Playing QuickTime Movies


QuickTime makes it possible to play movies in all kinds of applications, and it establishes standard methods for controlling playback in all applications. You can use a standard QuickTime movie controller and other standard methods for controlling playback when the controller is absent. The QuickTime Player application included with QuickTime has additional features used to play movies. If you play movies that contain MIDI-synthesized music, you may be able to affect how they sound by setting some options in the QuickTime Settings control panel.

Using the QuickTime movie controller

You usually control playback of a QuickTime movie in an application other than QuickTime Player with a standard collection of buttons and sliders along the bottom edge of the movie. With this controller, you can play, stop, browse, or step through the movie. If the movie has a soundtrack, you can use the controller to adjust the sound level. The controller also gauges where the current scene is in relation to the beginning and end of the movie. By pressing certain keys while operating the controller, you can turn the sound on and off, copy and paste parts of the movie, play in reverse, change the playback rate, and more. Figure 20-1 illustrates the functions of a standard QuickTime movie controller for a music file. (Some applications have variants of the standard controller and may put the controller in a palette that floats above the document window.)

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Figure 20-1: Use controls below a movie file to play, pause, browse, or step through it and adjust its sound volume.

Playing and pausing

To start a movie playing, click the Play button. This button has a right-pointing triangle like the play button on a tape recorder or VCR. While a movie is playing, this button becomes a pause button (with two vertical lines on it).

Stepping forward and backward

The two arrow buttons to the right of the play bar step backward and forward at the rate of one frame per click. The step buttons have different effects on movies that don’t have frames. For example, in a movie that has only sound or music tracks, each click of a step button skips ahead or back a quarter of a second.

Going to another part of the movie

The gray play bar in the middle of the movie controller shows the position of the currently playing frame relative to the beginning and end of the movie. To go to a different place in the movie, you can drag the playhead in the play bar or simply click the play bar (at or near the location of the movie segment that you want to see).

You can also go immediately to the beginning or end of the movie. Option-click the backward-step button to go to the beginning of a movie. Option-click the forward-step button to go to the end of a movie.

Adjusting the sound

To adjust the sound level, use the button labeled with the speaker. Click and hold down this button to pop up a slider (shown in Figure 20-1) that you can use to raise or lower the sound level. You can turn the sound off and on by Option-clicking the speaker button. You can set the sound level to up to three times louder than its normal maximum by holding down Shift while adjusting the level with the slider. If the speaker button is absent, the movie has no sound.

Changing playback direction and speed

To play the movie backward, z-click the backward-step button. In some applications, you can Control-click either step button to reveal a jog shuttle that controls the direction and playback rate. Dragging the jog shuttle to the right gradually increases the forward playback rate from below normal to twice normal speed. Dragging the jog shuttle to the left has the same effect on playback speed, but makes the movie play backward.

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QuickTime Controller Shortcuts

The QuickTime movie controller responds to all kinds of keyboard shortcuts. Pressing Return or Spacebar alternately starts and pauses play forward. Pressing z-Period (.) also pauses playing. You can press z-Right Arrow ( ) to play forward and z-Left Arrow ( ) to play backward. Press the Right Arrow ( ) to step forward and the Left Arrow ( ) to step backward. To raise or lower the sound level, press the Up Arrow ( ) or the Down Arrow ( ). Shift-Up Arrow ( ) raises the sound level beyond its normal maximum.

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Choosing a Chapter

A text area appears to the left of the step buttons in the movie controller for some movies. This Chapter list button lets you go to predetermined points in the movie, in the same way that index tabs let you turn to sections of a binder. Pressing the Chapter list button pops up a menu of Chapter titles and choosing a Chapter title takes you quickly to the corresponding part of the movie. If the Chapter list button is absent, either the movie window is too small to show the Chapter list or the movie has no defined Chapters.

Playing movies without controllers

Applications may display movies without controllers. In this case, a badge in the lower-left corner of the movie distinguishes it from a still graphic. To play a movie that has a badge and no controller, double-click the movie. If you press Shift while double-clicking the movie, it plays backward. Clicking a playing movie stops it. You can also display a standard movie controller by clicking the badge. Figure 20-2 shows a QuickTime movie with a badge.

