Specifications

Chapter 36: Working with QuickTime Movies 581
About the Movie Window
The Movie window displays the movie playback
or the current frame if playback is paused or
stopped. You can drag the Movie window any-
where on your computer screen.
To display the Movie window:
■ Choose Window > Show Movie Window. If a
movie has already been imported, the Movie
window will appear.
Using a 14-inch Monitor for Playback
If you capture 320 x 240 (NTSC) movies and
have a second monitor with 640 x 480 resolu-
tion (a standard 14-inch monitor), clicking on
the Movie window will route movie playback to
that monitor. The Movie will “bounce” over to
the second monitor, and will be pixel-doubled
so that it takes up the whole screen.
Tips for Optimizing Movie Playback
Since Pro Tools uses QuickTime to play movies,
the quality of the playback is dependent on the
speed of your computer and hard drive, the size
(in pixels) of the movie, and the quality of the
video hardware used to capture and play back
the digitized video. While QuickTime doesn’t
produce broadcast-quality playback, it is frame
accurate when spotting to picture.
On PCI-based computers, Pro Tools continu-
ously re-syncs the movie. The movie resolves to
the audio sample clock. This allows the movie to
smoothly track the audio even when your sys-
tem is varispeeded.
For more consistently smooth movie playback,
here are some suggestions:
◆ Use a Digidesign-approved video capture and
playback card for 25/30 frames-per-second full-
screen movie playback.
◆ Display the movie on a separate monitor
driven by a video capture and playback card.
◆ If you don’t have a video capture and play-
back card, set the movie playback priority to Me-
dium Priority Playback or High Priority Playback
using one of these commands in Movie menu.
This gives priority to movie playback, rather
than other screen graphics tasks such as moving
faders.
◆ Use the fastest computer possible.
◆ Capture and play QuickTime video from a
separate hard drive than your Pro Tools audio
drives.
◆ Remove unneeded System Extensions and
Control Panels (Mac OS 9).
◆ Disable the Automation Preference for Faders
Move During Playback.
◆ Set No Auto Scrolling in Operations > Scroll
Options.
Movie window
See also “Firewire Playback of QuickTime
DV Movies” on page 579.