Mac OS X delivers a rich audio and video experience through a comprehensive set of system-level frameworks and technologies. Powerful APIs that streamline your development process make it easy to incorporate professional-grade audio, music, media, and video functionality into your application.
Core Audio
Built to handle multiple channels of high bit rate floating-point digital audio, Core Audio is the foundation for music and audio on Mac OS X. Core Audio allows you integrate low-latency playback, manipulation, and recording of audio into your application. Within Core Audio, the Audio Toolbox framework offers services to read and write audio files, encode and decode compressed formats such as AAC, and access FireWire and USB audio devices. The Audio Toolbox also allows you deliver real-time MIDI editing, including cut, copy, paste, and loop along with APIs for inspecting MIDI events.
Audio Units
Audio Units allow you to extend Core Audio to create audio effects and virtual instruments for Apple applications such as GarageBand, Soundtrack, Logic and Final Cut Pro, as well as a multitude of popular third-party applications. The centralized plug-in model for Audio Units makes it simple for users to manage the audio capabilities of their audio applications.
Core Video
Core Video is the processing pipeline for digital video in Mac OS X. It makes it simple for your application to access and manipulate individual frames without having to worry about translating between data types or display synchronization issues. If your application performs color correction or filtering, transformations such as warping, or other types of video processing, put Core Video to work for you.
QuickTime and QTKit
QuickTime and the QTKit framework provide powerful services for manipulating time-based media on Mac OS X, allowing you to add audio and video playback, capture, and encoding capabilities to your application. QuickTime not only delivers stunning video quality at remarkably low data rates using the standards-based H.264 codec, it also supports many other major file formats for audio and video as well.
iChat Theater
iChat Theater enables your own application to manage the video and audio that is shared from the popular iChat instant messaging application built into Mac OS X.
A great example is sharing a Keynote presentation with a co-worker half the world away, simply by starting an IM session. iChat Theater uses Core Video and Core Audio for the heavy lifting, and is just one example of creating synergy among Mac OS X technologies to deliver an outstanding user experience.
