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Quicktime is Apple's media player, which allows playback of video and audio files and streams using H.264 and AAC audio compression. These are part of the MPEG-4 standard, which is used for HD DVD, Blu-ray, and digital TV. MPEG-4 is up to four time more efficient than older video codecs.

Quicktime allows for streaming, which means the file won't be saved on the user's computer, instead it is viewed as it is downloaded. This can either be unicast, which sends the file to the user when they request it (eg. a film) but not saved; or multicast which lets more than one person 'tune in' to the stream (eg. online radio)

Patent pending technologies in Quicktime's streaming include Skip Protection which solves the problem of buffering if parts of data are lost by quickly downloading a buffer of video, and Instant-On which allows the user to start playing from anywhere in the video without waiting for the buffering process that other applications have.

Quicktime Pro is the non-free version of Quicktime that allows creation of Quicktime files.