You can view Steve Jobs' Macworld Expo keynote address (as a streaming QuickTime movie) at the Macworld Expo NY 99 Keynote page.
One of Jobs' announcement was the premiere of QuickTime TV, an internet broadcasting service which will at first serve streaming content from the "big guys" (Disney, ESPN, VH1, etc.), but will later be available to smaller content developers. Content providers will want to use this service because it will use a high-speed network from Akamai Technologies for distribution. For more details, see a CNET article, "Apple renews streaming bid with QuickTime", as well as an Apple press release, "Apple Premieres QuickTime TV", and an Apple press release, "Apple and Akamai Create High Quality Network for Internet Streaming". (In the keynote, Jobs starts talking about QuickTime TV at about 15 minutes into the stream, and QuickTime TV demos start around 25 minutes into the stream.)
If you go the Apple Web Badges page, you'll find web badges, including a "Made with QuickTime" one, that you can download and use on your own web pages, provided you follow certain guidelines.
There's a new beta (11) of Sorenson Broadcaster, currently the only live streaming solution for QuickTime 4. You can get more info and find a link to download a free copy at the Sorenson Broadcaster page.
Apple introduced QuickTime 4.0.2 last week. (Unfortunately, for Mac users, your QuickTime Updater application won't work correctly—it'll tell you that nothing needs to be updated. You can either wait until Apple fixes things so your updater does acknowledge that there are updates or you can download a complete new QuickTime 4.0.2 installer from the QuickTime web site.)
QuickTime-related software updates this week:
Version 1.8 b2 of Panorama Tools (a freeware plug-in that works with a number of graphics programs for manipulating QTVR panos, available for MacOS, Windows and Linux) is at the Panorama Tools page.
You can update to version 5.1b of Adobe Premiere at the Adobe Premiere 5.1b is Here! page.
VideoScript 1.7 is now available. (VideoScript is a tool that can be used to write scripts for processing video.) Go to the Videoscript home page where you'll find links to download the new version or a Lite version, as well as links to release notes for this version.
You can update to version 1.02 of Electrifier Pro at the Electrifier Pro Help page, or get a trial version at the Electrifier Pro Try It page.
Digital Origin's EditDV for Mac has been updated to version 1.6.1; you can get the updater at the Digital Origin download page.
QDesign Corporation is coming out with a new tool, MVP, which lets you create, play, and manage MP3 and QDesign Music files. You can get more info and download a beta version of MVP for either MacOS and Windows at the MVP site.
e-Pan is a 360 degree panoramic camera integrated with a Pentium computer that can be used for creating QTVR panoramas. When available—the company says late November—the price will be $25,000. Go to the e-Pan web site for more info.
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Little QuickTime Page
We started the Little QuickTime Page three years ago (July 22, 1996 to be exact), when QuickTime 2.5 was first introduced! We plan to continue the page after a vacation of 4 to 6 weeks during which time we'll be attending to an addition to our family. Thanks for your continued support.
Steve Jobs' Macworld Expo keynote address on Wednesday will be streamed
live using QuickTime 4. Go to the Macworld
Expo NY 99 Keynote page.
iRez will have a Webcam at their Macworld booth, driven by a KritterUSB connected
to an iMac.Check out the iRez MacWorld
99 page.
AppleInsider has a list of rumored announcements for Macworld this week including a QuickTime TV site.
If you've used or considered using the free Panorama Tools, you might want to consider sponsoring the development of this program. See the Sponsoring Panorama Tools page.
Wired, Inc. announced an update to their MediaPress MPEG encoder. With an optional $999 module you can do batch transcoding of QuickTime to MPEG. There's more info at a Digital Producer Magazine page, "Wired announces Media Press v2.0".
In the world of interactive QuickTime movies:
LiveStage will be showing LiveStage Professional 2.0,the interactive QuickTime authoring tool at Macworld this week. Read a MacCentral article, "Road to Macworld: LiveStage Pro will debut" for some details about what this new version will be able to do for you.
Electrifier Inc. dropped the price of its interactive QuickTime authoring tool, Electrifier, from $595 to $395. You can order at the Electrifier Shop page.
Bill Meikle has posted an updated beta of his Mac-only NodeMedia authoring tool for for creating VRScripts. With it you can create VR movies with directional sound, 3D models, wired sprite actions, rules that control your VR world, live streams, etc. If you want to download it and give it a try, go to Bill's VRScript with GUI page.
For those interested in music formats:
Texas Instruments and QDesign announced a new design that will allow QDesign Music to be playedback on a portable device (similar to the Rio Player for MP3). It will use QuickTime as the interface between the player and QDesign sound files. The design will allow the conversion between MP3 and QDesign Music 2 files.This new player will hold five times more music that an MP3 player.Read a July 13th press release at QDesign.
AT&T annouced that their a2b secure music format (an alternative to MP3) will work inside the QuickTime architecture; read a MacTrack blurb on a2b's support for QT.
