Mike Gondek reviews: Learning Quicktime 5 Pro

	SUBSCRIBE COW Library : Web Streaming - Audio|Video : Mike Gondek : Mike Gondek reviews: Learning Quicktime 5 Pro (print friendly)

	Mike Gondek Orland Park, IL USA ©2003 Mike Gondek and CreativeCOW.net. All rights reserved.

Production Quality The graphics quality is very good with clean readable type/menus and the compressed quicktimes play without skipping, even on a mediocre computer. I love the simple clean design of Lynda's products. The printed card is easy to read, and the background in the player is not distracting. The monotone audio was putting me asleep after three chapters. James Diefenderfer in his review of the Learning Mac OS X, also makes the same observation. Navigation & Chapters The chapters are well organized and divided, which makes it easy to find material to reference at a later date. The name of each chapter briefly appears in large clean type to let you know where you are at so you don't get lost. Chapter names use a font that is too big on the shockwave file, and you have to scroll 5 screens. Scrolling makes it confusing to locate your last position. A smaller font would also let you see the entire contents at a glance. I did not notice the up/down navigation arrows, until I was stuck after finishing the first chapter. The resume bookmark works, but not if you eject the CD. I would have put the arrows closer to the chapters. Though the navigation looks nice and clean, who really has time to figure out how the navigation? Content The first chapters cover all the basic controls thoroughly, but takes up too much time showing all they ways you can play a clip backwards. The special effects and transitions in quicktime were not covered and would have like to find out more about how they work and what another person needs to play them back. Text tracks is covered well and there are some useful features there. The disappointing part in is that you cannot use other fonts, since you cannot embed them and there is no discussion over considerations in choosing fonts. I would have liked to have seen more information about the free tools on apples website MakeEffectSlideShow, Effects Teaser, QTVR Make Cubic, Plug-In Helper. The CD is for quicktime 5, but most of these have been around since then, and an update would be nice to see anyhow. The localization section discusses preparing Quicktime text tracks for foreign languages, but I would have rather seen more on transitions, and additional effects. The content on compression is well done, but I would have liked to have seen more as is discussed by the likes of such wonderful human beings as Ben Waggoner. The CD is a shockwave presentation which has links to chapters and runs 3 hours. The html is provided for you so you do not have to type it for the exercise files, and I am making myself a master html file with snippets from all of them. The CD is done on the Mac, and there is not much discussion over any pc issues. Conclusion Pop in the CD, click the learning QT5 icon— and you are ready to go, without pop up ads. The navigation looks clean, but could benefit from usability testing by someone that did not design the interface. There were some new things of value that I learned such as poster movies and windows media hijacking, but most of the material is very basic. The majority of content is on how to use the controller, and you actually see most of it twice since Sean already covered that in using the plug. Sean Blumenthal does an admiral job and has picked a topic that few people dare to cover. Hope Sean will do a Quicktime 6 update, as I believe things will get even more refined, and we will see more personal tips that apply to real world situations. I give “learning quicktime pro” 3 and a half cows. Mike Gondek

---

Click here to visit Creative COW's user forums and many other articles if you got here by a direct link to this page

	Web Streaming - Audio|Video Tutorials   •   Web Streaming - Audio|Video Forum	Reply   Like

Related Articles / Tutorials:

Web Streaming - Audio|Video New VDN network from Sorenson Media: Sorenson 360 Need high quality encoding with a more than reasonable way to serve the videos you need to put online? One of CreativeCOW's leaders, Jerry Hofmann takes a look at Sorenson Media’s new Video Delivery Network (VDN) called 'Sorenson 360'. Review

Recent Articles / Tutorials:

Sony Vegas basics Sony Vegas Pro Basics ONE: Introduction   Play Video In this introductory tutorial to the new Sony Vegas Pro Basics series on Creative COW, Andrew Devis talks about purchasing options for Sony Vegas Pro and the advantages of using Creative COW to view and download the tutorials as well as to access world-leading forums for Sony Vegas Pro. Tutorial, Video Tutorial Sony Vegas basics Sony Vegas Pro Basics TWO: The User Interface   Play Video In this overview tutorial, Andrew Devis goes over the User Interface (UI) of Sony Vegas Pro, showing how to customise the UI, save new UI layouts (called workspaces) as well as showing how to add events to the timeline, trim them and create simple transitions very quickly. Tutorial, Video Tutorial Sony Vegas basics Sony Vegas Pro Basics THREE: Creating, Saving & Organising   Play Video In this tutorial, Andrew Devis shows how to organise your media assets on your hard drive and what to do when Sony Vegas Pro can't find an asset because it has been moved. Andrew also goes on to show how to open new empty projects and save your project - which is not the same as 'exporting' your projects which would be the final process to create your final video file (covered later on in this series). Tutorial, Video Tutorial Art of the Edit Now You See Me: Modus FX Helps Create the Magic Modus FX created 227 visual effects shots in Now You See Me, a movie starring Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Morgan Freeman, Woody Harrelson and Isla Fisher about four young magicians who appear to rob banks during their performances, distributing the spoils to their audiences, while the FBI and Interpol pursue them. Launched in 2007 by co-founders Marc Bourbonnais and Yanick Wilisky, Modus FX is located in a 12,000 square foot facility just outside Montreal. Modus was charged with many of the film's CG-heavy sequences, including the 5Pointz segment, which was almost entirely CG. In this article Modus FX visual effects supervisor Wayne Brinton takes Creative COW readers behind the scenes of the company's VFX magic. Editorial, Feature, People / Interview Sony Vegas basics Sony Vegas Pro Basics FOUR: Media Bins and Importing Assets   Play Video In this tutorial, we look at how to import and organise assets inside our projects and how to use and create a custom bin structure so we can easily find our assets when we begin editing. Tutorial, Video Tutorial Cinematography JMR Electronics Helps Douglas Trumbull Push HFR Limits Douglas Trumbull wanted to make UFOTOG, a 10-minute short, to showcase his vision of immersive movie-going: 120 fps at 4K in 3D, on a curved screen. To shoot and present a movie in a never-before-seen format, he turned to JMR Electronics to design and build a server and storage system that could collect, manage, playback and edit the huge amounts of image data generated by 120 fps, 4K and 3D. In this story, we learn how Trumbull created an innovative pipeline and worked with JMR Electronics to come up with a tailored solution to his very demanding production needs. Editorial, Feature, People / Interview Apple Motion Learn Apple's Motion: Lesson 14 Text Part 1   Play Video In this lesson, Kevin P McAuliffe begins his look at creating basic text inside of Apple's Motion 5. This lesson is essential as most of the work you do inside of Motion 5 will have some kind of text element in it, and it's important to have the fundamentals down, before tackling your first project. Tutorial, Video Tutorial Adobe After Effects Techniques Advanced AECC Techniques: ONE - Extruding Text in CINEMA 4D   Play Video In this lesson, Kevin P McAuliffe gets you up and running quickly inside of Cinema 4D lite by showing you how easy it is to not only extrude text, but texture it and give it a quick animation, and get it back into After Effects before your client even knows you left! Tutorial, Video Tutorial Art of the Edit How Editors Shaped The Story of Star Trek: Into Darkness The old saying is that the edit is the final version of the script. For editors Mary Jo Markey, A.C.E. and Maryann Brandon, A.C.E, their work on Star Trek: Into Darkness began far earlier than that -- when they were asked for their advice on how to shape the script in the first place! In conversation with Debra Kaufman, they describe the role they play in the storytelling process itself, in a way that far transcends the cutting of scenes. Editorial, Feature, People / Interview

MORE