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Why Hasn't Apple Released Quicktime For UNIX?
"There are a couple of solutions to this. The Open-Source xanim software already contains support for the QuickTime file format, and has an API for importing CODECs in binary format. If Apple doesn't want to release the source code to the Sorenson CODEC (which is understandable given the competitive market they're in at the moment), and if they don't want the cost and headache of supporting an additional product for the last 15% of so of the market, they can release the Sorenson CODEC in binary form using that API and let the Open Source process go the rest of the way towards enabling Linux to play QuickTime 4.
There's a better solution, though: Darwin is based on BSD UNIX; Apple is now full of UNIX developers. You can't convince me that there isn't already a version of the QT player with an Xwindows GUI compiled and floating around inside Apple; The absence of a UNIX player in that kind of development environment just doesn't make sense. So how close is it to release?
Let's find out: What pressure can we apply to Apple to let them know that there's sufficient demand for them to release the software?"
So put up, or shut up.
Of course, the panorama is only a picture of my studio and "Dog" is a good song (sort of an instrumental groove jam with a happy upbeat feel, tight and gutsy) but that still fits in very nicely with my sense of what these divergent formats are for. I would be dismayed if the Quicktime media was getting all the downloads, as again it's closed and I don't like encouraging that.
Speaking of encouraging, I've been feeding my karma account (no not Slashdot karma, general karma) by making samples to share with other artists at mp3.com, sort of in a musician-style open source spirit. If any slashdotters want them, a highlight is the drum samples I made, those are at http://www.airwindows.com/studio/DrumSounds.zip and could come in handy. Hope people enjoy them, they're darn good samples :)
However, I have the file relegated to a text link, because I'm not about to go embedding it in my page- I don't consider it right to imply that Quicktime is part of the normal web browsing experience, any more than WMP should be. So my 'extended media' sits under a text link like the sideshow it basically is.
For my music I go with mp3, with a vengeance. (and actually it's doing real well- I've been doing some instrumental pieces, and my bouncy rocking instrumental "Dog" is beating Carmine Appice w. Richie Sambora, and another track of Carmine Appice with Brian May, in the charts! www.mp3.com/ChrisJ) So I'm really pushing mp3 hard- and mpeg in general, in fact I had some video clips on my site and pulled the Sorenson Quicktimes leaving only the abbreviated, hacked ASTARTE-demo mpegs up even though they could only run a few seconds.
Speaking of which- thank you Millenium *rejoice rejoice* for tipping me off to Movie2MPEG! Made my day- I really _needed_ that! I'm going to see if I can re-do some of my video stuff using this.
So basically, my position is this: I like Quicktime, I use it for authoring, but I'm very reluctant to publish in it. Why? Not quality, it's better than MPEG and does amazing things many of which I understand and can use. It's that it's not open- and I just can't support that in a format. It's as bad as using Word format....
"Elementary, my dear Watson. We simply write our own CODEC, open source of course, and include a copy of the decoder in Netscape. We'll use the top of the line audio CODECS, such as MP4, and derive a new, high-quality video CODEC. Our system will become the de-facto standard, because most people will have a copy. After that, Apple will simply have no choice but to release the source for Quicktime, or risk watching it die."
"But Holmes! Video CODECS are so hard to develop!"
"We've some of the premiere mathematicians from a wide range of Universities and corporations, who could assist us in our quest. None of these corporationshas a vested interest in paying someone else for something they could obtain for essentially nothing. Besides! It would be a good mental exercise for the community."
"Where do you suggest they start, though?"
"Oh, Watson, Watson! Think, man! You're trying to compress natural images. Natural images can be defined as regions of similar colour, and regions of shade. By reducing the image to a grey-scale picture, a set of colour maps, a set of brightness maps, a set of contrast maps and an index of where the maps are overlayed, you've vastly simplified the image. Each of the maps can be compressed using delta shift encoding, because they'll all be very similar. You should be able to run-length what's left. The grey-scale picture could probably be compressed in any number of ways, including MPEG, or some lossless format. A lot of the more important information will already have been extracted, so it doesn't matter if you lose a bit. The locations of where the maps are overlayed won't take any serious amount of space, so that can be ignored."
"Wonderful, Homes! I didn't understand a word of it."
"That's quite alright, Watson. I didn't, either. Computers won't be invented for another 75 years, and computer graphics of this kind will take another 50 years to become of serious interest to the average person. Even with my great intellect, I cannot deduce the requirements of technology 125 years in the future."
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Ummm... RealMedia and QuickTime are direct competitors. The chances of Real agreeing to licence their codec to Apple are somewhat less than zero. Out in the real world, competition exists and commercial organizations actually protect their intellectual property.
Don't be so sure about those odds. Already MS and Real have licensed each other's codecs for the next releases of their respective software. Why, then, would Apple's chances be any less?
MPEG playback in software has become possible with the hardware of the last six months or so. MPEG encode (to any decent quality) still really require dedicated hardware. I imagine this is one of the reasons Apple has not gone down this path yet.
Strange... I've been doing both of those just fine with a 2-year-old G3. QuickTime has supported software MPEG playback since version 2.5, which is at least three years old.
QUICKTIME IS NOT A CODEC.
QUICKTIME IS NOT A CODEC.
Go write that on the chalkboard five thousand times. If I see one more post mistaking QuickTime for a codec....
Now, what is QuickTime, since it's not a codec? The answer is that it's a media layer. Video is what it's famous for, but that's only one part of it. It also does sound, images, and a fair amount of other cool stuff.
