Configuring and Updating QuickTime

QuickTime is highly configurable to suit your situation and use. This section will cover some of the settings you can adjust in QuickTime.

QuickTime System Preferences

Many settings are located in the QuickTime pane of System Preferences, shown with the Connection panel selected in Figure 20-6.

Figure 20-6: The QuickTime pane showing the Connection tab.

Set your system’s connection speed with the pop-up menu so that QuickTime knows how fast to request data and at what rate to display the audio or video so as to avoid creating gaps while you wait for the next part of the data to download. If you have a fast connection, you may select the “Allow multiple simultaneous streams” checkbox, or click the Instant-On... button to shorten the wait at the beginning.

In the Plug-In tab, shown in Figure 20-7, the settings allow you to set the way QuickTime functions with your Web browser. You can use the checkboxes to choose whether or not to play a movie automatically, to save a movie in the Web browser’s disk cache, and to enable kiosk mode, which reduces the amount of control someone has available. If you click on the MIME Settings button you see the MIME sheet shown in Figure 20-8. Here you can decide what media types the QuickTime browser plug-in will handle. Most people will want to stick with the default selections, which you can return to by clicking the Use Defaults button.

Figure 20-7: Use the Plug-In panel to alter QuickTime’s behavior within a Web browser.

Figure 20-8: Choose the types of media formats QuickTime handles in a Web browser with the MIME sheet of the Plug-In panel.

The Music panel allows you to assign the default QuickTime synthesizer or a different music synthesizer (if you have one) to play music and MIDI files.

The Media Keys panel lets you view an encrypted movie by entering the media key supplied by the creator.

Click the Update panel to view the information shown in Figure 20-9.

Figure 20-9: Use the Update panel to find and install new QuickTime components and applications.

If you click the Update Now... button on the Update panel, QuickTime checks for new codecs and other QuickTime software. This QuickTime update feature is separate from the Software Update in System Preferences for OS X.

QuickTime Player Preferences

With a QuickTime Player window open, choose the command QuickTime Player Preferences Player Preferences. Here you can alter the settings pertaining to the QuickTime Player for movies, sound, showing Apple’s Hot Picks movie, and for pausing a movie when logged out in Fast User Switching. Again, the default settings will be best for most people. Figure 20-10 shows Player Preferences.

Figure 20-10: Set the behavior of the QuickTime Player application in Player Preferences.