Where did .qtif export go?

Question

Where did .qtif export go?

I was preparing some QuickTime movies for the web, and I was astonished to discover that sometime in a recent update, QT Player and Preview have lost their ability to export .qtif QuickTime Image Files. What happened? I used to just load a PICT file into Preview, do Export, and save as a .qtif, but now this option is missing. How am I supposed to prepare QT poster movie stills without the ability to export a .qtif?

Quad G5, Quadro FX 4500, 30" Cinema Display Mac OS X (10.4)

Posted on Apr 10, 2006 3:21 AM

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Answer 1

Kyn Drake

Level 7

21,585 points

Apr 10, 2006 4:11 AM in response to Charles Eicher

Welcome to the discussions, Charles.

You can still prepare QT movie stills without .qtif. I've usually used a plain png pasted into a New QuickTime movie, turn off the Movie controller, and place that on the page. However, since I haven't used qtif, perhaps there's something integral that I'm missing that it does that other image formats don't do. I'm always willing to learn though!

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Answer 2

Apr 10, 2006 6:57 AM in response to Charles Eicher

Preview version 2 has the export to QuickTime Image. It is not available in Preview version 3 (part of Tiger).
If your goal is to have a poster movie that plays a QT linked file in a browser you'll need to either create a new image file sized to your movie dimensions (plus 16 pixels in height to show the controller) or adjust the dimensions after the file is opened by QuickTime Pro.
A poster movie shouldn't have a controller (controller="false") because people will click on it and nothing will happen. They must click on the image.
Open your new image using QT Pro and Save As .mov. Adjust its dimensions (Movie Properties/Visual Settings and turn off the controller (Presentation tab).
Save again to set these new properties. This is your poster movie.
You can also "force" the QuickTime plug-in to play any format that is understood by the QuickTime player. These could be image formats, audio and even MPEG-1 files.
This keeps the original format (.jpg, .mp3 or .mpg) as part of the page elements. The "trick" is using the qtsrc="" tag (QuickTime source) and the normal object and embed tags. The browser reads the tags and when it gets to your file presents it with the plug-in.
This keeps viewers from having multiple plug-ins (or other applications) from playing the file. Some of my pages use Flash (.swf) files but I force them to be opened by the QuickTime plug-in. Remember that QT can only open .swf files published as version 5, or lower.

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Answer 3

Apr 11, 2006 2:24 PM in response to Charles Eicher

OK, I think I solved the problem, I found a freeware app "Goldberg" that will export .qtif easily. Seems odd that Apple would remove a feature from Preview 3, even if it is an obscure feature used only by developers. The process for exporting from QTPlayer seems convoluted and complex in comparison.

Anyway, I have been doing QTSS and HTML templates for QT files for a long time, but I haven't done a new project since the Tiger update so it was a surprise to find the features I'd previously used have disappeared.

Thanks for your help, guys. BTW I was a little surprised to see this registered as my first post when I've been using the discussions forum on and off for years and years. I guess I got reset somehow. Odd.

Quad G5, Quadro FX 4500, 30" Cinema Display Mac OS X (10.4.6)

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