Put your work on the Web.

ITP's Quicktime server is configured to play large Quicktime clips as well as stream live video feeds over the Web. Contact Nancy Lewis if you need an account on the server.

Progressive Streaming

Progressive streaming is best for making making short video clips available online. You basically upload a compressed Quicktime clip to our Quicktime server, just like you'd upload an HTML page or a JPG image or any other type of file to Stage or another server. You can then link to that file using a URL, just like you would any other file on the Web.

If you want put a Quicktime clip online, the first step is to compress it. The dimensions, data rate and frame rate of a typical digital video clip are just too large to play over the Internet, even with the fastest connection. You've got a lot of options when it comes to compression, and we've got a few different software packages that can do the job. Fortunately the engineers behind Quicktime Pro, Sorenson Squeeze and Cleaner have sorted through the confusion of codecs, frame rates, data rates, and they've come up with a handful of presets to get you started.

To play a clip from the Quicktime server, it has to be hinted for streaming. Your clip will be hinted automatically if you use one of the Quicktime Pro streaming presets or Sorenson Squeeze streaming presets described below. If you want to hint a clip without applying any further compression � like an MP3 for instance � you can open your clip in Quicktime Pro and choose Export > Hinted Movie under the File menu.

You may want to export a Web-compressed Quicktime clip right out of Final Cut or After Effects, or you may want to export a higher quality clip first � for playback from your own computer, for instance � then bring that clip into Squeeze or Cleaner to create a smaller version for the Web.

Exporting for the Web from Final Cut

When you export from FCP, you're actually using Quicktime Pro. Quicktime is the engine under the hood of Final Cut and other DV programs. When you choose File > Export > Using Quicktime Conversion in Final Cut, you're given a couple choices. The first is format � leave this as Quicktime Movie. The second choice is the settings � the menu gives you a choice between several presets. Look for the preset that best matches your target audience. If you know a lot of people are going to view your clip over a dial-up connection, for instance, select one of the modem presets. Selecting on of these presets automatically configurse more detailed parameters � things like frame rate and data rate. You can click on the option button to see it all spelled out. But more often than not you won't have to change anything. The presets were engineered to meet the needs of most authors and viewers.

For more information, look under the Help menu in Final Cut.

These presets are also available in the Quicktime Player. Just open a clip and choose Export under the File menu.

Note: The Quicktime export presets all use MPEG-4 compression. MP4 makes for good image quality with relatively small file size, but people will need at least Quicktime 6 to view for clips. For clips that are friendly with earlier versions of Quicktime, try one of the mov presets in Squeeze.

Exporting from After Effects

After Effects doesn't offer the same Web-ready presets, so it's often easier to export a high quality clip and then bring it into Squeeze or a similar program. To export, choose Composition > Add to Render Queue. From the Render Settings pop-up menu, choose Best Settings and for Output Module choose Lossless. (If you have audio in you project, click on the blue hyperlink next to Output Module. Make sure that Audio Output is checked in the window that pops up, and click OK.) Click the Output To hyperlink and tell AE where to save your clip and what to call it.

For more information, look under the Help menu in After Effects.

Compressing a Clip with Squeeze

When it comes high quality and small file size, Sorenson Squeeze can be a miracle worker. Just start up the program, then click the Movie File icon. Find the clip you want to compress. Squeeze opens a window with a preview of your clip on the left, and a series of buttons across the top. Hold the mouse pointer over the buttons and little tooltips will pop up to explain what each button does. First, select one of the Output Type buttons on the top left. (Mov is the default and chances are that's what you want.) Next select one of the Quicktime Compression Settings. Streaming 100k is a good middle-of-the-road solution. Then click the Squeeze It button. That's about all there is to it. Like Quicktime Pro, you CAN go in and tweak the various settings within a preset, but most of the time you probably won't need to.

For more information, look under the Help menu in Squeeze.

Uploading to ITP's Quicktime Server

Use Fugu, Fetch or any other FTP program to upload your file to your directory on the Quicktime server. The server's address is qtmedia.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu. Then you can link to your clip with a URL along the lines of: rtsp://qtmedia.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu/yournetid/yourclip.mov. (You can't connect to the streaming server with an http:// URL.)

Embedding Video in a Web Page

If you have any experience designing Web sites, you know that one page can look and act differently from one browswer to the next, one platform to the next. That's certainly the case when it comes to embedding Quicktime video within a page. The following code does the trick most of the time � Mac or PC, IE, Netscape or Safari. Just copy it into your own Web page.

If it looks redundant, it is. That's just to cover the bases with the different browsers. Obviously you'll have to change some of the parameters to match your own clip, but that should be pretty straightforward.

Remember to add 16 to the height of your movie to allow for the playback controls at the bottom of your clip.

In the code above, notice that the URLs for your clip begin with rtsp:// and end with .mov � the file extension for the Quicktime clip. On most servers � like Stage for instance � you can link to your clip just like you would any other file, with a URL starting with http://. That's NOT the case with the Quicktime server. If you're linking to a clip on the streaming server, your URL should begin with rstp:// instead. For realtime clips, your URL should begin with rtsp:// and end with .sdp instead of .mov.

Apple's site has a detailed description of all the possible attributes of an Embed tag.

Page last modified on November 28, 2007, at 04:05 PM