Making a Chapter Track

Dispatch 3

Question: How do I make a text track a chapter track?

Chapter tracks are text tracks that have been associated with other tracks in a way that the movie controller will build a popup menu holding the titles corresponding to different parts of the movie. This popup menu appears in the movie controller and includes a label naming the part of the movie. These different parts of the movie are called chapters.

For example, a video track might be linked to a text track. If the video track is enabled, the movie controller will build the chapter popup from the text in the text track. If the video track is disabled, the chapter popup is removed. This text track could just as easily be associated with a sound track or a MPEG track.

The following shows a MPEG movie containing a chapter track:

Figure. Movie with Chapter track

Pressing the mouse over the word "Zebras" in the above video will present a popup menu with the names of other parts of the movie that have been named. Choosing another chapter will switch the movie to that time.

How It's Done

This association is made by using a QuickTime track reference from the other track to the text track. Given another track myVideoTrack, use AddTrackReference to create the chapter reference:

AddTrackReference( myVideoTrack, theTextTrack, 
    kTrackReferenceChapterList,
    &addedIndex );
   

kTrackReferenceChapterList, is defined in Movies.h. It has the value 'chap'.

See Also

QuickTime 3 Reference - Movie Toolbox - Track References

Change History

4/16/98 - clf - First published