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Summary of Changes and Enhancements
QuickTime 6 is the first major iteration of QuickTime that is designed to support the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) specification for MPEG-4 video and audio. This is a significant advance beyond earlier versions of QuickTime, in that it allows multimedia producers, content authors and video artists the capability of distributing .mp4 files––in native MPEG-4 video and audio format––across the Internet, so that those files can be decoded and played on other players that conform to the ISO MPEG-4 standard.
In one scenario, QuickTime authors will be able to simply install QuickTime 6 and move through their normal workflow, and then, in addition to having the option of encoding a file using the Sorenson 3 or H.263 codec, authors will be able to output the content of that file as an .mp4 file. This content could then, potentially, be played on any ISO-compliant device available to end users.
In addition to support for the MPEG-4 standard, this release of QuickTime also includes a number of new features and enhancements, discussed in this document.
In this section:
Enhancements
Changes
Updates
For Web Developers
Enhancements
- Support for ISO-compliant MPEG-4 video and audio, both encode and decode. Developers, authors, and multimedia producers can now create and play back MPEG-4 video content, as well as MPEG-4 audio encoded using Advanced Audio Coding (AAC). Discussed in the section “Support for MPEG-4”.
- QuickTime 6 also supports use of the MPEG-4 video and AAC audio codecs in QuickTime movies. In many cases, you can choose to create either a native
.mp4 file or a QuickTime .mov file using MPEG-4 compression. This allows you to mix MPEG-4 audio and video with other QuickTime media, such as VR panoramas, sprites, or Flash tracks. Discussed in the section “MPEG-4 and Web Developers”.
- A new group of MPEG-4 settings dialogs in QuickTime Player that enable QuickTime Pro users who work with MP4 files to make a number of adjustments in video and audio tracks, streaming and compatibility. Discussed in the section “Working with MPEG-4 Files”.
- A new video codec for MPEG-4 video compression. The new codec is ISMA compliant and conforms to the Profile 0 standard of the MPEG-4 specification, with an extremely low data rate of 64 Kbits/second. The advantage that this new codec offers is interoperability with other systems. Interoperability is the primary goal of the new codec. Discussed in the section “New Video Codec for MPEG-4”.
- A new MPEG-4 audio codec that plays audio files of AAC and handles ISMA profile levels 0 and 1. In the current release both encode and decode are supported. Discussed in the section “MPEG-4 Audio Support”.
- Support for native MPEG-4 streaming. Standard hinted MPEG-4 files (
.mp4) can be served directly, without converting to QuickTime Movie (.mov) files. Discussed in the section “Native MPEG-4 Streaming”.
- A new, RTSP Instant-On enhancement to QuickTime streaming that provides near instantaneous start of streamed movies when the available network bandwidth significantly exceeds the data rate of the target media. Discussed in the section “RTSP Instant-On Enhancement to Streaming”.
- Support for JPEG 2000, a high-quality, still-image compression and coding standard that uses state of the art compression techniques based on wavelet technology. Note that JPEG 2000 support is only provided on Mac OS X in the current release of QuickTime 6. Discussed in the section “JPEG 2000 Support”.
- New and updated components related to Macromedia Flash 5 support in QuickTime. The Flash media handler and the Flash movie importer have been updated, and a new Flash Properties panel has been added to the QuickTime Player info panels. Discussed in the section “Flash 5 Support”.
- A new QuickTime tasking mechanism and new APIs to handle idling of applications. Discussed in the section “New APIs for Tasking QuickTime”.
- A new Carbon Movie Control mechanism for Mac OS X that makes the process of using QuickTime within a Carbon Event-based application easier and faster. Discussed in the section “New Carbon Movie Control”.
- A new group of Sprite APIs, as well as a number of new wired actions and operands. Discussed in the section “Sprite API Changes”.
- Support for writing and using variable bitrate (VBR)-enabled sound compressor components. Both the QuickTime Movie exporter component available in the export dialog (also known as the
ConvertMovieToFile API dialog) and the Standard Sound compression dialog component have been updated to use and recognize VBR compressor components. Discussed in the section “VBR Sound Compression Support”.
- A new API that provides tween components with an interrupt-safe interface. Discussed in the section “New Tween Component API”.
- New, enhanced effects dialogs. Effects may choose to implement custom controls to allow the user to more easily edit complex parameters that are ill-served by simple sliders or type in boxes. Effects may allow a custom control for either a single parameter, or for a group of parameters. Discussed in the section “Changes to Effects Dialog”.
