Apple QuickTime VR - Manual (Page 96)

The following table compares the codecs most often used for QTVR media.
Comp. Ideal Source Comp. Decomp. Comp. Comments
Method Material Speed Speed Ratio
Animation Computer-generated Fast Fast Lowest Poor compression
animation ratio.
Cinepak Video Slow Fast High Use as an alternative
to Photo JPEG.
Graphics Computer-generated Moderate Fast Low Only allows
animation compression at
100% quality.
Photo JPEG Photographic stills Moderate Slow Highest 25–40% quality gives
or video good results.
Best for QTVR media.
Video Video Fast Fast High Compression ratio
better than Cinepak.
Use as an alternative
to Photo JPEG.
Other ways to reduce file size
You can do one or more of the following before compressing a file to help reduce file size:
m Fill background areas with a solid color—Background color on a captured image may
look solid, but it contains small variations due to noise. If you use an image-processing
program to fill the background with a solid color, the variations disappear, and you will get
better compression.
m Crop images—If the areas of interest are only in the center of your images, but not on the
sides, crop the images.
m Dejitter object movies—Better compression can be achieved if objects are located in
precisely the same location in each view frame. See “Capturing Images for QTVR Objects”
in Chapter 8 for details on eliminating jitter from your objects.
96 Appendix A