Apple is going to charge license fees of $1 per copy for the non-Pro and
$2 per copy of the Pro version of QuickTime 3. The non-Pro fee can be waived under
certain conditions. You can download and read the agreement at the Apple
Computer Software Licensing Page.
MacWeek has a QuickTime
3.0 Hotlist, with links to sites that showcase QuickTime 3.0 movies and a short
"Apple ships
QuickTime 3.0" article.
There's a new release of Commotion, the real-time rotoscoping and effects
tool. See the "Puffin
Designs Announces Commotion 1.5" press release for more info.
ATI has new drivers for their XCLAIM VR & TV cards. Get info and software
at ATI's Mac Drivers Page.
VRScript demo #9 is now available at the Unofficial
VRScript Support Page. (VRScript is an unsupported scripting language for
QTVR which allows you to do things like add sounds, 3D objects, and interactivity
to QTVR movies.)
There's a MacWEEK
opinion column titled "Make mine Biscotti". (Biscotti is the code name
for QuickTime for Java.)
The first edition of the Little QuickTime page (7/22/96) started with the words "Apple finally released QuickTime 2.5!". Now, at our 82nd installment of the page, we have the pleasure of reporting:
Get it at the QuickTime 3 Download page. And then make sure to upgrade to QuickTime 3 Pro.
So, what's so great about this release? For those who haven't looked into QuickTime 3.0 extensively yet, here are some highlights:
The Mac and Windows (95 and NT 4) versions of QuickTime are now virtually the same.
Codecs: Sorensen for video, QDesign for music, and PureVoice for audio that doesn't contain music, all of which provide amazing compression ratios (ideal for web) and only available in QuickTime 3.They'll be available to you in any application that you can use for QuickTime compression, including Media Cleaner Pro, Adobe Premiere, and MoviePlayer. Check out the QuickTime 3.0 Samples page to see examples of movies compressed with these.
Effects, Filters, and Transitions: There are over a 150 of these things that are available to any software developer to build into their applications. There are already two shareware programs using these features: QuickEditor for Windows and MyVidEditor for Mac OS. Free Apple utilities also let you experiment with them; see the Exploring Effects section of the QuickTime Tools and Utilities page. MoviePlayer provides access to a subset of them, too; see the appendix of the MoviePlayer documentation for more info.
Web features: You can create multiple data rate movies (so viewers get a movie appropriate for their connection speed), poster movies (short movies which download quickly, and call the full movie when clicked), and movies which contain URLs (so viewers are automatically sent to designated web pages.Go to the QuickTime Interactivity on the Web page and the QuickTime Workshops page for samples and more info.
QuickTime VR 2.1: Movies have a new controller (which among other things shows the names of hotspots so viewers can know where they'll go if they click on a hotspot). Object movies can now have hotspots. VR pano movies can contain a low resolution version of the movie which downloads first (so the movie "streams".) The QuickTime VR page is the best place to start for information about VR, but you'll also find information on how to do many QuickTime VR tasks at the QuickTime Workshops page.
Documentation for MoviePlayer: Now includes information about ALL features of MoviePlayer! There's a Mac version and a Windows version.
Also, check out the movie "Get QuickTime Pro" that appears on your desktop when you install QuickTime: it's interactive! (A glimpse into the future, perhaps...)
Apple announced that they are shipping a developer release of QuickTime for
Java. You can read more about at The
QuickTime for Java page. It's currently available only to developers that e-mail
a request and sign a non-disclosure agreement; the information to sign up is at
the software request page.
VersionTracker noted a new beta of Radius' Photo/Moto DV software. Get it
at the Download
Radius Moto/PhotoDV 1.1.1b2 Update page.
Quark is going to discontinue mTropolis (considered one of the best tools
for QTVR integration); there's a "Quark
to kill mTropolis" MacWEEK story.
