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Summary of Changes and Enhancements

QuickTime 5.0.1 provides a number of new features and enhancements, in addition to a several bug fixes. These new features and enhancements are designed to extend QuickTime’s reach and capability as the premier player and multimedia authoring technology for Macintosh and Windows computers.

In this section:

Enhancements
Changes to the Installer
Support for New Formats
Other New Features
Version Differences

Enhancements

• Improved QuickTime Player application User Interface (UI); new audio and video controls, as well as a new scrollable Channel window and Get Movie Properties dialog (among other enhancements). In the Pro (registered) version, there are now ordinary menu items for commands such as “Add Scaled,” that were previously hidden unless you pressed modifier keys, such as Shift, ctrl, alt, or Command.

• The capability to customize the appearance of QuickTime Player by adding a “media skin” to your movie. A media skin specifies the size and shape of the window that the movie is displayed in, while also specifying which part of the window is draggable. A QuickTime movie does not have to be surrounded by a frame. No controls are displayed, except those embedded in the movie using Flash tracks or wired sprites.

• Digital Video (DV) codec optimizations, both compression and decompression, for improved quality and performance on Power Macintosh G3 and Power Mac G4 computers.

• Velocity Engine (AltiVec) and multiprocessor support for DV codecs.

• Inclusion of the QuickTime VR Flattener extension as part of a Full Install of QuickTime, allowing export of VR panoramas in fast-start format with a selectable preview image (or grid), enhanced to support cubic VR as well as cylindrical VR.

• A VR exporter that splits multinode VRs and generates HTML for URL linking, and a VR exporter for object compression.

• Additions to AppleScript, including a new suite of editing features and commands. These features are useful for QuickTime authors who need to automate certain processes, such as batch preparation of QuickTime movies to include copyright information, hypertext links, or full-screen presentation.

• MP3 improvements, including access to ID3v2 metadata.

• Support for new SMIL attributes, such as clip-begin, clip-end, and qt:fullscreen.

• Support for new Travelling Matte effects and gradient wipes, which are useful for application developers working in video and movies.

Changes to the Installer

• Addition of a new Third-party QuickTime Component Downloader. This is designed to provide a registry of QuickTime components on an Apple server from third-party developers who want to include their components in user downloads and updates on an as-needed basis.

• The Installer now recognizes previous installations of QuickTime for Java and will now update them, even during a Full Install.

Support for New Formats

• Support for MPEG 1 playback, both local and streaming on Macintosh and Windows.

• Introduction of a new QuickTime VR cubic playback engine.

• Addition of Flash 4 support.

• Changes and improvements to the QuickTime Music Synthesizer, including support for industry-standard DLS (Downloadable Sound) and Sound Font 2 formats.

Other New Features

• Additions and changes to QuickTime for Java –– including support for a new idling mechanism.

• New EMBED tag parameters and URL extensions.

• New API functions, including a broadcasting API for Mac OS that allows third-party developers to write broadcasting applications or add broadcasting to existing applications.

• Addition of new wired actions and operands.

• A new MIME type (.qtl=application/quicktimeplayer) that allows you to launch movies in QuickTime Player from a text link.

• New XML importer allows you to embed QuickTime URLs in a small text file.

• New ability to render effects and transitions in real time in DV format on Macintosh computers equipped with compatible hardware accelerator cards.

Version Differences

QuickTime 5 is currently available in three versions:

• QuickTime 5.0.1 for Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9, and Windows

• QuickTime 5 for Mac OS X

• QuickTime 5.0 RT for Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9

QuickTime 5.0.1 is the current release for Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9, and Windows. It replaces QuickTime 5.0 RT, which was distributed only on CD for Macintosh computers. QuickTime 5.0 RT has essentially the same feature set as QuickTime 5.0.1.

QuickTime 5 for Mac OS X does not currently support the following features:

• Media skins

• The complete set of broadcasting APIs

• QuickTime VR authoring components

• Hotpicks movie

• The PictureViewer application (Mac OS X offers the Preview application in its place).

• The complete set of QuickTime Player AppleScript features

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