QuickTime: Расширяемая мультимедийная архитектура Apple и её влияние на игры

Extensible multimedia architecture by Apple
the gameplay mechanic in video games

QuickTime is a discontinued extensible multimedia architecture created by Apple, which supports playing, streaming, encoding, and transcoding a variety of digital media formats. The term QuickTime also refers to the QuickTime Player front end media player application, which is built into macOS, and was formerly available for Windows. QuickTime was created in 1991, when the concept of playing digital video directly on computers was "groundbreaking." QuickTime could embed a number of advanced media types, including panoramic images (called QuickTime VR) and Adobe Flash. Over the 1990s, QuickTime became a dominant standard for digital multimedia, as it was integrated into many websites, applications, and video games, and adopted by professional filmmakers. The QuickTime File Format became the basis for the MPEG 4 standard. During its heyday, QuickTime was notably used to create the innovative Myst and Xplora1 video games, and to exclusively distribute movie trailers for several Star Wars movies. QuickTime could support additional codecs through plug ins, for example with Perian. As operating systems and browsers gained support for MPEG 4 and subsequent standards like H.264, the need for a cross platform version of QuickTime diminished, and Apple discontinued the Windows version of QuickTime in 2016. macOS Catalina dropped support for all 32 bit applications, including the QTKit framework and the old QuickTime 7. Already, at the time of the Windows version's discontinuation, two such zero day vulnerabilities (both of which permitted arbitrary code execution) were identified and publicly disclosed by Trend Micro; consequently, Trend Micro strongly advised users to uninstall the product from Windows systems. Software development kits (SDK) for QuickTime are available to the public with an Apple Developer Connection (ADC) subscription. It is available free of charge for both macOS operating systems. There are some other free player applications that rely on the QuickTime framework, providing features not available in the basic QuickTime Player. For example, iTunes can export audio in WAV, AIFF, MP3, AAC, and Apple Lossless. In addition, macOS has a simple AppleScript that can be used to play a movie in full screen mode, but since version 7.2 full screen viewing is now supported in the non Pro version.

PictureViewer is a component of QuickTime for Microsoft Windows and the Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9 operating systems. It is used to view picture files from the still image formats that QuickTime supports. In macOS, it is replaced by Preview.

A version of QuickTime for the Irix operating system running on SGI hardware with MIPS processors was developed in the mid 1990s but never released.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard includes QuickTime X. QuickTime Player X lacks cut, copy and paste and will only export to four formats, but its limited export feature is free. Users do not have an option to upgrade to a Pro version of QuickTime X, but those who have already purchased QuickTime 7 Pro and are upgrading to Snow Leopard from a previous version of Mac OS X will have QuickTime 7 stored in the Utilities or user defined folder. Otherwise, users will have to install QuickTime 7 from the "Optional Installs" directory of the Snow Leopard DVD after installing the OS. Mac OS X Lion and later also include QuickTime X. No installer for QuickTime 7 is included with these software packages, but users can download the QuickTime 7 installer from the Apple support site. QuickTime X on later versions of macOS support cut, copy and paste functions similarly to the way QuickTime 7 Pro did; the interface has been significantly modified to simplify these operations, however. On September 24, 2018, Apple ended support for QuickTime 7 and QuickTime Pro, and updated many download and support pages on their website to state that QuickTime 7 "will not be compatible with future macOS releases."

The native file format for QuickTime video, QuickTime File Format, specifies a multimedia container file that contains one or more tracks, each of which stores a particular type of data: audio, video, effects, or text (e. g. for subtitles). Each track either contains a digitally encoded media stream (using a specific format) or a data reference to the media stream located in another file. The ability to contain abstract data references for the media data, and the separation of the media data from the media offsets and the track edit lists means that QuickTime is particularly suited for editing, as it is capable of importing and editing in place (without data copying). Other file formats that QuickTime supports natively (to varying degrees) include AIFF, WAV, DV DIF, MP3, and MPEG program stream. With additional QuickTime Components, it can also support ASF, DivX Media Format, Flash Video, Matroska, Ogg, and many others.