Apple could Open-Source this with little trouble, actually. It actually has to a small extent; the open MPEG4 standard has a file format based on QuickTIme's. What gives QuickTime its "IP value" are the codecs involved. I'd like to see those Open-Sourced, but let's be realistic; Apple isn't do that. But they could still release these as binary plug-ins (they already do this with the Intel codecs on MacOS and Windows, so it's certainly possible and wouldn't even disrupt the current QuickTime structure). One would think they might be convinced to even Open-Source some of their older codecs, like the Animation and Video ones, though that isn't as certain.
An Open-Source QuickTime would be a Very Good Thing for Unix/Linux/whatever. It would provide the DE's (Gnome, KDE, and whatever else might come up in the future) with a very versatile and proven media layer. It would also help to create an open standard for such things.
Oh, and for those who gripe about the QT4 interface, three points...
- Yes, the current interface does suck. Talk about form without function.
- The OSX version is much-improved; check out this page for a screenshot of the OSX player (basically, QT4 minus the fluff and with the volume thumbwheel replaced by a slider again).
- QuickTime is only an API; it's not hard to code a new player. If you use QuickTime's default controls, in fact, you have the old QT3 interface.
But anyway, that's enough of my rant. There are really only a few more things I'd like to see in QuickTime anyway...- MPEG2 and MPEG4 support. There's particularly no excuse not to have MPEG4, seeing as it's based off of QuickTime's file format for crying out loud.
- RealMedia support. Real's servers use RTSP, which QuickTime already supports, so it's just a matter of licensing the codec.
- MPEG (and hopefully MPEG2/MPEG4) export. As it is, the only reason I can think of for it not being in there would be if Astarte and HEURIS are paying Apple not to put it in, so they can keep charging obscene prices for their own encoders ($400 for Astarte's M.PACK). Still, there's always Movie2MPEG (an OSS encoder for MacOS). It's very slow but it gets the job done.
Those, plus the Open-Sourcing of at least the layer (if not the codecs) would just be icing on the cake.Don't think so. From the xanim homepage:
I have contacted Sorenson about licensing their codec. They responded that Apple won't allow them to license it to others.
It's currently fashionable to think of Apple as the anti-Microsoft, and thus the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Unfortunately, I see little evidence that that's the case.
We do this sort of software well. What is holding us back here seems to be patent and trade-secret issues.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Apple is not the anti-Microsoft in that they are both companies, and not charities. It's within the realm of capitalism that Apple should be judged. From that aspect, they're very much not Microsoft.
They'd have to gain around 8X the marketshare for that to happen.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
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Anyone ever find themselves wondering why Xerox didint flat out sue the shit out of Apple in the 80's?
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Um, Xerox got paid with Apple stock.
And I recall that Xerox did sue them - it had something to do with not getting as much money as they wanted or something.
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Embrace OSS? Apple has sued for Look and Feel issues several times
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Spend a few million developing a unique user interface and see how much you like someone copying it bit for bit. If Apple releases something to the open-source community, it should be on their terms. It is a gift, nothing more.
I just don't see why people think free code is a right, when it is very much a privilege. When a company gives something like that away, they are basically providing thousands of man-hours of work free to the community. It's their technology, and their right to keep some of it for themselves.
That's how companies stay in business, you know. Don't blame Apple if they've finally learned how not to make stupid business decisions.
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AppleII4VR
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Ahh, yes. Now I see why you posted this...
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Quite possibly in video production, but I highly doubt that they do in video playback/consumption. RealPlayer and MS Media Player together put up quite a bit of challenge when it comes to marketshare.
Apple may edge them out somewhat, but certainly not by 8X.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Grab a cluestick. Maybe because there are things out there BETTER than MPEG? The sorensen codec is kickass for quality and file size.
:) Second of all, can you provide some statistics on that? I would be curious as to know /how/ kick ass it was. Is there a good site comparing codecs?
/simple/ or /easy/? If being simple and easy are core requirements for doing anything then we might as well stay in bed. Hell let's do it /because/ it's hard.
:)
First off the "Grab a cluestick" was TOTALLY unneccessary, if i knew the answers I would not have been asking now would I?
qt2mpeg would imply that you could decode the qt - so why not just play it back anyway....
Good point.....;)
clue #2. Making a GOOD codec is NOT something that you're going to whip up over the weekend. This is something that is based on
YEARS of signal processing and perceptual research.
Upon the shoulders of giants.... That research has ALREADY been done...can we not work off of that?
Gak. I'm all for open source and write a lot of it myself, but people who assume that everything is _SIMPLE_ and _EASY_ drive me nut
Did I ever say it was
All in all though, thanks for the reply, it did clear up some points for me.
Sgt Pepper
Open sourcing QuickTime would not affect Apple greatly. For the most part, QuickTime is free. The Pro version they charge for, but it's irrelevant to most people (those who just want to view QuickTime media).
What would Apple gain from open sourcing QuickTime? Not much. QuickTime is simply libraries that allow for time based media. There are little to no bugs in the QuickTime libraries. It's remarkably robust. QuickTime apps, on the other hand, might benefit from open sourcing, but for the most part are controlled by Other Companies.
The good part about QuickTime is the ability to plug in new codecs. Like Sorenson. Sorenson is a for-profit company, who's revenue depends on the Sorenson codec. They will not open source their codec, at least not until they've replaced it with something better. However, it is in their favor to freely distribute the codec so that people can view their codec-compressed files. So Sorenson can release the codec for Linux.
Some character stated how simple it is to make your own codec. I seriously doubt it. Compression is hard -- good compression of images is harder yet. Sorenson spent many, many man-hours developing their codec. Think you can do better? I guarantee its more than separating the signal into luminance and chromiance and run-length encoding it. You have to consider speed of decompression (this is why a lot of media is still distributed in Cinepak -- a low end 486 can decompress it real-time), perceptual anomalies (some people can see the compression in DirecTV broadcasts, some can't), recoverability (do you pause playback when your pipe is congested, vis a vis Real, or drop frame rate, or use a more robust caching mechanism so congestion is reduced as a failure point).
