We are using some of the built in technologies of Mac OS X
- Quicklook to create previews of assets
- Spotlight to extract metadata
- SIPS (Scriptable image processor) to create thumbnails of asset preview
Where feasible we have tried to use built in technologies to reduce the reliance of third party libraries. Additionally most of the built in libraries/tools are heavily optimised for the hardware they run on. (and so are very fast)