Inside Macintosh: QuickTime Reference

Using Embedded Movies

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 elements, as illustrated in Figure 3:

A control strip with custom controls for audio and scene navigation
An area used to display text
An area used for interactive animation

Figure 3 An interactive movie example with three elements

By encapsulating these three elements 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 element 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.

Using Embedded Movies

Dynamically Loading New Embedded Movies from URLs

Triggering Wired Actions When an Embedded Movie is Loaded

Targeting Elements of Embedded Movies with All Existing Wired Actions