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[Plug-Ins] [Plug-In Pack]

QuickTime
[Imagemap]

Company: Apple Computer
Platform: Mac, PowerMac; Win95, NT, 3.1
Plug-in cost: Free
Developer tool: Any program that makes QuickTime movies
Download from: http://quicktime.apple.com/

The 1996 Internet World in San Jose seemed like just another trade show until Apple introduced the QuickTime plug-in. For the first time, designers would be able to include streaming QuickTime movies in browser windows. Most audience members were so ex cited they could hardly sit still. Apple stole the show, and "streaming video" was the catch phrase of the day.

But QuickTime madness didn't last long. In fact, it may have petered out before anyone left the parking lot. In the weeks that followed, only a handful of QuickTime-enhanced sites sprang up, and most weren't that impressive.

So what went wrong? Well, the QuickTime movie format is great for CD-ROMs, but on the Web, it's a bandwidth hog. This immediately limited the plug-in's potential audience, and decreased most developers' incentive to create pages for it.

Then there's the memory problem. Even small movies require an extra 2Mbytes of memory from users. And for larger movies, they need much, much more. (We've seen files that require as much as 10Mbytes.)

But for all its faults, there may be hope yet for QuickTime plug-in. The format is already a standard among software- and content-developers, and the image quality is good. Plus, unlike most plug-ins, it does work. And that goes a long way on th e Web.



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