Multimedia support forum - In kiosk setting why no instant startup of cached movies using quicktime player?

Author

In kiosk setting why no instant startup of cached movies using quicktime player?

rwelti@gmail.com

2007-02-20, 6:18 pm

I'm hoping you might have a pointer on a very simple question:

When I embed .mov or .mp4 files using Quicktime Player for any Windows
browser, I see an annoying
white empty box with a blue "QT" logo briefly before the movie starts,
no matter that it is in
the browser cache ( I can see it ) and that Quicktime has been given a
HUGE cache of its own via Player
preferences. How can I get the movies to appear instantly, like they
do on a Mac in any Mac browser?

For one simple example, refreshing this page over and over I cannot
escape the blue and white
startup box. http://www.alistapart.com/d/byebyee...e2ndobject.html
(My pages use header tags to say "cache me, my content doesn't
change".)

On a Mac these movies load and start *instantly*.

I am making museum kiosk software whose content will mostly be on a
hard disk local to the
machine, so I want full quality movies and I'd rather avoid the
unsightly with boxes with blue logos.

I'm aware it could be just MS and Apple jabbing at each other but if
you have any ideas
or clues or suggestions as to why this happens I'd be very grateful
for a pointer.

I don't want "poster" movies in general as I prefer to auto start the
movies, but I guess
that is one idea.

If I convert the movies to Flash video they startup instantly but the
quality of some of
them is just a bit worse...

Thank you for reading this!

Russ Welti
Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology
http://www.iris.edu

Heiko Recktenwald

2007-02-20, 6:18 pm

rwelti@XXXXXXXXXX wrote:
> For one simple example, refreshing this page over and over I cannot
> escape the blue and white
> startup box. http://www.alistapart.com/d/byebyee...e2ndobject.html

I saw this logo as well and observed something else, there was no
"progressiv download" happening, maybe you did not save them for "fast
start" or you disabled this feature somewhere in your HTML. My plugin is
set up for this. It is about whether the header should be at the start
or the end of the movie or something, it should be at the beginning,
that the player knows at once what will happen and does not have to wait
until the end of the file.

Bastler Fassnacht or something? ;-)

Thanks!

H.

Heiko Recktenwald

2007-02-20, 6:18 pm

>
> I saw this logo as well and observed something else, there was no

Played around some more with the diable.mov but no change. The logo is
there for some milliseconds. If you have a black background it is less
nerving, a blue background is not a good idea.

rwelti@gmail.com

2007-02-21, 6:18 pm

On Feb 20, 2:56 pm, Heiko Recktenwald <m...@privacy.net> wrote:[color=darkred]

Thanks for taking the time to look at this.

The "logo" seems to be there for branding purposes, i.e.
"let's make sure they know Apple Quicktime was used".

I also played with "fast startup" but no results (and that is more for
items that need to be downloaded, not items in the cache, as I
understand).

In real life, you might like to compare my black background page, one
version with Quicktime-embedded .mp4 and the other with embedded .swf
(Flash encoded video)

http://www.iris.edu/activeearth/con...sunamiAnims.htm
compared with
http://www.iris.edu/activeearth/con...amiAnimsSWF.htm

When you refresh the web page with the SWFs the movies start up
immediately but the Quicktime-embedded version, even after the movies
are cached, refuses to startup immediately.

thanks again! Russ

Heiko Recktenwald

2007-02-21, 6:18 pm

rwelti@XXXXXXXXXX wrote:
> On Feb 20, 2:56 pm, Heiko Recktenwald <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>
>
> Thanks for taking the time to look at this.
>
> The "logo" seems to be there for branding purposes, i.e.
> "let's make sure they know Apple Quicktime was used".

Thats why I hate Apple ;-)

White headphones are ugly!
>
> I also played with "fast startup" but no results (and that is more for
> items that need to be downloaded, not items in the cache, as I
> understand).
>
> In real life, you might like to compare my black background page, one
> version with Quicktime-embedded .mp4 and the other with embedded .swf
> (Flash encoded video)
>
IMHO it was less annoying with black background.

> http://www.iris.edu/activeearth/con...sunamiAnims.htm
> compared with
> http://www.iris.edu/activeearth/con...amiAnimsSWF.htm
>
> When you refresh the web page with the SWFs the movies start up
> immediately but the Quicktime-embedded version, even after the movies
> are cached, refuses to startup immediately.

But Flash is Flash, at least it is most vendor and platform independent,
there is no Quicktime for Linux.

Anyway, h264 and the mp4 container (not mov!), hope you have QT Pro (ask
google)

H.
>
> thanks again! Russ
>