Quicktime 6 Becoming Mobile-Phone Standard? 184
k-hell writes "It seems like Apple's QuickTime 6 is becoming standard on some 44 million Japanese mobile phones. Apple and many other companies are pressuring hard to make MPEG-4 the industry standard for video-on-demand services in 3G cellular networks, and to keep Microsoft and its proprietary Windows Media out of the mobile phones market."
Standards... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Standards... (Score:1)
Actually... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Actually... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
Re:Standards... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes I do. I want my mobile phone to be just a standard mobile phone.
I don't see the need for video, games, text etc.
People already can't drive and talk!
Sheesh, I can't wait for the SUV driving, video watching, soccer mom.
Re:Standards... (Score:2, Insightful)
I see yer point about video n games - but txt ?
sms/mms whatever is an extremely handy form of communication. do you not use email either ?
I know in North America it hasn't really taken off but in most other places it's really taken off. Councils use sms to send info to young people, our IT bods get txt msgs when there is a problem with the network etc etc.
you shouldn't be using a phone when driving - same as u shouldn't be using yer gameboy either...
Re:Standards... (Score:5, Insightful)
Try using a mobile phone in a country where everyone doesn't drive, like the Far East.
Or even here in the UK. Enough of us spend enough god-foresaken hours on trains and in brain-dead jobs, so the simple pleasure of a whizzy mobile phone is immeasurable.
It's this attitude (well, along with geographical spread) which makes the US the least-developed for mobile services.
Re:Standards... (Score:2)
For more information... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:For more information... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:For more information... (Score:3, Funny)
It's about MP4, not Quicktime 6 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's about MP4, not Quicktime 6 (Score:3, Informative)
The first article says that DoCoMo are going to be using Quicktime rather than just MPEG4 and that Apple have worked with them to produce the necessary software. Yes, MPEG4 is an open standard but in this case at least it's Apple's implementation that's being used.
The important point is that here we have a company that's looked beyond the MS option to deliver a solution. This adoption of Quicktime should help maintain the pressure on MS to bring Windows Media to the standards party. There are some good features in WM regarding DRM (which is necessary so please no flame war on this point).
A unified media format would be of benefit to consumers and third parties alike.
Re:It's about MP4, not Quicktime 6 (Score:3, Interesting)
DRM is NOT necessary. There was no such thing as ANALOG rights management, and there's no impetus other than corporate lust for control behind DIGITAL rights management features.
The MPEG formats are the closest thing we have to an open and widespread media format -- less restrictive than Windows Media, RealNetworks, or the Sorenson parts of QuickTime, and far more popular than open-source efforts like OGG.
I agree there should be a unified media format, and for highly compressible streaming media MPEG4 seems to be the best choice.
Re:It's about MP4, not Quicktime 6 (Score:2, Informative)
click here for all QT supported formats [apple.com] next to Cleaner [discreet.com] Quicktime Pro is the best format converter out there!
Re:It's about MP4, not Quicktime 6 (Score:2, Informative)
For MPEG2 you need to upgrade unfortunately, that's correct.. And some Indeo-Codecs also don't work because they're covered by Intels Patents! Other than that, QT plays any AVI that uses official M$-Codecs! I even was very pleasantly surprised to find it could play my 6 year old
Then again, there seem to be some really old
For pr0n-mpegs VLC (OSX only) works perfectly for me (also (S)VCD!), and Mplayer for OS X has incredibly broad codec-support, even WMA (and certain WMV/ASF-subsets!) plus that Indeo Codec from above!
The latest version is really nice, with sleek GUI!.. I miss the advanced settings and information though that are available on the commandline!
Will the industry please rise... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Will the industry please rise... (Score:4, Interesting)
By "help" I mean do whatever you can. If you can code, great [xiph.org], if not, perhaps you can spare [xiph.org] a few pennies?