On February 11, 1998, the ISO approved the QuickTime file format as the basis of the MPEG‑4 file format. The MPEG 4 file format specification was created on the basis of the QuickTime format specification published in 2001. The MP4 (. mp4) file format was published in 2001 as the revision of the MPEG 4 Part 1: Systems specification published in 1999 (ISO/IEC 14496 1:2001). In 2003, the first version of MP4 format was revised and replaced by MPEG 4 Part 14: MP4 file format (ISO/IEC 14496 14:2003). The MP4 file format was generalized into the ISO Base Media File Format ISO/IEC 14496 12:2004, which defines a general structure for time based media files. It in turn is used as the basis for other multimedia file formats (for example 3GP, Motion JPEG 2000). A list of all registered extensions for ISO Base Media File Format is published on the official registration authority website www. mp4ra. org. This registration authority for code points in "MP4 Family" files is Apple Computer Inc. and it is named in Annex D (informative) in MPEG 4 Part 12.

QuickTime 6 added limited support for MPEG 4, specifically encoding and decoding using Simple Profile (SP). Advanced Simple Profile (ASP) features, like B frames, were unsupported (in contrast with, for example, encoders such as XviD or 3ivx). QuickTime 7 supports the H.264 encoder and decoder.

Because both MOV and MP4 containers can use the same MPEG 4 codecs, they are mostly interchangeable in a QuickTime only environment. MP4, being an international standard, has more support. This is especially true on hardware devices, such as the Sony PSP and various DVD players, on the software side, most DirectShow / Video for Windows codec packs include a MP4 parser, but not one for MOV. In QuickTime Pro's MPEG 4 Export dialog, an option called "Passthrough" allows a clean export to MP4 without affecting the audio or video streams. QuickTime 7 now supports multi channel AAC LC and HE AAC audio (used, for example, in the high definition trailers on Apple's site), for both MOV and MP4 containers.

Apple released the first version of QuickTime on December 2, 1991, as a multimedia add on for System 6 and later. The lead developer of QuickTime, Bruce Leak, ran the first public demonstration at the May 1991 Worldwide Developers Conference, where he played Apple's famous 1984 advertisement in a window at 320×240 pixels resolution.

Apple released QuickTime 2.0 for System Software 7 in June 1994—the only version never released for free. It added support for music tracks, which contained the equivalent of MIDI data and which could drive a sound synthesis engine built into QuickTime itself (using a limited set of instrument sounds licensed from Roland), or any external MIDI compatible hardware, thereby producing sounds using only small amounts of movie data. Following Bruce Leak's departure to Web TV, the leadership of the QuickTime team was taken over by Peter Hoddie. QuickTime 2.0 for Windows appeared in November 1994 under the leadership of Paul Charlton. As part of the development effort for cross platform QuickTime, Charlton (as architect and technical lead), along with ace individual contributor Michael Kellner and a small highly effective team including Keith Gurganus, ported a subset of the Macintosh Toolbox to Intel and other platforms (notably, MIPS and SGI Unix variants) as the enabling infrastructure for the QuickTime Media Layer (QTML) which was first demonstrated at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in May 1996. The QTML later became the foundation for the Carbon API which allowed legacy Macintosh applications to run on the Darwin kernel in Mac OS X. The next versions, 2.1 and 2.5, reverted to the previous model of giving QuickTime away for free. They improved the music support and added sprite tracks which allowed the creation of complex animations with the addition of little more than the static sprite images to the size of the movie. QuickTime 2.5 also fully integrated QuickTime VR 2.0.1 into QuickTime as a QuickTime extension. On January 16, 1997, Apple released the QuickTime MPEG Extension (PPC only) as an add on to QuickTime 2.5, which added software MPEG 1 playback capabilities to QuickTime.

On July 15, 2002, Apple released QuickTime 6.0, providing the following features:

MPEG 4 playback, import, and export, including MPEG 4 Part 2 video and AAC Audio. Support for Flash 5, JPEG 2000, and improved Exif handling. Instant on streaming playback. MPEG 2 playback (via the purchase of Apple's MPEG 2 Playback Component). Scriptable ActiveX control. QuickTime 6 was initially available for Mac OS 8.6 – 9. x, Mac OS X (10.1.5 minimum), and Windows 98, Me, 2000, and XP. Development of QuickTime 6 for Mac OS slowed considerably in early 2003, after the release of Mac OS X v10.2 in August 2002. QuickTime 6 for Mac OS continued on the 6.0. x path, eventually stopping with version 6.0.3. QuickTime 6.1 & 6.1.1 for Mac OS X v10.1 and Mac OS X v10.2 (released October 22, 2002) and QuickTime 6.1 for Windows (released March 31, 2003) offered ISO Compliant MPEG 4 file creation and fixed the CAN 2003 0168 vulnerability. Apple released QuickTime 6.2 exclusively for Mac OS X on April 29, 2003, to provide support for iTunes 4, which allowed AAC encoding for songs in the iTunes library. (iTunes was not available for Windows until October 2003.) On June 3, 2003, Apple released QuickTime 6.3, delivering the following:

