Summary

Port the JavaFX media stack on Mac OS X from QTKit and Quicktime, which have been deprecated, to the newer AVFoundation framework.

Motivation

Customers need to be able to release Java applications on the Mac App Store. The use of deprecated features blocks Mac App Store submission, and we need to remove the QuickTime dependency so that developers using the JavaFX media stack can gain Mac App Store acceptance. Further, it is expected that the Quicktime APIs and QTKit will be removed in a future OS X update, which will render media playback inoperable.

Description

The JavaFX media stack uses QTKit, which was intended to replace QuickTime but never quite did so. When parts of iOS started migrating to OS X, AVFoundation was brought over as a complete QuickTime replacement and since then all media API development at Apple has focused solely on AVFoundation and its associated technologies. QTKit has now been deprecated in OS X 10.9 and Apple requires developers to move to the newer AVFoundation framework.

The JavaFX media stack already has a platform abstraction layer specifically for situations such as this. This layer has already been used to port the stack to AVFoundation on OS X during as a proof of concept. This path was abandoned since at the time, in OS X 10.6, AVFoundation wasn't fully ported and did not fulfill all of our requirements. AVFoundation has since matured and the essential missing pieces are now in place.

Testing

This will require new unit tests for the Mac-specific media player. Existing functional tests should require no change. We will submit a media-based JavaFX sample application to the Mac App Store to verify the complete removal of QTKit dependencies and acceptable use of the new AVFoundation APIs.