May 2001


May 15, 2001

There's an update available for QuickTime Streaming Server 3 Preview; get it at document 11851 of Apple's Software Update library.

A Windows beta version of Sorenson Broadcaster (for live streaming) is now available. You'll find a Download link at Sorenson Media's Download page.

Sorenson is now offering a QuickTime streaming service that allows you to do live broadcasts without having your own server. (You need the hardware to capture the video; they provide the rest.) Find out more at the Sorenson Vcast Personal Broadcasting page.

This week is Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, being held in San Jose, California. You can get a list of the QuickTime sessions at Apple's WWDC 2001 QuickTime Sessions page.

Version 2 of PresenterActive (a free Mac slideshow creation tool that can export as QuickTime) has been released. Get more details and download it at the PresenterActive page.

QuickTime Text Tracks, a Mac tool for creating a text track that's synchronized to your movie, has been updated to version 1.3. Read more and download from the VersionTracker More Info page on QuickTime Text Tracks.

The VersionTracker More Info page for NTV Tools Suite reports that version 1.1 of NTV Tools Suite (for creating interactive QuickTime movies and publishing them to a streaming server) is available.

Michael Munger's On The Flip Side column for May 15 covers reasons why QuickTime is losing in the streaming media market.

The Little QuickTime Page will be off until June 5; we've really got to finish our QuickTime 5 book!


May 8, 2001

Apple introduced the iBook last week, yet another Mac you can use for capturing DV and creating QuickTime movies. At the QuickTime iBook Introduction page, you can watch streaming video of Steve Job's announcement last week, in which he introduced the new iBook. And, if you go to Apple's iBook page, you'll find links to both a video clip about the iBook, and to the Apple Hardware Gallery where you can view a QuickTime VR clip of the iBook (where you may notice the FireWire ports).

Crossroads Multimedia has a tutorial on "How to Convert a QuickTime Movie Audio Track into an mp3".

There's a DV.com tutorial on "Captioning QuickTime"

There's a less-than-positive review of QuickTime 5 at CNET.com; the author, however, has virtually no understanding of QuickTime and reviews it only as a streaming media player. On the other hand, a BusinessWeek Online article, "How Jobs May Outfox Gates" displays a solid understanding of what QuickTime, as a multimedia architecture, is all about.

MacCentral Online has a short piece on Bestshot.com's royalty free QT video clips.

If you're having issues with QuickTime 5, you can still get QuickTime 4.1.2 at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/support/. We don't know how much longer it will be there, though.


May 1, 2001

How's QuickTime 5 faring? A brief Apple press release, "QuickTime 5 Downloads Top 1.5 Million in Less than One Week" says it's doing well.

If you're looking for lots of detail (most, but not all, directed to programmers) about QuickTime 5 features, check out Apple's What's New in QuickTime 5 documentation.

A cnet news.com article, "Want Media Player 8? Buy Windows XP" discusses Microsoft's latest competitive tactics, including the effects of these tactics on the streaming video market.

You'll find a basic introduction to QuickTime sprite tracks and their use in LiveStage Pro in Brad Smith's April 20th iQT column.

Atutorial at streamingmediaworld.com, "Cleaner 5, Part III: Adding Interactivity with EventStreams" details how you use Cleaner to add such things as synchronized text tracks, HREF Tracks (for URL flipping), chapter lists, and hotspots (via sprites).

An article at streamingmediaworld.com, "Get Ready to SMIL" reviews three SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) authoring tools. Included in the review is Fluition 1.5, a tool that lets you author SMIL projects for QuickTime. (Most SMIL tools generate only Real-compatible SMIL code.)


RETURN TO ARCHIVE INDEX