In addition, I think Apple isn't terribly interested in the Unix market right now partially because X sucks. There's no gamma control, no consistancy, and not so nice to look at. Windows is the same, but the marketshare of Windows makes for a powerful argument to ignore such problems. Linux users? We're left out in the cold, cause who cares about us?
QuickTime is Apple's baby. It will be released for MacOSX, which is BSD. It will come over to our side. You want to make it come quicker? Show some support for Apple's efforts, and help with the Darwin effort, or the QuickTime Streaming Server. You can't expect a big corporation to just give, give, give, just because it's right. Show them the advantage of open source by helping, rather than sniping from the sidelines.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Open sourcing a codec and/or streaming video application is a touchy situation. Not only do companies such as Apple and Real Networks not want to loose possible revenues due to lack of licensing fees, but having an open source client allows the end user to do what he wishes with the content... (e.g., save it to disk)
And we all know what large corporations think about allowing the customer to do what he wants to with content. (e.g., MPAA, RIAA)
You could see the issue when RealNetworks sued Streambox for making applications that allowed you to save RealAudio streams to disk. There would be no way to assure that the end user cannot save the data to disk, or convert it to another (possibly technically better) format.
Personally, not allowing the user to do what he wants with the data being streamed is against the general open-source philosophy, IMHO.
Really, in all reality, even though Slashdot has become a forum for Linux advocacy, the world does not revolve around Linux.
A port to Unix would involve a large number different flavors to maintain. One of the nice things about open-source is that it makes it a bit easier to port to a large number of architectures... In particular, because other people will usually do it for you when they want your software to run on thier machine.
For example, when enlightenment first came out, it was the coolest thing around... I bet you everyone and his brother was trying to port it to the particular flavor of Unix that they were using... Solaris, SunOS, BSD, IRIX...etc.
Porting at this time usually means linux... But not everyone uses linux... There are a lot of poeple that want to have the choice to use Solaris or their cool SGI machines. Its almost sacreligious to not give SGI machines every codec, considering their long history of top notch graphics and media performance.
Oh well....
Its a shame I cant run Civilization CTP on my Sparc Linux or Sparc Solaris boxen.
Late comment, but have a look at Ogg Vorbis, an impressive sounding audio codec that is open source and patent free:
http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/index.html
Why bother with Quicktime?
.mov=>.mpg converter, it's kinda hard to do if you can't decode the video. We don't even need all of Quicktime, just the Sorensen video codec, and the open-source community could do the rest.
.dlls from the windows QT player and plug them into xanim?
Because the Sorensen codec has the best file size::picture quality ratio. Because Quicktime has become the de-facto standard for anything that reaplplayer isn't good enough to handle. Because we want to watch the blankety-blank X-Men trailer.
Is there a qt2mpeg converter? What's stopping someone from writing one?
Patents on the codecs prevent anyone other than sorensen (read: your favorite open-source developer) from using the codec. Reverse-engineering a compressed video format is next to impossible, but you're welcome to try... As for why there's no
The question I have is could we write an app that would use libWine to load the
0 1 - just my two bits
Last I checked, wasn't Quicktime a Closed Format?
.asf files into .mpegs?
Am I the only one using a lone Windows machine and VirtualDub to "recover" data from
Why yes, it would be nice to have a quicktime player. But wouldn't it be -nicer- to have the file format specifications?
I'm hesitant to install the RealPlayer 7 for Linux on my FreeBSD box. Because I know that when RealPlayer 8 or the "Newest Bell and Whistle" comes along, it'll be obsolete.
Why support and cheer on a Closed Format? I'd rather know what a Quicktime is internally, and have the ability to build my own player.
Of course, if QT4 is currently an open format, my post is invalid, and I need to get out of my cave more often, I'd look like a right todger eh?
Quicktime is a very large bundle of toys all wrapped up in a chrome box. Not only is it the Sorensen CODEC, it is also a suite of scripting tools akin to Flash. AFAIK the scripting utilities could feasibly be as extensible as Flash is so you could create cool interactive sessions and games with it. Porting this would require a nice wad of cash because they also need to port a bunch of API calls that exist on MacOS to said OS. As someone else said, if VA or Redhat paid Apple to do the port I believe that they would. I think it would really be in Apple's best interest to do the port though, look at Adobe, they've ported Acrobat reader to a slew of operating systems and now PDFs are everywhere. The Quicktime scripting would get real popular really quickly if you could view it on any OS you wanted. The Sorensen CODEC is something you need to ask the Sorenson people to port (maybe in plug-in form to xanim). Redhat or VA ought to spend their mighty millions purchasing a Sorensen license for xanim, they could build a player/plug-in by themselves.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Otherwise, isn't this likely to damage the Sorenson codec, or at least the functionality of it within QT?
If it's not damaging, it sounds great. Does it kill that fscking popup as well?
First, Linux is certainly not "the last 15% of the market". I love it, but let's not start lying.
Second, OS X doesn't use X. It uses Quartz. QT being a highly graphical thing, most of the code that would need to be ported would probably deal with the video setup, which is completely different in Windows, Mac, and Unix. That's the biggest reason there's no QT for UNIX, I'm sure.
_________________
rooooar
As I understand it, Apple and Sorenson have an exclusive license agreement regarding the Sorenson codec. If this is the case (which makes sense, otherwise we'd see somebody else with the codec by now) I don't see how petitioning will do anything. Apple and Sorenson are bound by their contracts. And I'm sure Apple will pay any amount to keep that exclusive agreement.
_________________
rooooar
You are quite right about increasing support costs, which is why I think that open sourcing components is a wonderful idea.
