Matthew Peterson, at UC Berkeley, has released QT-Chat. It's a wired sprite QuickTime movie for doing text-based chatting and it's only 19k! Check Matthew's QT-Chat Info page.
There's a review of LiveStage 2.0 in the May edition of Macworld.com.
An Apple tech note "Final Cut Pro: Compatible Configurations" (#24991) lists which versions of Final Cut Pro are compatible with which versions of the MacOS, which versions of QuickTime, which Firewire versions, and which Macintosh computers (including certain iMacs!).
If you don't want to run your own QuickTime streaming server, check out SingleReel, a video hosting site that will serve your streaming QuickTime movies for free.
A new QuickTime web site premiered this week. Based in Denmark, it's the QT.DK site, and has news, messageboards, and classifieds.
There's a 4/19 press release about the Olympus Camedia software for Olympus digital cameras. This software, in conjunction with the cameras, provides support for both QuickTime linear movies and QuickTime VR movies.
Olympus also introduced a new digital camera, the C-3000 Zoom, that can record short QuickTime movies with sound. You can read an April 24th Olympus Press Release.
An April 24th RealNetworks press release reports some bad news: Nielson/NetRatings reports that over the last three months usage of RealPlayer and Windows Media Player grew faster than that of QuickTime.
There's a Mac Observer article, "Users Behind a Firewall Rejoice! Apple Quietly Introduces HTTP Streaming Transport in QuickTime 4.1.1". (The truth is that this ability to get through firewalls was introduced in QuickTime 4.1, but the article makes good points anyway.)
Version 1.0.2 of QTVRMatte (After Effects plug-in which imports QTVR panos) is available at the QTVR Matte 1.0.2 User's Manual page.
When we reported on the release of QuickTime 4.1.1 last week, we neglected to mention that it's not perfect. (In particular, see posts from the QuickTime Talk list re."QT 4.1.1. Bug found with e-mail.") On the other hand, check out posts on the QuickTime Talk list re. "What's New and Good in QuickTime 4.1.1".
Check out a MacCentral Online article, "QT to facilitate film festival Webcast".
There's also a MacCentral article on new versions of LiveStage Professional. (LiveStage is the most extensive tool available for creating interactive QuickTime movies.) The article talks of both version 2.1, to be released in June, and version 3.0 to be released in the fall. You can get a beta of 2.1 at the Totally Hip LiveStage ftp site.
You can now get version 2.1 of QDesign Pro Music Codec at the QDesign New Products page. (This version of the best QuickTime codec for streaming music is optimized for the Mac G4.)
A review
of the Olympus C-2020 Z digital camera covers how the camera can shoot QuickTime
movies. (You may want to skip to the page
that covers QuickTime movies specifically.)
VersionTracker reports the following
QuickTime-related updates:
MediaEdit, a $20 QuickTime movie editing tool that does effects, is at beta 5 Get more info and download a demo at the PineHill Products MediaEdit Beta page.
Version 2 of the Video Gogh After Effects plug-in (which works with any tool that supports After Effects plug-ins, including Final Cut Pro) is out. Van Gogh can alter your movies so they look like painted works of art. The RE:Vision Effects Video Gogh page has info as well as links to demo versions, a gallery of examples, and their webstore where you can purchase this $90 piece of software.
Aurora Video Systems has a new version (2.0.3) of the Igniter Drivers. VersionTracker has a More Info page re. Igniter that's got details and links to the download site.
RATOC has updated drivers for their CBFW2 PC card-based FireWire interface for PowerBooks. Go to the CBFW2 Driver page.
There's a new version (2.5) of QTKeys, a shareware music synthesizer that makes use of QuickTime's music capabilities. Get info and download the tool at the QTKeys Page.
QuickTime 4.1.1 was released last week. It's what you'll get if you download QuickTime from Apple's QuickTime web site, the QuickTime standalone installer page, or if you run your updater. (Windows users: after you run the updater no restart is required. You can check the QuickTime control panel to be sure you have version 4.1.1). The most notable change is that a bug with QTVR URL hotspots has been repaired; details are at an updated Apple Tech Note, "QuickTime 4.1: Issue With QTVR Hotspots", #60694. Other changes include Windows 2000 support, improvements in live broadcasting, and some SMIL improvements.
iCanStream.com is a new website that's designed to teach the basics of video streaming. (It's a a joint venture by Media 100, Canon, and others. )
You may be interested in a How to Hijack QuickTime 4 Trailers page, which explains how to save a copy of a movie that's been designated as one that can't be saved, as well as how to recompress it so it can be viewed on other platforms (Linux and BeOS).
In the April LoudEye eNewsletter, there's an article called "PRODUCING FOR THE PLATFORMS, PART ONE: SECRETS FOR GREAT-LOOKING QUICKTIME CONTENT", which provides a quick summary and a few tips about QuickTime compression.
This week is the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) conference. Sorenson is broadcasting live from the conferences (using QuickTime streaming and Sorenson Broadcaster, of course). You can view the webcast from the Sorenson's Live Webcast from NAB 2000 page.
