March 2000


March 28, 2000

You can view streaming QuickTime video from the Flashforward 2000 conference, at Apple's Flashforward 2000 page. (Frank Casanova, Director of QuickTime Product Marketing and QuickTime TV, speaks about QuickTime streaming about 58 minutes in.)

Microsoft shipped Internet Explorer 5 for Macintosh on Monday. The good news is that it will use the current QuickTime plug-in that is in your Internet Plug-Ins folder in your System folder. You can get IE 5 at the Internet Explorer Macintosh Edition Home Page.

If you're interested in using SMIL with QuickTime but haven't had time to dive in, yet, check out a simple tutorial in an article, "QuickTime 4 Begins to SMIL" at Streaming Media World.

Mac OS 9.0.4 is sort-of available. (Some people were able to get it via the Mac OS 9 software updater.) There's a Mac OS 9.0.4 Component List at MacInTouch. Of note are new FireWire extensions (version 2.3.3). Also of note is that there is no new version of QuickTime.

Aurora Video Systems announced the availability of hi-end options for their Igniter video capture card. You can read a 3/27 press release at Aurora Video Systems web site.

Helmet Dersch, creator of a number of tools for QuickTime VR (and other panorama technologies), has created PTViewer, a spherical panorama viewer for both Mac and Windows. Get version 0.4 at the Panorama Tools page.

The QuickTime team needs a new product manager, by the looks of a QuickTime Product Manager Job Description at Apple.

VersionTracker reports the following QuickTime-related software updates:

Uni Software has released version 1.1 of easy beat, a Mac-only QuickTime Music Architecture based music program; it lets you compose music that can be exported as a QuickTime music track. Get more info and find links to download the software at the easy beat home page.

SQUAMISH Media Group, Inc. has released version 1.0.1 of NodeSaVR, a tool that splits multi-node QuickTime VR panos into individual QuickTime movies and converts the QuickTime VR hotspots into URL hotspots. Check out the NodeSaVR page.


March 21, 2000 - Spring!

Apple is offering free half-day seminars around the country on using QuickTime on the Web. Get info and register at the Apple QuickTime for the Web Seminar page.

For Final Cut Pro users: New in the Apple TechInfo Library this week is an article about turning off Virtual Memory when using Final Cut Pro.

In a press release at Yahoo! titled "DDD Launches 3D Movie and Live Webcast Solutions for the Internet" Dynamic Digital Depth Inc. says they've got technology to enable 3D QuickTime movies. (They're talking about the kind of 3D that require special glasses; if you go to the DDD DeepSee Demo page now, you can view, with 3D glasses, some still images that use the technology.)

Michael Moretti pointed us to an article at time.com titled "Be a filmmaker", which shows how easy QuickTime and DV make the process of video capture, editing, and distribution of video.

Apple has modified the Tech Info article, "QuickTime 4.1: System Requirements", to include Windows 2000; be sure to read the note.

VersionTracker reports:

A new demo version of MediaCue, a tool that plays QuickTime movies and catalogs them, is now available. Go to the Leptonic Systems' MediaCue page, and scroll down to the bottom, and click on Test Version.

Beta version 8 (1.0.0b8) of SoundScript is available from Michael Norris's Software page. (This is a tool that lets you have different sounds in a QuickTime movie play or loop individually under script control.)

Smith Micro Software, Inc. has posted beta 2 of it's conexs for the Macintosh. This is a tool that allows Macintosh users to place IP Phone and Chat calls over the internet. Get it at the conexs for Mac page.


March 14, 2000

Read a MACASYLUM QUICKTIME 5 SPECIAL REPORT if you're interested in rumors about the next version of QuickTime. (There's even an image showing the QuickTime Player as a Web browser).

At the Panorama Tools page you can now get version 2.0b2 of PanoTools, a package containing both Panorama Tools (a freeware plug-in that works with a number of graphics programs for manipulating QTVR panos) and PTStitcher (a stitching utility that creates a panoramic images to be viewed with all major VR viewers)

Brennan Young has created a tool that can be used to generate a styled text track from a Tex-Edit Plus document. This gives you a much faster way of created a styled text track than using QuickTime Player Pro and a text editor. You can read about the tool and download it at Brennan's Styled Text Track Generator page.

MacInTouch reports two new AppleScripts for the Mac QuickTime Player--one can generate an HTML embed tag for a movie, the other can generate a SMIL sequence of QuickTime movies. Go to the Free AppleScripts Scripts page, and scroll to the bottom. (And if you haven't checked it out lately, go to the AppleScript Scripts for QuickTime 4.1 page to find a ton of QuickTime AppleScript scripts.)

Another just-released AppleScript is QT JukeBox, which allows Mac users to create and use playlists with the QuickTime Player. Read about it and get it at Kekoa John Sylva's Programs page.

MacCentral has a report about using SpeedTools CD-ROM Driver to allow access to VCD (Video Compact Disks) that QuickTime and the Apple driver would not allow in the past. Check out a MacCentral article, "SpeedTools fixes VCD-QuickTime problem?"

Digital Origin has announced EditDV 2.0 for the Mac. Read a 3/13/00 Digital Origin press release for more information about this video editing program optimized for the DV format.

There's short review of our QuickTime Pro 4 book on the Book Bytes page at My Mac Online.

By the way, there's also a negative customer review on the page for our QT 4 Pro book at Amazon, in which the reviewer misstates information about the contents of the book. If you've used our book, and you'd like to add your comments, we'd appreciate it.


March 7, 2000

A FAQ for the QuickTime Talk email list is now available. Even if you don't join the list, you may find answers to some of your QuickTime questions here.

If you're interested in Mac DVD playback, you may want to check out a couple of articles at MacCentral online. The first article is titled "QuickTime's lack of MPEG-2 support hurts Mac DVD playback". The second, essentially correcting the first is"Lack of MPEG-2 in QuickTime doesn't affect DVD playback".

Read about the availability of QuickTime VR panoramas for licensing by Corbis Images in a MacCentral article, "QTVR used in panoramic image offerings."

There's a new version (1.1) of Digital Origin's IntroDV for Windows. Read about this easy-to-use DV editing tool in a 2/28 Digital Origin press release.

WebShocker 2.0 has shipped. (This is a $40 animation tool that exports as QuickTime, as well as other formats.) Read more ahout the product at the RecoSoft WebShocker page.

If you've never used QuickTime Pro to add audio to still graphics, and you want to learn how by watching a QuickTime movie, check out Phil Shapiro's howtoslideshows.mov. (Phil also has a page with examples of how people have used this technique to author little QuickTime thank-yous.)

You can get new characters, props, and stages for PuppetTime Producer, a 3D character animation program that you can use to create QuickTime-based digital stories. Read more in a 3/1 press release from PuppetTime.


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