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Apple Businesses

Apple Sues Sorenson Over QuickTime Codec 383

Posted by pudge from the gimme-gimme-some-lovin dept.
ScooterComputer writes "According to Bloomberg and a bunch of others, Apple is suing Sorenson over their licensing a codec to Macromedia for Flash MX, for 'developing, marketing, or licensing any version of the compression software used in QuickTime to competitors.' For years we have seen finger pointing going on between Apple and Sorenson as to WHY the Sorenson codec can't make it to the Linux platform... and things usually end with Apple saying it is Sorenson's fault. Well, I'd say Apple lied. So, can we all just start putting big pressure on Apple again to release QuickTime for Linux?" (Reminder to Apple users to visit Slashdot's Apple section for more Apple-related news.)
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Apple Sues Sorenson Over QuickTime Codec More

Apple Sues Sorenson Over QuickTime Codec

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  • A contract's a contract (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Logic Bomb ( 122875 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @05:26PM (#3446703)
    Obviously, some expert is going to have to sit down for the court and determine if the product for QuickTime and the product for Macromedia really are different. But if they're not, Apple has a totally valid lawsuit. A (legal and reasonable) contract is a contract. Apple agreed to pay $4.5 Million based on getting exclusive use of the (very, very good) software. If someone else can use it, that seriously dilutes its value to Apple, and there's no reason for them to have paid so much for it.

    • Re:A contract's a contract (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      But Apple previously claimed otherwise. Apple publicly stated that Sorenson was free to license a Linux player. Seems Apple wants to do a little after-the-fact revision of the terms. If I were the judge (or defendant) in this case, I'd be a little suspicious of Apple's claims...
    • A contract is a contract is a contract... but only between Farengi. :) Maybe Quark was a member of Sorenson's legal team? Big tech companies often exude Farengi-like levels of sleaziness so it wouldn't surprise me...
  • Maybe they should take movie features out of flash, and save us all from intros featureing home video footage of peoples cats....

  • Finger pointing on QuickTime for linux (Score:5, Interesting)

    by eXtro ( 258933 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @05:34PM (#3446760) Homepage
    Sorensen pointed at Apple and Apple in turn pointed at Sorensen. From the sound of things both parties are at "fault". The line from Sorensen has always been that their contract with Apple wouldn't allow them to do it, yet when Macromedia comes by they suddenly feel that they provide the CODEC to them. The only difference that I can see is that Macromedia could provide some financial incentive to violate their contract whereas Linux, or any party selling Linux operating systems couldn't.

    • Re:Finger pointing on QuickTime for linux (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Refrag ( 145266 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @09:19PM (#3447921) Homepage
      Hear, hear.

      This has nothing to do with Apple porting QuickTime to Linux. Apple was reliant on Sorensen for that. Apple's contract with Sorensen wouldn't preclude Sorensen from letting their CODEC be used on Linux as long as it was QuickTime for Linux that using it. Apple gains nothing by refusing to release QuickTime for Linux. Linux users seem to think that Apple is out to spite them for some unknown reason.

  • QuickTime for Linux no longer enough (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AirLace ( 86148 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @05:34PM (#3446763)
    One thing has become very clear in the Linux world over the last couple of years since the dot com bubble burst. Open Source/Free Software is here to stay, and half-way proprietary solutions won't be accepted by the wider community.

    For example, Macromedia have been supplying a Linux Flash client for years, yet it has failed to validify the Flash format as an open standard. It has become a "necessary evil" for sites that feel the need to look 'interactive', but has had minimal market penetration beyond that.

    I don't think that releasing a binary-only QuickTime codec would solve any real problems: Firstly, it wouldn't be distributed with some of the most popular distributions like Debian and Mandrake for philosophical reasons as well as technical reasons -- without source code, there's no way to know that the codec will still work in 2 years or that it'll be made available for new architectures, or that bugs will be promptly fixed. NVidia's proprietary graphics drivers for XFree86 have, for example, backfired in many ways. Far from soliciting support from the community, their consistent failure to release specifications for their hardware has irked and frustrated the wider Linux community (not just the Free Software zealots) to the extent that the Tainting monitor had to be added to the kernel just to track bug reports from users of buggy proprietary kernel modules.

