TechNote (Archived)

QuickTime VR playback fails on Windows when using the QuickTime 7 player

Issue

QuickTime Virtual Reality (VR) content included in a Macromedia Director movie may fail on Windows when using the QuickTime 7 player. The specific nature of the failures will depend on the version of the QuickTime player that is installed.

Note: These are Windows issues only. Macintosh users are not affected.

If QuickTime 7.0.3 is installed:

Mouse interactivity may fail. QuickTime VR sprites must use the Direct to Stage playback option in order for standard mouse interactivity to work. The sprite must always be set to Direct to Stage”toggling or setting this property to false at any time will prevent later interactivity, even if the option is set again to Direct to Stage.
The following QuickTime VR sprite and/or member properties return incorrect or erroneous values, and they fail to accept appropriate value set attempts: fieldOfView,hotSpotEnterCallback,hotSpotExitCallback, isVRMovie,node, nodeEnterCallback,nodeExitCallback, pan, tilt and triggerCallback.
The following QuickTime VR sprite methods fail silently and without error: enableHotSpot(),getHotSpotRect(), nudge(),ptToHotSpotID() and swing().

Note: The motionQuality andnodeType QuickTime VR sprite properties behave as expected when QuickTime 7.0.3 is installed.

If QuickTime 7.0.4 is installed:

Mouse interactivity may fail. QuickTime VR sprites may use either Direct to Stage or non-Direct to Stage playback on sprite initialization, but toggling the Direct to Stage playback on or off will result in a loss of mouse interactivity. After toggling the directToStage property, the user will not be able to pan or tilt the QTVR scene, and there will be no cursor changes while over the QTVR sprite. The user will, however, still be able to click on hotspots within the scene and have those hotspots navigate between scene nodes.
The properties and methods of QuickTime VR sprites are fully functional.

Reason

The reason for this unexpected behavior is that changes weremade to the QuickTime 7 player for Windows that were not compatible with the existing QuickTime Asset Xtra found in Director and the Shockwave player.

Solution

At this time the only solution for users on Windows that results in full capability is to downgrade their installation of the QuickTime player to version 6.5 or earlier. This is not an acceptable solution in many cases, since other applications require the QuickTime 7 player (for example, the newest iTunes on Windows). In some cases, an acceptable solution would be to ask that users upgrade their QuickTime 7 player installation to version 7.0.4 or newer, as that provides a partial fix for the issues discussed in this TechNote.

Note: The Director and Shockwave engineering team is actively working to resolve the issues still outstanding as of the QuickTime 7.0.4 player release. Please check this TechNote for any updates. (Ref. 202136)