quicktime/docs/index.html

   1 <TITLE>Quicktime for Linux</TITLE>
   2
   3 <CENTER><B><H1>Quicktime for Linux</H1>
   4 <P>
   5
   6 by<P>
   7
   8 HEROINE VIRTUAL LTD.<P>
   9
  10
  11 Homepage: heroinewarrior.com<BR>
  12 Harassment address: broadcast at earthling dot net<BR>
  13 </B></CENTER>
  14
  15
  16 Quicktime movies are first and foremost a very sophisticated wrapper
  17 for 3rd party compression schemes.  While not an officially sanctioned
  18 Microsoft standard, it is well documented and pretty consistent.  Once
  19 a codec works in Quicktime, you can be sure it'll always work.  With
  20 Microsoft standards, the codec usage constantly changes over time.<P>
  21
  22 Quicktime for Linux hides the structure of a Quicktime movie and gives
  23 the programmer a set of audio and video streams with some compression
  24 ability.  The audio tracks are presented as sequential streams of PCM
  25 audio data and video tracks are a sequential streams of frames.<P>
  26
  27 Before you quit your day job and write up your dream program on this be
  28 aware of some limitations.  Quicktime for Linux is slowly increasing in
  29 functionality but is always going to be better at uncompressed streams
  30 than anything else.<P>
  31
  32 This library doesn't give you the official Quicktime API.  That was way
  33 too complicated and covered more than we needed.  Instead it uses a
  34 proprietary C interface.<P>
  35
  36 The library doesn't include any commercial codecs or compressed header
  37 support.  Compressed header support may come in a later version.<P>
  38
  39 There is growing support for McRosoft AVI.  This format is lousy at
  40 uncompressed streams and not consistent so the AVI support is mainly
  41 for karma.<P>
  42
  43 What you can do is create and read any Quicktime movie using certain
  44 compression formats.  You can still access raw data if you want to
  45 write your own compression routines.<P>
  46
  47 Quicktime for Linux doesn't use <B>plugins</B> to achieve
  48 functionality.  The library is always updated more frequently than the
  49 codecs.  Plugins are more convenient when the library is only available
  50 on hard media or requires upgrade licenses for every download, which it
  51 doesn't.<P>
  52
  53 <H1>Contents</H1>
  54
  55 Here we cover the usage for accessing Quicktime files.<P>
  56
  57 <A HREF="license.html">License</A><P>
  58
  59 <A HREF="building.html">Step 1: Building the library</A><P>
  60
  61 <A HREF="opening.html">Opening a file</A><P>
  62
  63 <A HREF="reading.html">Reading a file</A>
  64
  65 <BLOCKQUOTE>
  66 <A HREF="reading.html#Decodingvideo">Decoding Video</A><BR>
  67 <A HREF="reading.html#Readingrawvideo">Reading raw video</A><BR>
  68 <A HREF="reading.html#Readingkeyframes">Reading keyframes</A><BR>
  69 <A HREF="reading.html#Readingrawaudio">Reading raw audio</A><BR>
  70 </BLOCKQUOTE>
  71 <P>
  72
  73 <A HREF="positioning.html">Positioning in a file</A><P>
  74
  75 <A HREF="writing.html">Writing a file</A><P>
  76 <BLOCKQUOTE>
  77 <A HREF="writing.html#Encodingvideo">Encoding Video</A><BR>
  78 <A HREF="writing.html#Encodingaudio">Encoding Audio</A><BR>
  79 <A HREF="writing.html#Writingrawvideo">Writing raw video</A><BR>
  80 <A HREF="writing.html#Writingkeyframes">Writing keyframes</A><BR>
  81 <A HREF="writing.html#Writingrawaudio">Writing raw audio</A><BR>
  82 </BLOCKQUOTE>
  83
  84 <A HREF="codecs.html">Information about specific codecs</A><P>
  85
  86 <A HREF="firewire.html">Integrated DV support</A><P>
  87
  88 <A HREF="util.html">Using the utilities</A><P>