10th Anniversary of Quicktime 412
An anonymous reader submitted a story about the 10th anniversary of QuickTime which might not seem like such a big deal unless you set your mental wayback machine to 1991 and remember what we didn't have back then. Bits from Brian Eno and others. Worth reading.
History (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.friendsoftime.org/ [friendsoftime.org]
-J
Quicktime is not a compression algorithm (Score:5, Informative)
While the most popular codecs involved will change, Quicktime will be around for a long time to come.
Linux users that yearn for Quicktime! (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately some aspects of the UI don't work but the movies play nicely. I can't wait until TransGaming's WineX [transgaming.com] or stock Wine [winehq.com] runs Quicktime movies as good as mplayer [mplayerhq.hu] plays
Does anyone know exactly how crosspollination between these projects work? I would say that besides GNU and Linux, Wine has the potential to be the most useful piece of code ever created.
Re:Apple's a Black Hole (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.publicsource.apple.com/projects/stre
Re:Quicktime and Real Audio are already dead. (Score:1, Informative)
The fact that MPEG-4 is a cheap hack based on quicktime is lost on you, isn'y it? Heck, considering that Quicktime is designed to work with so many Codecs, I'm sure there is already a DiVX
Don't forget that you can have a quicktime file with a DiVX
Re:You would think with OS X (Score:1, Informative)
And apple wants people to have a reason to go with OS X over a linux box -- this is one of them.
but there is a QuckTime for Java -- no idea if it works.
Re:Quicktime and Real Audio are already dead. (Score:2, Informative)
Isn't MPEG4 based on quicktime?
MPEG-4 is based on a file format championed by Apple and used in Quicktime. The problem is that the MPEG-4 standard is not yet complete. What WiMP (Windows Media Player) and the others are using is a corrupted form of the incomplete standard. It's the usual embrace-and-extend attack from Microsoft: adopt a standard and then modify it so that it becomes so corrupted and muddled that people have to use your version to do anything.
Once again we see that Microsoft has managed to grab market share through bundling, while the better product doesn't get as much exposure. Quicktime is such a polished product that supports some of the best compression algorithms for video out there, it's a shame that it is not used more.
QT made Myst possible (Score:3, Informative)
Re:what is adb? (Score:3, Informative)
~Philly
Re:QT rocks, an example of APL at it its finest (Score:5, Informative)
However, that said, QT is a superior product in many ways and it has every possibility of becoming a media platform if of itself. M$ knows this and it scares the hell out of them. This is why they are trying so hard to defeat QT and even tried to kill it a couple of years ago by leveraging Office for Macintosh against Apple.
Don't be suprised to see QT media devices being produced in the next couple of years. All tying into the "Digital Hub" concept.
Re:Yeah right! (Score:5, Informative)
What Quicktime got right (and it saddens me to see people falling over themselves to flame it B3KUZ 1TZ PRUHP1Et4RY) was that they spec'ed a really nice, solid API with architectural room to grow. When Quicktime was released, mainstream personal computers had 16-33 MHz CPU's, maxed out at 8-16 megabytes of RAM, a 32-bit video card cost >$1000, etc.
Quicktime's API was so clean that a video playing application (such as Popcorn or the original Simple Player) written for Quicktime 1.0 in 1991 can still run on top of Quicktime 5.x today, taking advantage of all the codecs written in the interim period. When Apple added PNG support to Quicktime, any program that relied on Quicktime for graphics file import immediately gained the ability to read PNG files, without even a recompile.
Quicktime is not a video player, it is not a streaming plugin, and it is not a replacement for MPEG.
Re:quicktime? (Score:5, Informative)
I know there are some people out there who are annoyed that Linux is unable to read some Quicktime files out there. That's not Apple's fault at all, rather it is the fault of the compression format used. Most of the Quicktime files are compressed using the Sorenson codec, because of the superior quality and great compression it offers. The problem is that Sorenson holds the patent on the codec and they have only produced a decoder for Windows and MacOS. In order for Linux users to play those Quicktime movies which use the Sorenson codec, Sorenson would have to produce a Linux version of the decoder. There are a few programs out there that can play Quicktime movies, but only the movies that use codecs supported by Linux.
The same thing has happened with AVI on the Mac. There are a few Intel codecs that are used by AVI files which have no Mac version of a decoder. Thus, viewing an AVI on a Mac is kind of a crap shoot. I'm sure that this is a planned thing by Intel. Fortunately AVI seems to be dying a slow death as better formats are appearing.
That being said, Quicktime fully supports mpg. In fact, there are only a few odd or proprietary formats that Quicktime can't or doesn't support.
Re:Why do I feel like... (Score:3, Informative)
check:
http://www.heroinewarrior.com/index.php3
Re:A Post With Real Substance^H^H^H^H^H Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
1. That isn't "most features" that is one feature (two if you rally consider "portal functionality" a feature).
2. QuickTime's streaming technology is drastically different from Real's; It uses some of the same codecs as non-streaming video and really helps blur the line between streaming and non-streaming video, making the different versions of the video much easier to manage. QuickTime also uses the RTSP standard.
3.QuickTime's streaming technology delivers at least 4x the clarity of the same video encoded with the Real codec at the same bitrate, so in any event you have to admit that QT streaming video runs circles around Real and WM
4. QuickTime Streaming Server is open source, so you can go look at the "guts" yourself and stop your reflexive Apple-bashing
Oh yes, QuickTime has brought about a revolution in digital media!
True; the sarcastic parts of your post seem to be more accurate.
