Developer Documentation

QuickTime 4 API Documentation

Road Map to QuickTime 4

Introduction to Sound

Sound is an integral part of QuickTime. Applications programmers can use QuickTime to record and play a wide variety of audio media using high-level calls that do not require knowledge of the Sound Manager API or details of the sound media themselves.

The QuickTime sound documentation is divided into nine sections:

Most QuickTime programmers should read the QuickTime Audio section, and may want to read the Introduction as background information.

Programmers whose applications will allow recording, resampling, recompression, or exporting of sound tracks will need to read the Sound Dialog section.

The Sound Manager is now cross-platform, so Windows developers may want to take advantage of the Sound Manager to do things that would otherwise be more difficult, such as mixing multiple channels of interactive sound in a game. These developers should read the Introduction, Sound Manager, and Additions Since 3.0 sections.

Only developers who plan to write a new sound component, such as an audio codec, need to read the Sound Components section.

The QuickTime Music section describes the music synthesizer included with QuickTime, and goes into considerable detail about support for MIDI audio files and MIDI instruments.

Cross-platform and Windows developers should note that some of the Sound Manager routines are not in the Windows DLL. These routines must not be used in Windows applications. Generally speaking, these routines have been superseded by better cross-platform functions. The Sound Manager functions not in the DLL are

The Introduction from "Inside Macintosh: Sound" follows:

© 1999 Apple Computer, Inc.