Sample Chapter

Launching QuickTime Player from a Poster Movie

A poster movie is a QuickTime movie that responds to a mouse click by playing another movie. In this case, that movie is targeted to open in QuickTime Player.

You can make any QuickTime movie into a poster movie by adding an HREF parameter to the movie's <EMBED> tag. To make the movie open in QuickTime player, just add TARGET="quicktimeplayer" as well. For example:

<EMBED SRC="Poster.mov" HEIGHT="240" WIDTH="320"
HREF="Main.mov" TARGET="quicktimeplayer"
CONTROLLER="False" >

This example embeds Poster.mov in a Web page. If the viewer clicks in the display area of Poster.mov , QuickTime plays Main.mov in QuickTime Player.

A poster movie is usually a single image from the main movie, with the movie's title and something like "Click here to play" superimposed on it. You can also use a small looping clip or any other QuickTime movie as a poster, but a single image has a very short load time, which makes your page more responsive. A text movie is also small and fast-loading though, and scrolling text can be very effective.

You normally display a poster movie without a controller because clicking the controller won't activate the HREF --and besides, it's no fun "playing" a still image. Because there's no controller, be sure to pass the actual height of the movie in the HEIGHT parameter, instead of the usual height-plus-16.

Here's how to make a poster from a movie:

1. Open the movie in QuickTime Player. HREF
2. Choose Select None (Edit menu).
3. Move the time slider to the scene you want to use, and click in the display area. This selects a single frame from the movie.

   If you want to use a short clip instead of a still image, hold down the Shift key and drag the time slider to the end of the clip. This selects the clip.

4. Copy. Close (don't save).
5. Choose New Player from the File menu. Paste. Your selection is now a new movie.
6. Save As (self-contained).

You're done.

If you want to edit your poster in PhotoShop, choose Export instead of Save As, then choose Movie to Picture. Edit the image as needed, then open it in QuickTime Player and Save As (self-contained). Be sure to set the file extension to .mov .

That's all there is to it.