Early Quicktime Prototype
Here's a video from Apple around 1989. It shows a prototype I developed as part of the Dynamic Documents project illustrating the ability of ordinary people to drag and drop movies into applications like Macwrite or Powerpoint. The demo created a tsunami across Apple, caught the attention of execs, and ultimately became Quicktime a year later. The team who worked on this was talented (and a little quirky) including me, Eric Hoffert, John Worthington, Gary Woodcock and more. We were awarded a number of patents based on this work.
Dynamic Documents
This demo provides a little more detail than the one shown above, especially some ideas around authoring.
Importance to Apple
Joy Mountford describes the importance of the Dynamic Documents project to the birth of Quicktime and it's importance to Apple. She also kindly describes my role in it.
Quicktime editing
This video of this demo of how one easily one could copy, cut and paste segments from different movies using the Quicktime controller. I showed this at Apple World Wide Developers' Conference in 1990 and a big reaction. If I showed this today, It would probably get me "canceled." The demo is a little risqué and juvenile, but still funny.
Transition Factory
This was one of the first applications using drag and drop to insert a transition (e.g., "fade") between two movies. The concept and development was by Jonathan Cohen who was part of the Dynamic Documents team. Jonathan also was part of Quicktime. Another patent was awarded.
Magnifier for video data.
Also part of the Dynamic Documents project, the video magnifier was he first example of being able to "magnify" the contents of a movie through a kind of hierarchical browsing of the time line. We were awarded a patent for this work. I was awarded a patent for this invention. Jonathan Cohen was co-inventor.
Hypermovie
Following Quicktime, my team at Apple developed a number of prototypes showing ways in which a movie could be conceptualized not just as a linear experience, but as a container for knowledge about objects and events. I called this Hypermovie. The team consisted of me, Dave Vronay (pictured in the first image), Leo Degen, Lili Cheng (now at Microsoft) and Stephanie Houde.
Navigable Movies of Real World Scenes
This prototype showed the ability to create a virtual panoramic tour of a real-world place (Palace at Pavlosk) based on a specially photographed sequence and stitching together of a Quicktime movie. The technique was developed by Dan O'Sullivan who was a summer intern at the time. Dan, Mitch Yawitz and I were sent to Russia to make a Navigable 3D movie of Pavlosk Palace. Dan subsequently took over my teaching position at NYU when I decided not to return after my stint at Apple. Another intern, Laura Teodosio, took this concept further by creating stitched panoramic overviews to create re-playable path movies. Laura and I were awarded a patent for thiw work. This project was a precursor to Quicktime VR.