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QuickTime Overview

QuickTime is a cross-platform multimedia architecture for the Mac OS and Windows. It consists of a set of multimedia operating-system extensions (implemented as DLLs in Windows), a comprehensive API, a file format, and a set of user applications such as QuickTime Player, the QuickTime ActiveX control, and the QuickTime browser plug-in.

QuickTime is a complete multimedia architecture, not just a media player. It supports creating, producing, and delivering a broad variety of media. QuickTime provides end-to-end support for the entire process: capturing media in real time; synthesizing media programatically; importing and exporting existing media; editing and compositing; compression, delivery, and user playback.

Specific tasks that QuickTime is useful for include:

• Playing movies and other media, such as Flash or MP3 audio

• Nondestructive editing of movies and other media

• Importing and exporting images between formats, such as JPEG and PNG

• Compressing and decompressing sound and video

• Compositing, layering, and arranging multiple media elements from different sources

• Synchronizing multiple time-dependent media to a single timeline

• Capturing and storing sequences from real-time sources, such as audio and video inputs

• Creating movies programmatically from synthesized data

• Creating sprites that use intelligent, scripted animation

• Creating presentations that interact with viewers, remote databases, and application servers

• Creating movies that include customized window shapes, “skins,” and controls

• Streaming movies in real time over a network or the Internet

• Broadcasting real-time streams from live sources such as cameras and microphones

• Distributing downloadable media on disc or over a network or the Internet

Contents:

Architecture
The QuickTime API
QuickTime Movies
Atoms, QuickTime Atoms, and Atom Containers
Streaming, Broadcasting, and Progressive Download
QuickTime Road Map

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