Besides QuickTime, there are lots of other multimedia formats available on the Web. Each of those multimedia formats has its pros and cons; however, not one other multimedia format is as capable as QuickTime. Best of all, QuickTime is widely accepted and supported by a vast number of multimedia and Web creation tools. Most importantly, it’s FREE!
Using QuickTime files on your website is especially beneficial because, for one, QuickTime-based files will be easy for your visitors to access, provided they have the latest version of QuickTime installed on their computers; not to mention, adding multimedia to your web page is relatively simple to do with QuickTime. Listed below are the necessary components to successfully publish multimedia content to your web page using QuickTime.
* Multimedia content: You’re going to need a QuickTime file to actually put on your web page. You can use many different tools to create QuickTime multimedia, but for now, I recommend you borrow someone else’s file (for free re-use). For all practical purposes, using a file that’s already been created will help you focus on the task at hand, in this case, adding the file to your web page, as opposed to creating the file, itself. You can obtain a QuickTime-based file on any website that offers viewers free content, like sound clips, videos, etc. I recommend a website called The Freesound Project. You can visit it by clicking the link, or by copying and pasting this web address into your browser, http://www.freesound.org/ . Another website you can get free content from is, http://www.ccmixter.org/ and yet another one is, http://dig.ccmixter.org/ . When you’re ready to create your own multimedia content, give this website a shot, http://www.apple.com/quicktime .
* HTML commands: There are various web tools out there that support direct embedding of QuckTime content. If you don’t have these tools, you’ll just have to write the HTML commands to embed the content, yourself. (Good thing the commands are simple! An example follows below.)
* QuickTime and its plug-ins: In order to add a QuickTime file to your website, and for your visitors to be able to view it, both you and your visitors will need the latest version of QuickTime and the QuickTime player. Since everyone is so tech- and gadget-savvy these days, I’m going to assume many of your visitors already have the latest version of QuickTime already installed on their computers; however, if that’s not the case, you can just as easily add a link to the QuickTime web page on your site (where your visitors can download it for themselves). Direct your visitors to go to the Apple site where they can download QuickTime, http://www.apple.com/quicktime .
(Warning! The QuickTime application is big, and users who don’t already have it on their computers will eventually have to download it from the web. Perhaps you feel that several megabytes is a lot to ask your visitors to download, but rejoice! Think of all the wonderful things they’ll be able to do with their new application! I must tell you, though, for those of your users who aren’t familiar with QuickTime, you might get a sudden onflow of questions pertaining to it, so stand guard. Be ready for their questions with a FAQ page or section that is designed to answer QuickTime related questions exclusively. Get more information on QuickTime yourself, here http://www.apple.com/quicktime .)
Competing technologies might ask you to pay a fee to use their tools or sign special licenses, which is why QuickTime is so great, especially from a business stand-point. You won’t have to pay any fees to use QuickTime or sign any kind of license agreements. It’s absolutely free and super easy to use. In fact, visit this page to watch some QuickTime clips, http://www.apple.com/hardware/ads .
Here are the steps you’ll need to follow to add a QuickTime movie to your web page:
- Install QuickTime and the QuickTime plug-in on your own computer.
You’ll have to go to the QuickTime software page to download these files, here http://www.apple.com/quicktime .
- Create or obtain a QuickTime movie, animation, sound, video, or VR (virtual reality).
You can easily get a free file to re-use at The Freesound Project or ccMixter or Dig ccMixter.
- Embed the movie directly into your Web page.
To do this you will use the EMBED HTML command. It’s super simple to do, and this is what it looks like in its basic form, as long as the multimedia file resides in the same folder as the web page you’re adding it to (put this bit of code where you want the file to appear):
[NOTE: DO NOT ADD SPACES BETWEEN < AND EMBED, OR BETWEEN THE = SIGN, OR BETWEEN MOV” AND > SYMBOLS. FOR DEMONSTRATION PURPOSES ONLY!]
< EMBED SRC = “file.mov” >
There are more options when you use the EMBED command with the QuickTime plug-in, but for now, simply add this small bit of HTML to your web page, and worry about the fancy stuff later on, when you get better at it. For future reference, however, visit the QuickTime web page for more information, http://www.apple.com/quicktime .
- Test it on your own computer.
You should always do a cross browser test to see that your web pages look good and function properly, and in this instance, your movie. Make sure it works properly before uploading it to your website.
- Upload both your updated Web page and the multimedia file to the Web and test it again.
There are times when a web page works perfectly in a browser before you actually upload it to your web host, and then things go amiss when you try opening/viewing the same page after uploading it to your host. This is not the fault of your web page, per se, but that of your host. Free hosts such as Webs.com don’t allow certain types of content on their site, or some of their codes might override yours. If that’s the case, you might want to contact your host and explain the situation and hope they have a work-around.
Assuming everything went well, I’d like to extend my congratulations on your very first multimedia web site! Yay you!