/.ers want to believe. It's simply a financial reality.
Perhaps I should clarify my position re: expect them to port it.
I meant that it is reasonable for users to expect Apple to port, as opposed to Open Source it. As you noted, development and support costs are likely prohbitive. It's not the evil Apple empire wanting to suppress Linux as some
I don't expect to see QT for Unix in the next 6 months. I do expect it to appear eventually. That was the gist of what I was saying: it's unreasonable to expect that when a company does port something, they should open source it in the process.
I think there is a bit of confusion here. Asking Apple to port QuickTime to UNIX is **NOT** the same as asking them to Open Source it.
Let's get real. Expecting Apple to Open Source QuickTime is pretty far fetched. WHY Would a company want to OpenSource such a lucrative revenue stream (particularly, one that lets them make money from Windows users; ie, ones that already tied into the Apple platform.)
It IS reasonable to expect them to PORT it to UNIX. It's simply more money for them to make by increasing their market share.
The fact is, Porting to UNIX != Open Sourcing. You can port something to UNIX without opening the source. See Q3A and the other Loki Games efforts if you don't believe me.
Note that this does not take into account the ideological reasons for opening the source to QuickTime. I'm sure there are some benefits to be had by doing so (some have noted the poor interface for the player could be improved.) I'm jsut speaking to the practical considerations, as well as to the mistaken concept that Porting = Open Sourcing.
In short, expect them to Port QuickTime, not Open Source it. That sort of confusion has to stop.
You know that?
MPEG is an open standard defined by the motion picture exsperts group.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Just like the Mexican railroad in Atlas Shrugged, it's a way to potentially lose a lot of money.
You managed to make a post about the free market and include an Ayn Rand Reference!
Posting content like that is a great way to prove a point. That is, if your point is that you an idiot.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Nothing is stoping us from using mpeg.. people use mpeg as it is, but you have to realize, quicktime is one of their big boys, a main feature that if people got a hold of, Apple would get nothing out of it. Its like MS opensourcing windows. Let's opensource adobe after effects, I doubt that'll happen soon.
Think of it like BeOS and their free version of the os. Maybe if QuickTime had a lower grade version that was opensource-able, maybe, But the algo. probably can only do a degraded copy by a simple switch that might be hacked on.
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Certainly, everyone hopes they will pay attention and release this. Frankly, it wouldn't be tough to do, since they had to port it to MacOS X already.
:-)
However, I'd like to point out that Linux people aren't the only ones suffering from poor or absent support for various Web add-ons. *Java*, Flash and Shockwave on the Mac are incredibly buggy, to the point of being unusable. Plug-ins like Third Voice, same deal. We've been living with this stuff for years. In a way, it's nice to finally be a first-class platform for a high-demand technology.
I still insist that every Web technology should work on every platform, period. Guess that's why my web page is kinda boring.
(guh? This has been moderated up to 3 already?!?!??)
/it/ the
>>Why bother with Quicktime? This is a serious
>>question...what is preventing us from using >>MPEG?
(not intentally TOTAL flambait)...
Grab a cluestick. Maybe because there are things out there BETTER than MPEG? The sorensen codec is kickass for quality and file size.
>>Is there a qt2mpeg converter? What's stopping
>>someone from writing one?
qt2mpeg would imply that you could decode the qt - so why not just play it back anyway....
>>Or for that matter why not just develop our OWN
>>codec, free to the public and make
>>standard?
clue #2. Making a GOOD codec is NOT something that you're going to whip up over the weekend. This is something that is based on YEARS of signal processing and perceptual research.
Gak. I'm all for open source and write a lot of it myself, but people who assume that everything is _SIMPLE_ and _EASY_ drive me nuts....
It's not the Darwin layer that's the problem. The problem is that Quicktime is an application heavily dependent on graphics and sound APIs. Quicktime relies pretty heavily on the QuickDraw and Quartz APIs AFAIK. Porting from those to X is NOT a trivial task. I remember reading somewhere that you could sort of port Mac apps to Windows taking advantage of all the Mac OS calls they basically reimplemented on top of Windows to get Quicktime to get Quicktime to work on Windows.
This is thorny enough, but at least X is a graphics standard. The bigger problem is the total lack of sound standards for Unix. While Loki's little API in development is a nice idea, it's hardly universal across Unix platforms. It's also not proven to be reliable.
These are probably the primary reasons against porting to Unix.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
If Apple doesn't want to release the source code to the Sorenson CODEC
It's not their codec, and they can't legally release the source. (How many times does one have to tell people this before they get it in their heads? Quicktime is an (open) format. Sorensen et al are codecs. The codecs are what won't be released.
--- Where's my X.400 protocol decoder?
At the beginning, the complaint was simply "Macs suck." Then Apple bought NeXT, started bringing itself back from the "dead," etc. The /. response? "They're not Open Source!"
Then Apple Open Sourced Darwin, the basis for Mac OS X. They also brought out related projects, including the Quicktime Streaming Server. This time, the complaint was "The License is Bad!"
So they revised the APSL, satisfying some but not others. So people started complaining that the Quicktime client wasn't available for Linux. And that's where we are right now.
So what's the response going to be if there is a Quicktime for Linux? That it or some of its codecs (which Apple mostly doesn't own) aren't Open Source? That the license still sucks? That [insert rant here]? Will people finally respect the company? Or is the truth that they just don't like the name "Apple?"
There are those who think that complaining will get them far in life. I'm not saying that everyone should just be satisfied and never ask for more than they have (although it is good to count your blessings), but Apple's not the type of company that can be "pushed around." Neither are its customers who are still somewhat defensive after years of being bashed by the rest of the computing world. So tone it down a bit, I have far more respect for a debate than a shouting match.
