hands on
Tour the world in QuickTime
By Michael Vallance

In 1996 I "visited" Apple’s campus at Cupertino. Then I sped off to its plush London office after a tour of Piccadilly Circus complete with Eros and green-haired punk rockers. Later I watched my first short film and finally I ended my day evaluating an artist’s portfolio. And I did all this on my 120MHz Macintosh from the comfort of my living room.

So what enabled me to travel, view and criticise? Apple’s standard protocol for multimedia — QuickTime! And in the past four years, QuickTime has just got increasingly better.

Free download
QuickTime should be installed by default on your current Mac. If it’s not apparent then open Sherlock and search for the application or go to Apple’s website at www.apple.com/quicktime/ and download the latest version free.

QuickTime 5 is a preview, has the OS X look and, in my experience, is stable. After downloading, stay connected to the Internet and double click the Install QuickTime icon. A QuickTime plug-in will also be automatically installed in your browser. When ready, open QuickTime and you can see the self explanatory interface. It’s not ugly like Windows Media Player and, unlike RealPlayer, has no crass advertising.

Choose a picture to open. QuickTime will open many formats including JPG, GIF, PICT, BMP, PNG and Photoshop PSD images.

For sound, choose a WAV, AU, MOV or MP3 sound file, drag it on to the QuickTime window and click the play button. A combination of sound and picture generally results in a movie of some sort.

Insert a VCD or CD-Rom that you have recently bought and if the movie doesn’t start playing automatically, simply select Open and locate the MPEG folder, select the AVMPEG file and click Convert. Now sitback and enjoy the film.

Speedy trailers
Watching online movie trailers in QuickTime is fantastic due to its streaming capabilities. When the Star Wars Episode 1 trailer was released on Apple’s website last year, all my PC buddies were astonished at the speed and quality, despite larger size downloads.

I recommend Apple’s movie trailer site www.apple.com/trailers/ and if you are over 21 go to www.budweiser.com to view the hilarious Whassup? ads.
You can even expand your current TV channel viewing by accessing streamed TV content online. Click QuickTime’s TV button (bottom right corner) and a drawer of stations appear.

Simply click one and wait for the download. It’s being streamed so the programme will play as it is downloading.

Virtual travel
Having your browser QuickTime-enabled means you can also travel the world in virtual reality. A slight exaggeration but at least you can globetrot from the comfort of your room.

First go to VRoom’s web site (http://www.np.edu.sg/~pcb/vr/qtvr/singapore/) and click the interactive map for a virtual reality tour of Singapore’s hot spots.

Once you see a QuickTime picture on your browser simply click and move your mouse left and right.

What happened? You are spinning! This is a QuickTimeVR panorama and many of these have hotspots which will allow you to click to move to a different section.

Some tours even have sound effects such as doors banging or water splashing.
One of the most comprehensive and gorgeous QTVR sites must be France’s Louvre Museum. Go to www.louvre.fr and select Visite Virtuelle.

For teachers and students, QTVR brings computer learning to life. Multimedia Integrated (tel 336 -9929) or the Mac Shop at Funan the IT Mall will advise you on the software price.

I upgraded to the QuickTime Pro version and paid US$ 29.99 (S$51) online. This makes QuickTime a cheap but powerful multimedia authoring environment.

Educator’s tool
As an educator I can now paste in images after sections of a movie, input sub-titles, record voice-overs and much more.

I use my PowerBook G3 for development but both Mac and PC users can view my movie clips.

Also, the iMac- developed iMovies are saved to QuickTime format and I can further author these with QuickTime Pro as necessary.

For those who have purchased Office 2001 for Mac, try the Make Movie option in PowerPoint.

You can create a slide show with transitions that can be saved as a QuickTime file.

Finally, Flash SWF files can also be opened in QuickTime so imagine a movie clip that provides you with dynamic and often animated onscreen options. True
interactivity.

Michael Vallance is from the Mac Users Group of Singapore. Its website is at www.macuser.org.sg