Re:Will the industry please rise... (Score:2)
Right - what's the point? Ogg Vorbis still hasn't made an appearance in any consumer hardware that I know of, and the file format specifications have been frozen for a very long time.
I've got several gigs of MP3s and continue to rip my CDs to MP3 for one simple reason - my Rio Volt doesn't support Ogg. Surely Xiph understands that none of their formats are going to go anywhere without substantial hardware support. These guys should be doing whatever it takes to convince the chip companies to support Ogg (and its video counterpart).
Re:Will the industry please rise... (Score:2)
And it hasn't been all for nothing either. If I may quote Emmett (Xiph.org CEO):
"I know folks from at least three different hardware companies that have hardcore plans to release devices with Ogg Vorbis support. It probably won't be long."
Quicktime? (Score:1)
I'm confused. Quicktime 6 or MPEG-4?
Re:Quicktime? (Score:1)
MPEG-4 is the format
when will the rest wake up? (Score:5, Interesting)
When will more hardware venders start waking up to the idea, that working with standard and open protocols will be the most profitable in the long term. Why pay someone like Microsoft millions when you can own your own or share instruction set for far less?
Re:when will the rest wake up? (Score:1, Interesting)
Pay the millions [com.com] to MPEG LA?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:when will the rest wake up? (Score:2)
I'm guessing it's because they're deathly afraid of users having tech problems related to software and they desperately want to be able to pass the buck when the time comes.
It doesn't make sense to me, because they have to possess some willingness to take risks to be the cell phone business anyway.
Maybe they're more comfortable with hardware problems than software problems.
But you're right - they're paying for that comfort big time.
Re:when will the rest wake up? (Score:2)
M$ makes crappy products, but they did two AMAZING things. They locked themselves into a market that nobody thought was valuable (OS) Then, they used that to push a software suire (Ofiice) that is "ok" but not great, but has a FILE FORMAT that will make sure everyone uses their OS.
Ask 99% of Winblows users in business, and why they use Windows... "I need [word | excel | access] "
So those who want to be the next richest person in the world see taht he did it with a file format. Since most people are dumb as rocks, they jsut copy what's out there... =)
Oh great. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh great. (Score:2)
Re:Oh great. (Score:2)
Linux users love Lynx - no ads scripts, no stupid graphics, no annoying noises. And no problems with codecs. If you want to listen music - go to the concert performance. If you want to watch the movie - go to the movie theater. That's the only organically grown way to consume multimedia.
Now, mod me up! What are you waiting for?!?
misleading (Score:5, Interesting)
This way we could have OGG for audio and MPEG4 for video. Current MEDIA processors are very advanced and low cost. So computation power wont be a bottleneck if a standard is evolved which uses both OGG and MPEG-4. M$ may be king in OS domain, but in the Chip and Digital entertainment industry its the likes of TI/Intel/ST etc which rule the roost... and they are going to push for all its worth.
In fact it is a very good thing. Normally hardware guys are not so touchy about software rights(most of the times) they are concerned with mostly selling hardware and if you buy hardware you get most software goodies for free.3GPP, not MPEG-4 (Score:5, Informative)
Regarding Ogg + MPEG-4 video. The licensing terms for MPEG-4 Video are pretty gnarly. How about Ogg and H.263+ [wikipedia.org] (which, incidently, is what the 3GPP [3gpp.org] standardized on). That combination nearly works today in Helix DNA Client [helixcommunity.org]. We're already committed to making this available [realnetworks.com] in our mainline products like RealOne Player and Helix Universal Server.
Re:misleading (Score:4, Insightful)
Hey there. Please place the crackpipe down, and listen to me for a moment. MPEG-4 is not a 'safe' standard. Hell, it's not even a standard. It is the same proprietary crap you've been spoon-fed for the past ten years (or more), but with a lot more companies involved, looking for their piece of the action. How will they get at it? Oh, yes. With patents. Quelle surprise.
