8/14/2019 QuickTime 3.0 Spec Sheet

1/4

http://quicktime.apple.com

QuickTime 3.0 QuickTime is Apple Computers industry-standard software architecture forcreating, editing, and publishing digital media.QuickTime is at the foundation of some of the industrys most respected

digital media software tools, including Adobe After Effects, Avid Cinema, Adobe

Premiere, Radius Edit, and Macromedias much-anticipated Final Cut.QuickTime also provides the most reliable way to deliver digital media to avariety of computer platforms. Thats why top computer entertainment compa-nies such as Broderbund, Voyager, Cyan, Macromedia, Pixar, Microsoft, Disney,and CNN all use QuickTime to deliver digital video. QuickTime provides thehigh level of performance, compatibility, and quality that these companiesdemand to deliver their products.

The QuickTime movie fi le format enables seamless exchange of digitalmedia between nearly all digital media tools. QuickTime movie files are used ina wide range of situations, from professional video-editing stations from Scitexand Media 100 to more than half of the video found on the Internet.

With QuickTime 3.0, the full range of QuickTime media creation, editing,and publishing functionality is now available on the Windows 95 and WindowsNT platforms, in addition to the Mac OS. QuickTime 3.0 now provides unprec-edented power and flexibility for QuickTime customers on all the major desktopcomputer platforms.

QuickTime 3.0 contains literally dozens of significant new capabilitiesto assist media authors and application developers to work more effectivelywith QuickTime. QuickTime 3.0 features major enhancements to its mediainterchange architecture to support full interoperability with a wider range ofprofessional media file formats, including the AVI, OpenDML, OMF, SGI, MPEG,

and DV formats.In addit ion, QuickTime 3.0 introduces rich support for DV media streams to

the base architecture. The release provides software-only or hardware-acceler-ated playback, editing, and creation of DV streams in any QuickTime application.

QuickTime 3.0 also integrates flexible real-time effects and transitionscapabili ties. QuickTime now standardizes access to software-based and hard-ware-accelerated effects features within an open, scalable, and extensiblearchitecture.

Read on for more information on how the advanced architecture and richfeature set QuickTime 3.0 offers benefit both media content authors and applica-

tion developers.

Features

Pervasive playback standard for CD-ROM a ndInternet content. With more than 2,500 leading titledevelopers alr eady licensing QuickTime, and more than 200new QuickTime-enhanced products introduced each month,QuickTime remains the standard format for CD-ROM andInternet content delivery.

Support for multiple data types. QuickTime enablesdevelopers to provide customers such unique features asmultiple-language text tracks. Data types supported include

video, sound, graphics, animation, text, music/ MIDI, MPEG,sprite, 3D, and VR.

Multiplatform playback. QuickTime allows you todevelop once and deliver on many platforms. Avoid time-consuming platform conversion tasks and reach millionsof Macintosh and Windows users. Mul tiplatform mediafile format allows easy production of CDs that can be usedon multiple platforms.

Built-in synchronization. QuickTime makes it easy tosynchronize sound, video, music, and other data tracks to acommon time base.

8/14/2019 QuickTime 3.0 Spec Sheet

2/4

QuickTime 3.0Component Architecture

QuickTime isnt just one single piece of software; rather, it's acollection of more than 175 software components that worktogether seamlessly. These software components are divided

into more than 20 different categories, with each one providing aparticular service. This component architecture allows QuickTime

to be continuously updated to support new technologies by adding

new components or enhancing existing ones. Developers, too, canadd their own software components, allowing their technology to

take advantage of all the benefits of QuickTime integration.

Hardware

One of the key features of the QuickTime software architecture is thit provides an abstraction layer that enables applications to be createwith no dependencies on the underlying media hardware. Because

comput ing power increases so rapidly, a decompression algorithmthat required an add-in hardware board to provide full-motion

playback two years ago can now be completely implemented insoftware. Without QuickTime, applications

would ordinarily interact directly with themedia hardware, result ing in less robust, lecompatible application behavior.

Because QuickTime provides a well-defined hardware abstraction layer, applications are isolated from the underlying med

technologies. This abstraction means thatapplications are always ready to take

advantage of the latest hardware technologadvances, such as MMX and multiprocessin

Platforms

Digital media is created on a variety ofcomputing platforms for delivery on an eve

wider variety of platforms. QuickTime haslong supported the abili ty to deliver digitalmedia to a range of computing platforms.

QuickTime 3.0 adds the ability to capture,edit , and compress digital media on the same range of platforms.

This strong multiplatform support gives developers and customersa choice in both their development and delivery platforms, whilemaintaining the consistent and reliable results that QuickTime has

always provided.

Media Types

While most digital media content creation focuses on sound andvideo, many other kinds of media are used on a daily basis. TheQuickTime architecture is capable of handling any time-based media

going well beyond just sound and video. By providing a unifiedarchitecture for working with all time-based media, QuickTime

simplifies the creation and delivery of all kinds of media. By standarizing the way in which important media types such as text, time codMIDI, and 3D are combined with video and sound, QuickTime enab

applications to easily integrate all kinds of media to create compellinmedia presentations.

Appli cations based on QuickTime can open anduse fi les from a var iety of di fferent sources and

allow you to combine them.

8/14/2019 QuickTime 3.0 Spec Sheet

3/4

Digital-Capture Media Types

In addition to the abili ty to play back and edit digital media, QuickTimecontains a complete architecture for digital media capture. Beyondproviding services for the synchronized streaming capture of digital

video and audio in a variety of formats from a wide range of sources,QuickTime also provides standard user interface elements that enable

applications to easily integrate capture support.

QuickTimes digital-capture solutions are flexible enough tobe used both to capture broadcast-quality video and support video-

conferencing applications. And QuickTime supports a variety of mediatypes for capture, including MIDI and text, making it easy to synchro-

nize the acquisition of almost any kind of media.

