QuickTime Media Skins have revolutionized the industry’s concept of ‘Skins’.

Unlike conventional skins, which simply allow users to decorate their media players, QuickTime Media Skins gives authors the power to control the unique environment in which their media is displayed.

The new environment, or player window, can be any shape or size, and created in any of the dozens of file formats QuickTime supports. Playback controls (if desired) can be placed anywhere.

QuickTime Media Skins are delivered to the user along with the media file, allowing authors to offer unique and compelling experiences specifically for their own content.

And, best of all, since QuickTime is robustly AppleScriptable, content authors can easily add media skins to content with an automated batch process.

Two Ways to Create

To create QuickTime Media Skins follow the directions below or, if you want to automate the process on a Mac, download the ever-growing collection of powerful QuickTime AppleScripts.

1. Add to selection and scale command.

2. Create B/W images to define window and drag areas (masks).

3. Create XML text file containing references to your files.

4. Save the text file with a name ending in .mov.

5. Open in QuickTime Player, then Save as Self-contained.

Directions

You need 3 applications to create a media skin and add it to your media: a text editor such as Simple Text, a graphics program such as PhotoShop, and QuickTime Pro.

Step 1. Add media skin to your video movie

Video Movie

Start with a QuickTime video movie which you want to enhance with a media skin. Let’s call this Video.mov.

Media Skin

Create an image of your new media skin. Use a graphics program and create one from scratch, or perhaps scan in a photo of an actual device. This frame can be created in any file format that QuickTime supports. Let’s call this Skin.pct.

Note: Within this image, it is helpful to specify the area in which your movie will be displayed, especially if you plan to use transparency (see below). This area can be square or nonsquare. Just fill this area in with black or white.

Combine Video Movie and Media Skin

Open both the media skin (Skin.pct) and the video movie (Video.mov) in QuickTime Pro.

Add to Selection and Scale: Copy the media skin then switch to your video movie and combine them using the Add to Selection and Scale command (under the 'Edit' menu).

Note: For detailed help on using QuickTime Pro, consult the help file available under the Help menu.

Adjust Layers/Position: Open the Movie Properties window and, if needed, in visual settings adjust the Layer for each track (remember: lower numbers appear more forward) and/or use the Size and offset property to place the video track where you wish.

Tip: If you want the video to play through transparent areas of the media skin, set the video track to the background (a higher number), then modify the Graphics Mode for your Skin track to be Transparent and set the transparent color (usually black or white). Your video track will show through this area.

Save: Save your new movie as self-contained. Let’s call this Framed.mov.

Note: This example uses a static image as a media skin, but remember: a media skin simply provides a shape, or mask, to use when displaying your movie. Any visual media type can show through the mask, including motion video, and special effects, such as those possible with the QuickTime cloud or fire effects.

You may also add your own movie controls such as a sprite or Flash track. You can create your own movie controls using wired sprites (and a wired sprite editor such as Totally Hip’s LiveStage Pro or Adobe’s GoLive) or use Macromedia’s Flash.

Step 2. Add media skin to your video movie

Window Mask

Create a mask image the size and shape of your frame. This black-and-white image defines the window created when your movie plays. The image should be black where you want your window, and white elsewhere. The image can be a BMP, GIF, PICT, or any other format that QuickTime understands. Let’s call this WinMask.pct.

Drag Mask

Finally, create another mask image the size and shape of the dragable part of your frame. Typically, this would be the same as your first mask, with white areas where your text, video, and controls will appear. Again, this should be saved as a black-and-white image in a format that QuickTime can display. Let's call this DragMask.pct.

Step 3. Create text file

Using a text editor, create a small file with the syntax below (notice the references to your files).

Step 4. Save with a name ending in .mov

Then save as plain text, with the .mov file extension in the same location as your other files. Let's call this SkinXML.mov.

Note: Mac users, do not be alarmed when the resulting file appears as a movie instead of a text file. This is a feature of QuickTime.

Step 5. Open/Save in QuickTime Player

Open SkinXML.mov using QuickTime Pro. Save as a self-contained movie. Let’s call this Self-contained.mov.

Important

Be sure to save your movie as a self-contained movie, and distribute that version, not the XML text file. The XML text file is dependent on external files and will not Fast Start over the Internet. The self-contained version will Fast Start.

You can now put your movie on a CD, email it to a friend, or embed a link to it in a Web page.

Additional Information

Link to QuickTime Player

To share your work on the internet, link to your movie using the EMBED tag. For example:

This tag would embed a QuickTime image file named poster.mov in a Web page. If the viewer clicks the image, QuickTime will launch Self-contained.mov in the QuickTime Player application.

TIP: To launch your movie automatically, without the viewer clicking anything, you add AUTOHREF="true" to the EMBED tag.

About Dragable Regions

Any part of your movie can be made into a dragable region. However, tracks that respond to mouse events, such as VR panorama tracks or wired sprite tracks, should not be covered by a drag mask — the drag behavior prevents mouse events from reaching underlying tracks.

Current Limitations

Currently, a movie can have only one skin track. You cannot dynamically enable or disable skin tracks. The skin track’s masks are stored in the movie file as 1-bit pixel depth PICTs and cannot be changed dynamically.