While most of us rely on the free codecs that are built into QuickTime
(particularly Cinepak), you may want to check out some alternatives:
If you produce QuickTime movies for the web, you
may be interested in an upcoming codec, ClearVideo from Iterated Systems.
Check out Iterated's web site, where
you can get hold of an extension that will serve as a ClearVideo decompressor
and where you can get sample movies compressed with ClearVideo. Some of
the clips have extremely low data rates, which is what leads us to believe
that this compressor may be ideal for web distribution. (ClearVideo compressed
clips may require a powerful computer for playback, however.) You will have
to pay $1000 for theClearVideo compressor (no royalties for distribution
of your clips, however.) Iterated Systems is planning to release the compressor
on September 10.
And, if you produce QuickTime movies for CD-ROM, and you haven't done so
already, you may want to look at the Power!Video
codec from Horizons Technology. This is the successor to the TrueMotion-S
codec which provided very good-looking clips. However, unlike TrueMotion-S
there are no fees for distribution of Power!Video compressed clips. There
are two versions of Power!Video: Power!Video Easy and Power!Video Pro, which
cost $95 and $495 respectively for the compressors.
Adobe Premiere users who are using Premiere for digitizing, should be
sure to get the Movie Capture Module 4.2.2 upgrade from Adobe's
web site.
Final versions of Netscape Navigator 3.0 and Apple's QuickTime plug-in for
Navigator 3.0 were released this week. If you're running Navigator 3.0 with
the plug-in, you can view movies directly on a web page, rather than having
the browser call up MoviePlayer or some other player as a helper application.
They also allow properly prepared movies to start playing on a page
before they're completely downloaded. Get Navigator
3.0 , including the QuickTime plug-in from Netscape . If you want to
be able to play QuickTime VR movies on a web page, you'll also need in your
Netscape plug-ins folder the QuickTime VR Components file, which you can
get from http://quicktime.apple.com/sw/sw.html.
In the past, we've bemoaned the fact that there
are no inexpensive (under $1000) digitizing cards for the Mac, ala the original
Video Spigot. Looks like that's about to change:
Avid will be coming out with Cinema, an under $500 combination of video
editing software and Motion-JPEG card. The card works in conjunction with
the built-in video capture in PCI Macs (6400, 7500, 7600, 8500) or with
the Apple Video System on the 5400 to digitize and output video close to
what the higher-end Motion-JPEG cards (e.g. VideoVision Studio and Targa)
can do. To start, Apple will be selling Cinema; read their press
release for more information.
ATI has announced an even cheaper card,
the Xclaim VR, that not only digitizes and outputs video but also accelerates
QuickDraw (both 2-D and 3-D) and QuickTime movie playback. You'll also be
able to add a TV tuner to this card, allowing you to watch television on
your Mac; more importantly, you should be able to capture closed captioned
text from TV programs into a QuickTime text track if ATI includes the software
necessary to do this (which they've promised to do).
And, Miro has cut the price of its DC-20
from $1000 down to $800. This is another Motion-JPEG card that's just a
step below the VideoVision Studio and the Targa cards in terms of quality
and features. It will work in any PCI computer. If you have or get the card,
make sure to get updated drivers (1.1) from Miro's web site.
BMUG released its Guide to QuickTime
2.5 at Macworld Boston. This CD-ROM contains 2.5, sample movies, a handful
of unsupported utilities, and an electronic 75-page primer on the new features
of QuickTime since 2.0.
Terran Interactive has shipped
Web-Motion, a plug-in for its Movie Cleaner Pro product. Using the two together,
you can properly prepare your QuickTime movies for use on the World Wide
Web. It's got an expert system that will help you pick the right settings
for optimal compression, and it'll even help you write the html that you
need.
Apple finally released QuickTime 2.5!
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