wwp@yahoogroups.com:
QuickTime
Landis 2006-Oct-19 04:35:00
This does just keep coming up, and I keep hoping that maybe it will
go away - but it doesn't.
Don and I didn't choose QuickTime because it was the smallest
download, or because it was pre-installed on all computers, or that
it had the most options, or any of these other individual reasons.
We chose it because it is the simplest from an organizers standpoint,
the participants standpoint, and the viewers standpoint.
There are MANY other options, and those options seem to increase by
the month. Many of them have some great advantages over QTVR, but
none of them have all the advantages that QTVR does. Most
importantly the simplicity that we need to keep this project going
and easy to manage for both us and you.
With QuickTime everything is included in one .mov file. Hotspots,
sprites, autorotate, audio, masks, logos, etc.
Once installed, QuickTime works. Large files may stutter a little on
older machines, but they still play.
When you go to a page with a QTVR on it, loading is quick and a
preview track allows the viewer to know something is happening during
larger downloads.
Object movies and panoramas both display with this one plugin and one
file type.
As for plugin size, for wwp906 the file size of the normal size QTVR
files is 154.1MB. The fullscreens add another 526.5MB. The total
for all the events is about 6.7GB! I don't think that 20MB for a
*very* capable plugin is too much for someone who is actually
interested in viewing the content we have on the WWP web site.
What else does QuickTime do besides QTVR and why would people want to
download it as a plugin?
First of all, it's from Apple. Regardless of what you think about
different computers, it's a large company with a lot riding on this
plugin (think iPod and iTunes). The plugin isn't from some small
company possibly installing spyware, or etc.
QuickTime is not only QTVR, but also one of the best audio and video
players. And therefore more desirable to a web surfer than a
one-trick pony.
Finally, why not the others? Java/Immervision/PTViewer? Sorry, I've
always been biased against these. They play a heck of a lot better
on my computers now than they used to, but if I start browsing a site
that has only Java panoramas I don't stick around for more than one
or two. Why? It takes so long to load *each and every* panorama
that I view (not file size, but Java loading). Stability is another
issue. Sometimes these crash my browser or, in the past, even my
computer.
PanoGL, OpenGL, DevalVR? These are admittedly much smoother than
QTVR playback in my experience. But they don't offer the authoring
tools (PanoCube, Pano2QTVR, CubicConverter, etc). They don't support
the same amount of stuff - sprites, object movies, audio tracks.
They aren't as easy for all of our participants to author for.
SPi-V? I absolutely *love* SPi-V. It looks really nice, it's got a
lot of great features, and it is smooooth. But it's still not as
easy to author as QTVR.
Overall the WWP is about the CONTENT. The images that you supply
from places around the world coming up with different interpretations
of whatever the theme happens to be. Please focus on the imagery and
use your pages to link to all of the exciting experimental stuff that
you're doing and so eager to show off.
Perhaps one day in the future this will change, but for now the WWP
is QuickTime and even if you don't like the above (far from
exhaustive) reasons I've listed please accept that it won't be
changing in the near future.
My 2 cents and a plead to end this discussion,
Landis