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Cable Industry backs Mpeg-4 for Streaming Video

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the standardization-time dept.

Greyfox writes "This techweb story informs us that the Cable Industry has thrown their chips in with Mpeg4 and will probably want to tweak the codec for streaming video. I'm all for it, I'm sick of QuickTime movies I can't view in Linux and RealVideo movies I'd prefer not to download the player for. "

4 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Quicktime by Mithrandir · · Score: 5
    OK, I'll assume ignorance on your part because not everyone sits down to read a 2000+ page specification as an after-dinner entertainment. I have ( I had to review the Geometry spec as part of my VRML work back a few years ago).

    The stream format in MPEG-4 is the QT streaming protocol. You can also use the QuickTime file format over those streams if you want to. However, the codecs for whatever goes over the stream is not the Sorenson codec, which is the most used of the QT options in QT players.

    MPEG-4 is a huge beast of many different layers. There's the streams, then the synchronisation protocols, then you have audio, video and geometry over the top of that. In the Version 2 spec and MPEG/J there are even whole APIs defined for interacting with the stream (They basically ripped my entire work that I did on the VRML External Authoring Interface and put it in there without so much as a single credit!)

    --
    Life is complete only for brief intervals in between toys or projects -- John Dalton
  2. Quicktime by effer · · Score: 5

    You hate a format because a viewer compatible with your OS of choice is unavailable?!
    That's a pretty narrow minded view of the world. The push is on for Apple to either release a Linux viewer and/or release the codec allowing a viewer to be developed.
    Free distribution has one goal and many methods. Release the codec and allow many implementations, develop for all platforms, focus on one or two and screw the rest. All have advantages and disadvantages, but this is not our decision as much as it is our responsibility to convince towards the option of our choice.
    I happen to love QT over Mpeg and I'm also a Linux supporter. Doesn't mean I stay up at night fretting over it. I don't bother with AVI's as my main machine is a PowerBook and my Linux, Irix, WinNT, and W2k boxes are secondary minimally powered systems for testing and learning. I don't for a second feel deprived of content by not bothering with formats such as AVI.

  3. MPEG Licensing still being worked out by Omega+Hacker · · Score: 5

    Keep in mind that even though MPEG-4 is an ISO standard, that doesn't mean it's free. MPEG-2 requires a $4 license every time anything MPEG-2 related is transfered to a consumer. That means no free players. We have no idea what MPEG-4 licensing is going to look like, but I'm not holding my breath. I ran across a document showing that all the big patent players explicitly objected to free implementations of BIFS, which AFAICT is the equivalent of Program/System Streams for MPEG-4. If we can't even get a free implementation of the transport stream code, how are we going to get a free implementation of the codec itself?

    While anyone with a brain can plainly see that free decoders are critical to any kind of market share on the Internet, these are lawyers making these licensing decisions. We all know that lawyers live in their own little litigious world, and can't generally be counted on to have any connection to reality. I wouldn't at all be surprised to find MPEG-4 requires a $N license just to get a player.

    Of course, the whole idea of International Standards that can't be used by anyone is patently (heh) ridiculous. How to deal with this, I have no idea, short of creating a new codec that rivals MPEG-4, which is no easy task. Perhaps we can find a way to make our voice heard to the various lawyers deciding licensing, but I'd rate that as a rather low chance of success.

    Suggestions as to how we can deal with this problem would be welcome....

    --
    GStreamer - The only way to stream!
  4. Quicktime is the foundation of the MPEG4 format... by Future+Linux-Guru · · Score: 5
    ...and they branched out from there and added to it. Another feather in Apples cap.

    From : http://www.vxm.com/MPEG-4.html

    The QuickTime file format will be used to store digital video, audio, and other types of content displayed using MPEG-4. According to Apple, the creator of the QuickTime technology, MPEG-4 will also contain things like MIDI, animation and 3D worlds. QuickTime will be used to store all of these things. The fact that QuickTime is being used for these kinds of things today is one of the reasons it was such a compelling choice for the MPEG-4 efforts.

    No doubt, this QuickTime victory will likely ruffle some feathers at Microsoft, as its adoption by MPEG was actively "supported" by several of its most notable arch rivals -- Sun, Oracle, and Netscape (SGI and IBM also pushed for its adoption). But apart from smarting over the obvious NIH factor, if Microsoft wants to be MPEG-4 compliant, it must now incorporate the Quicktime format into its multimedia applications, like NetShow, NetMeeting, ActiveMovie, and Interactive Music. ActiveX Controls may also have to make some sort of accommodation with Quicktime. How likely and how soon Microsoft will deliver all these modifications after MPEG-4 debuts is anybody's guess.

    Other resources:

    http://www.internetwk.com/news/news0211-15.htm

    http://www.cselt.it/mpeg/faq/faq-systems.htm#MP4-M PEG_4_is_based_on