Scientist Gallery
Help with Video Files
We hope you enjoy the interviews on this web site. We expect that you will use Quicktime to view the movies. However, we realize that not everyone will want to install QuickTime on their computer. We have also provided all the movies as Windows Media Player files (WMA). Both QuickTime Player and Windows Media Player are free for all Windows and Apple Macintosh operating systems. The web site should work well in Internet Explorer version 5 through 7, Netscape 6+, Firefox 2, Opera 8 and higher, and Safari 2 or 3. We have not tested it in any other web browsers. QuickTime 6 or higher is required to view the QuickTime movies.
The information below is meant to help you understand more about the movies and help you if you are having trouble viewing the movies.
Troubleshooting suggestions are also available at the Apple website for QuickTime problems, www.apple.com, and at the Microsoft web site for Windows Media Player problems, www.microsoft.com.
If you are having other problems or need additional help, please contact the OMP webmaster.
Can I use QuickTime on a Windows machine?
Yes! QuickTime runs on most Windows computers (95/98/2000/NT/ME/XP/Vista).
How do I get QuickTime?
1. Go to Apple Computer at : http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/.
2. Choose your operating system and download.
Note: you do not need to fill out the registration information to get the download. Follow the directions in the downloaded file to install on your computer.
How do the movies work?
Click on either the image of the scientist with the text "Click here to play movie" for the QuickTime movie OR Click on the button to the right with the text "Windows Media Player" for the WMA movie.
QuickTime: If you click on the image and you have QuickTime installed, the movie will load and start to play. It may take a minute for the whole movie to be downloaded. Some of the files are fairly large. The quality of the movie will depend on your connection speed to the internet (and what speed is set in the QuickTime preferences). There are 4 levels of quality. you may manually change which movie QuickTime will play by changing the connection speed setting in the Quicktime preferences. The sound should play in the web page. You should be able to stop/start/save and replay the sound right in the web page with the QuickTime control bar.
WMA: If you click on the WMA button the result will vary depending on your browser and what plug-ins you have installed (and how your browser is configured). The typical response is that the browser opens Windows Media Player if it is installed. The movie should begin playing automatically. It may take a minute for the whole movie to download. There is only one size/speed WMA movie available. For the highest quality, the movie should be viewed in QuickTime.
What is the difference between the QuickTime sound and the WMA movie?
There is no real difference in the movies. They are compressed and optimized with different codecs (COmpressor-DECompresser) but they have the same content. The QuickTime movie, over a fast connection, will be higher quality than the WMA movie in this case. There are four options for the QuickTime player. The QuickTime player will play the movie that works best with your connection speed. The WMA file was recorded in a backward compatible format so older versions of WMP should be able to play the movies.
How do I use the QuickTime controls?
The diagram below shows the function of each part of the QuickTime control bar. To start any movie, click anywhere on the image of the scientist. The sound will then be downloaded to your computer and will begin playing automatically. After it begins to play, you may use the Quicktime controls to start/stop/save/repeat/etc. the sound. You may need QuickTimePro (costs money) to save the sound from the control bar.
The movie plays but there seem to be gaps in the recording
When you click on the QuickTime movie or the WMA button, the movie will be downloaded. It will probably begin to play before the whole movie is downloaded. This may result in skips or jumps in the playback as the programs try to both play the movie and download the rest of the movie. To hear the whole movie without gaps, push the play button again when the sound is done downloading OR stop the movie play immediately and wait for the whole movie to download, then play the movie from the beginning. Some movies are a little blurry or jumpy. This can occur for many reasons, some are the result of flaws or cuts in the original recording and others have been introduced during compression for delivery on the web. We have erred on the side of smaller files/faster downloads vs. higher quality so that the movies may be accessible to the widest possible audience.
You may also have some problems after viewing a number of movies (either WMA or QuickTime). Your web browser may not be reusing the memory used by playing the movie. The only solution for this problem is to quit out of your browser. It may also help to upgrade your browser to a more recent version.
Why does a new window come up every time I click on a movie?
If you are using QuickTime, this is not the expected behavior. Go to the preferences menu in your web browser and choose the "File Helpers" section. Find the entry for .mov files in the list of helper applications and file extensions. QuickTime should already be the designated "helper" application (if not, make QuickTime the "helper" application). Next, edit the entry for .mov and QuickTime. Somewhere in the edit panel you should be able to set the action taken (or how to handle) when the web browser comes across a .mov file (exactly how depends on the browser). For example, in Internet Explorer, there will be several check boxes and pop-up menus. One of them is labeled "How to handle". Under the "How to handle" menu there are choices like: save to disk, play in plug-in, play in application, play in browser, etc. You probably want to choose "play in browser". If you need more help with this read the instructions in the help menu of your browser or go to the online support page for your browser.
If you are getting WMA files, each movie should open in a window within the Windows Media Player application. If this does not happen you may try to set the "File helpers" as described above or set preferences in the Windows Media Player Application. For further help look at the www.microsoft.com site.
When I click on the movie (Quicktime image or WMA button) nothing happens
You may have your "File Helpers" set to download the file type (.wma or .mov) instead of playing the file in the browser or application. See the information under "Why does a new window come up every time I click on a sound" on how to find the preferences setting to control this behavior. You should change the action away from "download to disk". You may also not have the appropriate application installed (QuickTime or WMP).
I installed QuickTime but Windows Media Player keeps trying to play the movie (and failing)
Windows Media Player does not "play nice" all the time. You will need to change the default media player. On Windows machines this may reoccur if you alternate between downloading different types of media.
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