User`s guide

Chapter 25: Working with QuickTime Movies 369
QuickTime Requirements
Pro Tools supports playback of QuickTime
videos without additional hardware. How-
ever, performance will vary in terms of
maximum movie size, frame-rate, and
smoothness of playback. Capture of 30/25
FPS (frames per second), 60/50 fields-per-
second video requires a Digidesign-ap-
proved video capture card, and associated
software and hardware.
About Frame Length and QuickTime
Movies
Not all video capture software can guaran-
tee consistent frame lengths. Consult your
video capture software documentation for
information on ensuring frame-accurate
captures, and on conforming your video to
proper frame boundaries.
To take advantage of Pro Tools QuickTime
movie playback capabilities you will need
the following:
◆ The most recent version of Apple’s
QuickTime System Extension (included
with Pro Tools). To install QuickTime, run
the Custom Install option in the Pro Tools
installer.
◆ Apple’s QuickTime PowerPlug system ex-
tension, if you are using a Power Mac-
intosh.
◆ QuickTime movie playback and editing
software (such as Adobe Premiere, AVID
VideoShop, Macromedia Director, or Apple
MoviePlayer) to edit and compile Quick-
Time movies.
Optionally, you may also need:
◆ QuickTime movie capture hardware and
software to digitize your own movies from
a videotape or video camera source.
◆ An Apple CD-ROM drive running at 2x
speed or faster to take advantage of com-
mercially-available QuickTime movies and
sound clips.
Movie Playback Quality
Options
Pro Tools supports three options for movie
playback performance: Normal Priority
Playback, Medium Priority Playback, and
Highest Priority Playback. In most cases,
you should leave the priority choice set to
Normal Priority Playback. If you are run-
ning QuickTime Movies natively, that is,
without a capture card, you may need to
use one of the other playback priority op-
tions. If this does note apply to you, leave
movie playback priority set to Normal Pri-
ority Playback. This is the default setting.
Hard Drive Tips for Best Performance
For best movie playback performance,
make sure that the hard drive you are using
for video capture and playback is not on
the same SCSI bus as your audio files, if
possible. This allows the least amount of
interference between drives when
Pro Tools requests audio and video data.
With most capture cards, and moderate
data capture rates (800 kilobytes per second
or less), this should provide good perfor-
mance.