READING: Read the relevant pages 644 - 657 in Chapter 20 of D8D

File "MovieControl.dir"

The file above shows how Director can take control over quicktime movies. There are two quicktime movies BOUNBALL.MOV and ROTBALL.MOV used in this example. Even though we use the word "movie" to refer to both Director movies and Quicktime movies, the difference between the two is enormous.

Director allows you to include, play and control any quicktime movie in its files. Unlike audio sound, when you include quicktime movies you only have the option to link to it, not incorporate it. This is due to the fact that quicktime movies are big in size and they could deteriorate director's playback abilities if incorporated. Any quicktime movie that is placed on can be controlled by two parameters that can be read and set:

• movieTime (the starting frame number of the movie) and
• movieRate (the speed and direction that the movie will play)
  • 0 to stop,
  • 1 to play with normal speed,
  • 2 to play twich as fast,
  • negative numbers to play backwards.

So, when you have a movie placed on channel 1, you can implement the PLAY button as
sprite(1).movieRate = 1

How would you implement the rewind button? The fast forward button?

Other properties that you may find useful include currentTime, duration, volume, rotation, scale. Check the online documentation about them.

As we just mentioned, when you import a movie, you actually import only a link to it, not the actual movie. When you play the dir file, director will expect to locate your qt movie in the same location from which you imported it. So it is important not to move the qt movies in new directories if you do not have to. If you do, you will need to open the director file and locate the QT movie again.

In particular: If you want to Publish your project on the internet, you should place your QT movies in a local directory named dswmedia

BTW, notice that a QT movie could contain video and/or simply sound. That way you can have fine control on your audio, if you need more synchronization than the markers you inserted in an audio file.