Displaying Files While Downloading

Support for viewing QuickTime VR movie files that are being downloaded from the Internet has steadily improved with each new version of QuickTime and QuickTime VR. How a VR movie appears and behaves as it is being downloaded with QuickTime 3 and QuickTime VR 2.1 depends on how and when the VR movie itself was authored.

For older QuickTime VR movies authored with QuickTime 2.0, the user must wait for the entire movie to download before seeing the movie. While the movie is downloading, the QuickTime placeholder picture is visible.

For panoramas authored with QuickTime 2.5 or later, but not specially authored for the Web, the user sees a background grid appear and panorama tiles show up as they are downloaded.

For objects, the first frame of the object appears (usually the top of the object), and subsequent frames become available as they are downloaded. The user can manipulate the movie as normal while the movie is being downloaded. Hot spots are not active while the movie is being downloaded.

When downloading QuickTime VR panoramas that have been specially authored for the Web, a preview image of the entire panorama appears after about ten per cent of the movie has been downloaded. The high resolution tiles corresponding to the default view appear next, followed by the rest of the tiles. When downloading object movies that are authored for the Web, the default view frame appears first. The remaining frames that make up the row for the default view are downloaded next, followed by frames for any other rows in the object. The user can manipulate the movie as normal while the movie is being downloaded. Hot spots are not active while the movie is being downloaded.

See "Optimizing QuickTime VR Movies for Web Playback" in Chapter 5, "Creating QuickTime VR Movies."

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