In the previous chapter, you learned to use several practical applications that come with Mac OS X. In this chapter, we’ll try out some more entertainment-oriented applications—QuickTime and DVD Player.
You learned in Chapter 1, “Introducing Mac OS X,” that QuickTime is one of Mac OS X’s built-in imaging components. By using its technology, system applications can support reading or writing many different image formats.
You might also know that QuickTime is a popular media player used to enjoy media, both from within a Web browser and as an application on your desktop. In the first half of this chapter, we look at using QuickTime 6.
Did you Know?
QuickTime supports most common digital media formats, including those for movies, MP3 files, WAV files, images, and interactive applications. QuickTime 6 also supports MPEG-4, the global standard for multimedia, which is designed to deliver high-quality video using smaller file sizes.
You can learn more about the supported formats by visiting Apple’s QuickTime specification page at www.apple.com/quicktime/whyqt/.
Watching QuickTime movies play in your Web browser window is one of the most common uses for QuickTime, so let’s take a look at the controls of the QuickTime browser plug-in. Figure 7.1 shows a QuickTime movie playing in the Safari Web browser.
By the Way
If you’re a movie fan, you’ll love Apple’s movie trailers Web page, located at www.apple.com/trailers/.
The movie controls are located across the bottom of the video. There’s a volume control at the far left, with a play/pause button immediately to its right. The progress bar takes up the middle. At the right are buttons to rewind or fast-forward and a downward pointing arrow to get information and change settings.
If you’ve used a VCR or other media player, you’ve certainly seen these before. However, you might want to know a few shortcuts.For example, clicking the speaker icon on the far left can instantly mute the volume. You can also control the volume level using the up-arrow and down-arrow keys on the keyboard.
Did you Know?
To increase the volume beyond its normal limit, hold down the Shift key while dragging the volume control.
Playback controls also can be activated from the keyboard, saving the need to mouse around on your screen. To toggle between playing and pausing, press the Spacebar. To rewind or fast-forward, use the left-arrow and right-arrow keys, respectively.
If the movie being played is streaming from a remote server, some of these controls might not be available. For example, on-demand streaming video can’t be fast-forwarded or rewound, but static files can be. The available controls depend entirely on the movie you’re viewing.
In addition to the QuickTime plug-in, there’s also the QuickTime Player. The QuickTime Player application provides another means of viewing movies and other QuickTime-compatible media, including digital images and music files, directly from your desktop.
Did you Know?
Minimizing a QuickTime Player movie while it is playing adds a live icon to the Dock. The movie (with sound) continues to play in the minimized Dock icon. Even if you don’t have a use for this feature, give it a try—it’s extremely cool!
To use QuickTime Player, open it from its default home in the Dock or from the Applications folder. After the default QuickTime window opens, click the QuickTime icon button at the lower right to launch the Apple QuickTime view, as shown Figure 7.2.
The left side of this view lists several categories from which you can choose what to view or listen to. Clicking a category launches your default Web browser and brings up a page listing the available content. Selecting a listed item does one of two things: It either launches a new Apple QuickTime window in your desktop to play the item, as shown in Figure 7.3, or opens a new Web browsing window where you can view the QuickTime element using the QuickTime plug-in.
When QuickTime starts to load a streaming video clip, it goes through four steps before displaying the video:
Connecting—. Makes a connection to the streaming server.
Requesting data—. Waits for acknowledgement from remote server.
Getting info—. Retrieves information about the QuickTime movie.
Buffering—. QuickTime buffers several seconds of video to eliminate stuttering from the playback.
By the Way
If the player stalls during any of the four steps that precede the video display, there might be a problem with the remote server or your transport settings (how your computer talks on the Internet). Try another streaming source, and if it still fails, use the QuickTime System Preferences pane to change your settings. (We’ll discuss QuickTime preferences in the “QuickTime Preferences” section later in this chapter.)
Did you Know?
