Pros and cons of where to store image data

[Barry Levine]

Ken,

Yes; that (QT-compatible) should work fine; but that's not 
"incompatible". Let's use as an example the mpeg2 decoder that is an 
optionally purchased add-on (from Apple). It may very well work in your 
Rev app as long as you name it as what your app expects (myMovie.mov in 
my example rather than myMovie.mpg). However, as this is not part of 
the standard "distribution" of QuickTime, it would not work on another 
system without that extension in place.

Second example: Windows (yuchh!) - You've got to be careful here 
because virtually no one keeps their QT up to date (and maybe hasn't 
even installed it in the first place!). I'm distributing QT on my CD; 
it's free from Apple as long as you submit the requested form. As there 
doesn't seem to be any app that comes with Windows that will save as a 
QT movie (basic QT, with or without compression), my advice to my 
customers is to purchase QT Pro which will permit the exporting of what 
might be otherwise incompatible media into a QT-native format. I know 
that, theoretically, if QT Player can import it it should play in Rev 
but I'm not promising anything of the sort when it comes to my Windows 
apps. Microsoft likes to take its football and go home whenever anyone 
comes up with a method to provide "standards-based" computing. Then it 
comes back with a "new standard" that is anything but!...(unprintable 
vitriol follows; fill in your own diatribe here...)

Third example: myText.txt renamed as myText.mov (I'm scared to even try 
it.) That's incompatible media, for sure.

So, depending on the extent to which your app is distributed (in the 
marketing sense, not the "SETI-at-Home" sense), your best advice to 
your customers is to stick with the "standard" QT movie (assuming you 
want to give them the info on how to change the movies displayed at 
particular points in your app by dropping new, properly-named movies 
into the 'data' folder).

Frankly, I'm still amazed at how Rev supports this so nicely. (Thank 
you, Rev team.)

Regards,
Barry

On Thursday, Sep 18, 2003, at 23:38 America/Denver, Ken wrote:

>> the application will
>> automatically use the new media without a complaint (as long as the
>> file format is what the app expects; you can't reference incompatible
>> media simpy be renaming it).
> ----------
> Good reminder.
>
> If it's something you're using with QT, won't QT automatically 
> translate for
> you (as long as the format is anything QT recognizes)?
>
> TIA,
> Ken N.
>