By the way, I think it's interesting to note that the Quicktime format is the basis for MPEG-4, which like all the other MPEGs is a standard for everyone to adopt. At the very least, MPEG-4 players for Linux won't even be a question.
-Rafi Remove the Spanish to email me.
It is only a wrapper around the native QT support on the platform. You don't get a 100% pure java implementation.
One of the things I /really/ don't like about QT is that you don't download the actual product from their anonymous sites. You can only download an "installer" executable. They won't be opensourcing it for this reason, I'll bet.
:-)
Running the installer then prompts you for what extras you want, connects you to Apple, retrieves what you've asked for, uploads fsck-only-knows what kinds of information, and drops the programs and registry entries directly in place.
If you have a dozen machines to install, you have to download it from Apple each time. If you're behind a firewall or completely isolated, you can't put your favorite utilities on a CD and take them with you. Wherever you go, you must always connect to Apple's sites to re-download the same thing.
(If anyone knows of a way to capture the real installation binary (you know, a setup.exe), I'd love to hear about it. I doubt that they'll be opensourcing QT because then we'd immediately disable this and Apple couldn't keep as close a tab on us.)
Just my paranoid two timeslices.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I think we could say the same about the Microsoft Media Player as well. More and more sites are using Media player as their streaming media of choice and I feel that the UNIX users are getting left out because of this trend....but I did hear that Realnetworks licensed the format from Microsoft. How long before we get to see a RealPlayer streaming Microsoft Media format on Linux?
...
.movs, and streaming Quicktime in real time.
IIRC, Apple does not own ALL of Quicktime. The Sorensen codec (the most important one, BTW), is a private, propietary codec that Apple LICENSES from the Sorenson people.
Sorenson is the codec that gives us the astounding quality of the recent Star Wars trailer
Quicktime without Sorenson? May as well settle for realplayer... that'd be going back to Qutcktime version 2 or something.
We need to petition Sorenson to open the codec, *NOT* Apple! If Apple DID release the QT source, they'd either have to exclude Sorenson (a waste, really), OR they'd expose themselves to tremendous lawsuits (don't count on them being this stupid). This will not change until Sorenson changes the terms of THEIR license.
So, until Sorenson opens up.... don't count on Quicktime for Linux, Unix, or anything else.
BTW:
All of the above applies ONLY to the QT MoviePlayer. Quicktime as a whole constitutes a LOT more than just the player. Read the developer guides sometime. It's really quite nifty.
I doubt, even if Sorenson DOES open their codec, that we'll EVER see ALL of Quicktime open sourced. In doing so, Apple would essentially be handing a tremendous amout of technology to gates and his cronies, free of charge. I doubt that'll ever happen.
john
Imagine all the people...
<analogy>I take a liter of air (which is free), and offer to give it to you free. Does this make me a wonderful guy, or just a huckster?</analogy>
As far as I can tell, Apple is taking the sweat of the open source movement, and profiting from it without returning anything. Times like this I feel that RMS is right about the BSD license.
As for Sorensen saying Apple prevents them from releasing the codec: this just sounds like standard run-around to me: "Apple says we can't release this, sorry, talk to them." "It's Sorensen's codec, talk to them!"
Sorry, but I'll beleive Apple really supports open source when they start walking the walk, not just talking the talk.
www.eFax.com are spammers
> Why should someone pay for a player to
> view QT?
You don't pay for the player. It's free. You can pay $29 to switch on the authoring features, so that you can convert different media types, save or export any movie in a number of formats, and cut and paste any format in and out of movies.
You always see people in some forum asking how they can convert an MP3 to WAV, or a MIDI file to WAV, or convert image formats to one another. QuickTime Pro does all this stuff.
If Apple released a QuickTime viewer under any license/method, it would drastically improve their market share. Consider the following: we all know the problems Real has beeen having lately (a-la-privacy), and the MSFT player ONLY runs on Windows. With a *NIX port QuickTime would perhaps re-gain some of its market--share lost to the Windows Media PLayer platform.
My gripe is still with QuickTime for making this stupid "stream-only" option possible. My gripe is also with QuickTime for providing horribly inadequate buffering options. There is no "download entire file, then watch" option anymore because pausing no longer pauses playback (allowing stream to continue caching), pausing now pauses the stream itself.
.ASX files?) and RealMedia (standalone player, locked up nice and tight) are not. Sooner or later QT is bound to go that direction just so there will be something stopping someone from writing something like Streambox VCR.
= -=-=-=-=-=-=-
And, while QT may use RTSP and RTP, I'm pretty sure Windows Media (that mms:// crap you see inside
In the meantime, any brilliant media buffs want to write a utility that can intercept a media stream and re-direct it to disk, so that it can later be converted into MPEG-1?
- JoeShmoe
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
...the way QT4 now forces this streaming-only policy on you. Same with Windows Media player. It used to be you could watch the file in choppy fashion while it downloads, then save it locally and watch it without skips.
= -=-=-=-=-=-=-
Gone are those days. Now both QT4 and ASF files will only stream live from the site. So if you have a cable modem connection (fast, but goes in bursts) and you want to watch the 300K stream...you can't because it skips the whole time. You can't just download the whole damn file and play it locally. Instead, you have to make do with the 128K stream.
Sick, sick, sick. There used to be a program that could intercept the video information (either from some cache file somewhere or perhaps watching the video buffers?) and reroute it to a local file in your choice of format. This mean that any streaming media (RM, QT, ASF) could be saved locally as whatever you want (namely MPG).
The program was Streambox VCR. I reinstalled Windows for the umpteenth million time last year and discovered that Streambox had been sued by RealMedia and stopped offering their products, including VCR. So no more VCR.
Then, most puzzling of all, three months after winning the lawsuit, there is STILL no Streambox VCR.