And nobody has ever duplicated it or surpassed it since!
I think a large part of the article was about how many people have duplicated it. QT still ships with the best codecs, integrates more technologies, and lets content creators do more, so player notwithstanding it is still the best video technology.
It's a media format wrapper (not a codec like MPEG...
That is why it was such a revolutionary technology, although Apple does take a role in the development of some of QT's important codecs, the reason QT allowed multimedia to spread was that it allowed you to deal with codecs transparenttly, even today most people still just think they're dealing with QuickTime video whether it is compressed with the Video or Sorenson codecs, nor will they be aware if the audio is uncompressed, MP3, PureVoice, or QDesign, or even if the author switches codecs midstream (do that with your "equivalent if not better tools").
QuickTime didn't start a revolution. It didn't change the world.
Yeah, that multimedia thing never really caught on.
The author has a very valid point: QuickTime is one of the very few technologies that was responsible for the explosion of a technology and is still the premier technology for it. Don't try to tell me that there are better technologies for multimedia content delivery; real multimedia professionals are not using MPEG or Real, and WM is almost as big a joke as the current Real codec. Today, Cleaner and the Sorenson codec are the Photoshop of high quality web multimedia, sure there are GIMPs of web multimedia, but don't try to say they are better.
I know many /.ers can't use real QuickTime, and I really think Apple should create a Linux version, but lets not have a bunch of sour grapes.
Rant Rant (Score:4, Informative)
It really is not Apple's fault that Linux developers have payed so little attention to developing Linux based solutions for Apple formats.
If the quality of responses here is representative of the Linux/Open Source community at large, and I hope it is not, then it would seem that they can't even comprehend what QuickTime is.
QuickTime is not a movie format, at least in the sense that a LOTR trailer is a movie. It is not a codec. It is not an application with a window. It is an architecture and a set of organizing principles to tie time-dependent data together that negotiates amongst an essentially unlimited number of codecs and data formats.
Now, it just so happens that one common use of QuickTime is LOTR trailers. It also just so happens that a lot of people use the Sorenson codec. It also just so happens that there's a somewhat ugly piece of software called the QuickTime Player 4 (but the previous version still works and is nicer). However, that doesn't define what QuickTime is. Maybe people are confused by the fact that the name QuickTime is used in conjunction with other words. Maybe people are confused by the fact that the word used in QuickTime is "movie," even though Apple goes to great lengths to explain that it is not necessarily a literal movie of image frames. Honestly, though, I would expect a community of hackers to be able to look under the hood.
For the people talking about MPEG4, well, it does begin to approach this level of universality, but that's because it is based on Quicktime, with Apple contributing heavily to the standard! MPEG4 is, to all extents and purposes, a new version of QuickTime with some codecs included.
There is nothing to stop you, me, or any Open Source developer from using the QuickTime architecture and file format to do anything from a movie player to controlling the geometry in a 3rd-person shooter to keeping track of thunderstorm data. However, in order to do that, it is necessary to appreciate the value of an overarching architecture rather than a tool to do a thing in a file format.
I wonder if this lack of what must be called "vision" is emblematic of Open Source. I certaintly hope it is not. However, it would be consistent with some of the problems with making a desktop acceptable to the consumer.
One doesn't need to integrate software to the point of stupidity as does Microsoft. However, to achieve synchronicity in a system of pieces, it is even more important to have architectures and organizing principles on the order of QuickTime.
I can produce an image file on the Macintosh and write drivers for QuickTime and be sure that any reasonably well written image-processing program on the Macintosh will be able to use it automatically without my having to do anything else, and that's just the beginning. Doesn't anyone think this kind of capability would be useful on an open operating system?
QuickTime isn't a codec (Score:4, Informative)
QT doesn't have a codec, precisely. It's a framework. The QT format allows for multiple codecs.
For example, QT for the Mac comes standard with the following codecs for video:
You can also install your own codecs. I seem to have:
There are a comparable array of audio codecs.
Most of the stuff you see on the web these days is Sorenson. But content creators usually don't work in Sorenson; they work in the higher-quality codecs. I'm leaning towards On2VP3 these days, although in the past I was pretty much a straight-up Indeo man.
It also allows you to encode without using a codec, i.e. raw data & Big Files. This is what the really serious editors with the Really Big Drives (Avid and so on) use.
BTW, the DivX ;-) player for the Mac uses a QuickTime framework, and can play the DivX inside QT player.
Re:it's not a technical thing (Score:3, Informative)
To me, it makes a lot of sense to have a plugin architecture for video. I am a professional in the film industry and do a fair amount of editing using Final Cut Pro. In the past I used to use an Avid. I really really like that FCP is based on Quicktime (Avid isn't). With Final Cut, I can edit anything as long as it's quicktime. That means out of the box I can use a little DV camera and edit everything at 29.97fps using the DV codec. If I want to add a professional video board like a Targa card or something, I can, and because the codec for the Targa card is just a quicktime plugin, I can use it in any program that uses quicktime, including FCP. If I want I can add a board that does uncompressed High Definition Video, and as long as my RAID array has high enough bandwidth I can edit that format. If I want to edit something for the web at 15fps and half-resolution, I can do that too because I have codecs that can handle that.
If we were to do things the way you propose, we'd be stuck using either a few standardized but completely outdated codecs for everything (for distribution), or a seperate editing application for every format and/or vendor (for production -- this is the way it used to be).
And Quicktime works perfectly fine with industry standard codecs (unlike RealPlayer), so I really don't know what you're talking about.
More history at Mercury Center (Score:3, Informative)