If you have a streaming server URL, you can choose File, Open URL in New Player (Command-U) from the menu to directly open the stream.
You can use QuickTime Player to play information from other sources besides those from the Web. QuickTime refers to every media type as a movie. For example, you can open and play CD audio tracks and MP3s by selecting File, Open Movie command from the menu. Even though there aren’t any visuals, these media types are referred to as movies in QuickTime’s vocabulary.
You can open local movie files by choosing File, Open Movie in New Player from the menu (Command-O) or by dragging a movie file onto the QuickTime Dock icon.
The Preferences submenu, found in the QuickTime Player application menu in your menu bar contains three different choices: Player Preferences, QuickTime Preferences, and Registration.
The Player Preferences settings are preferences for the QuickTime Player application itself, whereas the QuickTime Preferences settings refer to the QuickTime System Preferences pane. If you’re interested in registering QuickTime (which we highly suggest), the Registration option provides an input area for entering your registration code.
Figure 7.4 shows the Player Preferences dialog box.
Use the following options in the Player Preferences dialog box to control how the application handles multiple movies and playback:
Open Movies in New Players—. By default, QuickTime Player reuses existing windows when opening new movies. To open new movies in new windows, select this check box.
Automatically Play Movies When Opened—. Does what it says! When checked, QuickTime Player starts playing a movie immediately after it’s opened.
Play Sound in Frontmost Player Only—. By default, sound is played only in the active player window. To hear sound from all playing movies simultaneously, uncheck this option.
Play Sound When Application Is in Background—. If this option is checked, sound continues to play even when QuickTime Player isn’t the active application.
Show Equalizer—. Displays the sound levels to the right of the progress bar.
Show Hot Picks Movie Automatically—. Automatically fetches and plays Apple’s Hot Pick movie when QuickTime Player is started.
Pause Movies When Logged Out—. Pauses active movies, switching from one user account to another using Fast User Switching. (We’ll talk more about setting up and working additional user accounts in Chapter 33, “Sharing Your Computer with Multiple Users.”)
Click OK to save the application preferences.
The QuickTime System Preferences pane (located in the Internet & Network section of System Preferences) enables you to change QuickTime’s settings for better quality playback and to make other modifications. Let’s discuss some of the more useful settings.
The first section, Plug-In, is shown in Figure 7.5. (Remember, plug-ins are used when movies are viewed in a Web browser.)
The Play Movies Automatically option directs QuickTime to start playing a movie after enough of it has been buffered. This option applies to movies that aren’t streamed. Select the Save Movies in Disk Cache option to temporarily store a clip to speed up repeated viewings. The Enable Kiosk Mode option makes it possible for movies to run continuously unattended for demonstrations and presentations.
Click the MIME Settings button to open a list of all the MIME types that QuickTime can handle and everything it’s currently configured to display. MIME stands for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension and defines a set of document types, such as text, HTML, and so on.Some items (such as Flash) are intentionally disabled because they’re better handled by other browser plug-ins.
The Connection section, shown in Figure 7.6, configures the type of network access QuickTime can expect your computer to have. This information helps QuickTime choose the appropriate type of media to display, depending on how fast it can be received.
Watch Out!
The Transport Setup button is used to choose the protocol used for streaming. By default, QuickTime attempts to choose the best transport based on your network type. It’s best not to change these settings unless you’re having difficulty viewing media.
By default, QuickTime allows only a single media stream. If your bandwidth enables you to do so, click the Allow Multiple Simultaneous Streams option to stream many sources at once. This option is automatically selected when you specify a high-speed connection method.
Included with Mac OS X is DVD Player, an application for displaying DVD content on computers equipped with internal DVD drives. To start DVD Player, simply insert a video DVD into your system, or double-click the application icon in the Applications folder.
By default, Mac OS X launches DVD Player automatically when it detects a DVD in the drive. At startup, the DVD begins to play, and a playback controller appears onscreen. Figure 7.7 shows the playback controller.