If you really want people like Texas Instruments to do something that would make a lot more sense, you would push for them to release an expanded line of DSP's and hardware that is container and codec agnostic. Demand more from your chips. Don't tell TI 'design a chip for MPEG-4,' tell them to stop making chips that require hideously expensive compilers and NDA's.
The biggest win for the consumer is a chip manufacturer that lets the consumer decide, not a chip manufacturer that does what it's told by Dorky Portable Magazine.
I don't want TI to make chips that just support Ogg. I want TI to make chips that support stuff today, and give me at least a fighting chance on supporting tomorrow's Codec du Jour. People freak out if they buy a home computer that won't last them for a year. I encourage people to think the same way about their portable technology, as well. You shouldn't settle for less, and you shouldn't buy from companies that do, either.
Emmett Plant [mailto]
CEO, Xiph.org Foundation [xiph.org]
Re:misleading (Score:2)
http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/press/backgrounder/om
Re:misleading (Score:2)
Chipmakers make proprietary chips for these products which are designed to be as small as possible and optimized for the task at hand.
Don't worry about the fact that you can't do anything else with these chips, and development costs a fortune. They are the exclusive domain of the Nokias and Motorolas of the world, and we do not have a say in these matters.
my head hurts. (Score:2)
If you really want people like Texas Instruments to do something that would make a lot more sense, you would push for them to release an expanded line of DSP's and hardware that is container and codec agnostic. Demand more from your chips. Don't tell TI 'design a chip for MPEG-4,' tell them to stop making chips that require hideously expensive compilers and NDA's.
That looks sensible, but then you say:
I don't want TI to make chips that just support Ogg. I want TI to make chips that support stuff today, and give me at least a fighting chance on supporting tomorrow's Codec du Jour. People freak out if they buy a home computer that won't last them for a year.
I'm floored. Why don't you want TI to build Ogg chips? There's little in the electronics industry more general than a home computer, and you know that the reason most won't last for more than a year is a matter of abusive prorgraming by certian software vendors. Would'nt a little hardware support for patent free technology help fix things? While stuff like this [linuxandmain.com] is nice, would'nt it be great to have $2.00 OGG players hanging out in the toy section at Wal Mart? Is there something I don't know about those $2.00 MP3 players?
Re:misleading (Score:2, Insightful)
People are upset when they find out their top-of-the-line box is outrun by a $500 machine within six months, because they dropped some scratch on it and expect it to be around for a while. Not so with mobile devices. It's about form and function right now. It's about what it does and how small a pocket I can fit that into.
My mother is interested in what her cell phone does right now. She has no interest in the hypothetical ability to make it do something else when Codec X comes down the pike.
Re:misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
TI has general purpose DSPs and CPUs available that can do whatever you need today as well as a good bit of what you may need tomorrow. Of course, you're going to pay for that flexibility - not only in price, but also in size, power consumption, and heat.
This is why purpose-specific DSPs are so popular in the marketplace, particularly the portable one. Lessee... I can build a device that can be reprogrammed to read any number of formats, but it's going to have twice the build cost and a quarter the battery life. Oh, and if I'm reading from a small media format like SecureMedia, then my chip layout has just doubled the size of the device because the chip's so much bigger now.
Or I can just go buy that MP3/WAV/Orange book chip over there, which is half the price, has competitive power consumption, requires less design (don't have to bother with updates, with coding other formats, etc), and will fit into my micro-sized device.
Which one do you think companies go for?
There are plenty of general purpose DSPs/CPUs. There are plenty of slightly specialized ones as well (which is more likely to be what you want anyway). But they all have tradeoffs. For the portable market the upside almost never makes up for the downsides. The standalone unit is different, and that's why you see devices like the Turtlebeach Audiotron, Rio Receiver, etc. with more powerful CPUs/DSPs.
Oh, and as for your NDA/compiler issue -- most don't have horrendous NDAs unless you get them in the pre-release cycle. And a lot use GCC for a compiler too, since it's a helluva lot cheaper to do what's necessary to cross-compile with a proven compiler than it is to create your own from scratch.
