Chronomenon is a software alarm clock and timer capable of playing QuickTime movies. By using QuickTime movies in Chronomenon, you can have Chronomenon play a variety of things of your choice, such as sound, music, or motion-picture clips, when its alarm goes off.
This document will explain a little bit about QuickTime, QuickTime movies, and the role of QuickTime in Chronomenon. In the process of doing so, this document will also discuss a few things about sound files and MIDI files. The last section of this document gives some practical instruction on how to convert sound and MIDI files to QuickTime movies, using Chronomenon.
What is QuickTime?
QuickTime is a software extension available from Apple Computer, Inc. which allows programs to play QuickTime movies. Thus, for Chronomenon to play QuickTime movies, your computer should have QuickTime installed. The later the version number of QuickTime, the better. If QuickTime is installed, and the QuickTime extension is on, Chronomenon will automatically be able to play QuickTime movies. If you don't have the QuickTime extension, you can currently obtain it, for free, from Apple. Try downloading it from the World Wide Web using the following URL:
http://quicktime.apple.com/sw/qtmac.html
If for some reason QuickTime can't be found there, try looking for it starting at Apple's
home page, using the links posted there. Apple's home page can be found using this URL:
http://www.apple.com
What QuickTime Movies Are
QuickTime movies are computer documents which contain data meant to be output and perceived over time. Part of a QuickTime movie is output in one moment, and a subsequent part in a subsequent moment. So, each part of a QuickTime movie which is output at some particular moment is analogous to the frame of a television movie.
Types of QuickTime Movies
QuickTime movies may contain both visual and aural (perceived by the ear, or sound-making) content. If a movie contains visual content, a screen appears in a window when the movie is opened, with movie-playing controls appearing below the screen. If a movie can only be heard because no visual data accompany it, no screen appears, but the movie window’s title bar still appears, with controls directly underneath. If a QuickTime movie can generate sound, its sound can just as well be music——or clips of music——as any other sounds, so QuickTime movies can be used to make the alarm of Chronomenon musical!
Obtaining QuickTime Movies
There are a variety of ways QuickTime movies can be obtained. One way is to find them and download them from the Internet. Another way is to make them yourself. Many of the QuickTime movies which you can find on the Internet also contain visual data. While such movies can be played by Chronomenon, they tend to take up more hard disk space than sound-only movies of roughly the same length and quality, and they are not necessarily sound oriented. For Chronomenon, being that it is an alarm clock and timer, you will perhaps want to use sound-oriented movies much of the time. My recommended way for obtaining sound-oriented QuickTime movies is to make them yourself from the various types of sound files in existence and from standard MIDI files. It is easy to make QuickTime movies from such files with Chronomenon alone, though other software which allows you to create or edit QuickTime movies can certainly be used. The next four sections explain sound files, standard MIDI files, QuickTime movies based on those files, and how to hear the sounds and music provided by such movies. The last section of this document explains how to use Chronomenon to make QuickTime movies from sound and standard MIDI files.
Sound Files
Sound files of various types, such as System 7 Sound and .WAV, can easily be made into QuickTime movies using just Chronomenon. As stated above, the making of QuickTime movies with Chronomenon will be explained in the last section of this document. First, however, comes some information which might be helpful to know
as you make use of QuickTime in Chronomenon.
Sound files can be obtained in a variety of ways, such as by buying CD's of them, downloading them from the Internet, or making them yourself. To make them yourself, you will need sound-making software. Appropriate sound-making software can be obtained from stores which sell software and from the Internet. An example of a commercial sound-making tool which is available at the time of this writing is SoundEdit 16 by Macromedia. Shareware and freeware sound-making software is also available.
About QuickTime Movies Based on Sound Files, and How to Hear the Sound Data in Such Movies
QuickTime movies based on sound files, like plain sound files themselves, can take up a significant amount of disk space, the amount depending partly on the quality of their sound data. (The quality of sound data affects how a sound is perceived; sound data of low-enough quality result in sound which seems like it is coming over a telephone, and sound data of high-enough quality result in sound which seems like it is coming from a hi-fi music stereo playing a well-produced music CD. Sound-data quality depends on the way the sound data were recorded and the way they were stored.) The amount of disk space taken up by a sound file also depends on the duration of the sound sample it contains.
