What's New in QuickTime 4.1

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Movies as Objects

One way to use embedded movies is to break projects into components, allowing portions to be reused in other projects, and simplifying the authoring process. In QuickTime 4, this technique could be used in a Web browser using external movie-to-movie communication. Now in QuickTime 4.1 a single movie can be created that is playable in the QuickTime Player or any application that plays QuickTime movies.

For example, an interactive movie could contain three components, as illustrated in Figure 3:

Figure 3 An interactive movie example with three components

By encapsulating these three components each in a separate movie, you can reload only portions that are necessary to reload. For example, the control strip may persist throughout the entire experience, while the animation area may be replaced once per scene and the displayed text changed several times per scene. By implementing each component as a movie and composing them together using movie tracks in a container movie, you can minimize reload time and memory usage, and even update the source movies on your Web server as you improve or change them.


© 1999 Apple Computer, Inc.

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