Streaming Media Metafiles Part Three: QuickTime

QuickTime Media Links
With QuickTime Media Links, we start to see an approach that's more like traditional metafiles. You'll usually use a .qtl file when you're putting a link in your Web page to launch the standalone QuickTime player (rather than embedding it in the page). It's an XML file you can create with any text editor. Here's a basic one:

<?xml version="1.0"?><?quicktime type="application/x-quicktime-media-link"?><embed src="rtsp://myserver.com/mymovies/mySample.mov" autoplay="true" controller="true">Where this starts to get interesting is with some of the other options you can add to the embed tag. Many of the available options are similar to the ones available in QuickTime's HTML embed tag. These include:

    autoplay=(true or false)
    controller=(true or false)
    href=(url to a Web page you want to load when the user clicks on the movie)
    loop=(true, false or palindrome)
    qtnext=(the movie that should play when this one finishes)

There are also a couple of options that are unique to .qtl files. The fullscreen=(normal, double, half, current or full) option causes the QuickTime player to take over the entire screen and display the movie against a black background. normal, half and double are self-explanatory. The current value will play the movie at the size it was the last time it was saved. full will scale the video up to fill the screen as much as possible without clipping or changing the aspect ratio. The quitwhendone=(true or false) option causes the player to close automatically when the movie is finished. Use this last one with care. It may seem a nice touch to get the player out of the way and return the user directly to the Web page. At the same time, you prevent them from easily playing it again.

Notably absent are the starttime and endtime options, a disappointing omission. A full list of the options and values supported in the .qtl file's embed tag is available from Apple's QuickTime Media Link Documentation.

Another way to look at the options you can use in a .qtl file is to use QuickTime Pro to create it. With your movie open in QuickTime Pro, choose Export->Move to QuickTime Media Link. The Options button will open a dialog with all of the available options:
This can be a good way to get a head start on a .qtl file that you can later tweak by hand. When you save this file, what's saved is a plain XML file that you can open and edit with any text editor.