QuickTime Pro Explained

reviewed by Robert Pritchett

QuickTime Pro: Explained by Kirk Krueger should be part of the Missing Manual series. The $12 USD price probably covers Kirk’s .Mac annual subscription account and he changes the password each week. This version updates the information he originally provided. If you want a hardcopy, print out the 283 pages or ask your favorite publisher to contact Kirk so he can get it published with a cover. I bet it will cost more than $12 USD, however.

I have been frustrated trying to find out what I bought for $32 USD three times now from Apple as the registration screen doesn’t change from QuickTime Player to QuickTime Pro. I must have not been alone and Kirk fills the void for what can be done by providing us this book for less than ½ the price of the app.

I discovered this book by tripping over his ribald “White Trash Xmas” QuickTime video at http://homepage.mac.com/kkirkster/xmas/ that incidentally also has a link to a number of other, shall we say, “interesting” QuickTime videos, but his one might be fun to watch too; http://homepage.mac.com/kkirkster/G5_Secrets/index.html. Anyway, you get a sense of where his funny-bone is located and what can be done using just QuickTime Pro and not Flash.

The PDF-based book is not just password-protected, but not editable, so I could not add a “sure would be nice if” Table of Contents or Index. I was itching to add the TOC. (Kirk pointed out that PDFs are searchable as a temporary workaround).

Kirk Krueger begins by explaining why he wrote the book, adds QuickTime history, video protocols, QuickTime basics, and lots of screenshots showing detailed menu items, preferences and settings. He also treats a lot of print to various video codecs (about 29), which I found to be valuable, because he takes time with each one and offers links for digging deeper into these and other 3^rd-party codecs before stepping off into H.264 and Sound Codec Options. He then discusses interoperability with Roxio’s Toast, touches on AIFF, System 7 Sound, muLaw, AAC encoding movie properties windows and movie screenshots and other QuickTime 7 additions MIDI, text manipulation, skins, Applescripts, Webification and postering, optimization, working with SMIL and Virtual Reality (QTVR) and a short list of Questions and Answers before going into 43 pages of the  Glossary of Terms.

By getting this eBook, I now have a much better understanding of what I can and cannot do with QuickTime Pro.  Much better.