Web Design in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Embedded QuickTime Movies

In addition to simply linking to a QuickTime movie, you can place the player right in the web page like an image. The QuickTime plug-in is required to play .mov files inline, but it is bundled with Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Safari and is supported Firefox, Opera, and most other browsers, making it a relatively safe and cross-platform method for putting a video right on a page.

To place a QuickTime movie on a web page so that it will be supported by all browsers (including IE), it is necessary to use both the object and embed elements. Be aware that embed is a nonstandard element, and will cause your document not to validate. Unfortunately, at this time, to take advantage of the full functionality of the QuickTime plug-in player, the embed element is the only option, because there is no method for passing parameters to the player using object alone.

Tip

If you only require default play settings, there is a standards-compliant method for embedding QuickTime movies using nested object elements and a bit of CSS. The process is beyond the scope of this chapter, but you can read a tutorial at http://realdev1.realise.com/rossa/rendertest/quicktime.html.

This is the markup used in common practice for placing a .mov file that is 240 × 180 pixels on a web page for cross-browser compatibility. One day, there will be a standards-compliant embedding method that works with the QuickTime plug-in player, but for the time being, the embed element is required for all ...