    I'd say that the future lies with open video codecs like VP3 [vp3.com] from On2 Technologies, who've announced that they'll be working with the community to ensure that their next release is LGPL'd and their patents made available in the public domain. This is the kind of codec that should become the de-facto standard on the Web -- not some binary-only QuickTime Sorenson codec that was withheld for years and released begrudgingly. A few years ago, Linux users were quick to praise and embrace vendors of proprietary software who supported Linux, but now, I think the community is big enough to look at the bigger picture and support open standards like VP3 and Ogg that will ensure a more accessible and independent future for Web content in the future.

    • For example, Macromedia have been supplying a Linux Flash client for years, yet it has failed to validify the Flash format as an open standard.

      By "Flash format," I assume you mean SWF (not FLA). SWF version 4 has a publicly available specification. (Read More... [openswf.org]) Do you consider a format not "valid[...] as an open standard" because it hasn't been submitted to an international standards body?

    • Re:QuickTime for Linux no longer enough (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Dr.Dubious DDQ ( 11968 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @06:25PM (#3447163) Homepage

      I find it at once annoying and gratifying at the same time that Sorenson has no problem using Free Software - their website appears to be running Apache with PHP (can't tell what the OS is). Checking the IP addresses, it LOOKS to me like the server is actually physically part of their own network, rather than some outside ISP contracted to host the site for them...

      I agree - I think the future will be with, if not "truly" open codecs, at least "openly available" ones (Sorenson seems to be the ONLY "major" video codec in use that isn't available in some form on Linux - even MPlayer can handle "windows media" files. I suspect if Sorenson would manage to find a loophole in their agreements with Apple (who I think probably considers the popularity of the extra-proprietary "QuickTime with Sorenson" media format to be the biggest thing that they have to fight against "open" systems) and released even a binary-only codec that could be plugged into MPlayer or xanim or whatever, that their popularity would take off, at least in the short term - from what I have heard, that would then give them indisputably the "best" overall video codec that's widely available.

      From what I've seen and heard (which I must confess isn't very much), VP3's quality is about the same as Windows Media (i.e. not that great). I get the impression that there are fewer visible "artifacts" but that the image is somewhat "blurrier". Even so, it'd be nice to see VP3/Vorbis in .ogg files become popular, just so that there'd be a completely "open" standard available to build from for video "content"...

      • This story's now off of the main page, so I don't know if anyone will see it, but here goes:

        I actually got a decent reply from the PR department at Sorenson in response to my question - I had asked them about what was preventing them from making even a binary-only decoder module available for something besides Windows/Mac...

        The answer was interesting - as expected, the exclusivity agreements with Apple prevented them from making it available at all unless Apple wanted it done. Interestingly enough, though, the I was ALSO told that The exclusivity agreement in question expired last month (which may have something to do with the timing of Apple's lawsuit?) and that they are in negotiation with Apple about renewal, and if Apple doesn't renew, they'll be able to make the codec available, at least for licensing if nothing else.

        I've got to give Sorenson this much credit, at least: their reply was prompt, polite, and informative, which gives me some hope for their future...

    • You seem to have the illusion that Apple actually gives a shit about the Linux community. No company is going to do something "for the good of the community" if they're not going to make money off it. If Apple's not going to make money off releasing a piece of software that maybe 50% of the Linux community will use, they won't do it. Thing is, Sorenson is used for many more things than home video playback. It's a very professional piece of software which underwent many hours of engineering. Apple/Sorenson is NOT going to release the source code to that just to please some Open Source zealots because it would provide much more detriment to them as a business than benefit.

      Yes, maybe these codecs you mention should become standard. But they probably won't, because the other 90% of the computing world that doesn't really care about Linux already has good codecs. MP3 works just fine, Windows users aren't going to move to Ogg. Nor are they going to move to VP3 if Sorenson and DivX/3ivx work fine. The "computing world" is not synonymous with Linux, hell, most of the "computing world" doesn't know what Linux really is; it's just a buzzword to them. The computing world is driven by companies with money, not geeks with dreams and ideals.
      • I have a partial solution to this. If a distro like Red Hat pays Apple a huge sum of money, then Apple could release an open-source player, with closed codecs.

        I doubt Apple would want to do this, they want to make every app with high standards. Even quicktime for windows is nicely written, they wouldn't port it over to Linux if it would be unsupported and buggy and unstable. Only a year or two ago they took to a public beta, but everything else shoots for quality.