Support for 3GPP, including 3G Text, video, and audio (AAC and AMR codecs). Support for the .3gp, amr, and sdv file formats via separate component. QuickTime 6.4, released on October 16, 2003, for Mac OS X v10.2, Mac OS X v10.3, and Windows, added the following:

Addition of the Apple Pixlet codec (only for Mac OS X v10.3 and later). ColorSync support. Integrated 3GPP. On December 18, 2003, Apple released QuickTime 6.5, supporting the same systems as version 6.4. Versions 6.5.1 and 6.5.2 followed on April 28, 2004, and October 27, 2004. These versions would be the last to support Windows 98 and Me. The 6.5 family added the following features:

3GPP2 and AMC mobile multimedia formats. QCELP voice code. Apple Lossless (in version 6.5.1). QuickTime 6.5.3 was released on October 12, 2005, for Mac OS X v10.2.8 after the release of QuickTime 7.0, fixing a number of security issues.

Initially released on April 29, 2005, in conjunction with Mac OS X v10.4 (for version 10.3.9 and 10.4. x), QuickTime 7.0 featured the following:

Improved MPEG 4 compliance. A H.264/MPEG 4 AVC codec (does not support the AVCHD H.264 AVC format from Sony HD camcorders). Support for Core Audio, a set of Application programming interfaces that supports high resolution sound and replaces Sound Manager. Support for using Core Image filters in Mac OS X v10.4 on live video (Not to be confused with Core Video). Support for Quartz Composer (. qtz) animations. Support for distinct decode order and display order. QuickTime Kit Framework (QTKit), a Cocoa framework for QuickTime. After a couple of preview Windows releases, Apple released 7.0.2 as the first stable release on September 7, 2005, for Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Version 7.0.4, released on January 10, 2006, was the first universal binary version. But it suffered numerous bugs, including a buffer overrun, which is more problematic to most users. Apple dropped support for Windows 2000 with the release of QuickTime 7.2 on July 11, 2007. The last version available for Windows 2000, 7.1.6, contains numerous security vulnerabilities. References to this version have been removed from the QuickTime site, but it can be downloaded from Apple's support section. Apple has not indicated that they will be providing any further security updates for older versions. QuickTime 7.2 is the first version for Windows Vista. Apple dropped support for Flash content in QuickTime 7.3, breaking content that relied on Flash for interactivity, or animation tracks. Security concerns seem to be part of the decision. Flash flv files can still be played in QuickTime if the free Perian plugin is added. In QuickTime 7.3, a processor that supports SSE is required. QuickTime 7.4 does not require SSE. Unlike versions 7.2 and 7.3, QuickTime 7.4 cannot be installed on Windows XP without service packs or with Service Pack 1/1A installed (its setup program checks if Service Pack 2 is installed). QuickTime 7.5 was released on June 10, 2008. QuickTime 7.5.5 was released on September 9, 2008, which requires Mac OS X v10.4 or higher, dropping 10.3 support. QuickTime 7.6 was released on January 21, 2009. QuickTime 7.7 was released on August 3, 2011. QuickTime 7.6.6 is available for OS X, 10.6.3 Snow Leopard until 10.14 Mojave, as 10.15 Catalina will only support 64 bit applications. QuickTime 7.7.6 is the last release for Windows XP. As it's since version 7.4, they can be installed here only when Service Pack 2 or 3 is installed. QuickTime 7.7.9 is the last Windows release of QuickTime. Apple stopped supporting QuickTime on Windows afterwards. was initially demonstrated at WWDC on June 8, 2009, and shipped with Mac OS X v10.6. It includes visual chapters, conversion, sharing to YouTube, video editing, capture of video and audio streams, screen recording, GPU acceleration, and live streaming. But it removed support for various widely used formats, in particular the omission of MIDI caused significant inconvenience and trouble to many musicians and their potential audiences. In addition, a screen recorder is featured which records whatever is on the screen. However it is not possible to capture certain Digital rights management protected content. This includes iTunes/Apple TV video purchases, or any content protected by Apple's FairPlay DRM technology. While Safari uses FairPlay, Google Chrome and Firefox use Widevine for DRM, whose content is not protected from QuickTime screen capturing. The reason for the jump in numbering from 7 to 10 (X) was to indicate a similar break with the previous versions of the product that Mac OS X indicated. QuickTime X is fundamentally different from previous versions, in that it is provided as a Cocoa (Objective C) framework and breaks compatibility with the previous QuickTime 7 C based APIs that were previously used. QuickTime X was completely rewritten to implement modern audio video codecs in 64 bit. QuickTime X is a combination of two technologies: QuickTime Kit Framework (QTKit) and QuickTime X Player. QTKit is used by QuickTime player to display media. QuickTime X does not implement all of the functionality of the previous QuickTime as well as some of the codecs. When QuickTime X attempts to operate with a 32 bit codec or perform an operation not supported by QuickTime X, it will start a 32 bit helper process to perform the requested operation. The website Ars Technica revealed that QuickTime X uses QuickTime 7. x via QTKit to run older codecs that have not made the transition to 64 bit. QuickTime X does not support SRT subtitle files. It has been suggested using the program Subler to interleave the MP4 and SRT files will fix this oversight, which can be downloaded at Bitbucket. QuickTime 7 may still be required to support older formats on Snow Leopard such as QTVR, interactive QuickTime movies, and MIDI files. In such cases, a compatible version of QuickTime 7 is included on Snow Leopard installation disc and may be installed side by side with QuickTime X. Users who have a Pro license for QuickTime 7 can then activate their license. A Snow Leopard compatible version of QuickTime 7 may also be downloaded from Apple Support website. The software got an increment with the release of Mavericks, and as of August 2018, the current version is v10.5. It contains more sharing options (email, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr etc. ), more export options (including web export in multiple sizes, and export for iPhone 4/iPad/Apple TV (but not Apple TV 2). It also includes a new way of fast forwarding through a video and mouse support for scrolling. Starting with macOS Catalina, Apple only provides QuickTime X, as QuickTime 7 was never updated to 64 bit, affecting many applications, image, audio, and video formats utilizing QuickTime 7, and compatibility with these codecs in QuickTime X.

