Apple Final Cut Pro 7 - Manual (Page 1708)

There are various resources for learning more about QuickTime technology and
architecture.
For general information about QuickTime, go to http://www.apple.com/quicktime .
For information about QuickTime that is geared toward Apple developers, go to
http://developer.apple.com/quicktime .
The QuickTime Suite of Software Applications
When someone mentions QuickTime, people often think of the free media player
developed by Apple. However, QuickTime is much more than that. QuickTime comprises
a suite of applications that allows you to play, edit, and manipulate your media. The
QuickTime software includes:
• QuickTime Player: Apple’s free, easy-to-use application for playing, interacting with, or
viewing video, audio, virtual reality (VR), or graphics files that are compatible with
QuickTime.
• QuickTime Pro: An enhanced version of QuickTime Player that provides an abundance
of media authoring capabilities. With it, you can create movies, play movies full screen,
save files from the Internet, edit audio and video, add special effects, create slideshows,
and convert and save video, audio, and images to more than a hundred standard file
formats.
Additional QuickTime video streaming software is also available. Some of this software
is available as free downloads or already installed with Mac OS X; other components are
available for a fee. For details, go to Apple’s QuickTime website at
http://www.apple.com/quicktime .
The QuickTime Movie File Format
The QuickTime movie file format, often abbreviated to QuickTime file, is a special file format
that contains multiple tracks for storing different kinds of media. Don’t confuse this special
movie file format with other files that are simply QuickTime-compatible formats. Examples
of QuickTime-compatible file formats include AIFF, MP3, MPEG, WAVE, JPEG, and TIFF,
just to name a few. A QuickTime movie file uses a .mov file extension.
Important: Because QuickTime recognizes so many media file formats, you may notice
that a lot of media files in the Finder have a QuickTime icon, or the QuickTime Player
application may open when you double-click the icons. To be accurate, these files are
called QuickTime-compatible files, but they are not necessarily QuickTime movie files.
For example, an AIFF file is a QuickTime-compatible audio file format; it is not a QuickTime
movie file.
1708 Chapter 103 Learning About QuickTime