    • Ogg Vorbis... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Cryptnotic ( 154382 )
      Ogg Vorbis is NOT an open standard. There is no standards document for Ogg Vorbis bitstreams beyond the framing layer. The only "standard" is the Xiph source code, which is hardly readable and is controlled by Xiph. At least with MPEG you can buy the standards documents and independantly implement your own compatible code. With Ogg Vorbis, you have to emulate their code, bug for bug.

      • mod down - clueless (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Ender Ryan ( 79406 )
        There was a recent thing about this, and in response to some criticisim someone from Xiph responded and let everyone know that a standards document WILL BE RELEASED and hasn't yet BECAUSE THE STANDARD HAS NOT BEEN COMPLETELY FINALIZED, they don't even have a complete draft of it for their own use.

        And of course, if you are so worried about it, you can offer to help them.

        • That's great. Except no one should have adopted it without a specification. And no one did adopt it, except for personal use. No corporations adopted it for use in commercial hardware products.

          My prediction is that either Ogg Vorbis will "go away" since no one will be able to use it with a portable device, or Xiph will release a specification and the world will discover that their techniques are in fact infringing on Fraunhofer's patents.

        • Re:mod down - clueless (Score:2, Insightful)

          by alanh ( 29068 )
          This leads to the question: what are they implementing if they don't have a design? How can they implement something if they don't have a reference to go by? This is a poor design methodology for large and complex projects. Sure, it works fine if you're just coding up a something small and straight forward, but audio encoding is a complex task. If you don't have a standard, how do you know if something is a bug or a feature? Documentation isn't something that's just going to magically appear once you have an implentation.


          The criticisms of Xiph's progress with Ogg Vorbis are spot on.

    • Re:QuickTime for Linux no longer enough (Score:4, Informative)

      by Refrag ( 145266 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @09:32PM (#3447955) Homepage
      QuickTime [apple.com] is not a codec. QuickTime is a multimedia container format. The QuickTime format has been standardized as the file format for MPEG4.

      Additionally, Apple provides Darwin Streaming Server [apple.com] as an open source project.

      Open Source Versatility

      While QuickTime Streaming Server is designed for Mac OS X Server, it's also available as an open source server called Darwin Streaming Server. Versions are available for Linux, Solaris and Windows NT/2000. And because it's an open source technology, Darwin Streaming Server can be ported to other platforms by modifying a few platform-specific source files.

      However, hopefully Apple's licensing difficulties with MPEG4 LA will persuade them to pay more attention to the various Ogg codecs.

  • broadening qt technology (Score:5, Interesting)

    by azosx ( 568180 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @05:36PM (#3446775)
    Being a new Mac user, I have become increasingly aware that most online media content, wheather streaming or downloadable is now in WM or RM format. This is unfortunate for us OS X users because Windows Media Player is crap and Real Player is non existant (unless using OS 9). You would think anything that would make QuickTime technology more widely distributed would be beneficial to Apple. Apparently they don't really care what happens to QT considering QuickTime 6 is way over due.
    • Agreed. While Quicktime is an awesome format in many ways, it's becoming less and less popular. DIVX seems to be dominating these days in terms of video and this is packaged inside AVIs. Unfortunately, there's a bug in QT5 for OSX and it often can't extract the audio track from AVIs. This means that even though a DIVX codec exists for OSX, it's a huge pain to get them working right with QuickTime.

      Also, Apple seems to be very profit-driven when it comes to QuickTime. Case in point, the Star Wars trailers require QT5 Pro (the non-free version) to view the "Large" movies. I'm highly doubtful that there is any technical reason for this; it seems to be a flimsy marketing tactic. Apple's just using its clout to push people into upgrading to the Pro version.

      I'm a big fan of Macs and Apple in general, but I'm becoming more and more disillusioned. I sure hope they clean up their act and focus on quality software instead of MS-like tactics.
      • In this economy, you really have to be profit-driven simply to survive. I'm as annoyed at that "Upgrade to QuickTime Pro!" box as you are, especialy since I own Final Cut Pro 3, which is supposed to hold in it a complimentary edition of same.

        But I am resigned to today's reality. It's not as fun as reality from a few years back, but, well, we're living it.