Re:misleading (Score:2)
And, as a side note, is Ogg too CPU heavy to run on the Intel Strongarm processor? The Turtle beach guys are claiming that the Audiotron can't handle Ogg because of this. It's one of the major reasons I haven't yet purchased one. I'm still looking for pretty much what you asked for -- a box that will play whatever format I chose. If the Audiotron (or similar) supported OGG and FLAC then I'd buy 2 or 3 of the boxes and start ripping all my CDs to a server.
Re:misleading (Score:2)
What fun! (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting thing about that MPEG4 'standard.' There isn't one. MPEG4 for mobile devices is a lot different than MPEG4 for desktop computers, which is a lot different than MPEG4 for the professional video market. With every new iteration of MPEG, there's some company trying to shoehorn their proprietary standard into it so they can collect money on their intellectual property in licensing fees.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, while these companies fight tooth-and-nail with each other to get every little piece of tech they can into each 'standard,' they're all hoping that Philips doesn't come along and price the technology out of a reasonable profit margin.
I'm biased in that I work for Xiph [xiph.org], but selling a technology based on 'If you don't buy our crap, Microsoft will own your asses' is not exactly a proper technical evaluation criterion. It's like saying, 'Please buy Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, or TWIX WILL RULE THE WORLD!'
This is technology, not a run for Student Council. Whatever happened to releasing better technology and pimping the hell out of it? Sigh.
Emmett Plant [mailto]
CEO, Xiph.Org Foundation [xiph.org]
Go get yourself some free music. [diff-eng.net]
Re:What fun! (Score:2)
Re:What fun! (Score:4, Informative)
Hate to disappoint, but I didn't. Ogg Vorbis is the invention of Christopher Montgomery, our technical director. I'm just the paperwork monkey, gadabout and bon-vivant that runs the company. Xiph produces Ogg Vorbis (and a laundry list of other cool stuff), though.
Emmett Plant [mailto]
CEO, Xiph.Org Foundation [xiph.org]
Re:What fun! (Score:2)
Could you elaborate on that? I mean, I know Phillips invented the CD, and thus set up the red-book standard...but what tech do they hold the key to in other digital sound and video?
Re:What fun! (Score:2)
Then I thought that maybe he meant Philips specifically, meaning that they have rights to the patents and will produce something in such numbers at such low price points that the royalty value is essentially zero. "We'll make so many of them so cheaply that the only people making any money off it are the $10 a day assembly workers in Malaysia."
Either way, I guess the sentiment is that the technology products need to be salable at a "prestige" price point long enough that the royalty value of the patents provides a profitable return on research investment.
yes,propriatry Apple is better then propritary MS! (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of my dislike of QuickTime has to do with their shitty, buggy, windows viewer program (after all this time it still can't do full screen, wtf!?). But in all seriousness I know my life would be a lot nicer if everyone used truly open, independent file formats and codecs.
Apple is just as guilty of playing the proprietary crap game in terms of video as Microsoft, if not more so.
Re:yes,propriatry Apple is better then propritary (Score:2)
where are you going? (Score:2)
You say this and a lot of other negative stuff about Apple:
A lot of my dislike of QuickTime has to do with their shitty, buggy, windows viewer program
What do you expect? It's windows, right? Try getting Media Player to behave. I'll spare you, it looks something like this [slashdot.org]. Broken OLE, poorly implemented file system, non implemented portable net graphics rendering, look at my advert, download my crap, ad nauseum (that's latin for party till you puke).
You don't work on libpr0n, do you? Nah, no one running win2k [netcraft.com] has a real clue, though you do seem to be catching on [kuro5hin.org] (if that's you) how painful sounding. Wait, this is you, "But in all seriousness I know my life would be a lot nicer if everyone used truly open, independent file formats and codecs." Bing, bing, bing, Gold Star for you.