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Figure 20-2: A badge identifies a movie without a controller, here seen in a Microsoft Word document.

Note

Badge is a term for a distinguishing mark superimposed on an icon or image to indicate that it isn’t a standard icon or image — such as the little arrow to indicate an alias icon.

Viewing with QuickTime Player

Although you don’t need a special application to view QuickTime movies, QuickTime includes one called QuickTime Player. With the QuickTime Player menu commands, you have more control than in some other applications over playing a movie. In some cases, however, you have less control over a movie. That’s because the QuickTime Player application sports a sleek interface that has traded some features to look more like a consumer device. Some of the controls are more like those found on a VCR.

The controls of QuickTime Player are enhanced when you upgrade to QuickTime Pro. The following descriptions of QuickTime Player commands indicate the QuickTime Player versions in which the described command is available.

Using QuickTime Player controls

When you open a movie in the QuickTime Player application, you find a number of slight differences from the QuickTime controls found in other applications, as Figure 20-3 shows.

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Figure 20-3: QuickTime Player has the controls for movie playback seen on most VCRs.

Most of the differences in QuickTime Player controls are cosmetic. The play bar and playhead are located above the play/pause and step controls, which are larger in QuickTime Player than in the QuickTime controller of other applications. QuickTime Player has separate controls for going to the start or end of the movie, and it has a button with the QuickTime logo for accessing QuickTime TV channels, which we discuss later in this Chapter. QuickTime Player also displays some extra information, including the elapsed time display to the left of the play bar and the audio equalizer display to the left of the play bar. A few features are missing. For example, you can’t z-click the step buttons to bring up a shuttle jog control.

Tip

After clicking the QuickTime logo button to see QuickTime TV channels, you can return to the QuickTime movie that was previously displayed in the window by clicking the TV button again.

In addition to the clearly visible volume control, QuickTime Player has several hidden audio controls. To reveal the hidden controls — Balance, Bass, and Treble — choose Movie Show Sound Controls or simply click the audio equalizer at the right end of the play bar. See Figure 20-4.

Tip

You can change the volume quickly by clicking in the slider track instead of dragging the slider. For example, to set full volume, click at the right end of the slider track. When the Balance, Bass, and Treble controls are showing, you can drag the mouse over the settings instead of clicking the plus and minus buttons. To raise the sound level beyond its normal maximum, press Shift-Up Arrow ( ).

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Figure 20-4: QuickTime Player has hidden audio controls.

Using QuickTime Player Favorites

QuickTime Player can keep track of your favorite movies to make playing them more convenient. You designate which movies are your Favorites, and then you can play one by choosing it from a menu or clicking an item in a list window as shown in Figure 20-5.

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Figure 20-5: QuickTime Player can display your favorite movies in its Favorites list.

To see a list of your favorite movies in a window choose Favorites Show Favorites. The Favorites window is empty until you add movies as Favorites. To make a movie a Favorite, drag its movie file from the Finder to the Favorites window. You can drag several movie files at the same time to make Favorites of them all. You can make a Favorite of a movie that’s open in QuickTime Player by bringing the movie to the front and choosing Favorites Add Movie As Favorite.

To play a favorite movie, click its icon in the Favorites window or choose it from the Favorites submenu.

You can rearrange the Favorites window by dragging icons to different positions in the window. You can remove a Favorite by Control-clicking its icon in the Favorites window and choosing Delete Favorite from the contextual menu that appears.

Using controls within movies

For the most part, you’ll probably confine your mouse clicks to the QuickTime Player controls. Occasionally, you may find it useful to actually click inside the movie window. For example, QuickTime can display Macromedia Flash documents, which may include buttons and links that can be clicked in the movie window. If you’re viewing an image (especially one that’s available via a streaming QuickTime connection over the Internet), you may be able to click a button or link in the QuickTime Player movie window.

Changing the QuickTime Player window size

Unlike many other applications that can show QuickTime movies, the QuickTime Player application displays QuickTime movies in windows with resize controls. If you resize a movie window, QuickTime resizes the movie to fill the window. A resized movie generally plays less smoothly if you change its proportions. As a precautionary measure, QuickTime normally forces movie windows to maintain their original proportions. To resize without this constraint, press Shift while dragging the resize control.