        D
        • I'm as annoyed at that "Upgrade to QuickTime Pro!" box as you are, especialy since I own Final Cut Pro 3

          My copy of Final Cut pro 3 came with a quicktime pro registration code.
          It was on the same sticker sheet as the code for Final Cut Pro 3 itself.
          Are you sure yours didn't come with one?
      • The AVI problem comes from the fact that there are actualy 2 versions of the avi format. There's the windows version, and then there is the short lived mac version (which is the only one of which there is a mac CODEC). Anyways, as for Divx if you check this site
        Divx 5.0 [divx.com]
        • sorry, hit the wrong button. Anyways, if you pick up the codec from that site. The new Divx CODEC allows for direct Divx viewing within quicktime. No external player nessesary. And if that isn't the one, I have the one that works, just ask me. The only problem is the WMA soundtrack seems to play faster than the video on some computers, this problem is solved by simply extracting the audio track (no time at all, once the file is open, it extracts in a second, and since you most likely have the file open already, and then, just set the video track ahead slightly (however much the video is normal behind by) and select play all movies. It isn't pretty, but they're working on a fix.
      • I'm highly doubtful that there is any technical reason for this; it seems to be a flimsy marketing tactic.
        The technical reason for this is that you're using more of their bandwidth with the large movies than you are with the smaller movies. Since you aren't paying for your use of their bandwidth, the least you can do is pay a paltry $29.99 for QuickTime Pro [apple.com].

  • Hardly (Score:2, Insightful)

    by macdaddy ( 38372 )
    I hardly think we can blame Apple for this. Sure they don't have a Linux version of Quicktime yet. But think about it. Does anyone else have a Linux version of *their* media player? Does Real or M$? What about Vivo? I hardly think we can blame Apple for not wanting to spend the resources on a port just yet. Resellers are starting to ship Linux on desktops now. Give the world a chance to catch up.

    Also if Sorenson did breach the contract then they should be sued. I see no room for anyone to bitch given what little we know.

    • Does anyone else have a Linux version of *their* media player? Does Real or M$?

      Yes, and yes. Real player for Linux is available, and at one point in time, there was even a Media Player for Linux available from MS. The MS player is, as far as I know, gone now though :)
    • Real has Linux drivers, and I've even been able to use it to watch my secret shame (the US version of Big Bother) until they started charging for the feed.

      I wouldn't describe the Linux driver as particularly good, but from what others said it isn't much worst than the Windows version. That's why I didn't pick up the MLB baseball season ticket (which would have gotten me BB for half the price advertised) I have a cable modem connection, but the quality of the image just wasn't acceptable.

    • Re:Hardly (Score:4, Informative)

      by JesseL ( 107722 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @05:56PM (#3446939) Homepage Journal

      Actually, Real does [com.com].

    • Re:Hardly (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ediron2 ( 246908 )
      I hardly think we can blame Apple for this. Sure they don't have a Linux version of Quicktime yet. But think about it. Does anyone else have a Linux version of *their* media player?

      Real and Flash play on linux, too. Hell, there's software for Linux for CREATING Real audio files and streams. And it's also command-line driven, which was seriously cool when I needed Linux scripting power. And there are lots of compatible players for many other multimedia formats... but QT for Linux is a no-go, as far as I've been able to find.

      "Yet"? "Apple doesn't have a quicktime player YET"?! That's rich. What are they, um... SIX versions behind now?! Jeez, a roomful of monkeys and an infinite supply of cheesie-poofs would have generated a semiworking first version by now if Apple wanted it to. Occam's razor says they're not trying.

      Why's it matter? Well, a port would:

      • possibly help in market share (taken from microsoft *OR* Unix/Linux),
      • reinforce an Apple protocol, and in turn weaken further growth of WMP,
      • be similar enough to osX to not be THAT hard to port,
      • increase adoption of a standard that has the best development tools available on Macintoshes (thus selling developer hardware),
      • avoid marginalization when websites pick 'universal' codexes for deploying trailers and ads and other multimedia files.

      In this same vein, I'm personally a bit relieved that Microsoft has chosen to avoid supporting Linux for their WMP/wimpy format. Between that and XP's anti-piracy mechanism, MS is only hurting themselves in the long run, which is good for the competition.

      BTW, I love Apple. But I'm not delusional about their methodology. They're like Brain, trying to take over the world, but lacking the grasp of one fundamental detail: Apple can't conquer anything with just 5-7% market penetration.

    • Macromedia seems to have a Flash player [macromedia.com] available for Linux (Clicking on the link will give you the option to download Flash 5 for Linux if you're running under it...)

