Mailing Lists: Apple Mailing Lists
Image of Mac OS face in stamp
 
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Current State of Quicktime for Java

At 4:38 pm +0100 12/10/05, John S O'Sullivan wrote: 

About a year ago I dipped into this list for a while. I was considering some
development with quicktime and spent some time evaluating the java option
with some basic apps from the SDK and some monitoring of the list for a
while. At the time there was a lot of discontent and a feeling that QT for
Java was becoming increasingly difficult to use with little support,
increasing depreciation of features and a lack of clarity regarding its
future. After that period of evaluation I decided to struggled on and try to
get all I could from the javascript interface. However, this this now seems
incapable of meeting my future needs. I was wondering what the consensus is
now. If you had a blank page would you go the QT for Java route?

If I was starting with a blank page then yes, I would definitely go the QTJava route if I was doing anything media related and was using Java. Apart from anything else, you haven't really got any alternative, as JMF is hopelessly out of date now. It all depends on what you're doing though.

If you're doing things like opening movies, editing them, extracting format information or exporting them with different codecs (Movie, Track, Media, MovieExporter etc.) then QTJava is absolutely 100% rock solid. Any limitations (like not being able to open PDF files Windows, or getting at the audio of protected AAC files) are by design and you'd have exactly the same issue if you use QuickTime via C++.

If you're playing movies within your app and follow the standard example code (eg. Chris Adamson's book) then it works well.

I have had playback problems in the past for various reasons, but then I'm not doing "standard" stuff - I'm displaying movies in JTabbedPanes, I'm recycling components, I'm re-parenting components when the user toggles between windowed and fullscreen playback, etc. Also, I have a complex mass of code that's been around for a while since before the API changes a while back, and through various intermediate buggy beta releases, so my code probably contains workarounds for bugs that are no longer present and which therefore complicates the current behaviour. Problems I've had at various points as a result include crashes, freezes, component not appearing, appearing briefly in the top left of the screen outside the window I'm placing it, plus no end of keyboard focus problems trying to intercept keyboard events when a movie is showing. But I've laid out the reasons for that, you won't have these problems if you do straightforward stuff and your code is starting from a clean slate.

If you're using QTJava from within an applet or via JavaScript then I'm sorry, I have no experience of that, but you may well encounter additional issues. You could maybe try deploying it as an application via Java Web Start instead.

Overall I would say QTJava is a very powerful API, and while it has had its quirks there are definite signs that Apple are giving it more attention again and I would definitely try and persist with it.

-Rolf
--
Rolf Howarth
Square Box Systems Ltd
Stratford-upon-Avon UK.
http://www.squarebox.co.uk
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
QuickTime-java mailing list      (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/quicktime-java/email@hidden

This email sent to email@hidden
References: 
 >Current State of Quicktime for Java (From: "John S O'Sullivan" <email@hidden>)



Visit the Apple Store online or at retail locations.
1-800-MY-APPLE

Contact Apple | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2007 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.