QuickTime Toolkit Volume One: Basic Movie Playback and Media Types (QuickTime Developer Series) [Paperback]

Tim Monroe (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0120884011 | ISBN-13: 978-0120884018 | Publication Date: July 5, 2004

"When QuickTime application developers get stuck, one of the first places they look for help is example code from Tim Monroe. Finally, Tim's well-crafted examples and clear descriptions are available in book form-a must-have for anyone writing applications that import, export, display, or interact with QuickTime movies." -Matthew Peterson; University of California, Berkeley; the M.I.N.D. Institute; and author of Interactive QuickTime

QuickTime Toolkit Volume One is a programmer's introduction to QuickTime, the elegant and potent media engine used by many of Apple's industry-leading services and products (such as the iTunes music store, iMovie, and Final Cut Pro) and also used by a large number of third-party applications. This hands-on guide shows you how to harness the powerful capabilities of QuickTime for your own projects. The articles collected here from the author's highly regarded column in MacTech Magazine are packed with accessible code examples to get you quickly started developing applications that can display and create state-of-the-art digital content. This book begins by showing how to open and display QuickTime movies in a Macintosh or Windows application and progresses step by step to show you how to control movie playback and how to import and transform movies and images. QuickTime Toolkit also shows how to create movies with video data, text, time codes, sprites, and wired (interactive) elements.

Part of the official QuickTime Developer Series, publishing the finest books on QuickTime in cooperation with Apple.

*Includes a CD-ROM with numerous code examples in C to jumpstart your work
*Written in a clear, engaging style by one of Apple's premier media engineers known for his ability to make QuickTime's sophisticated technology accessible to software developers
*Offers many undocumented insider tips for making applications that work well in both Mac OS and Windows

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I know a lot about QuickTime, but Tim Monroe seems to know more: little nuggets of information that can be very valuable in the future-things you didn't even know you didn't know. I wish I had this book when I was just starting out working with QuickTime. It would have saved me a lot of time trying to figure things out on my own." -Steve Israelson, VP Technology, TotallyHip Inc. "Ever found yourself floundering in API documentation, samples, and developer lists when it comes to implementing one or other of the many wonderful QuickTime features? Well flounder no longer! The ever-practical Tim Monroe comes to the rescue with QuickTime Toolkit: everything you need to know to get a host of QuickTime features actually working for you, presented in its customary lucid and down-to-earth style. Unquestionably the first port of call for anyone contemplating QuickTime development at the API level on OS X, Windows, or both, and-with chapters covering such topics as Data Handlers, Carbon Events, cross-platform issues, and error handling-an invaluable resource even for seasoned QuickTime developers." -John Cromie, Skylark Associates Ltd. "I just got Tim's book in the mail and spent a few hours reading it . . . . Finally, good documentation on some of the QuickTime functions that have been so mysterious! I'm going to look at that sprite override code for making panning videos . . . Tim Monroe has been and remains a great source of information on QuickTime. He has a uniquely proactive creative/logical approach demonstrating the great possibilities in a great technology." -Bill Meikle programmer, vrhotwires.com "When QuickTime application developers get stuck, one of the first places they look for help is example code from Tim Monroe. Finally, Tim's well-crafted examples and clear descriptions are available in book form-a must-have for anyone writing applications that import, export, display or interact with QuickTime movies." -Matthew Peterson; University of California, Berkeley; the M.I.N.D. Institute; and author of Interactive QuickTime

"The most complete and most accessible general introduction to QuickTime programming that is available today." - MacTech

Book Description

The well-known QuickTime expert's work collected for the first time

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 640 pages
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann (July 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0120884011
• ISBN-13: 978-0120884018
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,084,693 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The only choice, really, July 21, 2005

By 

Chris Adamson "invalidname" (Grand Rapids, MI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: QuickTime Toolkit Volume One: Basic Movie Playback and Media Types (QuickTime Developer Series) (Paperback)

Tim Monroe's column in MacTech is as much a final word on QuickTime as Apple's developer docs. This book is the de facto official guide to native development with QuickTime and given the size of the QT API, you'd be hard pressed to know where to begin without it. Tim starts with a basic "shell" application that compiles and runs on Mac and Windows -- yes, Windows developers are very much part of the target audience -- and covers the basics of playing, editing, saving and exporting movies, then moves into tricky stuff like sprites (which takes four chapters), VR, and effects.

For C-language developers, this and its volume 2 companion are the books you want. I wrote a book on QuickTime for Java (QTJ being just a wrapper around the C calls), and I wish this book had been out before I started, because it would have saved me a lot of research time figuring out what my code was calling and why it worked the way it did. In fact, those who've mastered QTJ can probably read this book and do a mental "port" from C to Java to figure out material I didn't cover.

Recommended? Hell, if you're in the QT space, this is *required* reading.

3.0 out of 5 stars For Software engineers opnly, December 31, 2010

By 

fiddler "imbuzz" (02138) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: QuickTime Toolkit Volume One: Basic Movie Playback and Media Types (QuickTime Developer Series) (Paperback)

I returned it. I was not alerted to the fact that this is designed for a sophisticated software engineer, not just a hobbyist like me.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The first of two great tutorials on QuickTime programming, January 19, 2007

By 

calvinnme - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: QuickTime Toolkit Volume One: Basic Movie Playback and Media Types (QuickTime Developer Series) (Paperback)

This book is the first of a two volume set on QuickTime programming on both Mac and Windows machines. This first volume is more concerned with the basics of controlling multimedia through a C program that uses the QuickTime API. You'll learn how to open, play, edit, and save a movie file. Besides just video you also learn how to use the Quicktime interface to work with images, text, timecode, and sprites. Fundamental Quicktime concepts are all introduced in this first volume. The author does all this by creating an application entitled "QTShell" that he adds to as he gradually explains each concept. This same application is used in volume two also. The author assumes the reader already knows his/her computing platform and OS, what QuickTime is, and how to program in C. This frees him to concentrate on the Hows of Quicktime programming. Both volumes of this programming guide began as a series of magazine articles, thus the style is quite accessible - it is not a terse academic style tome at all.