+ Macintosh OS Latest version System 6.0.7 – 7.0.1 2.5 System 7.1 – 8.1 on 68K 4.0.3 System 7.1.2 – 7.5.3 on PowerPC 4.0.3 Mac OS 8.6 – 9 6.0.3 Mac OS X v10.0 5.0 (bundled) Mac OS X v10.1 6.3.1 Mac OS X v10.2 6.5.3 Mac OS X v10.3 7.5 Mac OS X v10.4 7.6.4 Mac OS X v10.5 7.7 / 7.6.6 Mac OS X v10.7 10.1 / 7.6.6 Windows 95 5.0.5 Windows NT 4.0 6.1 Windows 98, ME 6.5.2 Windows 2000 7.1.6 Windows XP RTM, SP1 7.3.1 Windows XP SP2, SP3 7.7.6 Windows Vista and Windows 7 7.7.9

QuickTime X previously provided the QTKit Framework on Mac OS 10.6 until 10.14. Since the release of macOS 10.15, AVKit and AVFoundation are used instead (due to the removal of 32 bit audio and video codecs, as well as image formats and APIs supported by QuickTime 7).

QuickTime consists of two major subsystems: the Movie Toolbox and the Image Compression Manager. The Movie Toolbox consists of a general API for handling time based data, while the Image Compression Manager provides services for dealing with compressed raster data as produced by video and photo codecs. Developers can use the QuickTime software development kit (SDK) to develop multimedia applications for Mac or Windows with the C programming language or with the Java programming language (see QuickTime for Java), or, under Windows, using COM/ActiveX from a language supporting this. The COM/ActiveX option was introduced as part of QuickTime 7 for Windows and is intended for programmers who want to build standalone Windows applications using high level QuickTime movie playback and control with some import, export, and editing capabilities. This is considerably easier than mastering the original QuickTime C API. QuickTime 7 for Mac introduced the QuickTime Kit (aka QTKit), a developer framework that is intended to replace previous APIs for Cocoa developers. This framework is for Mac only, and exists as Objective C abstractions around a subset of the C interface. Mac OS X v10.5 extends QTKit to full 64 bit support. The QTKit allows multiplexing between QuickTime X and QuickTime 7 behind the scenes so that the user need not worry about which version of QuickTime they need to use.