Java Developer Documentation: Introduction to QuickTime for Java

PATH Java Developer Documentation > QuickTime for Java > Technical Overview

QuickTime for Java brings together two powerful technologies–QuickTime and Java–allowing developers to create Java software that takes advantage of the multimedia power of QuickTime on both Macintosh and Windows. As a result, it is possible for a Java application to take advantage of the rich media capabilities QuickTime provides, including the ability to play QuickTime movies, edit and create movies, capture audio and video, and perform sophisticated 2D and 3D animations.


	QuickTime for Java Documentation


		Technical Overview The QuickTime Application Programming Interface (API) is implemented in Java as a set of classes. These classes are grouped into a set of packages, on the basis of common functionality, common usage, and their organization in the standard QuickTime header files. It provides both an object model for the QuickTime API and a logical translation or binding of the native function calls into Java method calls. The QuickTime for Java API is garbage collected and contains no direct access to pointers or other features that are common in a C-based API. The Java method calls provide very little overhead to the native call; they do parameter marshalling and check the result of the native call for any error conditions. If an error is returned by the native call, then an exception will be thrown. With compiler optimizations, most of these direct QuickTime methods can be in-lined.