And for those editing QuickTime movies:
Apple has released an update to version 1.0.1 of Final Cut Pro; information and a download link are available in article 11483 of the Apple Software Library.
Check out Jim Heid's After Effects 4 Expert Clinic if you want to learn what's new and cool in After Effects 4.0.
MacInTouch pointed out a new painting tool, Studio Artist from Synthetik, that can paint or rotoscope QuickTime video frame by frame automatically, among lots of other interesting features. Check out the Studio Artist Features page.
There's now a stand-alone QuickTime 4 installer that doesn't require an Internet connection during initial installation. Get it at the QuickTime 4 Stand-alone Download page.
Apple announced version 1.0.1 of the QuickTime Streaming Server. The update can be found at the QuickTime Streaming Server Update page of the Apple Software Updates library. More details about the update can be found in a 7/7 Apple press release which also says that the Apple Open Source Streaming Server code now supports Linux on Intel-based systems, and that there have been over 8 million downloads of QuickTime 4.
There's a review
of Avid Cinema for Macintosh with USB at Macworld online. This
is a low-cost (around $300) product that can be used to give iMacs video
digitizing and editing capabilities.
Updates this week:
Version 1.8 b2 of Panorama Tools (a freeware plug-in that works with a number of graphics programs for manipulating QTVR panos, available for MacOS, Windows and Linux) is at the Panorama Tools page.
There's an update to Ken Turkowski's DeFish program (which dewarps fisheye images so they can be used for QuickTime VR among other things). Get the updated version (1.2) at Ken's Making Environment Maps from Fisheye Photographs page; scroll to the bottom of the page to find the download link.Version 3.1 of Etchelon Tracer 3 is available. This is a $15 easy-to-use Macintosh shareware animation tool that outputs as QuickTime. More info and a download are at the Etchelon Tracer page.
Tex-Edit Plus 2.6 (a scriptable, styled text editor) has added support for embeddedQuickTime movies.Check out the About Tex-Edit Plus page for more info. Download the software at the Trans-Text Software page.
You can vote for your favorite streaming video player at a BrowserWatch
Vote Central: Video Players page. (You'll see the results of the poll after you
vote; currently QuickTime is the leader.)
Doug Ward of WebNation is beta-testing QuickSpeech. This is a Macintosh application that looks at a text file and uses Mac OS Text-to-Speech and then records the results into a QuickTime movie. You can read more and download the beta at WebNation's QuickSpeech for Macintosh page. Also, listen to the weather in CONWAY, ARKANSAS
Digital Origins has released RotoDV, a digital painting and special effects tool. There is more info at the RotoDV page.
Panoscan has a page that
compares various player technologies for immersive imaging playback, QuickTime
VR included.
If you're interested in a Firewire connection for a PowerBook G3, check out
the RATOC CBFW2
page.
Two new resource pages:
A new resource page for QuickTime VR at the EDGE site
Remap, for those interested in high field-of-view immersive imaging, and the use of fisheye lenses for panoramic photography.
Apple will be doing a live QuickTime broadcast of the Eurythmics on Wednesday, July 14th, 8pm ET. The concert is benefit for Greepace and Amnesty International. More info is at the QuickTime Showcase-Eurythmics Reunion Concert page.
Terran Interactive is now shipping version 4.0 of Media Cleaner Pro, the widely-used tool for compressing QuickTime video for Web and CD-ROM, now available for both Mac and Windows. For more information or to place an order, check out the Media Cleaner Pro 4.0 page.
Ken Turkowski has developed an application to dewarp fisheye images, so they can be used for QuickTime VR stitching, among other things.(For those aware of the IPIX patent on using fisheye images to create VR, you'll be interested to note that Ken's tool is based on a paper that precedes the IPIX patent.) To read more about the technology (and the patent controversy), to get the software, or to see examples, go to Ken's Making Environment Maps from Fisheye Photographs page.
The PanoramicVR.com Service Directory is a new web site where VR photographers can get hooked up with content producers and corporations.
ReelEyes is a Macintosh video capture application new from iREZ. (This tool was Milton Apperle's MyVidCap). The full version ships with iREZ's video capture cards, but you can download a light version or purchase an unlock key to access the full version for $24.95. Go to the iREZ ReelEyes page.
Hint Movie CMPlugin is a new contextual menu plugin for the MacOS that allows you to easily prepare ("hint") QuickTime movies for RTSP ("real") streaming. Get it at Dan's Mac Software page.
Version 2.1 of Commotion, the high-end effects tool, started shipping last week for both Macintosh and Windows NT. Read a Puffin Designs 6/30 press release, for more details.
This week's QuickTime-related articles from Apple's Tech Info Library:
QuickTime 4: Support For TIFF File Format (#24944)
QuickTime Streaming Server: Performance and Requirements (#24943)
If you've been creating alternate movies for the Web, and have been wondering what the CPU Ratings really mean, you might want to go see the results of a Terran survey done to try to get a better handle on what computers correspond to what CPU ratings for alternate movies. See the Terran CPU Ratings page.