Does anyone still have the installer file for this most-valuable tool? Please mirror it or put it in your sig or something. I hate streaming media and plus, as a consumer, my fair use rights are in question. What's the biggest advantage that MPG has over QT, ASF, and RM? The fact that it is the standard for VCDs. Which means it is the ONLY format that I can watch on my spiffy 50"/DSS home entertainment system instead of the crappy 17"/CompUSA speakers computer setup.
Until some company can pressure ISO into declaring a book format based around their QT/ASF/RM formats so I can watch it on a home entertainment player, MPG is all I'm interested in.
- JoeShmoe
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
[--- PGP key and more on http://www.root42.de ---]
OK, Apple owns the exclusive rights to Sorenson codec. Why should they support a Linux version? It would cost them big to support it (if they just released a crud filled binary to the community they would be shat upon). Open source it you ask?? They don't own the codec! Third note, Apple is about to release their own version of unix in OSX and they are busting their butts to debug QT for that. Hopefully once they have a solution to the former problem (OSX compatibility) the linux port will soon follow. Before that I see no chance of QT for linux/unix.
no sig.
My complaint about Apple Computers I realize that everyone is entitled to his opinion, and I respect this. I also hope that you will all respect mine as you read this letter. There are a number of reasons Apple Computers isn't telling us as to why it wants to parlay personal and political conspiracy theories into a multimillion-dollar financial empire. In this letter, I will expose those reasons one-by-one, on the principle that as commonly encountered, unruly boeotians lack any of the qualities that mark the civilized person, like courage, dignity, incorruptibility, ease, and confidence. None but the hideous can deny that Apple Computers seems to think that it is right and everybody else is wrong. What conclusion should we draw from Apple Computers's proposed social programs? How about that the long-term consequences of Apple Computers's comments are rarely examined, let alone subjected to scientific scrutiny? What if we collectively just told Apple Computers's cronies, "Sure, go ahead and inject its lethal poison into our children's minds and souls. Have fun!"? That would be worse than vainglorious; it would descend to character assassination and name calling. By the same token, Apple Computers's method (or school, or ideology -- it is hard to know exactly what to call it) goes by the name of "Apple Computers-ism". It is a lackadaisical and avowedly power-hungry philosophy that aims to undermine serious institutional and economic analyses and replace them with a diverting soap opera of paltry unstable conspiracies. When a political condition of greed, massive corruption, and diversity of objective is coupled to a social condition of drugs, violence, and discontent, therein exists the perfect environment for Apple Computers to gain a respectable foothold for its prissy claims. It is better to be a little old-fashioned, but honest and loyal, than enlightened and modern, but shiftless and incomprehensible. However much Apple Computers may deny it, we've all heard it yammer and whine about how it's being scapegoated again, the poor dear. As we organize our campaigns against unsympathetic snobs and formulate responses to their rhetoric, it is critical that we supply the missing ingredient that could stop the worldwide slide into materialism. This conviction of mine is as firm as a rock. If you understand that the first casualty of Apple Computers's agendas is justice, then you can comprehend that Apple Computers wants nothing less than to limit the terms of debate by declaring certain subjects beyond discussion, hence its repeated, almost hypnotic, insistence on the importance of its phlegmatic tirades. Apple Computers's lackeys are often caught trying to adopt approaches that have not been tested to try to solve problems that have not been well-defined. Of course, they deny this, but we all know full well that the last time Apple Computers reached into its bag of dirty tricks, it pulled out a scheme to cast the world into nuclear holocaust. Apple Computers does not desire to benefit humanity, but rather to intensify or perpetuate frotteurism. While some information provided by Apple Computers's henchmen may be factual, other material is unsubstantiated rumor or evil rodomontades. I don't have time to go into this in as much detail as I should, but when Apple Computers was first found trying to make bargains with the devil, I was scared. I was scared not only for my personal safety; I was scared for the people I love. And now that Apple Computers is planning to twist the truth, I'm downright terrified. I almost forgot: It's a sad world where power-drunk poltroons have the power to denigrate and discard all of Western culture. Perhaps Apple Computers received its information (or rather, misinformation) from late-night television programs and "B" movies. Would we, as thinking people, believe ignoramuses who tried to tell us we're all putrid? I say "no." This screams of the old belief that uninformed deadheads are merely bitter diabolic slanderers. This implies that a critical reevaluation of some of Apple Computers's quips would be beneficial. Sometimes, what you don't know can hurt you. I am not making a generalization when I say that for the time being, this is not a major issue. The dynamics of the situation are such that Apple Computers is against everything and for nothing. The cardinal rule of Apple Computers's doctrines is that catty irresponsible revisionism is the only thing that matters. Feelings of inferiority are characteristic of superficial Apple Computers clones. Here, too, the exception proves the rule: It's considerations of this sort that make it worth our while to learn about the irascible things Apple Computers is up to. Better, far better, that Man were without the gift of speech than that he use it as Apple Computers does. Better that Man could neither read nor write than have his head and heart perverted by the militant and loathsome tommyrot that oozes from Apple Computers's pen. And better that the cut of Man's coat and the number of his buttons were fixed by statute and enforced by penalties than that Apple Computers should block streets and traffic to the extent that ambulances can't get through. Because of Apple Computers's screeds, our schools simply do not teach the basics anymore. Instead, they preach the theology of ruthless clericalism. To those readers who believe that two wrongs make a right, you have not been paying attention. Apple Computers believes that freedom must be abolished in order for people to be more secure and comfortable. Wrong again! The pragmatist position is that everyone knows of the lust and driving passion that has caused this problem. Please let me