QuickTime for .NET and COM Developers

by John Cromie

Overview

At the heart of Apple's hugely popular iLife software suite—iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, GarageBand, and iTunes—is QuickTime, the powerful media engine that drives elegant applications for managing movies, images, and audio files. The enduring success of QuickTime is in no small part attributable to its component architecture. This key feature has allowed it to embrace emerging digital media technologies and standards one by one as they have appeared over the 12 or so years since its launch. None of the competing technologies even comes close, let alone on both Mac OS X and Windows.

QuickTime for .NET and COM Developers is the first guide to QuickTime for developers using popular RAD tools such a Visual Basic .NET, C#, and Visual Basic 6. A general introduction to QuickTime is followed by a detailed explanation of the QuickTime architecture from a.NET and COM perspective, liberally accompanied by code snippets. A number of implementation examples illustrate key QuickTime features, ranging from a simple movie player to a sophisticated interactive application. Also covered is QuickTime scripting in both QuickTime Player (using Windows Scripting) and in Microsoft Office applications (using VBA). Brief guides to developing with QuickTime in Delphi and ATL/WTL are also included.

Part of the official Quicktime Developer Series, publishing the finest books on QuickTime in cooperation with Apple.


* The first book on QuickTime for .NET and COM application and scripting developers
* Written by one of the architects of Apple's QuickTime ActiveX/COM control
* Offers numerous sample applications and code examples

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780127745756
Publisher:	Elsevier Science
Publication date:	01/31/2006
Series:	QuickTime Developer Series
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	0.75(w) x 7.50(h) x 9.25(d)

About the Author

John Cromie is one of the architects of Apple’s QuickTime ActiveX/COM control for Windows and is the principal at the software development and consulting company, Skylark Associates. Skylark specializes in software design, website architecture, and interface design, and has clients in both Europe and the United States. With a strong portfolio of successful projects, many of which feature QuickTime, Skylark has established a reputation for innovative software development of interactive and web applications on both Windows and Mac platforms. Having worked with QuickTime for over 12 years, John is a long-time QuickTime developer, first using HyperCard on the Mac, and then moving on to Windows with the advent of QuickTime for Windows. An experienced developer, John has successfully delivered numerous CD/DVD-ROM titles, websites and interactive applications using RAD tools, C++ and the QuickTime API. Skylark is also responsible for the cross-platform software behind the award-winning BirdGuides range of CD/DVD-ROM titles for birdwatchers—again largely QuickTime based. John has overseen the development of birdguides.com into the leading bird information website in Europe. Consulting clients include Cambridge University, Esat/BT, The International Post Corporation and Apple Computer. Whenever the fickle weather in the northwest of Ireland permits, John gets out and about birding or walking in the mountains, and he is actively involved in nature conservation.

Table of Contents

Preface; Chapter 1. Introduction; Chapter 2. Getting Started with the QuickTime Control; Chapter 3. Using the QuickTime Control; Chapter 4. The QuickTime Object Model; Chapter 5. Diving Deeper; Chapter 6. Create and Edit; Chapter 7. Browsing the Media; Chapter 8. Scripting QuickTime Player; Chapter 9. QuickTime meets Office; Appendix A. QuickTime COM Library Reference; Appendix B. Additional COM Host Environments; Appendix C. QuickTime Exporter Types; Index

Editorial Reviews

"This book addresses QuickTime development on Windows using the QuickTime COM components that were released by Apple with QuickTime 7...This book includes many code snippets and examples to illustrate key QuickTime features." - HiTech Review, July/Aug. 2006

From the Publisher

The Barnes & Noble Review
Few Windows developers realize how much they can do with Apple’s QuickTime. They can enable applications with media playback, A/V capture and editing, format conversion, video creation -- even let users navigate panoramas and 3D objects. They can do it using familiar tools (VB, C#, Delphi). And, with the new Apple QuickTime Control, they can do much of it without complex API coding. John Cromie, who helped architect that control, will show you how.

You’ll get comfortable by creating a simple media player; tour QuickTime’s object model; master QuickTime events and metadata. Next, you’ll put QuickTime to work in three sample apps: a multi-format media browser; a script to automate media production workflow; and an Access database that stores and plays movies. There’s plenty of sample code, plus a concise reference section: all you need to “think different” about media from now on. Bill Camarda, from the March 2006 Read Only

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