Quicktime Overview

QuickTime is bundled with OS X. QuickTime for Microsoft Windows has always been downloadable as a standalone installation, as well as being bundled with Apple's iTunes (prior to iTunes 10.5).

Software development kits (SDKs) for QuickTime are available to the public with an Apple Developer Connection (ADC) subscription.

It is available free of charge for both OS X and Windows 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, OS X has a simple AppleScript which 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.

QuickTime Pro

QuickTime Player 7 is limited to only basic playback operations unless a QuickTime Pro license key is purchased from Apple. Apple's professional applications (e.g. Final Cut Studio, Logic Studio) include a QuickTime Pro license. Pro keys are specific to the major version of QuickTime for which they are purchased and unlock additional features of the QuickTime Player application on OS X or Windows. Also, the Pro key does not entail any additional downloads.

Features enabled by the Pro license include, but are not limited to:

• • Editing clips through the cut, copy and paste functions, merging separate audio and video tracks, and freely placing the video tracks on a virtual canvas with the options of cropping and rotation.

  • Saving and exporting (encoding) to any of the codecs supported by QuickTime. QuickTime 7 includes presets for exporting video to a video-capable iPod, Apple TV, and the iPhone.

  • Saving existing QuickTime movies from the web directly to a hard disk drive. This is often, but not always, either hidden or intentionally blocked in the standard mode. It should be noted that two options exist for saving movies from a web browser:

    • • Save as source – This option will save the embedded video in its original format. (i.e., not limited to *.mov files.)

      • Save as QuickTime movie – This option will save the embedded video in a *.mov file format no matter what the original container is/was.

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 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 OS X Mountain Lion 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.