- A new improved None codec (also known as the Raw codec) that replaces the previous None codec with a more complete implementation. Discussed in the section “None Codec Enhancements”.
- Support for Exif JPEGs and Exif TIFFs, including support for thumbnails, which was previously only available in QuickTime 5 on Mac OS X 10.1, and is now available for QuickTime on Mac OS 9 and Windows. Discussed in the section “Additional Still Image Metadata Support in Mac OS 9 and Windows”.
- New QuickTime data handler-aware APIs that make using Apple and custom data handlers easier for third-party developers. Discussed in the section “Improved Movie Toolbox Support for Data Handlers”.
- New UserData APIs that can be useful in copying information from one UserData container to another (page 153).
- Support for a number of new features and enhancements in QuickTime for Java, including support for JDK 1.4 (Windows only), and the introduction of the
JQTCanvas class, a new lightweight version of the QTCanvas class which supports scaling of Flash content. Discussed in the section “QuickTime for Java Enhancements”.
- A new, improved sequence grabber user interface which includes new settings available on all platforms. A new group of Sequence Grabber APIs are also included in QuickTime 6. Discussed in the sections “New Sequence Grabber User Interface” and “New Sequence Grabber APIs”.
- New Image Compression APIs that allow compressors to supply the User Interface for their options within the compression dialog (page 185), as well as new Image Decompression Manager APIs (page 190).
- New media handler calls that developers can use to write media handlers that support keyboard focus. If you want to add interactive capabilities to your application, you need to use these media handler calls. Discussed in the section “New Media Handler APIs For Keyboard Focus”.
- New APIs that provide a mechanism for preflighting operations on QuickTime content that may be restricted. Discussed in the section “New QuickTime Restrictions APIs”.
- New APIs for better controlling memory usage in movies in Mac OS X (page 205).
- Miscellaneous enhancements to QuickTime VR, and an additional movie errors API (page 207).
- A new XML exporter––Export to QuickTime Media Link––which creates a small XML file that contains the URL of a movie, as well as other user settings. Discussed in the section “New XML Exporter”.
- JavaScript support for ActiveX controls, Netscape 6 and browsers based on Mozilla. This means you can now use JavaScript to control QuickTime when Web pages are viewed using Internet Explorer for Windows, or any other browser that supports the COM interface to ActiveX controls. Discussed in the section “JavaScript Support for ActiveX, Netscape 6 and Mozilla”.
- Support for DVCPro PAL (DV format 4:1:1) on Mac OS X (10.1.2).
Changes
- Changes to the QuickTime Player user interface. Notably, the Hot Picks movie and the Channel pane have a new layout, with channel categories on the left and a movie on the right. Discussed in the section “User Interface Changes”.
- Changes to AppleScript and AppleScript terminology that are new in QuickTime 6. Most notably, QuickTime Player is now a recordable application. There are also a number of new commands, classes, and properties, and well as modifications to existing terminology elements. Discussed in the section “AppleScript Changes”.
- Changes to the QuickTime menu in the Windows system tray, which includes a number of new menu items. Discussed in the section “New QuickTime Menu in Windows”.
Updates
- New documentation on how to deal with the ever-increasing number of effect components. This section documents atoms that can be used for tagging effects into useful categories. Two groupings for effects are defined here: Major Class and Minor Class. Discussed in the section “QuickTime Effects Classes”.
- Some effects with complex parameters would like to provide the user with groups of useful parameter values that can be easily selected. This section documents an optional mechanism that can be used by effects to define these “presets.” Discussed in the section “QuickTime Effects Presets”.
- New and updated documentation on QuickTime XML importers. These importers, introduced in QuickTime 5, create movies based on the contents of certain kinds of XML files saved with the
.mov file extension. XML files with the .mov file extension are treated by networks and operating systems as QuickTime movies. There are importers for three XML types currently built into QuickTime: SMIL importer, QuickTime media link importer, and component preflight importer. Discussed in the section “QuickTime XML Importers”.
- QuickTime 6 allows you to play current Shoutcast or Icecast streams that use MP3 compression. This section “Playing Shoutcast or Icecast Streams in QuickTime” discusses the various features of Shoutcast and Icecast streams, as well as what you need to know in order to deliver these streams in real-time over a network.
For Web Developers
- Specific information about the different ways that you can use QuickTime 6 and MPEG-4, if you are a developer who creates websites, website authoring tools, or QuickTime movies that are intended for distribution over a network or the Internet. Discussed in the section “MPEG-4 and Web Developers”.
Last updated: 2002-07-01
