGoVideo web site (as well as reading the streamingmedia.com article mentioned near the top of this week's edition).
Polyphontics 1.1, for creating DLS and SoundFont files (both formats supported under QuickTime 5's music tracks), was also recently released. More info and a demo version is at the Polyphontics web site.
Apple's QuickTime Streaming Server 4 Public Preview 2 is now available. You can get it at AppleCare Knowledge Base Document 120071 (but you'll need to have or create an AppleCare id, to access this page). General details about Streaming Server 4 Public Preview can be found at the QuickTime Streaming Server 4 Public Preview page.
If you're trying to decide whether to go to this year's QuickTime Live conference, check out a MacCentral article, "Apple preps for QuickTime Live conference"
Apple has redesigned the QuickTime Download page, so that it's a little bit harder to find the free player: you may want to warn those you send to download QuickTime that it may be necessary to scroll down a bit if they've got a smaller browser window. (Note that it's still much easier to locate the free QuickTime Player, than it is to locate the free Real Player.)
Learning opportunities:
There's a new tutorial on creating HREF tracks (using the new OS X tool, Textation).
There's a new CD-ROM, "Learning QuickTime 5 Pro" which, using QuickTime movies, walks you through the various steps for using QuickTime Player Pro for authoring. (While we had nothing to do with this product, the Table of Contents, shows an organization incredibly similar to our QuickTime books!)
MPlayer is a Movie Player for Linux that plays some QuickTime files (as well as many other formats).
IOXperts has released version 1 of its DCam driver; this is software to allow for web cam use under Mac OS X. You can find more information (including a list of cameras that are supported) and download the software at the FireWire DCam Driver page.
QuickTime VR products:
Click Here Design has made available beta versions of two new products: CubicConverter (for converting to and from the QuickTime VR cubic format) and CubicConnector (for linking QuickTime VR cubic panoramas either as multi-node movies or HTML-linked single-node movies). You'll find links for information and downloads at the Click Here Design Products page.
There's a new Windows version of Panoweaver (QuickTime VR software for Mac and Windows) that can create QuickTime VR cubic panoramas (but not spherical, because of patent issues in the U.S.). Go to the Easypano products page for info and to download an evaluation copy of the software.
There's an audio compression technology call Ogg Vorbis (an MP3 replacement of sorts) that you may want to look into. Ogg Vorbis files can now be played with QuickTime Player (and other QuickTime-savvy tools) if you have the Ogg Vorbis QuickTime component; version 1.0d3 is available for Mac OS X and Windows at the Ogg Vorbis support for QuickTime page. If you want to take your existing QuickTime audio and convert it to the Ogg Vorbis format, check out the Ogg Drop for Mac page.
We won't be publishing a page next week, January 8th; we'll be at Macworld SF. We'll return on January 15th
Judy and Robert
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