  • In the meantime... (Score:4, Informative)

    by dimator ( 71399 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @05:39PM (#3446803) Homepage Journal
    I feel dirty for doing it, but I use the crossover plugin [codeweavers.com] to view quicktime movies (as well as windows media crap). In my experience, it has worked extremely well, and the installation is a snap!

    • I did. Did anyone notice the blurb under this one on the actual press releases page? Quote, with emphasis mine:

      04-22-2002
      Sorenson Media, the leading provider of high-quality video compression software and delivery services, announced today that Sorenson Squeeze for Macromedia Flash MX and Sorenson Squeeze for QuickTime are now available for Macintosh OS 9.2 and OS X.

      Interesting. Make what you will of that little tidbit.

      Soko

  • Woohoo (Score:2, Informative)

    by PepsiProgrammer ( 545828 )
    Wouldent it be nice if Flash was abolished all-together, then maybe we wouldent have stupid people making sites with 5 minute non-relatvent logos taking 3 hours to load on dial up out here on the outskirts of nowhere.
    • What we really need is the W3C [w3.org] standard SVG [w3.org] to catch on and replace flash.
      Then you could just write a simple XSL-T to weed out the crap and get you directly to the good stuff, while the easily impressed could still see their pretty vector graphics.
  • My opinion is that putting pressure on Apple won't have any affect. Apple is pushing their own Unix and is probably not interested to make a QT plugin for thrird party Unix. Availability of Linux for PPC is probably a threat (or more like a bug) in their eyes and supporting Linux would be probably inappropriate and agains bussines nature in their eyes.

    Mod me up, if I'm getting it wrong!
    • O dear, O dear.

      I'm not going to bother trying to put pressure on Apple. They were my favorite computer, but that was a very long time ago.

      FWIW, I have this weekend recommended a Mac to a friend who may buy it. If he asks me again this weekend ... he may not. I was considering getting a Mac OS X for my wife. Now I'm thinking about getting her a Linux box. My brother was asking me about computers, and may be getting ready for a purchase. I'm no longer likely to recommend Apple.

      I don't like companies that think with their lawyers. Apple has always had a tendency in that direction (I remember how difficult it was to move files from AppleBasic even to text. [I was converting them over to UCSD Pascal.] Silly, arbitrary restrictions.), and I guess that they haven't improved with time. Pity. Darwin had given me hope for them.

      Much of what Apple has had going for it is the good will it developed by being a holdout against MS. But if they want to squander it, that's their business.

      I doubt that I'll ever think as harshly about Apple as I do about MS, but that's because I doubt that I'll ever let them into the position where they can do me as much harm. (MS has cost me a couple of thousand dollars, even if they never saw much of that money. Basically in writeoffs of abandoned software. With Apple I used it until it wore out (essentially... the computer didn't get any faster and the competition did. But the software wouldn't transfer the the more recent versions of the OS.).

      • Dude, how do you know Sorenson didn't just violate Apple's contract, and that Sorenson is ruining Apple's chance to stop Windows Media from conquering all?

        Apple is still the same for me, and I do like what they're doing in hardware and software.

        • I'm sorry. I don't like law suit happy companies. If Apple has a case that can stand to be heard in public, then let them make it and perhaps I'll change my mind. Until then, I'm going to assume that they are just getting law suit happy again.

          N.B.: AGAIN! This isn't the first time Apple has used its weight to crush someone. So now they are presumed guilty unless they bother to demonstrate otherwise.

  • "Competing" products? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ZiZ ( 564727 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @05:54PM (#3446922) Homepage
    From the text at Bloomberg: ...[QuickTime] allows users to watch movies on personal computers. Macromedia has a competing product called Flash Player.

    Hm. Last I checked, Quicktime and Flash occupied rather different niches in the "things move on your screen" realm of the world. Quicktime is a movie and, to a lesser extent, audio format. Flash is a vector-graphics animation and interaction product that just happens to have support for raster graphics, sounds, and now movies. Even with movie support in Flash, I wouldn't use it to /play/ movies....

    • Quicktime is a movie and, to a lesser extent, audio format.

      NO.

      QuickTime is a time-based architecture for working with objects and events. It's also an authoring environment. Nothing constricts QuickTime to working only with video, animation, or audio. It is not simply a 'movie' format. If you really believe this, I urge you to read some of the technical documentation on Apple's developer site.

      QuickTime can handle a number of media formats through extensible codecs.

      Products like Director and Flash have always made Apple a little nervous, even as they've brought users to the platform. .

