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vsurfer · May 28, 2002, 08:01 PM

How are you guys deploying Quicktime for Windows users who are using the latest MSIE XP browsers, that seem somewhat hostile to Quicktime?

I played with three gateway laptops today, and some of them don't even give the end user a hint that they need to visit the Apple site to get the new plugin that does the fiddly-diddly with the ActiveX thingamy jig. One suggested that some MIME-type mapping was now different (enough to confuse/scare the heck out of Joe Average Windows user).

I realize that he who controls the medium has a lot of leverage over the content providers, but this Media Player turf war is at least as insidious as the browser wars. What a Microflaccid hose-job!

-----
"Internet Explorer QuickTime Issue for Windows Users
Important information for Web Developers and Web Masters on the new ActiveX control that restores the QuickTime plug-in for Internet Explorer versions 5.5 SP2 and 6.0 (soon to be released) for Windows. To restore compatibility, QuickTime users should visit <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/" target="_blank">http://www.apple.com/quicktime/</a> to download and install the ActiveX control. Mac users and Netscape users are unaffected. "

[ 05-28-2002, 09:18 PM: Message edited by: vsurfer ]

VRL · May 29, 2002, 04:27 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by vsurfer:
How are you

I played with three gateway laptops today, and some of them don't even give the end user a hint that they need to visit the Apple site to get the new plugin that does the fiddly-diddly with the ActiveX thingamy jig. One suggested that some MIME-type mapping was now different (enough to confuse/scare the heck out of Joe Average Windows user).

I realize that he who controls the medium has a lot of leverage over the content providers, but this Media Player turf war is at least as insidious as the browser wars. What a Microflaccid hose-job!

-----
"Internet Explorer QuickTime Issue for Windows Users
Important information for Web Developers and Web Masters on the new ActiveX control that restores the QuickTime plug-in for Internet Explorer versions 5.5 SP2 and 6.0 (soon to be released) for Windows. To restore compatibility, QuickTime users should visit <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/" target="_blank">http://www.apple.com/quicktime/</a> to download and install the ActiveX control. Mac users and Netscape users are unaffected. "<hr /></blockquote>Put a note on your web pages (I use a help page that explains what a visitor needs to do).

Sadly, in my experience, many Windows users don't give a d*mn about QuickTime or the latest "scr*w-you tactic" that Microsoft uses. Only when the computer industry is all but destroyed by MS will people wake up.

vsurfer · May 29, 2002, 06:49 PM

Originally posted by VRL:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Put a note on your web pages (I use a help page that explains what a visitor needs to do).

Sadly, in my experience, many Windows users don't give a d*mn about QuickTime or the latest "scr*w-you tactic" that Microsoft uses. Only when the computer industry is all but destroyed by MS will people wake up.<hr /></blockquote>Hmmm, I guess I was under the misguided impression that Quicktime was more ubiquitous than it is.

Just seeing how Windows Media Player attemptes to force feed the drones paid content (in a much more in yer face way than Apple) turned me off the very notion of considering a windows machine for my laptop. (I'd run Linux on it anyway).

I guess I am going to have to rewrite my pages with the OBJECTcode and add the hyperlink plugin content

OBJECT CLASSID="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" WIDTH="160"
HEIGHT="144" CODEBASE="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab">
PARAM name="SRC" VALUE="sample.mov"
PARAM name="AUTOPLAY" VALUE="true"
PARAM name="CONTROLLER" VALUE="false"
EMBED SRC="sample.mov" WIDTH="160" HEIGHT="144" AUTOPLAY="true"
CONTROLLER="false"
PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/">
/EMBED
/OBJECT
( all HTML arrow thingys removed)

- I liked it when i could just put a bunch of hyperlinked frames and users could choose which ones to play. That old simple technique still works on a mac, but not on Wintel. (Well I'll give them one thing - WMP ships with a whole bunch of skins!)

Maybe we can take a little comfort i suppose in that Linux users are now finding ways to make Quicktime work on Linux.

[ 06-11-2002, 09:44 PM: Message edited by: vsurfer ]

Simon Mundy · May 29, 2002, 10:26 PM

It may have something to do with the fact that WMP hijacks Quicktime movies - not giving the ActiveX the chance to do its check.

I bought a superb book called 'Quicktime for the Web' by Morgan Kaufmann Publishers - it has a variety of solutions and a whole heap of good stuff on QT...

But to the problem in hand - try this:

Put a 'You need QT4' image in your SRC parameter (SRC="uneedqt4.qti" and put the QTRSC parameter for your movie (QTRSC="sample.mov). Don't forget to also put in the TYPE parameter as TYPE="image/x-quicktime".

Make sure you've wrapped this EMBED within an OBJECT tag as described at the Apple Developer link you've provided.

e.g.

[OBJECT CLASSID="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" WIDTH="160"
HEIGHT="144" CODEBASE="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab"]
[PARAM name="SRC" VALUE="sample.mov"]
[PARAM name="AUTOPLAY" VALUE="true"]
[PARAM name="CONTROLLER" VALUE="false"]
[EMBED SRC="uneedqt4.qti" WIDTH="160" HEIGHT="144" AUTOPLAY="true" QTRSC="sample.mov"
CONTROLLER="false" TYPE="image/x-quicktime"
PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/"]
[/EMBED]
[/OBJECT]

Does this help?

vsurfer · May 31, 2002, 08:42 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Simon Mundy:
It may have something to do with the fact that WMP hijacks Quicktime movies - not giving the ActiveX the chance to do its check.

I bought a superb book called 'Quicktime for the Web' by Morgan Kaufmann Publishers - it has a variety of solutions and a whole heap of good stuff on QT...

But to the problem in hand - try this:

Put a 'You need QT4' image in your SRC parameter (SRC="uneedqt4.qti" and put the QTRSC parameter for your movie (QTRSC="sample.mov). Don't forget to also put in the TYPE parameter as TYPE="image/x-quicktime".

Make sure you've wrapped this EMBED within an OBJECT tag as described at the Apple Developer link you've provided.

e.g.

[OBJECT CLASSID="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" WIDTH="160"
HEIGHT="144" CODEBASE="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab"]
[PARAM name="SRC" VALUE="sample.mov"]
[PARAM name="AUTOPLAY" VALUE="true"]
[PARAM name="CONTROLLER" VALUE="false"]
[EMBED SRC="uneedqt4.qti" WIDTH="160" HEIGHT="144" AUTOPLAY="true" QTRSC="sample.mov"
CONTROLLER="false" TYPE="image/x-quicktime"
PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/"]
[/EMBED]
[/OBJECT]

Does this help?<hr /></blockquote>Thanks, I'll try implementing that when I get back from the next surf trip!

Whoa that class id # looks kinda scary -- hope it doesn't change too often?

Thanks also for the book source tip - it's not always easy to figure out which books are good or not until you get well into them.