There's a message
from Ben Waggoner of Journeyman Digital on the QuickTime Developer list that
compares the two newest promising video compression technologies: Sorenson and
CinePak Pro.
Adobe Systems has announced Premiere 5.0; it will support many of QuickTime
3's features. Check out Adobe's
"Leaping Bounds with Premiere 5.0" page and a MacWeek
article called "Premiere 5 focuses on professionals"
Terran Interactive has released an updater for Media Cleaner Pro 2, making
the current version 2.0.3. This version lets you encode Real Media 5 files,
supports the QMusic codec, and has some bug fixes. You can download the patch
and read more about it at Terran
Interactive Download page.
Seybold New York started today. Macintouch has a report from Steve Jobs' keynote
at their Seybold New York 1998
Keynote Reports page ; it includes a couple of paragraphs about QuickTime.
Apple has announced the winners of the QuickTime VR Studio Contest. A complete
list of the winners can be found in a 3/13
message posted to the QuickTime VR mailing list. While Apple will eventually
have a page with links to the winners, you can check out some of the winning entries
(or similar versions of the winning entries for those that are CD-ROM based) now:
VersionTracker noted two new QuickTime tools:
Control-G has posted a PlayMovieCMM, a contextual menu module which lets you play movies in the Fnder without opening a player application. You can read more about it and download it at the PlayMovie CMM page.
Chaotic Software has released QuickMovie, a shareware application that allows you to combine a series of still images into a QuickTime movie. You can download it from Chaotic's software page.
MacWEEK's multimedia section has an article about Post Digital Software's Roto rotoscoping tool and an article about the professional version of the QDesign music codec (a lite version ships with QuickTime 3.)
The URL for the Little QuickTime Page has changed to http://www.bmug.org/quicktime. (The old URL will continue to work for a short while, but please change your bookmarks.)
Apple has released a Video Input updater for the 5500, 6500, and Twentieth
Anniversary Macintosh.Get it at an
Apple 5500-6500 Software Updates page.
Compression Technologies, Inc is selling the Cinepak Toolkit in an "early
adopter" version for the Macintosh OS. The ToolKit, which starts at $499 for
a single license, includes Cinepak Pro, their improved version of Cinepak.
The idea is that you compress with Pro and play back with the free standard Cinepak
that's supported on many platforms. Check out CTI's
Get Cinepak page and CTI's Comparison
page.
Macintouch noted Matt's Hack TV; it's software for a PowerMac 8500 to convert
between NTSC, PAL and SECAM. You can read more about at Matt's
Hack TV Page.
Milton Aupperle has released a "beta" of version 2.1 of his MyVidCap
capture application that can record up to 24 gigabytes in a single
movie. He has only 6.3 gigs to test the recording, so if you have more he'd like
to know if it works. Get the software and info at the MyVidCap©
2.0 and MyVidEditor© V 2.0 page.
There's a new extension, QTVR PanoToThumbnail, at the QuickTime
3.0 Tools and Utilities Page. It adds to MoviePlayer's export choices the option
of exporting a thumbnail-sized linear QuickTime movie from a QuickTime VR panorama.
There's a new version of the shareware video capture application, MyVidCap.
Version 2.07 fixes a problem with freezes when running Mac OS 8 or earlier.
Get the software and info at the MyVidCap©
2.0 and MyVidEditor© V 2.0 page.
There's a MacWeek
article on the upcoming MiroMotion DC30 Plus capture card.
There's also a MacWeek
article about Pitango ClickWorks, a multimedia authoring tool that handles
QuickTime and QuickTime VR.
There's a 2/27
post on the QTVR list from David Palermo listing European distributors of QuickTime
VR Authoring Studio.
The Version Tracker page reported that
there's a new HyperCard beta (2.4b16). You can get the software and info at
the Apple HyperCard home page .
If you want to see some very cool stuff done with the music in QuickTime 3.0 (both
music and sound track), check out Mouse
Jam's QuickTime 3.0 Test Page.