Various software updates in the past two weeks (most brought to our attention at VersionTracker):
QMedia, a plug-that allows access to virtually all of QuickTime's features (including automated movie generation and editing) from within 4D databases, has been recently upgraded to version 1.1.2. Get more information and a link to a Download page at Escape Information Services' QMedia page.
QuickMovie, a $20 shareware tool for creating QuickTime movies from a sequence still images has been upgraded to version 1.2 and is available at Chaotic Software's QuickMovie page. (This tool gives you many more options than QuickTime Player's Open Image Sequence feature. It also runs under Mac OS X)
Terran has a 5.0.1 updater for Cleaner 5 that they recommend for all Cleaner 5.0 users. You'll find the updater (as well as a link to a readme file) at Terran's Downloads page.
QuickTimeTcl has been updated to 3.0. This is an extension to the Tcl/Tk scripting language that allows you to access many of QuickTime's features via a fairly simple scripting language. Get more info at the QuickTimeTcl page.
VideoScript 2.0.6 for Mac is now available at the VideoScript Download page. (VideoScript is a tool that can be used to write scripts for processing video; a Windows version is also available.)
And some interesting articles:
A good overview of MPEG-4 (including insight into MPEG-4's relationship to QuickTime) can be found in a MacWeek article, "Exploring MPEG-4".
At MacReviewZone, you can find two articles containing excerpts from David Pogue's book, "iMovie: The Missing Manual". One is on "Applying the Effect - and Rendering", and the other is on "When to Use Transitions"
Streamingmedia.com has two more installments in their tutorial series on Media Cleaner Pro. One is a tutorial on "Batch Processing and Productivity Tips for Compression" and the other is a tutorial covering output options for QuickTime.
The Little QuickTime Page will be on vacation next week. (The next Little QuickTime Page will be posted on November 27th.) Happy Thanksgiving!
On2.com has released a beta version of its TrueMotion VP3 codec for QuickTime. This is a codec designed to provide high-quality video for broadband (DSL, cable modem, etc.) playback. You can download a beta (for Mac or Wiindows that you can use for encoding in QuickTme Player) at the On2 QuickTime Plug-in install beta page. To understand more about this technology go the On2 Broadband FAQ's page.
SingleReel, the free QuickTime video hosting site, has added video messaging (i.e. sending video clips via email) to its services. Check out SingleReel's Video Messaging Overview page. (Note: this page doesn't seem to be accessible in Netscape browsers. It's fine in Internet Explorer.)
If you want to read about someone singing the praises of QuickTime and the Mac, check out a MacCentral article, "R/com CEO: nothing else like QuickTime and Macs".
Another MacCentral article, "ici Media to offer QuickTime Streaming course" announces a two-day hands-on course on creating and deploying streaming QuickTime content to be held December 2 and 3, near Vancouver, British Columbia.
Sorenson Media has a new beta of version 1.1 of its Broadcaster application, a tool for broadcasting live QuickTime streams. It's now up to 1.1b10 and is available from theSorenson Broadcaster Beta page. (Note: this version is NOT compatible with the version of QuickTime 5 that's publicly available.)
Streaming Media World has two reviews of SMIL editors for the Macintosh. One is GRiNS from Oratrix (see Tim Kennedy's "GRiNS Makes Mac SMIL" article) and the other is Fluition from Confluent Technologies (see Tim Kennedy's "Fluition for the Mac" article). Both tools support QuickTime 4.1 's implementation of SMIL.
You've only got until the end of the week (November 10) to submit a film for the Aggressively Boring Film Festival. You can submit a QuickTime clip and it will be converted to the gMedia format, to be played back on Sony's CLIÉ, a Palm OS-based PDA. The winner gets a CLIÉ of their own. Details are at the New Venue Events page.
And, for another chance to win hardware: according to a November 5th Aurora Video Systems press release, you can fill out a form that gives you a chance to win a Fuse or Igniter PCI video capture card, valued at $500 and $1500 respectively.
A cool new QuickTime VR participatory project is starting, called Then and Now. The idea is to take old panoramic images, create new VR panoramas at the same locations, and have each old/new pair synched (via wired sprites) for simultaneous viewing. If you want to see an example, or are interested in participating yourself, check out the Then and Now page.
The Marlin Project (which is porting the QuickTime Streaming Server to Mac OS 9) has a new home at http://www.marlin-project.com.br/ . (We got this info at MacInTouch; Dale Sorenson figured it out.) Also, streamingserver.org, which we reported as missing in action, is back.
SoundScript (a tool that lets you have different sounds in a QuickTime movie play or loop individually under script control) has been updated to version 1.0b11. It's available from from Michael Norris's Software page.
Tech Info Library
article #58316 (from Apple) details the process of preparing movies, putting
them on a server, and writing the HTML for serving movies with Mac OS X Server.
Brad Smith's iQT
page this week talks about using LiveSlideShow to create a QuickTime-based
slide show.
Barb Roeder at streamingmedia.com has a tutorial titled, "Creating Text Tracks in QuickTime" .
French speakers might want to check out QTBridge, a site that looks to be a very extensive resource (in French) concerning interactive QuickTime, especially LiveStage.
Avid is shipping their ePublisher product, a $550 Windows-only tool that synchronizes video with other elements on a web page (as well as doing capture and simple editing). It produces the video content in a number of formats, including QuickTime. Read more in a November 6 Avid press release.