Because of NAB there are a bunch of Apple QuickTime-related announcements:
Apple has added 10 new channels, including ZDTV, to its QuickTime TV (QTV) network; you can read an April 5th press release, "Apple Adds 10 New Music and Video Channels to QuickTime TV" to get the full list. Or, you can check out another Apple April 5th press release, "Appleís QuickTime 4 Downloads Top 32 Million and Ten New QTV Channels Premiere".
Apple and Pinncale Systems announced a new video system consisting of Final Cut Pro on a G4 with a soon-to-be-released card, called the Targa Cine--it'll be able to handle uncompressed video, for high-end broadcast, at under $10,000. Details are in an April 10th press release, "Pinnacle Systems and Apple Bring Uncompressed High-Definition Video to the Macintosh".
Another joint announcement comes from Apple and Matrox--a system based on Final Cut Pro and a new PCI card (RTMac) for real-time DV editing on the Mac. Read another April 10th press release, "Matrox and Apple Announce Real-Time DV Editing for the Mac"Apple announced a new version of Final Cut Pro (1.2.5), to be released next month. Among other things it'll include the capability to create reference movies (a la MakeRefMovie), and will work with the above mentioned cards. Details on this one in yet another April 10th press release, "Apple Announces Final Cut Pro 1.2.5".
Updates (many from VersionTracker):
MediaEdit, a $20 QuickTime movie editing tool that does effects, is at beta 4. Get more info and download a demo at the PineHill Products MediaEdit Beta page.
QT JukeBox, an AppleScript which allows Mac users to create and use playlists with the QuickTime Player, has been updated to version 1.5. Read about it at the News page of John's Website.
Etchelon Tracer, a vector-based morphing animation program that outputs as QuickTime has been updated to version 3.6.5. More info and a download are at the Etchelon Tracer page.
ReelSmart Motion Blur (a plug-in for After Effects that automates motion blur) has been updated to version 1.5. Go to the RE:Vision Effects site.
bitmovers.net released version 1.5 of its Streaming Media Calculator, a utility that calculates bandwidth usage of your QuickTime stream. Download it from the bitmovers.net home page.
Sorenson Media (the company that brought you the Sorenson Video codec and Sorenson Broadcaster) is now offering compression services. See the Sorenson Media Broadcasting Services page.
Avid is coming out with a new Windows-only tool called ePublisher, an all-in-one, start-to-finish web video tool that has capture, editing, compression/encoding, and publishing features. The publishing features include the capability to link video with HTML content, and to output video in QuickTime, Real Media, Windows Media, and MPEG formats. Read more in a press release, "Avid Introduces Avid ePublisher -- First All-In-One Streaming Media Publishing Tool for Web-enabled Video Production". Mac users may also want to read a MacNN story, Avid to consider Mac porting of ePublisher.
If you're interested in what's happening related to QuickTime Streaming at the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) conference next week (April 10 through 13), you'll want to tune into a live QuickTime streaming broadcast. For details, check out a Yahoo Press Release, "Live NAB Webcast Provided by Intelligent Media and Sorenson".
New software:
Ian Mantripp has created a behavior for use in LiveStage Pro, that makes it easy for you to create wired sprites that will navigate to chapters in a movie. You'll find links to download the behavior, to see an example, and to a tutorial at the bottom of Ian's Behaviors for LiveStage Pro page.
A new PC-only tool, MAGpie, makes it easier to create text captions for QuickTime, Real, and Windows Media files. To get the tool, and information about using it, go to the Media Access Generator (MAGpie) page at the National Center for Accessible Media.
Unthinkable Research has released Thing Reporter (1.0.1), a free Macintosh tool that displays a list of installed QuickTime components. (This tool is mostly useful for programmers, but some of you may find it interesting.) Get it at the Unthinkable Research Products page.
Software updates (reported by VersionTracker):
A beta version of the next version of Terran's Media Cleaner Pro (compression tool) is available. Get info and the 4.0.3b2 Updater at the Terran Downloads page.
There's a new beta (1.3b) of the Adobe Premiere DV plug-in (the file need to make Premiere be able to access the built-in Firewire port on your Mac) To get it go to Downloading the DV Device Beta Plug-in for OS 9, G4, and iMac DV page.
Aurora Video Systems has a new version (2.0.2) of the Igniter Drivers. VersionTracker has a More Info page re. Igniter that's got details and links to the download site.
Adobe introduced version 5 of its GoLive web authoring tool, the only one to offer extensive QuickTime support, including movie editing functions. You can read a 4/4/99 press release about GoLive 5, as well as see screenshots of the improved movie editing features on Adobe's GoLive 5 Enhanced On-Board Interactive Editor page. (Note that you can now add Flash tracks to a movie.)
Synthetic Aperture has released an updated version of their Echo Fire plug-in for After Effects and Photoshop. It allows the viewing of DV (FireWire) video on a video monitor and also allows you to export DV movies out the FireWire port, using QuickTime Player Pro. You can read more about it and download a demo at the Echo Fire page.
A Macworld
UK article," 'QuickTime media processor' spun off" talks about the
Phillips TriMedia chips (dedicated media processors that had great promise
for accelerating QuickTime processing), Apple's original plans for them, and
what's happening next.