  • Does this mean that if/when Macromedia gets FlashMX on Linux, we now have a useable library to build a native Sorenson video player on Linux? It seems like the library could be reversed engineered so that calls to the decoder can be used. Just speculation, I guess it depends on how the .so file is layed out.
    • No. The codec in Flash is Spark, which is derived from H.263. It's very different from Sorenson Video 3, and their decoders are radically different.

      Among other things, Spark was designed for the decoder to be fast (even on StrongARM and other non-desktop processors), small, and portable. Sorenson Video 3 was designed for high compression efficiency. Sorenson Video 3 looks a lot better than Spark at moderate data rates because it didn't have to make the same tradeoffs. However, Flash MX will play in all kinds of places that QuickTime won't.

  • This doesn't mean Apple lied. Duh! (Score:5, Informative)

    by solios ( 53048 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @06:02PM (#3446991) Homepage
    Sheesh. You'd be hard pressed to find more sensationalistic headlines in the Weekly World News.

    Anyway, here's what's likely the case: Apple developed Quicktime. Sorenson developed Codec. Apple asked Sorenson if they could include their codec in the next QT release (which would have been 4.0, I believe). And had them sign a little piece of paper. Likewise, Sorenson had their own little pieces of paper for Apple to sign.

    The default Sorenson codec in Quicktime Pro compresses like ass- you get small files, but the color shits out. If you want it to NOT shit out, you have to pay Sorenson a chunk of cash for a media key to plug into its little panel in the QT setup controls. Pain in the ass, but it doesn't prevent you from viewing "properly" encoded "pro" files- like the Star Wars trailers.

    Since you don't have to pay to play Sorenson files, and you do have to pay to encode them properly... and 99% of the productivity apps that produce video run on MacOS and Windows (re: NOT Linux)... what incentive does Sorenson have to port the codec? The likelihood of securing any form of revenue stream on a Linux port of Quicktime is pretty shitty, at best.

    So Sorenson has their own legal BS with Apple, and Apple likely has a different legal BS going on with Sorenson. Probably something along the lines of "exclusive". Which explains why Apple is pissed at them. I can't blame them at all- Macromedia has been even more sluggish about porting to OS X than Adobe has, and the fact that FlashMX includes the ability to run video may be something of an issue of "percieved competition".
    • Since you don't have to pay to play Sorenson files, and you do have to pay to encode them properly... and 99% of the productivity apps that produce video run on MacOS and Windows (re: NOT Linux)... what incentive does Sorenson have to port the codec?

      They don't have to port it. They simply need to allow it to be ported, as a player, to linux. Right now my friends make vids using Macs, and I cannot view them using linux. I have legally obtained copyrighted material, and due to patent protection I cannot look at it unless I buy Windows or MacOS. There is something fundamentally wrong with that. It is a form of collusion to keep linux out of the desktop space.
      • I really doubt it's an active conspiracy on Apple's part - the software business is at best a shaky balancing act: R&D vs. ROI.

        The return on porting or allowing Quicktime to be ported to Linux would be nil - there aren't enough Linux users who would be willing to BUY the QT player to make it pan out on the R&D end.

        Second, the goodwill generated would be short-term at best, since the most vocal Linux users don't want anything to do with commercial software. It's hard to justify providing a product to someone for free when the loudest barking dogs are barking at you.

        Then again, it could be a conspiracy - but Apple is under no obligation to provide ANY tools to Linux users, since that could hurt their own bottom line with OSX.

        When it comes down to it, Linux on the desktop has yet to prove that it can generate a long-term sustainable business model, except in a few limited instances. Things are going well on the server side, but the desktop is headed in so many directions, it's impossible to tell who's on top and therefore deserves the largest chunk of development money.

  • I run QuickTime on Linux. (Score:3, Informative)

    by codeguy007 ( 179016 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @06:06PM (#3447016)
    With CodeWeaver's CrossOver Plugin, you can run Quicktime 5 and Windows Media Player 6.4 under Linux. Now it isn't free but you can purchase it for $24.95.

    Check Out http://www.codeweavers.com/home/

  • Flash MX Could Kill QuickTime Player (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DoenerMord ( 21821 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @06:15PM (#3447088)
    I recently attended a FlashMX presentation from Macromedia and left amazed that Sorenson was bundled within the application itself. Essentially all your website users need is the Flash 6 plug-in to be able to view Sorenson-encoded movies in a Flash file. Only after seeing the lawsuit did I realize how harmful this could be to Apple's QuickTime technology. I hope for Apple's sake that they have a good exclusive contract in place...

