Editing QuickTime (section)

=== Previous versions ===
QuickTime consists of two major subsystems: the '''Movie Toolbox''' and the '''Image Compression Manager'''. The Movie Toolbox consists of a general API for handling time-based data, while the Image Compression Manager provides services for dealing with compressed [[Raster graphics|raster]] data as produced by video and photo codecs.

Developers can use the QuickTime software development kit ([[Software development kit|SDK]]) to develop multimedia applications for Mac or Windows with the [[C (programming language)|C programming language]] or with the Java programming language (see [[QuickTime for Java]]), or, under Windows, using [[Component Object Model|COM]]/[[Activex|ActiveX]] from a language supporting this.

The COM/ActiveX option was introduced as part of QuickTime 7 for Windows and is intended for programmers who want to build standalone Windows applications using high-level QuickTime movie playback and control with some import, export, and editing capabilities. This is considerably easier than mastering the original QuickTime C API.<ref>{{cite web | title= Scripting the QuickTime COM/ActiveX object for Windows Developers.| url=https://developer.apple.com/quicktime/activexcontrol.html}}</ref>

QuickTime 7 for Mac introduced the QuickTime Kit (aka QTKit), a developer framework that is intended to replace previous APIs for Cocoa developers. This framework is for Mac only, and exists as [[Objective-C]] abstractions around a subset of the C interface. Mac OS X v10.5 extends QTKit to full 64-bit support. The QTKit allows multiplexing between QuickTime X and QuickTime 7 behind the scenes so that the user need not worry about which version of QuickTime they need to use.