A movie looks best at an even multiple of its original size, such as half-size or double size. QuickTime Player constrains a movie to an optimal multiple of its original size if you press Option while dragging the movie window’s resize control. To quickly change a window to the nearest even multiple of its original size, Option-click its resize control.

In addition to dragging a movie window’s size box, you can use QuickTime Player menu commands to resize it. The basic edition of QuickTime Player has Half Size, Double Size, and Normal Size commands.

Presenting a movie

Instead of displaying a movie in a window, you can present it centered on a completely black screen. In QuickTime Player Pro, choose Movie Present Movie (z-M). (The Present Movie command is not available in the basic edition of QuickTime Player.)

The Present Movie command displays a dialog in which you can set the movie size and specify whether you want to play the movie normally or in slide show fashion (one frame at a time, for example). If your computer has more than one display, this dialog lets you select the display on which you want the movie presented. Setting a movie’s presentation size in this dialog to Double or Full Screen usually produces better results than resizing the movie manually before presenting it.

To stop a movie presentation, click the mouse button. With a slide show presentation, clicking the mouse button advances to the next movie frame; double-clicking goes back one frame. Pressing Esc or z-period stops a slide show presentation.

Searching for a text track

While viewing a movie that contains a text track, you can search for specific text in the movie. In QuickTime Player Pro, choose Edit Find (z-F) — if there are no text tracks, Find is disabled (grayed-out). (Text searching is not available in the basic edition of QuickTime Player.)

The Find command displays a dialog in which you search forward or backward to find text. If QuickTime Player finds the text you’re looking for, it immediately shows the corresponding part of the movie and highlights the found text. You can search for another occurrence of the same text by choosing Find Again from the Edit menu.

Choosing a language

QuickTime movies can have sound tracks in several languages. To select the language you want to hear, choose Movie Choose Language. QuickTime Player displays a dialog that lists the available languages. If the Choose Language command is disabled (grayed out), the movie doesn’t have sound tracks in multiple languages.

Playing continuously (looping)

You can set QuickTime Player Pro to play a QuickTime movie in a continuous loop, either always playing forward or playing alternately forward and backward. Choose Loop or Loop Back and Forth from the Movie menu. (These commands are available in the basic edition of QuickTime Player.)

Selecting part of a movie and playing it

In QuickTime Player Pro, you can select part of a movie and then play only the selected part. (You can’t select part of a movie in the basic edition of QuickTime Player.)

To select part of a movie while playing that part, follow these steps:

  1. Drag both of the selection triangles to the far-left edge of the play bar.

  2. Move the playhead to the place in the movie where you want to begin selecting.

  3. Shift-click the play button to start the movie and begin selecting the movie segment.

  4. Release Shift to end the selection and stop playing. The selected part of the movie appears gray in the play bar.

To select part of a movie without playing it, use these steps:

  1. Drag the left selection triangle to the first frame you’d like to select.

  2. Drag the right selection triangle to the last frame you’d like to select.

  3. Adjust the selection by doing either of the following:

    • Drag a selection triangle.

    • Click a selection triangle; then use the Left ( ) and Right ( ) Arrow keys to adjust the selection frame by frame.

To play the selected part of a movie, follow these steps:

  1. Choose Movie Play Selection Only (z-T).

  2. Click the Play button. When a check mark is next to Play Selection Only in the Movie menu, all the movie controls and QuickTime Player commands apply only to the selected part. For example, the Loop command causes only the selected part to play continuously, and the first-frame and last-frame buttons go to the beginning and end of the selection.

To cancel a selection: Drag both selection arrows to the far-left side of the play bar.

Playing every frame

In QuickTime Player Pro, you can prevent QuickTime from dropping any video frames to keep the video and audio tracks synchronized. If you want to see every frame, even if it means playing the movie more slowly and without sound, choose Movie Play All Frames. (The Play All Frames command is not available in the basic edition of QuickTime Player and is disabled if there is no video track.)

Playing all movies

You can have QuickTime Player Pro play all movies that are currently open by choosing Movie Play All Movies. (This command is not available in the basic edition of QuickTime Player.)




Mac OS X Bible, Panther Edition
Mac OS X Bible, Panther Edition
ISBN: 0764543997
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 290

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