explain that questionable statistics, pseudo-scientific studies, and biased reports paint pictures of virulent worlds inhabited by the most raucous hermits you'll ever see. Apple Computers's offhand remarks reflect an era in which cultures or attitudes different from one's own were dealt with through violence and mistrust. History offers innumerable examples for the truth of this assertion. Apple Computers's assistants carry out orders like puppets obeying the puppeteer. The most libidinous hooligans I've ever seen don't really want me to make Apple Computers's biased modes of thought understood, resisted, and made the object of deserved contempt by young and old alike, although, of course, they all have to pay lip service to the idea. Apple Computers's writings are one of those things that will turn over our country to officious junkies (especially the dangerous type). A number of arrogant desperados have succumbed to excessive drug use, alcoholism, and other addictive behavior indicating maladaptive mechanisms. Apple Computers says it's not insolent, but it's decisively soporific, and that's essentially the same thing. There are two main flaws with Apple Computers's tricks: 1) Apple Computers's helpers suspect that the masses are empty-headed and unfit for citizenship, and 2) under the label of "abusive" are those who, like Apple Computers, disguise the complexity of color, the brutality of class, and the importance of religion and sexual identity in the construction and practice of chauvinism. You may not understand this now, and I don't fault you for that, but I didn't want to talk about this. I really didn't. But there should be a law against this. Where does the line get drawn? It is deeply unfortunate that Apple Computers and its toadies are wolves in sheep's clothing who will treat anyone who doesn't agree with Apple Computers to a torrent of vitriol and vilification by the next full moon, since I call this phenomenon "Apple Computers-ism". Might I suggest that Apple Computers search for a hobby? It seems it has entirely too much time on its hands, given how often it tries to violate the basic tenets of journalism and scholarship. Let me leave you with one last thought: Apple Computers's wheelings and dealings are nothing shy of a slap in the face to all those who have fought and fallen in war for this country.
Or arrange for a letter writing campaign to Apple for them to release in binary format the codec with an API. If they're nice, they'll compile it for a bunch of applications.
That way, free software developers can develop the actual code so it will work on all the systems, and Apple can protect their mathematical algorithms.
I mean, if they allow it to be used in players developed the right way, I doubt even RMS would complain THAT much if they hid the algorithm in a small binary file.
I mean, ideally there wouldn't be a need to hide a mathematical algorithm, but at the very least, give developers a black box so they can use your stuff.
Alex
Every Mac ever built with a floppy drive will attempt to boot from a floppy if there is one in there first. If the floppy is non-bootable, it auto-ejects it and looks for something else to boot from, usually whatever has been set as the boot-device in PRAM.
While I agree that dragging the disk into the trash is not the best way to impliment the metaphor, I have not known any people who have trouble with this concept once it is explained to them. (And I have tought many people how to use MacOS.)
Yes. MacOS X (pronounced "ten" not "ex") is based on BSD running on top of the Mach microkernel. Apple's first major experiment with Mach was MkLinux, which Apple has since abandoned. The Mach+BSD part is called Darwin. It's free an open source. Darwin is a complete OS in its own right, and can run by itself. It has no GUI, though John Carmack has written a port of XFree to work with it. The rest of MacOS X is closed-source. It includes Quartz, which is a way-cool completely vector-based display engine for the GUI. It has Cocoa, a native Java API, Carbon, really left over from Rhapsody, which allows classic apps to quickly take advantage of OS X features. The classic MacOS 9 environment can boot in a window as a single process, and you can run classic apps side by side with OS X apps (rootless, as it were.) More info about the higher-level stuff is available at Apple's MacOS X site.
Wow if the pro version does all the media types, then maybe I should pirate it and convert all the "damned qt" movies to mpg so everyone can watch it?
Lars -
I have a feeling that the problem lies more with Sorenson than with Apple. Sorenson regards their product as proprietary and thus not open source. Though not as user grumpy a company as Heuris, they extract a fair amount of cash out of you to encode using it. Its the best on the block for video of this sort so I guess I can't blame them.
While it would be trivial to put out a binary, they would then have to answer questions about it, and given the Linux marketshare (and revenue potential added to offset the work), Apple can't justify it economically.
Perhaps we can get an unsupported "Beta" binary ALA RealPlayer out of them, but I suspect even that would be tough. I've been using Apple since the ][+, but they seem to have a knack for ignoring customer demands for as long as possible.
MPEG-4 uses the QuickTime file format (or maybe a modified version of it), but the audio and video coding layers are new.
If only it were so easy to find that standard in detail on the web. That is merely an overview of MPEG-4. The actual in depth standard specification you have to buy from International Standards Organization. In the last two months I have been SCOURING the internet for MPEG specs. The closest I have come to attaining the information I was looking for was in berkeley's mpeg code. and other sources like Cornell's DALI Multimedia Virtual Machine. But you simply cannot find a page that tells you BIT-by-BIT MPEG-1 formatting. Try it. You might find a page of source code that you could cryptically intepret it. But ISO or someone has gone through great trouble to make online referrences dissapear I would imagine. The closest nitty gritty you can get to on MPEGs are a block-by-block diagram of how the stream is composed. But not header sizes or anything to that effect. Another good example which somewhat relates to MPEG is VideoCD. Sony and Philips hold the licenese to just about all of these specs (White Book being the one at handle). You can find information on what data/sector mode a VCD is written in. What time tracks the special first track ISO is written in. But someone find me a like to how the 'ENTRIES.VCD' file is laid out byte-by-byte. or INFO.VCD.. of Overlay graphic text.. or how to implement any of these features of VCD 2.0. Its not there.. your options: buy White Book for 200$ and sign an NDA -- which kills the prospect of opensource. vect0rx
http://freshmeat.net/appindex/1999/02/15/919133076 .html
Talk is cheap. Supply exceeds demand.