Oh well, thanks for crapping on Apple. It's always nice to see a postive post, full of insight on how to make things work right. It's almost as good as a porn meta site that crams banner adverts accross real porn sites. To be fair, the ratings system is value added, but some people might get the impression you are simply pimping pimps. That's much better, however, than pimping M$ especially by simply crapping on everyone else.
Re:yes,propriatry Apple is better then propritary (Score:2)
As for full-screen, you can get it if you pay (I know, I know, paying for software is worse than eating babies, but suck it up).
Apple's 'proprietary crap' game is horrible, I agree. Everything they do, from opening the QT file specs up to releasing their streaming server as open-source has been totally anti-consumer. Even their support of MP3 (a very established file format, though not 'open') in the iPod has to be evil somehow, because, well, it just is, right? That ties in somehow with their anticompetetive use of MP3 in iTunes too. They've got to be up to SOMETHING!
Let's face it, Apple is a corporation trying to make money, but as corporations go, I think it's a pretty good one. They're not anti-competetive or anti-consumer. Of COURSE they want people to use their stuff instead of MS's, but that doesn't mean they're evil. If we have to have a dictator, let's have one that likes us, not one that regards us with contempt like Microsoft does.
--Dan
Re:yes,propriatry Apple is better then propritary (Score:2)
which is EXACTLY why quicktime sucks on pc's.
it's the SAME GODDAMN CRAP as why realplayer sucks.
realone lets me at least fullscreen.. and the nasa tv servers that feed in real don't go down everytime there's something intresting..
Re:yes,propriatry Apple is better then propritary (Score:2)
just have your cake and eat it
mplayer [mplayerhq.hu] plays quicktime( even sorensen ), wma, mpeg4, realaudio, just about everything I've tried.. (Fink support missing) Fullscreen, scaled, whatever you wish. And no annoying startcenters, spyware, "register this", "buy the pro version", DRM or any other shit realplayer/quicktime/ms media player player try to stuff in our throat.
Still missing the fink support...
Absolutly nothing. (Score:2)
Not a thing.
Video on cell phones? (Score:1, Funny)
Damn I'm getting old.
Re:Video on cell phones? (Score:1, Insightful)
and they will be trying to see those bikini girls while DRIVING!
Re:Video on cell phones? (Score:2)
The technology is more compelling once you add the hands-free headset.
Incredibly misleading headline (again) (Score:5, Informative)
The headline should be "3GPP Becoming Mobile-Phone Standard", and it's not all that surprising, but it's very good news for everyone (including RealNetworks, where I'm from). We've been doing a lot of work in the 3GPP [3gpp.org], and it's great to see that work paying dividends. If you really want to find out what this stuff is about, look at the spec [3gpp.org] (and yes, I hate the fact that these are Word docs in zipfiles as much as anyone).
.mov, .mp4, and .3gp. DoCoMo's announcement was good news for 3GPP, and given the support throughout the Helix platform for 3GPP formats, codecs, and protocols, we view it as great news for the Helix Community [helixcommunity.org].
Much of the confusion around this subject comes from a lack of understanding of the difference between
As another poster pointed out, only a piece of 3GPP is based on Quicktime is the container file format itself (the bit that says "here's a 3000 byte chunk of data with this 32bit codec identifier"). Another piece (the protocol) is based on work RealNetworks pioneered (RTSP [rtsp.org]). Moreover, the Helix DNA Client [helixcommunity.org] supports the 3GPP specification today.
RealNetworks added MPEG-4 and 3GPP support 10 months ago with the RealSystem Mobile Server (see press release [realnetworks.com]),
and MPEG-4 support will be included in the Helix DNA Server when it is released in the near future.
As for the speculation about Apple releasing 3GPP encoding support, we would welcome them to the party. In early November we announced that a version of our Producer product for creating 3GPP content will ship in Q1 of 03. (see press release [realnetworks.com]) Moreover, we offer our encoding framework as open source (and naturally open APIs) so that you can add support for whatever format you want to. We've given you a head start by implementing Ogg Vorbis support.