Since movies based on sound files tend to use a good deal of disk space, especially when made from sound files containing high-quality sound data, the duration of such movies you use in Chronomenon is likely to be short, their length being measured in seconds rather than minutes. For an alarm sound, fortunately, a movie containing high-quality sound of a few seconds length is ideal. For playing short music clips, such as a song's chorus, such a movie works out well too.
QuickTime movies that contain sound data can be heard in a variety of ways. For instance, the computer itself may be capable of generating sound, so the computer itself could be used to hear such movies. External speakers are made especially for computers, which may or may not be attached to a computer monitor, so these speakers could could be used to make such movies audible too. However, for a further volume boost, the sounds of these QuickTime movies, as well as all other sounds coming from the computer, can be routed to a music-listening system. Consult your computer's documentation for details on connecting audio equipment to your computer.
Standard MIDI Files
Before getting into standard MIDI files, there is one question to briefly answer: what is MIDI? MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, and MIDI is a protocol which allows electronic musical instruments to communicate with each other and with controlling devices such as computers. Standard MIDI files are files which contain MIDI data. MIDI data are not sound data. Rather, MIDI data are instructions. Usually, these instructions are the type which tell MIDI-aware musical instruments what to do, such as what notes to play.
One nice thing about MIDI files is that they can play many minutes of sound and music while——relative to sound files——using very little disk space and memory. Thus, MIDI files are a good option for playing songs in their entirety. So, if you want Chronomenon to play whole songs, QuickTime movies made from standard MIDI files are what you will probably want to use. To find out what options you have in MIDI-aware musical instruments, read the next section.
About QuickTime Movies Based on Standard MIDI Files, and How to Hear their Sounds and Music
As mentioned before, MIDI files do not themselves contain any sounds, but rather sound- or music-making instructions that MIDI-aware music synthesizers and samplers can understand and use to make sounds and music. The same thing is true of QuickTime movies that come from MIDI files. If the movie you select for Chronomenon to play comes from a standard MIDI file, to hear sound or music you will need at least one software or hardware sound source, such as a music synthesizer or sampler, which QuickTime can play.
QuickTime Musical Instruments, a software-based music synthesizer, is one such sound source, which can be loaded to your hard disk as a system extension, and doesn’t require any additional hardware. If you have QuickTime installed, you may or may not have this extension. It can be obtained from Apple if you don't. It comes with a download of QuickTime. See the section of this document up towards the top titled “What is QuickTime?” for the Web address for downloading QuickTime if you would like to obtain QuickTime Musical Instruments.
If you have MIDI-aware music hardware such as music synthesizers and samplers, consider using OMS. OMS (Open Music System), available from Opcode Systems Inc., is MIDI software which routes MIDI data to and from the computer and MIDI hardware. OMS can easily be set up to work in conjunction with QuickTime. With OMS and QuickTime working together, even professional-grade, external (connected via cable to the computer’s printer or modem port) music synthesizers and samplers can be used to play the sounds and music of MIDI-based QuickTime movies played by Chronomenon. At the time of this writing, OMS can be obtained for free by clicking a short series of links starting on the Web page located at this Web address:
http://www.opcode.com/oms/
MIDI Manager from Apple Computer is a MIDI driver which QuickTime-using applications can use to play external MIDI-aware music hardware. However, MIDI Manager is not currently supported by Apple. Therefore, as QuickTime is upgraded by Apple, QuickTime's ability to use MIDI Manager as a MIDI driver may be eliminated. Still, it is expected that even QuickTime 3.0 will be able to use MIDI Manager. Please read literature that comes with QuickTime to find out about this and other MIDI-routing possibilities.
Making Your Own Sound and Music QuickTime Movies with Chronomenon
Sound-only and music-only QuickTime movies can very easily be made from both sound files and standard MIDI files using just Chronomenon. To convert one of these such files into a QuickTime movie, first choose Open a QuickTime Movie from Chronomenon ’s File menu, which will present a dialog which allows you to find and select things to open. Using this dialog, navigate to the folder where the desired file is stored and select it. If a file that you select in this dialog box can be made into a QuickTime movie, the Open button of the dialog will change to a Convert button. Click it, and a QuickTime movie of the file, which can be played in Chronomenon, will be made.
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