I'm not saying "install Quicktime 2.5/3.0 atop 4". You see, Quicktime is a media layer, an engine, a framework. The default included Movie Player 4 is not the -end all, must use it- player. You can use any recent application that supports Quicktime (think Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro, MovieShop, etc). What you need to do if you want to play Quicktime movies on Quicktime 4 without /the application/ Movie Player 4 is to find the "Movie Player 3" application and just run it rather than Movie Player 4.
Maybe I wasn't too clear. You certainly want to have all of the guts of 4 installed, but rather than use Movie Player 4 to play your files, use some other application. In this case, Movie Player 3.
By the way, you don't need any special files to run Movie Player 3 atop Quicktime 4. Just be sure you have Quicktime 4 installed, then just bring over the single Movie Player 3 app.
As far as the popups, it should get rid of those. The "Pro" version of Quicktime 4 just means "Pro" features for the Movie Player, image viewer, and Netscape/Internet Explorer plugins. There are no added features to the engine.
I never really understood why folks did that. One of the lab administrators here at my university does just that, he keeps the "Installer Cache" file. There's really no need for that, as Apple has always had "stand-alone" installers available (though sometimes a week behind the 'interactive install' version). I recently updated to Quicktime 4.1 on my PC and PowerBook, adds a few features, not much else. Here's a trick for Mac users (may work for Windows, but I haven't tried it): get a copy of the Quicktime Player from Quicktime 2.5 or 3.0 if you don't like the big, brushed-steel look of 4.0's default player. Works like a charm.
Huh? Apple has always had a stand-alone installer available. Qucktime 4.1 for Windows and MacOS is available here:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/dow nload/support/
You still have to fill out some information first, but it'll let you download the full, "real" installer (one that doesn't require an internet connection to install). This download is web-based, however... I'm not sure if they have it on their FTP site, I'll look into it.
There was once a time when Quicktime as well as MPEG were cross platform, now we only have MPEG without the advantages of the advances made in the newer CODECs.
Don't confuse "cross-platform" with "runs on Linux". QuickTime is cross-platform, it just happens that the platforms involved are classic Mac OS, Mac OS X and Windows.
Now that Apple has embraced Open Source, could Quicktime be on its way... if they don't want the cost and headache of supporting an additional product for the last 15% of so of the market
In this context, Linux is very far from 15% of the market. This context is the market of desktop machines. The majority of machines running Linux are still servers. This is not the market for QuickTime (client). Has anyone seen reliable figures for the Linux desktop installed base? I'd guess its 1-2% Macintosh desktop installed base (not market share) is closer to 10%
For servers, the QuickTime Streaming Server is an open source project that has been ported to Linux.
They can release the Sorenson CODEC in binary form using that API and let the Open Source process go the rest of the way towards enabling Linux to play QuickTime 4.
QuickTime is much more than just a single codec. It is a complete architecture for playing back a wide variety of multimedia. It has feature like QuickTimeVR. It has the QuickTime sprites format that allows complex scripted interactivity. It has a complete MIDI-based music architecture. It has a full runtime visual effects architecture. It is a huge and powerful visual and temporal processing engine. A lot of web sites use QuickTime in the place of, for example, Flash. Porting QuickTime to Linux is very far from a trivial task.
There's a better solution, though: Darwin is based on BSD UNIX; Apple is now full of UNIX developers. You can't convince me that there isn't already a version of the QT player with an Xwindows GUI compiled and floating around inside Apple;
I may not be able to convince you, because you clearly have made up your mind already, but its true. Mac OS X does not have an X Windows component. It uses its own graphics/windowing layer called Quartz. Apple does not have an X-based QuickTime player.
Note as well, that the QuickTime Player is just one application that uses QuickTime. It is not QuickTime. QuickTime is an extensive system-level library that includes all the functionality described above. QT Player is just a small app. that Apple includes with the standard QuickTime install.
The absence of a UNIX player in that kind of development environment just doesn't make sense. So how close is it to release?
Apple have already shown a Mac OS X QuickTime Player. It is a Carbon app. Carbon is Apple's classic Mac OS 9 system libraries running on top of Quartz and Darwin. A carbonized application has no relationship to an X application. There really isn't any X-related development work happening on the QuickTime team.
The complete QuickTime architecture cost Apple hundreds of millions of dollars to develop. There is a huge team of engineers at Apple working full time (and more) on this technology. It is way more than just video playback. Apple have already ported this once to another platform (Windows) and that was a task that took many hundreds of engineer-years to complete.
The chances of Apple spending similar efforts to port it to Linux, while Linux's share of the desktop market is so small, are very low. The chances of Apple open sourcing QuickTime are, in my opinion, even lower.
Sailing over the event horizon
By not releasing Quicktime for Linux, Apple
has (probably unintentionally) controlled
the method by which people can access their
product.
Along the lines of the earlier copyright
article (and 'fair use' laws), I say we
re-define what it means to be a product.
Today, a product or service
is typically composed of:
1 - Something that is desired by the consumer
2 - Resrictions on how that 'something' may
be used.
If we, as consumers, can't get companies to
stop including #2 as part of the 'product',
then we should at least be able to
place restrictions on how the companies use
our money (half tongue-in-cheek). Since customers
usually don't know what the restrictions will
be until they PURCHASE the product (a major
problem, imho), we should likewise be
able to place 'money usage' restrictions on
the companies from which we buy products.
Imagine this scenario:
- Bob buys an electronic book from
Barnes & Noble, along with the restriction
that he can only view it with certain
software and cannot print it out and
share it with his friends.
- Bob enters his 'encoded' credit card
information to pay for the book.
Barnes & Noble will be allowed to use
the money obtained ONLY in ways that
Bob has specifically encoded into
his credit card info.
Actually, refining this idea further
could be very interesting...hmmmm...