Steve Jobs announced last week that QuickTime 4.0 will be released at the MacWorld
conference in January. (This is the closest thing we've seen to an official announcement,
yet.) This was reported in a 12/9
MacWeek article, "Jobs talks to teachers" and a 12/9
CNET New.com article, "Apple's Jobs hints at '99 products". And, an
Apple Insider
Web article titled "QuickTime 4.0 Special Report!" speculates
on upcoming features of this new release.
T.A.G. Editor for QuickTime has been released. Use this $345 tool to create chapter
lists, static or scrolling text tracks, and HREFTracks (for URL flipping). Though
you can do these same things with MoviePlayer Pro and some freeware, T.A.G. Editor
does provide a timeline-based interface. The tool can also be used to encode QT
movies as RealMedia or NetShow (ASF) files; T.A.G. Editor lets you define
hotspots for these files. Get an evaluation copy at the T.A.G.
Editor 2.0 for QuickTime 3.0 page where you can also read more about the product.
Roundabout Logic is offering a special holiday deal, good only through the end of
the year. You can get their QTVR panorama software, Nodester, or their QTVR
object software, Widgetizer for $60 each or $100 for the pair. Go to Roundabout Logic's home page for info and
to order.
You can get a free beta of VR Toolbox's QTVR multinode scene creation software,
VR Scene Worx, if you go to the VR
Toolbox download area.
Check out the first issue of
"Quick Times", the International QuickTime VR Association's new e-zine.
Jim Heid has written an article comparing VR technologies, QuickTime VR included.
Internet World has an introduction,
"Photographic VR Puts Users In the Picture", and what's essentially
the rest of
the article, "Four Photographic VR Technologies".
The Little QuickTime Page will be on hiatus for a while as we'll be enjoying the holidays and then the Macworld conference. We'll be back on January 12th. Happy Holidays to you all. If you're in SF for Macworld, we'll be presenters at a session on QuickTime (Pro Conference Creative Track 3; session C44); hope to meet some of you.
Finally, Electrifier Pro from Lari Software is available! This is the first "wired
sprite" tool, one that lets you create interactive buttons and hotspots
in linear QuickTime movies. It also can create really small (in filesize) movies.
The price ($595) is a little steep, but this is the only currently shipping product
that has these abilities. You can get more information, see sample movies, download
a demo version, and order the product by going to Lari's
Electrifier Pro page or Terran's
Electrifier Pro page.
There are new versions (2.5) of MyVidCap and MyVidEditor shareware apps for capturing
and editing video on the Mac at the MyVidCap
and MyVidEdit page, where you'll also find info about what's new. One new feature
in both tools that's particularly nice is that the tool will do long tasks (like
saving self-contained and exporting) in the background, so you can use your Mac for
other tasks.
Version 1.2.1 of the AX QuickTime Kit, for cross-platform QuickTime and QuickTimeVR
support in mTropolis 2.0 is out. Go to the AX
QuickTime Kit page to order the $269 product or to read more about it.
There's a press release
about SDxstream, an interesting high-end video capture and editing solution
for Windows NT that's based around QuickTime. It uses uncompressed video in order
to get highest-quality results.
eMediaWeekly has a short
article on VideoShop 4.5. This editing tool supports QuickTime music 3D, and
text tracks, unlike most other commercial timeline-based editing tools. With
this new version, it now has support for FireWire and QuickTime 3.
There's a macchat article
about using QuickTime as a Web music tool.
Robert Morgan's 11/24 RFI
Report comments on the future of QuickTime 4 and set-top boxes.
Version 5.0 of the Mac version of the Media 100 software is now shipping.
You can read more about it at the 5.0
main info page.
Version 1.7.1 of Spike, the batch movie analyzer, is now available at the
Spike Download Area page.
Version 1.2.3 of VideoScript, a tool that can be used to write scripts for processing
video, is available at the VideoScript
page.
QuickEditor 1.7 for Windows, a shareware QuickTime editor, is now available
at the QuickEditor for Windows
download page.
You can now get a demo version of PanoTouch, a set of Photoshop plug-ins for touching
up QTVR panos, at the AdessoSoft home page.
There's plenty of QuickTime-based PR happening for the new Disney/Pixar movie,
A Bug's Life. There's a special Apple Bug's Life Hot News page which has the
movie trailer as a QT movie. And Disney has a page
with QuickTime VR object movies of the animated characters, as well other pages
that can be accessed from the Flik's
Digital Adventure Page. (Use the pop-up at the bottom to see which are QuickTime-based).