    My company is looking to use FlashMX's video capabilities *specifically* because then users won't have to download the QuickTime plug-in as well. This attitude could seriously be a detriment to Apple's already-struggling fight against Real and Windows Media Player. Even if the quality is better, this is just another reason to not download their plug-in.

  • These codecs are not the same (Macromedia) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nedron ( 5294 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @06:35PM (#3447229) Homepage
    According to Sorenson, the codec they provided to Macromedia is not the same codec they developed for Apple. According to Sorenson, the codec they developed for Macromedia is for relatively low bandwidth applications, while the codec for Apple was designed for the best quality for visual media (movies, trailers, etc.) on the web.

    I always enjoy any QuickTime article on Slashdot because it invariably turns into some big debate on why Apple is deliberately keeping Sorenson from licensing the codec to Linux developers, blah, blah, blah.

    First off, Apple claims to have an exclusive license to what are commonly known as the Sorenson and Sorenson 3 codecs. Even if Apple decided to waive their exclusive right to this codec, who in the Linux world could afford the licensing fee that would have to be paid to Sorenson? Mark Podlipec? I doubt he has the (undoubtedly) thousands of dollars the license would cost.

    As to the vast market available for a native Linux version of the QT player, that's relatively unimportant to Apple. They make their money on the production tools. So, for a platform to be attractive to Apple, it's one that production houses would be using day to day to produce content.

    For now, there is no real content creation platform on Linux (and I'm not talking about digital animation or rendering).

    • Production tools (Score:2, Interesting)

      by NaCh0 ( 6124 )
      Apple is hurting themselves in the production tools market by not having a linux player. I'm in a position where I recommend technology. I'm also a linux user. I'm fully aware that some movie formats will play on linux (MPEG/DIVX/Real) while others (Windows media, Quicktime) will not. I don't really care much of the reason why apple and microsoft don't release native linux players. The bottom line is that they are NOT there. So of course, I will be recommending against the QT and WMF technology in favor of something that WILL run on linux.

      (And yes I know about the crossover plugin. Its a good tool, but I prefer active support rather than being a 3rd class citizen.)

      • Re:Production tools (Score:3, Interesting)

        by statusbar ( 314703 )
        Absolutely.

        In my opinion there will NEVER be a 'standard' internet video stream format until there is a free-as-in-speech codec available for all platforms.

        Until then, the potential capabilities of streaming internet video will continue to be unrealized.

        MS and QT are too closed, and the Real server is way too expensive.

        It is not rocket science anymore.

        --Jeff++
      • It's interesting, because the only format that is readily playable on all platforms that I use (OS X, Linux, Solaris, Win32, OS/2) is MPEGI, yet you rarely see anyone post MPEGI files.

        Before anyone jumps in with "but what about format Z", note that I said readily playable. This means I only have to download a legally licensed app without having to search out some oddball DLL that is only available on a changing series of east European servers.

  • It's *NOT* Quicktime in Flash MX (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Macromedia contracted with Sorenson to *create* a special codec for Flash. The codec used in Flash 6 plugin (Flash MX is the authoring environment) weighs in under 80k and is called Spark.

    Here's why I think Apple is throwing a fit though... in a few months MM will release a linux version of the Flash 6 plugin and suddenly you have the ability to play movies on *all* platforms that has *no* visible branding on it. Think about it, the only way you see that Flash is Flash is by right-clicking on it. You can brand it to look like whatever you'd like. Suddenly... why bother with Real, Quicktime, or WMP for streaming video when you can do it all and lots more with a tool that costs less than $500? Hmmm...
  • ...for the OS/2 version they promised about 7 years ago!
  • Even as someone who might be called a "Mac zealot", I can see how QuickTime for Linux would make some sense. Linux is probably a growing market in the viedo industry, and there's at least some hope in expanding as a desktop OS.

    On the other hand, I've heard folks from the QuickTime team claim that not supporting Linux isn't really a political issue, as many seem to believe, but simply a matter of not being attractive enough of a market to spend man hours for. After all, outside of Slashdot, Linux users represent a very small group of computer users, and there aren't significant enough reasons for Apple to port QuickTime over.

