What's New in QuickTime 5
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QuickTime Player Changes
QuickTime 5 introduces a number of changes to the QuickTime Player application, including changes to the
User Interface (UI). The appearance and behavior differ slightly for Mac OS X, Mac OS 9, and Windows. Changes are described as follows:
-
The
Mac OS X version of QuickTime Player, shown in
Figure 1
, features the Aqua interface. Clicking the top-left middle yellow "minimize" button moves the Player into the dock. If a movie is playing, it continues to play in the dock.
-
The
Mac OS 9 version (
Figure 2
) features the Platinum interface. Clicking the "minimize" box collapses the Player window so that only the title bar is visible. This pauses any playing movie.
-
The
Windows version (
Figure 3
) is similar in appearance to the Mac OS 9 version, but with the Windows menu bar attached to the Player window, which is a change from previous versions. It includes the standard Windows control and placement. Clicking the "minimize" box puts an icon of the Player in the Windows task bar.
-
QuickTime VR also has redesigned controls (
Figure 7
), available on both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. One significant change is the "show hotspots" button, which now toggles between showing and hiding hotspots when clicked (previously, it showed hotspots only
while
being clicked). A new cubic playback engine is also provided in QuickTime 5, discussed in the section
"New QuickTime VR Cubic Engine"
. This feature enables the viewer to see all the way up and all the way down -- in effect, all six faces of a cube -- by clicking in a VR panorama.
Figure 1
The Mac OS X version of QuickTime Player with Aqua user interface and some of the available QuickTime TV Channels
Figure 2
The Mac OS 9 version of QuickTime Player with the Platinum user interface and QuickTime hot picks
Figure 3
The Windows version of QuickTime Player with some of the available QuickTime TV Channels
A number of
UI changes are common to both Macintosh and Windows:
-
The Channel Drawer has been eliminated. Clicking the QTV button switches to a new scrollable window in the Player's main display area, containing tabs for
QuickTime TV channels and
user Favorites.
-
A "hot picks" movie now opens as the default content of QuickTime Player, if the application is launched without a selected movie, and if the user is connected to the Internet when the application opens. Note that there is no hot picks Tab. To bring up the hot picks movie, a user must double-click the QuickTime logo in the QuickTime TV channels window.
-
When the user rolls the mouse over an icon in the QuickTime TV channels window or the Favorites window, the name of that channel or favorite appears in the LCD area below.
-
The controls drawer has been eliminated from the Pro version of QuickTime Player. The video controls are superimposed on the main display area, while the audio controls appear in the timeline controller area, and are accessed by the menu item Show/Hide Sound Controls. The audio controls (Balance, Bass, and Treble) are shown in
Figure 4
.
Figure 4
The QuickTime 5 Player application with audio controls that you can Show/Hide from a menu item in the Player
-
The step-forward and step-backward buttons that were in the controls drawer are gone, but the left and right arrow keys still perform these functions. To select and step simultaneously, hold the shift key down while using the left or right arrow key. Holding an arrow key down for more than 3 seconds causes it to go into "turbo" mode, allowing you to rapidly select a long section of a movie.
-
There is a new
Show Movie Info item in the Windows menu. This opens a single window containing summary information about the frontmost movie. The information displayed includes some subset of the following:
-
Annotations -- Information such as title and copyright
-
Source -- Filename or URL of the current movie
-
Format -- Data or compression format of each track, or the track type
-
Data Size -- Size of the movie file
-
Data Rate -- Average data rate of the movie, or current data rate if playing
-
Current Movie Time -- Current movie time in Hours:Minutes:Seconds.Thirtieths
-
Duration -- Duration of the movie in Hours:Minutes:Seconds.Thirtieths
-
Normal Size -- Unscaled height and width of the movie in pixels
-
Current Size -- Current height and width of the movie in pixels
-
Bitrate and Streaming Quality -- for Streaming movies
Not all movies have all of these above settings.
-
The former Get Info dialog box has been renamed Movie Properties, and is now available only when QuickTime Player is registered (Pro version).
-
If the current movie contains a Chapter List, it now functions as a pop-up menu in QuickTime Player, just as it does in the QuickTime browser plugin.
The Movie Properties dialog box and the Show Movie Info window are shown in
Figure 5
and
Figure 6
, respectively.
Figure 5
An example of the QuickTime 5 Movie Properties dialog. in Mac OS 9
Figure 6
An example of the QuickTime 5 Movie Info window in Mac OS X. The Inspector shows the characteristics of the frontmost window.
If you are streaming a QuickTime movie, the bitrate will also appear in the Movie Info window shown in
Figure 6
.
© 2001 Apple Computer, Inc.
What's New in QuickTime 5
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