QuickTime Pro: How to Make a Reference Movie

  • Last Modified on: May 31, 2007
  • Article: 42656
This document discusses how to create a reference movie to distribute alternate data rata movies to users based on the speed of their Internet connection.

You can make a reference movie for alternate data rate movies based on Internet connection speed or other criteria using an application such as Terran Interactive's Cleaner 5 or the free utility program MakeRefMovie, available from Apple for Macintosh and Windows.

The latest version of MakeRefMovie can also create reference movies that choose among alternate movies based on CPU speed, language, or QuickTime version. MakeRefMovie is available for download from the QuickTime Development Tools Web page.

Once you've made the alternate movies, follow these steps in MakeRefMovie:

  1. Open MakeRefMovie.
  2. Save your new document in the same folder or directory where the alternates are located. Make sure the reference movie filename contains the '.mov' extension. This reference movie will call upon the alternates.
  3. Drag each of the alternate movies onto the window of MakeRefMovie. An alternate movie will appear for each file you drag-and-drop. Or you can open each file separately by choosing 'Add movie file' from the Movie menu.
  4. Set the minimum connection speed for each alternate movie in the Speed pop-up menu.
  5. Set the load order of the movies in the Priority pop-up menu. For example, you may want the reference movie to call the highest quality movie first, then the medium quality movie, and last the lowest-quality or default movie. If there is more than one movie designed for the same connection speed, set a priority for which movie will load first.
  6. Specify the default movie by checking Flatten into output. The default movie should be compressed with a codec supported by older versions of QuickTime for backward compatibility. This checkbox can only be applied to one movie.
  7. Save the reference movie and place it and all the alternate movies in the same directory. Upload the directory or folder to the server.
  8. If you are putting the movies on a web page, embed the reference movie into the HTML using the <EMBED> tag. The reference movie will load the appropriate alternate based on the viewer's connection speed. See technical document 61011 "QuickTime: Embedding QuickTime for Web Delivery" for more about embedding QuickTime movies into web pages using HTML.


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