Discovering QuickTime 3.0: For Windows, Macintosh and Java (QuickTime Developer) Book

If you're programming multimedia applications in QuickTime, the many thousands of pages of technical documentation in the QuickTime SDK have all the technical information you need but not much in the way of general introduction. That's where Discovering QuickTime starts, with an overview of QuickTime's component architecture and how you program with it. The first half of the book gets you started writing code for QuickTime movies with video, sound, animations and music. There are plenty of code snippets (and sample code for Mac and Windows is on the accompanying CD-ROM). For more technical detail, turn to the larger section on programming techniques, which walks you through more complex code for working with sprites, synthesising music and adding virtual reality features to movies. QuickTime provides its various features by calling just the components it needs. The Windows version of QuickTime has all the same features as the Mac software, but the QuickTime components interact with the Windows OS slightly differently and all the cross-platform issues are covered as clearly as everything else in the book. Don't look to a book written by a member of the QuickTime development team for an independent assessment of the strengths or weaknesses of QuickTime: Discovering QuickTime is relentlessly positive about Apple's multimedia system. It's also clear, friendly and thorough; if you want to start programming with QuickTime, this is a good introduction. --Penny JanniferRead More