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Snow Leopard, Apple's sixth release of OS X, includes a dramatic upgrade to QuickTime. In one swift move, Apple jumped from QuickTime 7 to X. In this article you will find out why Snow Leopard is worth the upgrade just for QuickTime X, what new features abound throughout QuickTime and how you can take advantage of them.
Upgrading to Snow Leopard - a few good features
The upgrade to Apple's latest operating system, Snow Leopard (known as Mac OS X 10.6) is better known for what it did not add than what it did add. The whole point of the update is to improve the core operating system. The long awaited update to QuickTime is one of the few visible improvements to the OS.
Three key elements with QuickTime changed:
- New, streamlined interface to play back movies and music
- The name updated to QuickTime X (what happened to QuickTime 8 and 9 we will never know)
- The professional elements of QuickTime have been unlocked
One of the main complaints of QuickTime has long been the additional $29 customers had to pay to access the "Pro" features in QuickTime. QuickTime X does not have a Pro version. All of the features are available.
Playing Movies
Playing back movies is the most common activity QuickTime is used for. QuickTime now has an elegant and minimalist interface. This is seen when you window QuickTime on the screen and when you go full screen for your movie.
You will see that, as you play a movie in a window, the chrome around the window immediately disappears when you move your cursor away from the film. Pressing CMD+F will resize your movie to full screen size. Press play and the movie controls quickly disappear leaving you in an immersive experience. Older keyboard controls, such as pressing the SPACE bar will stop and start movies.
Trimming Movies
The new iPhone 3GS comes with a feature where you can take movies and trim them directly on the iPhone. The same trimming feature is now available on your Mac using QuickTime X. When you turn on the Trim feature you will see that screen convert into a series of scene snippets. The left and right scrub bar allows you to drag back and cut the scene you want. Selecting the Trim button will reduce the movie to the new, trimmed version. At this point you can save your movie.
Sharing your Movie
Apple has gone to great lengths to make sharing movies fun and easy. Built into QuickTime is a new feature that enables you to share your movies to the following:
- iTunes
- MobileMe
- YouTube
All three versions will convert you movie to MP4 format. Gone are the days of QuickTime's MOV files.
The iTunes version will save directly to your local version of iTunes. If you have a MobileMe account then you can upload the movie directly to your account.
The integrated YouTube sharing tool allows you to bypass Google's YouTube upload tools. You must also have a valid YouTube account. There is no doubt that QuickTime X is a significant improvement over earlier releases of QuickTime. You will appreciate that you can enjoy using the rich features without having to fight the tool.
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Matthew has written four Flash books, contributed to a dozen Web books, and has published over 400 articles. He is passionate about exposing Internet's potential for all of us. Matthew works directly with many companies as a business strategist coaching IT architects and business leaders to work tightly with each other towards common goals.
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