Digital Media File Formats

Professionals who create digital media every day work wi th a variety

of media file formats. Different kinds of media are stored in differentkinds of files. QuickTime provides a solution to this mixed media

chaos in two ways. First, the QuickTime software architecture enables

QuickTime-based applications to work easily with a wide varietyof industry-standard media file formats. Second, the QuickTimemovie file format provides a powerful container with the abilit y to

contain nearly any kind of digital media. The QuickTime movie fileformat is so well suited to professional media storage that it is the

recommended standard for all sound and video storage on theSGI platform.

In addition to complete support for the QuickTime movieformat, QuickTime supports a long list of digital media file formats.The QuickTime software architecture allows support for new file

formats, and these may be plugged in at any time as they emerge.

Compressed Data Formats

In the digital video and audio markets, a variety of compression

technologies are used. Each technology was created to meet theneed of a particular market. For example, Cinepak was created to

deliver video from CD-ROMs, Motion JPEG Format A was created toedit broadcast-quality video, and ClearVideo (a third-party product)

was created to deliver video on the Internet.

During the course of creating and deliveringa digital media production, several different

formats may be used.The QuickTime software architecture

enables almost any compression technology

to be integrated with QuickTime. Creatorsof digital media content have the freedom

to choose the best compression format forthe job.

Export Formats

Just as it is important to be able to bring any

digital media file formats into QuickTime,it is also important to be able to easily putmedia from QuickTime movie files intoother standard media formats. QuickTime

provides the basis for an exceptional systemto create, edit, and deliver digital media. In

some cases, the delivery platform for thedigital content may not support QuickTimemovie fi les directly; for example, a DV video

tape. In this case, it is necessary to be able toeasily encode a QuickTime movie into the DV format. QuickTime has

the buil t-in ability to export to a variety of standard digital mediaformats, and the extensibil ity to add support for other digital mediaformats as needed.

QuickTime provides new functional ity to existingformats on Windows, such as AVI and WAV. In

this example, you can add and mix threedifferent kinds of audio tracks to an existing

AVI video without additional hardware.

8/14/2019 QuickTime 3.0 Spec Sheet

4/4

QuickTime 3.0

Availability

For information on l icensing QuickTime for use in your products,

please contact Apple Software Licensing at 1(512) 919-2645, or

e-mail: sw.license@apple.com.

Product specifications are subject to change. Check with your

Apple reseller for the most current information about product

specifications and configurations.

For additional information and late-breaking news, visit our web

site at http://quicktime.apple.com

Component Architecture

Image Decompressor Data Decompressor* Image Compressor Capture Channel Sound Decompressor Capture Interface Panel Sound Compressor Graphi cs Format I mpor ter Data Handler File Previewer Media Handler Musical Instrument Provider

Clock Software Music Synthesizer Image Transcoder Sound Mixer Movie Controller Interpolator Movie Importer Video Digitizer Movie Exporter Audio Digitizer

Hardware Abstraction

Clock/T imers Sound Mixing Sound Output Digital Media Capture Image Compressi on M edia Storage Image Composi ting M IDI Synthesis Sound Compressi on 3D Renderi ng

Media Types

Video MIDI Sound Sprite/Animation Text Tween

Timecode MPEG 3D VR

Compressed Data Formats

JPEG Animation Mot ion JPEG Format A Apple Graphics M oti on JPEG Format B Ci nepak AVR (A vid V ideo Windows RLE*

Resolution)* GIF OpenDML Mot ion JPEG* Photoshop YUV 4:2:2 Vector Animation* YUV 4:1:1 DV* RGB H.263* ARGB MPEG Windows Uncompressed* CCIR 601 Apple Video

Supported through addi tional third-party extensions:

ClearVideo* Indeo Video Interactive * TrueMotion H.261* I ndeo 3.2

Audio Formats

PCM 32-bit IEEE Floating Point* IMA ADPCM 64-bit IEEE Floating Point* MACE 3:1 Law MACE 6:1 DV*

Supported through addi tional third-party extensions:

G.723* GSM* G.728*

* New in QuickTime 3.0

Digital Media File Formats

Digital Video

AVI* MPEG OpenDML* DV* OMF*

Digital Audio

AIFF/AIFC AU WAV MPEG Layer 1 Sound Designer II* MPEG Layer 2

Sti ll Image

Qui ckTime Image Fi le JPEG/ JFIF Photoshop SGI PICT MacPaint BMP* PNG* GIF

Animation

FLC/FLI* 3DMF PICS

MIDI

General MIDI Karaoke MIDI

Digital -Capture Media Types Video MIDI Sound Text DV* SMPTE T imecode

Export File Formats

AIFF/AIFC PICT WAV Text MIDI DV* QuickDraw

Platforms

M ac OS 7 M ac OS 8 Windows 95 Windows NT 4.0*

Apple Computer, Inc. 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino, CA 95014 (408) 996-1010 http:/ /www.apple.com/

1997 Apple Computer, Inc. All ri ghts reserved. Apple, t he Apple logo, Mac, Macintosh, QuickDraw, and QuickTime are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered i n the U.S.A.and other countries. The QuickTime logo is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. Adobe is a trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated or its subsidiaries and may be registered in

certain jur isdictions. MacPaint is a trademark of Claris Corporation, registered in t he U.S. and other count ries. All other p roduct names are trademarks of their respective manufacturers.Mention of non-Apple products is for informational purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation. Apple assumes no responsibility with regardto the selection, performance, or use of these products. All understandings, agreements, or warranties, if any, take place directly between the vendors and the prospective users.

July 1997. Product specifications are subject to change without notice. Printed in the U.S.A.

L02405A