Understanding QuickTime and QuickTime Pro

Apple's QuickTime is the technology your Mac uses to handle dynamic data. Dynamic data simply means data that changes over time. This includes video, audio, and other such media. In fact, QuickTime technology and the QuickTime framework enable all the iLife applications along with many other functionality Mac OS X users enjoy. Without QuickTime, using Mac OS X wouldn't be nearly as interesting as it is.

Under Mac OS X, except for viewing QuickTime movies on your computer and on the Web, you likely won't deal with QuickTime directly very often. But, in addition to knowing how to handle those tasks, you should have a good understanding of the QuickTime technology.

Since its introduction, Apple's QuickTime has been one of the most successful multimedia standards on any platform. In fact, it has been so successful that it is also widely used on Windows computers; QuickTime movies on Windows play the same way they do on the Mac. QuickTime has also been widely adopted on the Web, with many websites serving video and animation files as QuickTime movies.

Although you are most likely to encounter QuickTime movies on the Web, you will encounter them in many other places, including interactive games, reference titles, entertainment titles, learning tools, and of course web pages.

Understanding Mac OS X QuickTime Resources

Various files, folders, and resources are part of Mac OS X's implementation of QuickTime. These include the following:

• QuickTime Preferences The QuickTime pane of the System Preferences application enables you to configure various aspects of how QuickTime works. The QuickTime preference file is stored in each user's Preferences folder within the user's Library folder.

• QuickTime Player The QuickTime Player is the basic application you use to watch QuickTime movies. It is located in the Applications folder.

• QuickTime Updater Apple regularly updates QuickTime; this application can be used to ensure that all the QuickTime components on your Mac are in the current version. You can run the Updater from inside QuickTime Player, or you can run it from the Update tab of the QuickTime pane of the System Preferences application. QuickTime is also updated when you use the Mac OS X Software Update tool.

  NOTE

  Streaming is the capability to play QuickTime movies as they download from the Webrather than having to wait until the movie is downloaded to your Mac before you can play it. If you have a fast Internet connection, streaming is nice because viewing QuickTime movies on the Web is about as responsive as watching TV. If you use a dial-up modem, you still have to wait for most QuickTime movies as they are downloaded to your computer.

  
  

• QuickTime.framework folder This folder provides the framework files for QuickTime (Mac OS X/System/Library/Frameworks/QuickTime.framework, where Mac OS X is the name of your Mac OS X startup volume).

  To learn about Mac OS Xs framework structure, see "Mac OS X Architecture and Terminology," p. 12.

  
  

• QuickTime Plug-in This plug-in (located in Mac OS X/Library/Internet Plug-Ins, where Mac OS X is the name of your Mac OS X startup volume) enables you to view QuickTime movies on the Web from within a web browser.

Understanding QuickTime Versus QuickTime Pro

QuickTime comes in two flavors: QuickTime and QuickTime Pro. With QuickTime, you get a basic set of capabilities that enable you to watch all sorts of QuickTime movies. But that is about all you can do with it. QuickTime Pro, on the other hand, enables you to create and edit QuickTime movies, along with various other useful thingsthe most useful of which is downloading QuickTime movies you encounter on the Internet and saving them on your Mac.

QuickTime

With the version of QuickTime included as part Mac OS X, you'll get substantive QuickTime capabilities. These features include the following:

• Viewing all flavors of QuickTime movies on and off the Internet

• Working with more than 30 audio and video file formats

• Changing the size at which movies are played

• Printing frames of movies

QuickTime Pro

When you pay for the QuickTime Pro upgrade, you'll get many more features. One of the most important features is the ability to create and edit your own QuickTime movies. QuickTime Pro provides you with all the capabilities of QuickTime plus much more, including the following:

• Playing full-screen video

• Viewing files in a wider variety of formats

• Creating your own QuickTime movies

• Editing and saving movies in various formats

• Copying and pasting material from various formats into QuickTime movies

• Preparing QuickTime movies for streaming delivery via the Web

• Using sharpening, color tinting, and embossing filters on movies and images

• Creating slideshows from a series of still images

The additional features in QuickTime Pro become part of the QuickTime framework. Therefore, any applications that use that frameworksuch as iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, Final Cut Express, and so onalso benefit from the additional QuickTime Pro features, such as the capability to apply custom compression schemes. In fact, a QuickTime Pro license is included with Apple's professional media applications, such as Final Cut Pro.

NOTE

Apple maintains an extensive website dedicated to QuickTime. This site includes software and updates you can download, information on how QuickTime works, links to QuickTime showcases, and so on. The site is at www.apple.com/quicktime and has some great samples of QuickTime movies you can view.

Before the iLife applications came into being, upgrading to QuickTime Pro was essential for anyone who wanted to create or edit digital media. That's because it was about the only way to do these tasks without spending thousands of dollars on specialized software. Since the rise of iLife and other consumer applications (such as Final Cut Express), you probably won't have much need for QuickTime Pro. You would likely need to use QuickTime Pro only if you prepare media files for web delivery, need to access some of its more specialized features, or don't want to use the iLife applications for some reason.

NOTE

One of the most interesting capabilities of QuickTime Pro is that you can download many movies from websites, such as movie trailers, to your computer. Once there, you can use these movies like other content on your Mac, such as importing them into your iLife projects.