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Long heralded as the
desktop video revolution enabler, QuickTime allowed the display of video
and animation over multiple computer platforms. QuickTime acts as an envelope
for the compressions and decompression engine for the display of all sorts
of images and sounds.
QuickTime matured and at the National Association of Broadcasters Show 1997
Apple Computer announced the next generation of QuickTime authoring under
the moniker of QuickTime 3.0, a fully cross-platform imaging solution. In
May of 1997 at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) Peter Hoddie,
QuickTime Product Manager, announced the vision and direction of QuickTime
moving into the interactive media market with special QuickTime tracks for
the presentation of sequenced events for interaction.
Tentatively called QuickTime Interactive (QTi), a developer call Pitango
showcased a special version of their ClickWorks interactive media authoring
tool wired to take advantage of the QTi technology or Qcode scripts for interaction
and control. The technology was announced for inclusion in a future version
of QuickTime, perhaps version 4.0 coming in 1998/1999 timeframe. With tremendous
delays, QuickTime 3.0 shipped a year late in April 1998, and again at the
WWDC Peter Hoddie showed the tremendous flexibility of the QuickTime architecture
by announcing the addition of the QTi technology not in some future version,
but in the 3.0 release, but imbedded deep within the Application Program
Interface (API).
The excitement of a new type of application running cross-platform in the
QuickTime space grew over the Fall and Winter of 1998 while several developers
began to deploy their applications in the QuickTime Media Layer (QTML) like
Totally Hip LiveStage and Lari Software Electrifier. The future of QTi is
uncertain, but QuickTime lives on as the basis for upcoming ISO MPEG-4 specification.
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