QuickTime is the format chosen by such professionals because it provides the “broadest and most consistent” exposure possible, as well as an “excellent” user experience, Glenn Bulycz, manager of Apple’s worldwide team that brings content to QuickTime TV (QTV), told MacCentral. The team brings content to the QuickTime constituency over the QTV network on both an ongoing basis, through the QTV channels, and through singular, “big” events such as distributing Madonna music and videos and the CountingDown.com endeavor.
To make this happen, the QTV team works with content providers and the “entire, massive QuickTime infrastructure,” Bulycz said. People like Spielberg and Howard use QuickTime because it’s such a well-known quantity, he added.
“People such as the directors are literally involved with QuickTime in their work at every stage of the process,” Bulycz said. “For instance, Ron Howard views dailies of the movies he’s making in QuickTime. He can watch what has been shot, and help determine what should be shot tomorrow, on his PowerBook.”
Companies often come to Apple for promotional and QTV opportunities after having seen movie trailers in the QT format and heard of the massive success of the “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Ring” trailer downloads. However, if Apple knows of something “cool” out there that would shine on the QuickTime Web sites, “our people will go after them,” Bulycz said.
“QuickTime stands for a high quality experience across all platforms, irrespective of what version of Windows or the Mac OS you’re running,” he said. “For many of the types of things that we do, you physically can’t do them in any other medium. QuickTime is unique in that it supports over 200 different types of media from our virtual reality work to Flash to audio. And all these media types can coexist.”
Bulycz added that across the “entire workflow of media,” QT is expanding rapidly. Many digital camera manufactures have licensed the QT file format for cameras. And the multimedia technology is a vital component for many manipulation tools for video and audio, such as Apple’s iMovie, Final Cut, iDVD, and iDVD Studio Pro, he said.
Although there’s still no word when it will be finished, QuickTime 5 is in the works. Apple is “busily incorporating feedback from thousands and thousands of people” who have test driven the public beta, Bulycz said. A “public preview” of QT 5 is available if you’d like to check it out.
Spielberg and Howard will offer video shorts that will stream exclusively through QuickTime technology in the new “Theater” portion of CountingDown.com, which creates communities for film on the Web.
Howard is the creator and executive producer of the series. The first two shorts will feature a personal introduction by each director followed by a voice-over narration. PDI DreamWorks, the feature animation house, produced the first two shorts in the series using Flash animation, Apple’s Final Cut Pro editing system, and Apple’s QuickTime technology, according to CountingDown.com co-founder Tim Doyle. Howard and Spielberg’s Dreams are the first of several short movies in the series.