Mac OS X 10.3 Panther developer beta intro video mystery

[unodu]

Remember the "welcome" intro video that Mac OS X used to have when you installed and went through Setup Assistant?
I'm in search of a specific one of those. I remember ages ago coming across this video on YouTube of the "welcome" video for Mac OS X Panther Developer Beta. Supposedly it was used in a developer build of Panther but got scrapped for some reason.

Recently I've been searching to see if I could find the source of this. I dug around in some past OS X install DVDs I could find online to see if I could find the actual intro video file, but everything I've found so far hasn't gotten anywhere. 7A179, the earliest Panther build available online, still used the 10.0-10.2 intro. However, the later Developer Preview has the final RTM 10.3 video, so I'm thinking one of the builds between 7A179 and the DP (which I am unsure of its Build #) have the Beta video. Or, perhaps, it was scrapped internally at Apple and somehow made it to YouTube along the way.

Additionally I've been spending many hours doing research trying to find any information possible; I've found a few forum threads of people explaining the same thing, but no results. However, I have a few semi-related leads:

- The motion graphics animator/designer for the 10.0-10.2 welcome video was David Brinda. You can see it on his portfolio here. He also designed the Mac RSS screensaver, the iTunes motion graphic, and a number of Apple Store attract loops and animations; among other work for other companies. Seemingly, he also designed another scrapped welcome video for Mac OS X, entitled "Flutter" on an archived version of his portfolio. I've never seen this anywhere else online but here, but it's another interesting thing. I've emailed him asking more about this. Interestingly enough, this intro video has the same metallic "X" wordmark as Panther does in it's marketing.
- Someone named Michael Darius used to be a department lead for user experience design at Apple. He worked under Steve Jobs and Jony Ive to create the Aqua design language, and also the registration flow for the 10.0-10.2 setup. However, he doesn't seem to know much on the topic.
- I've also found a directory for a few people who worked on early versions of Mac OS X in Human Interface Design, so there may be some people to contact there potentially. I won't be sharing this publicly, however.


So, does anyone know anything about this mystery video?

 

[WillUHD]

Hey!
I'm also looking for the same video and I also did some digging. Here is the one that I referenced on YouTube.
After a long time digging in the comments section, I found this user (@l1oicgameplays394) comment "I think it can be played from build 7b20 to 7b55".
I also found a MacRumors article that said that old intro videos (stored on a typical Panther system) are located in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SetupAssistant.framework/Versions/A/Resources/intro.mov, and the music is located in /System/Library/CoreServices/Setup Assistant.app/Contents/Resources/intro-sound.aiff, according to wrldwzrd89. However I wasn't able to locate any of these files on a Panther 7B85 ISO. The music played is a song called Ocean Air.
Online, the earliest accessible version of Panther is 7B85 (Panther 10.3.0), so it seems like the latest version for that specific video 7b55 is an internal version. The earliest version of Panther on Archive.org is still 7b85.
According to ChatGPT, "In the early 2000s, Apple used "B" series builds to denote internal beta versions of their OS X software. These builds were distributed internally within Apple and sometimes to registered developers for testing purposes."
Hope this helps!

 

[l1oic]

Hey!
I'm also looking for the same video and I also did some digging. Here is the one that I referenced on YouTube.
After a long time digging in the comments section, I found this user (@l1oicgameplays394) comment "I think it can be played from build 7b20 to 7b55".
I also found a MacRumors article that said that old intro videos (stored on a typical Panther system) are located in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SetupAssistant.framework/Versions/A/Resources/intro.mov, and the music is located in /System/Library/CoreServices/Setup Assistant.app/Contents/Resources/intro-sound.aiff, according to wrldwzrd89. However I wasn't able to locate any of these files on a Panther 7B85 ISO. The music played is a song called Ocean Air.
Online, the earliest accessible version of Panther is 7B85 (Panther 10.3.0), so it seems like the latest version for that specific video 7b55 is an internal version. The earliest version of Panther on Archive.org is still 7b85.
According to ChatGPT, "In the early 2000s, Apple used "B" series builds to denote internal beta versions of their OS X software. These builds were distributed internally within Apple and sometimes to registered developers for testing purposes."
Hope this helps!

I am the one who made the comment

 

[unity]

Hey!
I'm also looking for the same video and I also did some digging. Here is the one that I referenced on YouTube.
After a long time digging in the comments section, I found this user (@l1oicgameplays394) comment "I think it can be played from build 7b20 to 7b55".
I also found a MacRumors article that said that old intro videos (stored on a typical Panther system) are located in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SetupAssistant.framework/Versions/A/Resources/intro.mov, and the music is located in /System/Library/CoreServices/Setup Assistant.app/Contents/Resources/intro-sound.aiff, according to wrldwzrd89. However I wasn't able to locate any of these files on a Panther 7B85 ISO. The music played is a song called Ocean Air.
Online, the earliest accessible version of Panther is 7B85 (Panther 10.3.0), so it seems like the latest version for that specific video 7b55 is an internal version. The earliest version of Panther on Archive.org is still 7b85.
According to ChatGPT, "In the early 2000s, Apple used "B" series builds to denote internal beta versions of their OS X software. These builds were distributed internally within Apple and sometimes to registered developers for testing purposes."
Hope this helps!

When you said you were not able to locate the files, did you actually unarchive the "Archive.pax.gz" on Disc 1? The files are not found on the system on the CD, but instead in that archive which is what is actually installed.

I have 7A179 in hand right now and in the archive I have both the movie file and sound. However they are very different and pretty horrible. unodu said they used the Tiger intro, but that is clearly not the case with mine. The audio file is not one I recognize and is 40 seconds long, has a very "Windows" intro vibe to it. The intro video starts with a pulsing blue dot against a white background that zooms a puddle splash with the mix of Welcome in different languages before it all compresses to the left and becomes mostly white. Clip is 22 second. But there are two other videos and I think one is to overlap the intro, it instead has a black background and the left "compressed" part is animated water ripples.

So... FYI on what I found. I should probably edit it all together. Here is the intro video tho. If it attaches right and is playable here.....

 

[zach-coleman]

Did anyone see this one that got posted early this year? It's from a user referenced in the comments section of the linked video.

Edit: Whoops I didn't see this was already mentioned in the original post lol. Oddly the OP of the video for the Panther one mentions this channel is where they got the mysterious panther developer beta video from, but that video seems to be missing now.

 

[Nobort]

Hi

I got in touch with the guy that uploaded this old video of the intro:

and he actually had the original files saved.

As far as what build the intro came from, I haven't figured it out but the metadata of the video file has a creation date of 2003-07-21 so maybe someone could narrow it down from that.

Here are the files he sent me (https://gofile.io/d/R668ne) which include a separate .mov for the video and .aiff for the audio track. I also uploaded a high quality version of the intro to youtube: