What is "quicktime"

QuickTime is an extensible multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. First made in 1991, the latest Mac version, QuickTime X, is currently available on Mac OS X Snow Leopard and newer. Apple has ceased support for the Windows version of QuickTime in 2016.

As of Mac OS X Lion, the underlying media framework for QuickTime, QTKit, is deprecated in favor of a newer graphics framework, AV Foundation. The QuickTime X player however is still included with the new releases of the OS.