QuickTime

QUICKTIME

QuickTime Logo

QuickTime is Apple's multi-platform, industry-standard, multimedia software architecture. It is used by software developers, hardware manufacturers, and content creators to author and publish a wide range of media. Some of the highlights of QuickTime include:

Well-suited to delivery of media everywhere: WWW, CD-ROM, DVD, broadband, kiosk, presentations
Mac and Windows are equally well supported
Includes powerful interactive capabilities (everything a DVD-Video can do, and much more).
"Movie alternates" allow multiple versions of a movie to be created and automatically selected, to give each user the optimum experience.
Goes beyond audio and video to include synchronized graphics, sound, video, text, music, VR, and 3D media.
Used not only for delivery, but also editing and production
Supported by a vast number of third party tools and technologies

World Wide Web

QuickTime is widely used for putting movies on the Web, due to the fact that it is free, easy to use, has a very large installed base and provides a high level of service. Movies can be delivered via progressive download or (new with QuickTime 4) via "true streaming."

QuickTime Streaming uses RTSP to deliver movies in realtime. A dedicated media server is required; one is built into Apple's Mac OS X Server, and third-party servers have been announced by SGI, IBM, and Cisco.

Progressive download is best for relatively short, high-quality clips. The file is downloaded via HTTP or FTP at a pre-determined level of quality. The user doesn't have to wait for the whole file to download to start watching it. If they have a slow connection, or if the movie was made at a high data rate, there will be a delay before the movie starts playing.

"True Streaming" is generally best for longer pre-recorded clips or live events. A dedicated server is used to deliver the video in real time. If the user's connection isn't fast enough, or the network experiences congestion, frames may be dropped in order to preserve the realtime playback. One advantage of true streaming is that it allows the user to skip ahead -- useful if you're watching an hour-long lecture!

CD-Rom, DVD-Rom, Kiosk/Presentation

QuickTime is the dominant architecture for CD-ROM video. It enjoys an impressive market share due to its cross-platform support, wide range of features, and free licensing. QuickTime is used on the vast majority of CD-ROM titles for these reasons.

DVD-ROM is quite similar to CD-ROM in many respects, so the same codecs still work fine. There is room for improvement, however, and new codecs are on the way that promise to provide substantially better DVD-ROM playback.

QuickTime is a good choice for kiosks, as it integrates well with Macromedia Director, MPEG, and a range of other technologies. Similarly, QuickTime movies are commonly used for presentations played on portable computers, whether in presentation software like Persuasion, or as stand-alone full-screen movies.

Scalability

QuickTime offers scalability through its alternate movies feature. At the beginning of playback, the QuickTime Plug-In requests an alternate version according to the settings the viewer has configured in their QuickTime Settings control panel. Developers may create as many alternates as desired while encoding the movie, and specify complex criteria for when particular versions will be displayed. This allows for delivery of content based on: bandwidth of user's connection, playback platform (Mac or Windows), QuickTime version, and (new in QuickTime 4) language or CPU speed.

Media Types and File Formats Supported

QuickTime supports many media types, including audio, video, text, MPEG, music (a superset of MIDI), curve media (similar to Shockwave Flash), VR (panoramas and objects), and 3D. Supported file types include

Digital Video- DV, M-JPEG, MPEG-1 (Mac only) OpenDML, QuickTime Movie, Video for Windows (AVI)
Audio and Text- MP3*, AIFF/AIFC, AU, AUDIO CD DATA, DV, MPEG Layers 1 and 2, Sound Designer II, System 7 Sound, WAVE
Still Image- BMP, GIF, JPEG/JFIF, Mac Paint, PhotoShop, PNG, PICT, QuickDraw GX Picture, QuickTime Image File, Silicon Graphics Image File, Targa Image File (TGA), TIFF
Animation 3D- 3D Meta File (3DMF), Animated GIF, FLC/FLI, PICS
Other- Text, Standard MIDI, General MIDI, Karaoke

*These file formats requiire QuickTime 4

QuickTime Video Codecs

Codec (Primary Use)	Pros	Cons	Availability
Sorenson Video WWW and CD-ROM	Very good image quality at low data rates	Very slow compression; playback requirements higher than Cinepak	Basic version included in QuickTime.
VP3 WWW and CD-ROM	Excellent quality. Well suited for broadband rates	Codec not ubiquitous.	Beta version of codec released Nov 2000. Available as component download in QuickTijme 5
Cinepak CD-ROM	Plays on older CPUs, generally gives acceptable image quality	Doesn't work well under about 30 KBps, slow compression, mediocre image quality	Included in QuickTime
Indeo 3.2 CD-ROM	Slightly better than Cinepak when compressing "talking heads" video, compression is a bit faster	Not well suited to Web data rates, more color artifacting than Cinepak	Free from Intel
Indeo Video Interactive 4 CD-ROM	Excellent image quality (similar to MPEG)	Requires fast Pentium for playback	Included in QuickTime 3 for Windows (Mac version freely available, but slower)
Video Video	Good for testing edits, doesn't "top out" at higher data rates	Not generally useful for final delivery	Included in QuickTime
Animation 2-dimensional animations	Lossless at 100%, produces smaller files than the None codec	Files may be quite large at 100% quality	Included in QuickTime
Photo-JPEG Photographic still images	Generally has good image quality, works well for "slide show" type movies with very low frame rates	relatively slow decompression; limited usefulness for motion video	Included in QuickTime
Component Video Video capture	Can improve capture frame rate, can help eliminate degradation when used as interim storage format	Not generally useful for final video delivery	Included in QuickTime
MJPEG Video editing	At 100% quality, image degradation is minimal	Requires large amounts of CPU power, large image and/or high frame rate movies don't play smoothly without special hardware	Included in QuickTime 2.5
Graphics 2-dimensional animation	Generates a compressed image 1/2 the size of the same image compressed by the Animation codec	Slower decompression than the Animation codec	Included in QuickTime
None Processing	Lossless, can extend the capabilities of other codecs	Produces huge files, movies usually won't play smoothly	Included in QuickTime
Portable Network Graphic (PNG) Still images	Lossless, small file sizes, good alternative for Animation codec	Not suited for multimedia video, can't make images as small as lossless codecs like JPEG	Included in QuickTime
MPEG-1 CD-ROM	Very good image quality	Majority of systems can't playback (requires special hardware or very fast computer)	Playback included in QuickTime 3 for Mac (Windows support will require QuickTime 5)

QuickTime Audio Codecs

Codec (Primary Use)	Pros	Cons	Availability
QDesign Music Codec progressive-download music	Ideal for streaming music over a modem	Not as well-suited for voice as PureVoice	Basic included in QuickTime 3
QDesign Music Codec, v2 Streaming music	Even better quality than QDesign Music 1; adds support for QuickTime Streaming	Doesn't play back in QuickTime 3	Basic included in QuickTime 4, or Pro version.
Qualcomm PureVoice Streaming voice	Good speech reproduction over a 14.4K modem	Not well-suited for music	Included in QuickTime 3
IMA CD-ROM	Extremely low playback requirements; works well on most samples	Relatively high data rates	Included in QuickTime
MP3 (MPEG Layer 3 Audio) Downloadable music	Excellent audio quality (at 128kbit/sec), relatively low playback requirements	Not well suited for modem streaming	Playback included in QuickTime 4, encoding available through Media Cleaner or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder