Customer Reviews

Discovering QuickTime: An Introduction for Windows and Macintosh Programmers (QuickTime Developer Series)

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(6)
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1 star:		(3)

 

 

Gives a nice high-level introduction to QuickTime. All the information in this book can be found on Apple's Quicktime Developer site, but the book presents it in a easy to read fashion. I would not recommend this book to non-programmers (unless you enjoy reading code) or anyone looking for an in-depth look at QuickTime.

This book has a lot of good information, organized in a form far easier to understand than Apple's scattered API documentation. But...

I found quite a few errors in the sample code that prevent the code from actually working. The errors exist in both the printed manual and on the CD. These aren't just printing typos, but things like using pointers when handles are needed, passing values when pointers are needed, etc.

But if you read the text and don't rely on the actual code provided as samples, this book is a good way to get started with QT. I just wish there had been some better QA done on the samples.

When I first bought this book , I was excited because I thought it would help in making QuickTime on the Windows Side easier to program. The CD is completely worthless , it doesn't even contain all the needed headers for quicktime. Instead of working code samples and native projects to experiment with there are code snippets that are in text files, some of which have bugs that no C/C++ compiler would of let through. Also there is not a mapping in the chapter to tell you which text file goes with which chapter, and you spend a lot of time GREPing through the CD. The explanations are bad, for example the chapter on creating movies just outlines the code. I would suggest you try getting the MacTech series of Quicktime articles where there is an actual explanation and WORKING sample code.

I actually bought this book thinking it would be helpful, but all the info is in the online documents!!! The book isn't even advanced. It shows you how to do simple things, nothing advanced. This book is useless now. Just read the online documents, and download the sample code.

This book isn't bad (I guess). It is great for someone wishing to learn about QuickTime (the basics) in a short amount of time. I do feel the book lacks depth in some areas. After looking through the online documentation, I threw this book to the side, and have not used it since.

"Discovering Quicktime" provides a simple and quick overall look at programming with QuickTime. If you are a Windows C++ programmer looking for detailed guidance you will be disapointed. Once I got past just getting QT started within my application the level of detail I needed was not in this book. The same information is located at the QuickTime web site, though you may have to hunt around some for it. If you are a JAVA developer you will get 4 pages of info in this book; there is more info on the web.

"Discovering Quicktime" provides a simple and quick overall look at programming with QuickTime. If you are a Windows C++ programmer looking for detailed guidance you will be disapointed. Once I got past just getting QT started within my application the level of detail I needed was not in this book. The same information is located at the QuickTime web site, though you may have to hunt around some for it. If you are a JAVA developer you will get 4 pages of info in this book; there is more info on the web.

"Discovering Quicktime" provides a simple and quick overall look at programming with QuickTime. If you are a Windows C++ programmer looking for detailed guidance you will be disapointed. Once I got past just getting QT started within my application the level of detail I needed was not in this book. The same information is located at the QuickTime web site, though you may have to hunt around some for it. If you are a JAVA developer you will get 4 pages of info in this book; there is more info on the web.

"Discovering Quicktime" provides a simple and quick overall look at programming with QuickTime. If you are a Windows C++ programmer looking for detailed guidance you will be disapointed. Once I got past just getting QT started within my application the level of detail I needed was not in this book. The same information is located at the QuickTime web site, though you may have to hunt around some for it. If you are a JAVA developer you will get 4 pages of info in this book; there is more info on the web.

Much easier to understand than Apple's own Inside Macintosh: QuickTime series. But compared to books for Windows platform, I don't think people don't get from the book. (I'm sorry.) If we consider that there are few books about Apple technology for programmers, this book would be better if it covers some more detailed information. For example, relating frequently uesed API functions( e.x. how to get media from a track from a movie, the opposite of it, how to calculate running time - sounds useless, but providing easy sample with some additional code will be more helpful, and quick-readable) , concepts, more code samples, etc. This book has some contents borrowed from the Inside Macintosh:QuickTime series. ( dumped.)

Anyway, it's good as a starting point. I waits for the next version of it!