A chapter track is a type of text track that divides the movie into randomly-addressable chapters or sections. The list of chapters, each of which links to a part of the movie, appears as a title or a pop-up menu in the movie controller. What kinds of QuickTime movies benefit from a chapter track? • Compilations or assemblages of movies, such as a film festival program • Audio movies with multiple music selections or movements • Recorded news events • Educational movies • Scientific and medical movies • Any movie of significant length whose content can be divided into definite sections Movies with alternate subtitle or sound tracks can have chapter tracks in the proper language for each alternate sound track.

		Adding a Chapter Track. Adding a chapter track is similar to creating a subtitle track, but it is easier, because you typically have less than a dozen topics to add (instead of hundreds of subtitles). The key is to prepare a text file with the proper text descriptors. (More on text descriptors.) Here’s how:
		Type a list of topics or entry points in any word processor that can save a plain text file. Add a carriage return after each topic. Make each topic no more than two or three words in length.
		In QuickTime player, choose Import... from the File menu and select the text file. Click Convert to convert the file to a text movie.
		Choose Export... from the File menu. Set the Export pop-up to Text to Text and set the Use: pop-up to Text with Descriptors. Click on the Options... button. In the Text Export Settings dialog, choose the Show Text, Descriptors, and Time option, choose Show Time Relative to Start of Movie, and set fractions of seconds as 1/30 (the default is 1/1000). Click Save to create a text file with descriptors.
(Click for larger picture.)		You now need to open several windows so you can work with text, tracks, and movie controls at the same time. Open the exported list in your word processor. Open the target movie in QuickTime Player. Open QuickTime Player’s Controls drawer by clicking the button with four dots on it. Finally, choose Get info from QuickTime Player’s Movie menu, choose Movie from the Tracks (left-hand) pop-up, and choose Time from the Properties (right-hand) pop-up. Your screen should look something like the picture to the left.
		In QuickTime Player, find the first place in the movie where you want to begin a new chapter. Use the frame controls to step forward or backward a frame at a time as needed. Note the time in the Info window.
		In the text file, find the first chapter title. It has a time stamp just before it that should look something like [00:00:00.000]. Change that to the time you noted in the Info window. It might now read something like: [00:01:30.15], meaning that selecting the first chapter title will jump the viewer 1 minute, 30 seconds, and 15 frames into the movie.
		Repeat this process until you have identified all the places in the movie that correspond to the chapter divisions, and have edited the text file with the proper time stamps. Change the last time stamp, which appears after the last chapter title in the text file, to match the duration of the movie.
		Import the text file into QuickTime Player. This creates a new movie with just a text track. Choose Select All from the File menu, then Copy. Close the movie.
		Click on the main movie. Select All. Then select Add Scaled from the Edit menu (QuickTime 4 users can Add Scaled by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Shift or Option-Shift, then selecting Add Scaled from the Edit menu). This adds the text track to the movie and makes sure it is exactly the right length.
		In the Info window, choose the new text track in the Tracks pop-up, then choose Set as Chapter Track in the Properties pop-up.
		The new chapter track needs an “owner track.” Choose the main video or audio track. If you have a movie with alternate subtitle or sound tracks, you can create multiple chapter lists in different languages, set the appropriate subtitle or sound track as the owner of each chapter list, and the chapter list will change to match the selected language.
		Choose Preload from the Properties pop-up and check the Preload checkbox. This makes the chapter track load first.
		Choose Enable Tracks from the Edit menu and disable the new text track, so it doesn’t display on top of the video. It will still function as a chapter track.
		Save as a self-contained movie.
Note: The chapter titles appear as a pop-up in the QuickTime Plug-in, but as a single line of text in the QuickTime Player controller bar. In QuickTime Player, click the up or down arrow to move forward and back in the chapter list.   Important: In the QuickTime plug-in, if the movie is not wide enough in pixels for the controller to accommodate the words of the chapter titles, the chapter pop-up will not be displayed. Keep the text as short as possible. If necessary, add a background still image that is as wide as needed, using the Add Scaled command.

	Save the streaming movie as a self-contained movie. This creates a tiny Fast Start movie with a streaming track—a pointer to the streaming movie. Create the chapter track in this movie.
	Use Add, not Add Scaled (Ctrl-Alt or Option, not Ctrl-Alt-Shift or Option-Shift) when adding a track to a streaming movie.
	Choose the streaming track as the chapter owner.
When the movie plays over the web, QuickTime loads the chapter list immediately via HTTP. It attempts to get the stream from the server only when the movie is played or the viewer selects an entry point using the chapter list. Because of the nature of spacetime, chapter lists do not work with live streaming movies.

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