  • QuickWhat? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tcc ( 140386 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @10:36PM (#3448171) Homepage Journal
    Why downloading a overbloated system that kills CPU usage and hogs down the system (on PC that is) like media player 7 and above does, if you could have it in a tightly optimized and efficient distributed way? I say: go macromedia.

    Flash is everywhere, like it or not, and they do a good job at porting the plugin to a lot of platforms (even if it's not EVERYWHERE yet) Like it or not, if you surf the web a lot, you hit flash content, the plugin is small, you don't need a 5MB download and install and useless clugging down just to view one file once in a while.

    Most of the people on windows are downloading quicktime to almost exclusively view movies encoded with that sorenson coded, mainly because most of all of the other codecs supplied by apple sucks (exept the dv).

    I mean, most of them are about the quality of microsoft AVI RLE encoding (aside from the mjpeg and mpeg and dv and anythign high bandwidth that isn't impressive over the net). I do a lot of video editing, I did codec research and analysis a few years ago, made codec-buster files and evaluated most of them with their strong and weak points, if apple would want quicktime to take off and become useful on something other than a Mac, they would have to bring in big guns. Sorenson is nice but it's not even close to DIVX in quality and performance (try playing a quicktime movie at 1280x960 for example, and feel the jerking and all). Why download a 20megs movie preview if you can fit it in 5 megs with about the same quality? that's an extra 4:1 compression (I'm talking roughly here and not considering the time of encoding and all).

    Usually if I want to distribute a movie on PC with the maximum quality at lowest bitrate possible, I think DIVX. If I want to distribute cross-platform, with no hassles, MPEG comes to mind. there are VERY good mpeg encoders and if you know what you are doing and how mpeg works, you can output VERY nice results taking minimal bandwidth and competing directly with realvideo (well for anything above 80x80 like most people like encoding in RV). The BIG problem with mpeg movies, is the people encoding them. They hack a cable signal to their tv tuner and encode without knowing what an I-frame is and where they could cut off or optimize the bandwidth usage. The result? most mpeg movies on the net sucks and gives a bad name to mpeg.

    I think most people that have basic video codec knowledge here aren't impressed by sorenson, especially when leeching a 20+ meg movie trailer for the resolution it gives, at these file size we're used to double of that resolution with about the same quality when using PC codecs like mpeg-4 based.

    Yeah quicktime 6 will have mpeg-4 I know, good for them, but too late, DIVX got the crown there, plus it's EFFICIENT, I can watch HDTV video on my athlon with that beast.

  • Folks,

    For those curious about the details of the technologies in question, here goes. FWIW, I was a beta tester for both codecs, have taught classes with them, and cover them both extensively in my forthcoming book.

    Sorenson currently sells two different codecs, Sorenson Video 3.1 Pro, and Spark Pro, both bundled with versions of their Squeeze encoding tool.

    Sorenson Video 3.1 Pro is an advanced version of an encoder/decoder built into QuickTime. It's an excellent codec, with good compression efficiency, a B-frame mode that dramatically improves QuickTime streaming, and many other groovy features. All versions of Sorenson Video are QuickTime only.

    Sorenson has also had a MPEG-4 codec in beta for forever (I did the first public demo of it back at QuickTime Live 2000). MPEG-4 is a superset of "baseline" H.263 (an older standard codec, designed for video conferencing), and any MPEG-4 decoder is required to also play back baseline H.263. Sorenson's MPEG-4 encoder includes a baseline H.263 encoder as well, so you can use the codec to make files compatible with H.263 decoders as well (like the Java Media Framework).

    The Spark codec, which Sorenson licensed to Macromedia, and Spark Pro, the advanced encoder version included in Sorenson's Squeeze for Flash MX encoding tool, are derived from H.263, based on Sorenson's work with the MPEG-4 codec. Spark Pro is enormously better than the plain Spark incoder built into Flash - that one doesn't even let you specify a data rate.

    I haven't read Apple's complaint, but I'd guess that they're alleging that parts of Sorenson Video were used to develop the Sorenson MPEG-4 codec, and which in turn wound up in Spark, which was licensed to Macromedia. I have no idea if this actually happened, or whether or not it would be permitted under their contract if it did.

    Both codecs do have a number of features in common, like a configurable threshold for automatic keyframe insertion, an optional image smoothing (deblocking) filter on decode, and 2-pass VBR encoding.

    Anyway, knowing as much as I do about these codecs, I feel completely unqualified to have an opinion on the legal merits of this case.

    Hope this helped clarify things slightly.

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