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QuickTime
History | Clip Delivery Overview
Of all the video formats, QuickTime has evolved into the most sought-after format for progressive download, and this, rather than streaming, has always seemed to have been the philosophy of the QuickTime format for the time being. One example of this philosophy is the popular movie trailers posted on Apple’s website. While many of these trailers are progressive downloads from a web server, it is also possible to stream a QuickTime media file from Helix Universal Server, if the file has been properly prepared or hinted for streaming as it is called.
Embedding QuickTime in Web Pages
Again, for maximum usability, the embedding of streaming media in web pages is not recommended, but if necessary, a code reference on how to do so is located at: http://www.mediacollege.com/video/format/quicktime/streaming/index.html
One of the issues with embedding QuickTime in web pages has to do with the desired effect. There are many possibilities, which can make the QuickTime-embedding issue an intricate one. For example, sometimes an author may want to detach the player from the browser so that sizing of the video can be done, and so larger play controls can be exposed to the user. This is a complex issue, so an HTML code example is given here:
<OBJECT CLASSID="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" WIDTH="320"HEIGHT="180"
CODEBASE="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab">
<PARAM name="SRC" VALUE="poster.mov">
<PARAM name="AUTOPLAY" VALUE="false">
<PARAM name="LOOP" VALUE="false">
<PARAM name="CONTROLLER" VALUE="false">
<PARAM name="HREF" VALUE="metafile.qtl">
<PARAM NAME="target" VALUE="quicktimeplayer">
<EMBED SRC="poster.mov" WIDTH="320" HEIGHT="180" AUTOPLAY="false" TARGET="quicktimeplayer" LOOP="false" HREF="metafile.qtl"
CONTROLLER="false" PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" >
</EMBED>
</OBJECT>
This code embeds a QuickTime player into a web page, and is supplemented with what is commonly called a poster movie in the ‘src’ parameter. This is a concept that Apple recommends and examples of this can be seen when viewing movie trailers on web pages. A graphic relating to the movie is shown in the space the movie will play on the page. A poster movie is supplied to the player with the .mov extension on it. What may be confusing is that any graphical file that the quicktime player can display can be saved as a .mov file to become a poster movie if it has been authored with QuickTime Pro and saved with the .mov file extension.
Once the poster movie file is embedded on the page, and the plug-in loads, the plug-in allows the poster movie file to be clicked on with the mouse. Note the TARGET parameter in the plugin code above. This code specifies that a new detached QuickTime player should appear separate from the page and begin streaming whatever URL is specified in the HREF parameter. In this case the HREF in the plug-in HTML code supplies a separate Meta file, ‘metafile.qtl’. This is a text file that has a reference to a stream. This file will have the following code:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?quicktime type="application/x-quicktime-media-link"?>
<embed src="rtsp://smedia.mc.maricopa.edu/realqt.mov" />
Highlighted in bold in this example is a URL to a QuickTime movie file that has been hinted for streaming. When the user clicks on the poster movie image, a new player window detaches, the metadata file is fed to the detached QuickTime player and then the player interprets the URL. If the URL is valid, the server begins streaming the file to the detached player.
Here's what this looks like in concept:
^ Click on the logo to stream the QuickTime file
So as can be seen, the authoring process for this type of behavior is quite involved because it requires several steps. If the desired effect is just to embed the player in the page and then stream the content, then a code example not unlike the one found at
http://www.mediacollege.com/video/format/quicktime/streaming/index.html is shown here:
<OBJECT CLASSID="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" WIDTH="320"HEIGHT="180"
CODEBASE="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab">
<PARAM name="SRC" VALUE="poster.mov">
<PARAM name="AUTOPLAY" VALUE="true">
<PARAM name="CONTROLLER" VALUE="false">
<PARAM name="HREF" VALUE="rtsp://smedia.mc.maricopa.edu/realqt.mov">
<EMBED SRC="poster.mov" WIDTH="320" HEIGHT="180" AUTOPLAY="true" CONTROLLER="false" href="rtsp://smedia.mc.maricopa.edu/realqt.mov" PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/">
</EMBED>
</OBJECT>
A working demo/example of this concept is shown here
With this example, a poster movie file is still required to display something on the page, and user interaction (a mouse click) is still required to get the stream to play. So in all, there is much room for author error due to the many variables and scenarios that might be chosen if streaming a QuickTime file from a streaming server such as Helix Universal Server is the goal. If progressive download from a web server is the goal, the plug-in is quite adept at handling those scenarios, but since this document is focused on streaming, examples of this will not be given.
On the other hand, the QuickTime player is well-adept at handling other types of streams that the Helix Universal Server can deliver, such as various flavors of MPEG. Not only that, but Apple Macintosh performance is well-addressed for the obvious reason that QuickTime is developed by Apple specifically for the Macintosh platform, with the Windows platform being a close second.
Clip Delivery for Windows Media | Clip Delivery for RealMedia | Other Formats