[thelist] all questions QuickTime

[Kasimir K]

Bird wrote on 2004-10-26 16:33:
> I have inherited a site and I have been given a huge QuickTime movie by
> the client. Its 10 MB in size. Its causing all kinds of problems to play
> and I wonder as to the reasons why. Is it the size, the way its been
> saved or my code of how I have embedded it in the page? 

Probably all...

> 2. As its so big I presume it will only play well on high speed
> connections. Is that assumption correct? 

Yes it is.

> 3. When I first made the pages it played correctly on both IE and
> Netscape. Now it will not even load on two of my machines in the
> Netscape 6 or 7. The QuickTime icon fails to appear. Why would this be
> so? 

Because there is no src-attribute in your embed tag... Shoud be like this:
<EMBED
src="okonjima.mov"
autoplay="true"
controller="true"
WIDTH="768" HEIGHT="592" 
PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/">

> 4. In Opera, the movie won't play because it prompts me saying I need to
> download the latest plug-in from Apple when I already have it installed
> on my machine. How can I get round that?

Maybe it's trying to find ActiveX of the object tag.

> 5. Is there any way that I can make the movie smaller in size?

Yes, you can reduce its pixel dimensions: for example going from 800 x 
600 to 400 x 300 reduces raw file size 75%. You can also compress the 
video more, this works like jpg images: more compression = smaller file 
size = lower picture quality.

> What software would I need?

Any decent video editing software should do the trick. Apple's own 
QuickTime Pro would play nice together .movs, and is less than $30.

> The client doesn't seem able to get in touch with
> the original person who made the movie. 

No big problem, as the file you have now is good enough source for low 
resolution web videos.

> As well as size in MB the actual
> dimensions of the movie are huge. If you are viewing at 800 x 600 it
> causes a scroll. Can I alter that any way? 

Yes, by reducing its pixel dimensions :-) Choose a video editing 
program, and see its manual for details how things are done.

> 6. According to our stats on visitors to the site. Over 94% are viewing
> using IE. Should this movie really be available in another format than
> QuickTime such as RealPlayer or Windows Media player?

It might be good to offer in many formats: with Quicktime, Windows Media 
and mpeg you'll cover most bases.

> To convert the movie I presume the original movie maker needs to resave
> the file. Is that correct?

Not necessarily. As said before, your current file is good enough for 
this purpose. Of course the original uncompressed video would give best 
results, but with low resolutions the difference is hardly noticable.

> 7. Some sites have options where its for dialup and for high speed. What
> would be the differences in these files? How would i make them?

You just save different versions of the file with different dimensions 
and/or compression settings. Again, see the manual of the program you 
choose,

> If anyone has any other snippets of information that they may find
> helpful please chip in. I read the apple site but really only gleamed
> how to embed the movie.

I'm affraid that just gleaming won't get the information through... you 
just have to read, and Apple's site is a good starting point for all 
things quick time. Googling along lines of "web video tutorial" could be 
your a next step. It's been some time since I last worked on video, so I 
can't recommend any current sites.

.k