Again, the new phones sound great. Lots of new devices for Helix encoders and servers to work with.
Re:Incredibly misleading headline (again) (Score:2, Informative)
Thus, it should be a mobile phone standard (and it is, if you count the hundreds of millions of GSM phones, which standards are being defined by the 3gpp group now)
Video on demand (Score:3, Interesting)
The I-Motion service mentioned in the second article is a video on demand service. What videos would users demand ?
The next paragraph tells us that 100K was the maximum size until now, which results to about 15 seconds of video. The new MP4 standard would allow around 400K or 45 seconds.
You might be able to download a weather report as a video, or the finish of an important car race or something, but I don't see the point of 45 seconds moveis. It's not like you can watch the newest movei on your cellphone (not that I want to) or the news (since that's a little to long)
Re:Video on demand (Score:2)
"blah blah blah Iraq blah blah"
--shot of weapons inspectors looking at pidgeon droppings on the ground--
"Blah, blah flood blah Bangladesh"
--shot of twenty families of ten people sitting on a roof of 4m^2, surrounded by water--
That, and pr0n, of course. Including upskirt movies from your friends made with their camera-phones...killer app, dude.
Re:Video on demand (Score:2)
And still no Linux version (Score:1, Interesting)
Why don't they support the "alternative" OS crowd yet? It's obviously not for technical reasons...
I can only presume Apple thinks Quicktime is so important that Linux users will "switch" to Mac just to just it.
Real Video 9 (Score:5, Interesting)
Real Networks has open sourced some of its code, creating the Helix Community [helixcommunity.org]. Also, the Helix Server is able to stream RealVideo, Quicktime, Windows Media and MPEG-4 from a single server running on a Linux box! Try that with any other server.
Real Video 9, are you insane! (Score:2)
Re:Real Video 9 (Score:2)
Just a note about QT (Score:4, Interesting)
I fully understand these comments, QT on Windows is not too good (although I still prefer it to WMP). So it's so much more of a shame that on OSX QT is a totally different app - it works pretty damn well, and QT6 is fairly remarkably good. I have all three main media players on my Mac, WMP, RealOne, and QT, and you really do notice the difference when you are forced to use WMP or RO, buggy choppy playback now and then, nasty interfaces, streaming doesn't work as well, no instant on streaming etc.
Apparently QT is the number 1 downloaded media player, and this is great, but Apple should get the Windows port up to scratch, and show the Windows guys a little something about Apple's quality.
As for mobile phone related media - I think Apple saw this coming all along, I mean look at their recent courting of Sony Ericsson (sp?) at the Macworld expo, they had the CEO of the group up to talk, and exclusively showed off the T68i. I think Apple wants a piece of this market, and we'll be seeing them diversify more and more (as they have been doing very well recently at both ends of the scale, with the iPod and XServe, both new products in new areas for the company.).
What do you mean? QT or MPEG4? (Score:4, Insightful)
Quicktime 6 is a container format defined by Apple that might be used with a huge number of proprietary codecs, as well as a software infrastructure implementing multimedia encoding, decoding, and transport using that format; saying that something uses "Quicktime 6" doesn't tell you much about whether you can read it or not; it's like knowing that you can plug into a wall socket without knowing that the voltage is right.
MPEG4 generally refers to a specific bitstream based on a specific, standard set of codecs. Apple's Quicktime 6 happens to be able to represent MPEG4, but that's where the relationship ends. The difference between Quicktime 6 and MPEG4 is the difference between being able to encode and decode streams or not.
If phone manufacturers are actually using Quicktime 6, with multiple codecs and all, then that's a major victory for Apple and a major loss for open source and interoperability. If phone manufacturers are actually using MPEG4 but Apple calls it "Quicktime 6" for PR reasons, then that's a major PR victory for Apple, but it is hard to see what that kind of usage of MPEG4 has to do with Apple. In fact, a lot of video-based devices are already using MPEG4.
