Quicktime

QuickTime can refer to different things:

• A software tool for viewing and editing multimedia content such as movies and immersive panoramas

• A file format for distributing multimedia content. QuickTime files typically have a .mov file extension. If you can't see file extensions, you may want to enable windows file extensions as you will have great difficulty editing and manipulating image files otherwise.

• QuickTime Virtual Reality QTVR, an extension to the QuickTime file format that embeds immersive panoramas as JPEG encoded cubic or cylindrical panoramas.

Apple's Quicktime, available for Macintosh and Windows, has been a pioneer in VR and still is one of the best performers. Quicktime is distributed at no cost and payment is only required if you want to use editing functions. Unfortunately, under Windows, Quicktime reminds the user of the need to upgrade to the Professional Version the first time it is run after a reboot. Some Windows users (particularly the majority who do not need Quicktime's editing functionality) find it a nuisance. As many Apple products, Quicktime is probably technologically ahead of most other competitors, but lacks the installed user base and third party software.

See Apple's site for QuickTime detection via JavaScript and another article on O'Reilly Network about Plug-In Detection with JavaScript.

Although QuickTime is only available for Mac and Windows platforms, on Linux the Windows version can be installed via wine