An important aspect is that the user has no need to know what is in the file or what format it is. The standard output is a QuickTime 'Movie' that can be a file or one of several different formats. QuickTime is a set of protocols that allow a Mac or a PC running Windows (or any other computer in the future, hopefully) to use a single interface to create/display/manipulate movies that contain digitised video, sound, text, etc. With QuickTime the user can employ a standard editing package like Adobe Premiere with a video capture card, from a budget priced 400 VideoSpigot to 5000 cards designed for professional quality video production on the Mac. QuickTime provides a series of ways for any software package to address and use specialist video hardware, such as a video capture board. The real aim of QuickTime is compatibility between hardware and software. Its most obvious and appealing feature is the ability to use a Mac to play video clips, but there is more to QuickTime than that.
QuickTime is an extension to the Mac's system software which provides system-level support for dynamic media types, such as video animation and sound.
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