In fact, the NetworkWorldFusion article suggests that the latter is the case: NTT is switching specifically to MPEG4, not to Quicktime 6. And that's actually good.
Re:What do you mean? QT or MPEG4? (Score:2)
And MPEG4 does have the advantage that it is well and completely documented; the patents covering it will probably only be valid another decade, if that.
Apple (Score:4, Interesting)
All players play mp3z these days. The why choose winamp over sonique? That's why, I think this article makes sense. I would be happier to see quicktime on my mobile, rather than MS.
Re:Apple (Score:2)
What I am usually looking for (and rarely finding) is an AVI/MPEG movie that I can download and play with the *old* windows media player without any streaming.
Quicktime you can download but it is a fairly horrendous client on windows... They do not support rightclick (heritage of the one-button mouse is showing) and they DO NOT DO FULL SCREEN MODE!
Same Crappy Version Control (Score:2)
Ah, so QuickTime and MPEG-4 are not proprietary? (Score:3, Insightful)
MPEG-4 is covered by more patents than the International Space Station. How anyone can call this "open" is beyond me. Maybe it's "open" as in "open your wallet any pay up, damnit!!!"?
But then, I don't get how anyone would want to watch movies on one of those tiny displays knowing that the CPU will drain the batteries within minutes.
Re:Ah, so QuickTime and MPEG-4 are not proprietary (Score:2)
I do support the Quicktme container (Apple got it right the first time) but (unfortunally) I also support MPEG-4. There is no way to get around the patents for video as they extend way too far. VP3 stinks compared to MPEG-4 and other codecs like WMV9 and RealVideo9 either suck and/or are closed tighter than the RIAA's fist on congress. I am giving lots of hope to Tarkin cause just maybe they might pull through with a codec that can compete. Best of luck to them.
As to your last point, people might want to watch a newscast or some other simple video service (a review of a game prehaps?) on thier phones. These services is where video on phones make sense.
The Real Deal on MPEG4 (Score:3, Informative)
Quicktime is not a codec, it's a framework. Much like DirectShow in Windows, it's the video conduit of MacOS.
Quicktime is also a file format. This file format (usually
"Quicktime files" can contain and of a myriad of codecs just like AVIs can. One of these is MPEG4, of which there are a plethora of partially compatible codecs, like DIVX, MS MPEG4, Xvid and ISO MPEG4.
The MPEG people have decided that the universal MPEG4 format should be called
Hope this clears this all up for those of you unwilling to do two seconds of research.
proprietary (Score:2)
Since when is quicktime non-proprietary?
MPEG-4 and Microsoft... (Score:2)
As is just about every major manufacturer [m4if.org] of media player software, OSes, DVD players, cellular phones, and video cameras.
So... they've left themselves an escape route, at the very least. Or perhaps they're just prepared to "embrace, extend, and extinguish" yet another industry standard.
Mixed feelings about this (Score:2)
Why QuickTime? (Score:2)
Why QuickTime? [apple.com]
MPEG4 [apple.com]
Re:QuickTime vs Windows Media (Score:3, Informative)
Re:QuickTime vs Windows Media (Score:2)
Just because it uses an open standard in it's back end, it doesn't mean that the whole thing is open standard. We all have QuickTime installed on any Windows boxes we have, because no other player can use it's formats. That ain't an "open standard".
If it was, I'd have a player that was capable of playing full screen instead, and allowed me to zoom 200% if I wanted, instead of embedding a tiny image on a webpage. Certainly not the extremely limited nagware that is "QuickTime Player".