By the Way
Unlike for QuickTime movies, if you minimize a DVD Player window, the picture won’t play in the Dock. However, the sound continues to be audible.
Use the controller window as you would a standard DVD remote. Basic playback buttons (play, stop, rewind, and fast-forward) are provided, along with a selection control and a volume slider directly under the primary playback controls. Also available are buttons to access the menu, display the title of the current scene, and eject the DVD.
Did you Know?
Typically, viewers navigate through DVD menus with arrow keys on their DVD controllers. Because your DVD Player is run on your computer, you have additional options. To navigate onscreen selections without the use of the controller, you can simply point-and-click at a DVD menu item to select it. To navigate with the keyboard, use the arrow keys and press Return.
Six additional advanced controls are accessible by clicking the far right edge of the controller window. In Figure 7.7, the controller window is shown with the window tray extended. This opens a window drawer containing two columns of buttons that control playback or special features of DVDs. Those controls, from top to bottom, left to right, are Slow, Step, Return, Subtitle, Audio, and Angle buttons.
If you prefer a vertically oriented player control, as shown in Figure 7.8, choose Control, Use Vertical Control (Option-Command-C) from the menu. You can switch back to the horizontal layout at any time by choosing Controls, Use Horizontal Control (Option-Command-C) from the same menu. To hide or show the Control regardless of its orientation, use the key command Command-Shift-C.
Although the onscreen controller can be used for most everything, DVD Player also provides keyboard commands for controlling playback.
The following options are available under the Controls menu:
Use Horizontal/Vertical Controloer—. Toggle between Horizontal or Vertical orientation (Option-Command-C) .
Play/Pause—. (Spacebar) Play or pause the video.
Stop—. (Command-.) Stop the current video from playing.
ScanForward—. (Command-right arrow) Speed through the video playback.
Scan Backwards—. (Command-left arrow) Move backward through the video playback.
Volume Up—. (Command-up arrow) Increase the volume.
Volume Down—. (Command-down arrow) Decrease the volume.
Mute—. (Command-K) Mute the sound.
Closed Captioning—. (Option-Command-T) Display captioning on DVDs for which it is available. (It can be set to appear either over the video as it plays or in a separate window under the Closed Captioning item of the Controls menu.)
Eject—. (Command-E) Eject the current DVD.
Did you Know?
When fast-forwarding or rewinding, the view is displayed at an accelerated rate. Use the Scan Rate option under the Controls menu to set the speed to two, four, or eight times faster than normal.
These useful commands are available under the Go menu for DVD Player or through key commands:
DVD Menu—. (Command-`) Stop playback and load the menu for the active DVD.
Previous Chapter—. (Right arrow) Skip to the previous chapter on the DVD.
Next Chapter—. (left arrow) Skip to the next chapter on the DVD.
The preferences for DVD Player are split into four sections. The Player pane, shown in Figure 7.9, enables you to set how DVD Player reacts on system startup and insertion of a DVD. You can also choose the viewer size, whether to enable closed captioning when muted, and whether to mute audio when connecting to an audio or video chat in iChat, an application discussed in Chapter 16, “Using iChat AV.”
The Disc Setup pane contains settings for default language and the option to enable DVD@ccess, which allows DVD Player to recognize and react to embedded hot spots that link to Internet Web sites. You can also change audio output settings.
The Full Screen pane allows you to set a viewer size (maximum, normal, half, or current) and to decide whether the viewer can be resized. Options are also available for dimming other windows while DVD Player is active, remaining in full screen when DVD Player is inactive, and disabling the menu bar (kiosk mode) so that viewers can’t exit the program.
The Windows pane controls whether the controller fades away or just disappears when it is hidden and turns on and off status information, which appears while a movie is playing. You can also choose the color and transparency of these messages, as well as the color and transparency of closed captioning.