Re:QuickTime vs Windows Media (Score:2)
Just because you can't play Sorenson encoded
Re:QuickTime vs Windows Media (Score:2)
I don't have any Sorenson ones anyway, so I keep the QuickTime player installed for the occasional small .mov file that gets e-mailed around etc,
Re:What to do!? (Score:5, Informative)
They have full documentation [apple.com] available on the file format [apple.com], and programming applications that use it for both MacOS [apple.com] as well as windows [apple.com].
Heck - when I visited developer.apple.com to pick up the links, their ad was for a 5 volume set [vervante.com] of books on writing programs that use QuickTime.
So, if you don't like it, download the docs, and write your own.
Re:What to do!? (Score:2)
The key part being - once you install QuickTime.
QuickTime would be okayish (still controlled by Apple) if it always used open codecs, but in practice, it never does. Maybe that'll change now with v6, but their behaviour so far indicates that perhaps not. So you still need to license it from them if you want to build an independant implementation.
Re:What to do!? (Score:2)
Two points - 1) Quicktime 6 uses MPEG 4 as the default/preferred codec rather than Sorensen (the proprietary codec everyone loves to hate)
And 2) While it's Apples fault that Sorensen *was* the former default codec it's not *entirely* Apples fault that everybody used it rather than the open alternatives that were available. Using something else was just a matter of selecting it from the pulldown or in the worst case scenario installing the codec and then selecting it from the pulldown. Unfortunately Sorensen was for the most part just plain better. Content creators are interested in file size and image quality, very few are interested in the politics of open source or the fact that the
Re:What to do!? (Score:2)
Re:What to do!? (Score:2)
Re:What to do!? (Score:2)
Sure... and if you don't like the laws, become a congressmen or better yet a president and change them. Or, if you don't like the games in store -- just write your own that's better
This is not a very constructive stance. Very few people will seriously write their own media player. I suspect large percentage of slashdot readers is capable of this, but still few would be willing/able to dedicate the neccesary resources, time and effort. So your suggestion is not very helpful, is it?
Re:What to do!? (Score:2)
For Windows? Grab Apple's windows Quicktime sample code [apple.com] and take a look.
There is source for a player in there, compression programs, effects frameworks, - everything you need to build your own player.
Re:What to do!? (Score:2)
Heh, I don't think that's what the poster had in mind when he said he wanted to make Quicktime take up the full screen.
Re:What to do!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Real [realnetworks.com].
I currently have the Mobile Real One [realnetworks.com] on my Nokia phone (why no cry on slashdot to keep and to keep Real and its proprietary Real Media out of the mobile phones market?).
Unfortunately, none of the UK networks allow UDP in or out on their GPRS connections, so I can't actually stream.
Re:OK, let's share experiences (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is QuickTime the basis for Mpeg-4?
Because it provides a far far richer way to describe a media file.
Personally, I like being able to keep subtitles as a text track embedded in a file, or make simple edits on gigs of source data, and send a 900k file containing the edits to a friend (who already has the source data) rather than have to render the whole sequence out to a flat file.
Re:OK, let's share experiences (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:OK, let's share experiences (Score:4, Informative)
1) As has already been pointed out, they didn't choose Quicktime, they chose MPEG-4.
2) Windows load times are utterly irrelevant to this discussion since we're talking about mobile phones here.
3) The latest version of MPlayer for Linux will play Quicktime (or more accurately, the Sorenson 3 codec), as well as RealVideo9 and WMA9.
Re:OK, let's share experiences (Score:2)
They chose *both* they chose Quicktime as the player software. Apple is actually working with them to write the mobile phone version of the software - AND they are going to be using MPEG-4 as the codec.
Re:OK, let's share experiences (Score:2)
Re:Filter by Editor? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:choosing a standard (Score:2)
Anyways, I don't really have problems with Quicktime in Windows. It hasn't crashed on me or exhibited weird bugs (at least, not as of yet). The only thing that bugs me about it is the inability to keep the player window on top of other apps while it's running.
Re:Which Mpeg4 standard? Caveat Emptor (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Last Post! (Score:2)