Quicktime 5 vs. Everybody?

Dean Siren asks: "Now that Apple has released the Quicktime 5 Public Preview, they've upgraded their video codec to Sorenson 3 from Sorenson 2 which Jeremy Neish says pales in comparison to MPEG4 and its derivatives. So, how well does Sorenson 3 compete against MPEG4 as far as quality per bitrate, processor demand, compression times, and streaming are concerned? Can Apple now stay ahead of DivX, Windows Media Player 7 and Real Player 8?" Neish notes that none of the latest codecs are not compatible with Unix so only Mac and Windows users get to take advantage of the latest in digital video formats. When someone gets around to fixing this, then I can again get excited about Quicktime, until then it's just another format to me (and yet another reason why I have to have a Windows box lying around).

Comments

quicktime will do mpeg4

[Anonymous Coward]

quicktime is an *architecture* far more complex than just codecs and audio and video apple is very active in mpeg4 development even if apple can't get it out the door for a while, there are plenty of 3rd parties that can do a codec that will plug in - with the new autodownloading components in qt5, this makes installing third party components (skins, codecs, etc) automatic, secure, and painless. there will be linux someday - not this year probably next (understandably, osx is steve's primary new os porting target right now - after that, they will do linux - it's just a matter of time and priority)

Re:None of... not... huh?

[SEWilco]

Gee, why quibble about minor spelling and grammatical errors? It's the intent that is important, not the arrangement of letters. Just read what was typed and let it wash over you, absorbing what the author meant and felt without worrying about the delivery. What's important is that the author meant well and put so much effort into trying to express himself.

Incidentally, I have this 800-page short story that I'd like your opinion on...

I hate to keep harping on this...

[wowbagger]

(actually, I obviously love to keep harping on this, or I wouldn't.)

Apple is not now, nor have they ever been, a friend of the open source movement. Were they a friend, they would at least release a binary only, closed source version of Quicktime for Linux. Better still, a binary-only plug-in for Xanim. Best, they would release the Sorenson decoder source (the real magic of these things is not in the decoder, but in the ENCODER: figuring out what data to eliminate is the hard work, reconstructing it is relatively easy.)

What has Apple done for the open source or free software movements? They've released yet another kernel for PPC. Nice, but we already have several OSS and free software kernels out there.

The next time Apple tries to milk the movements for free publicity, stand up and call them on it.

you're wrong, cliff...

[jbridge21]

... you can play DivX;) on a linux box. IA32 only, but hey. It's called "Avifile" and "Xtheater". Go check it out, it rocks the house...

Xtheater.sourceforge.net

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Re:Apple's Sorenson codec

[/dev/kev]

Apple have an exclusive license from Sorenson to use the codec. This means that when you ask Sorenson about it, they say "Sorry, we'd love to sell (not give) you a license, but our hands are tied - Apple have an exclusive license. Go bug them about it."

While I don't know the exact details of the license, I'm pretty sure it prevents Apple from releasing any source. Even if it doesn't prevent them, Apple have made it quite clear that they have no intentions of ever releasing the source. The license almost certainly forbids Apple from relicensing the technology, so it's unlikely they could allow any third-party (such as the Xanim author) to develop an implementation of the codec.

Hell, they're not even interested in a totally non-free binary-only port. There's definately nothing (legally) stopping them from doing this, it'd just be another platform which QT5 supports in addition to the usual suspects. It'd make good business sense, too, since Apple are (essentially) fighting a codec war with MPEG4 and RealVideo, and having the free software movement on their side would help them immeasurably. Instead, people using free software platforms can't even view Sorenson encoded stuff, which means they'll just pass it over as an option.

Compatible data formats?

[Tet]

Neish notes that none of the latest codecs are not compatible with Unix so only Mac and Windows users get to take advantage of the latest in digital video formats.

Regardless of the grammatical correctness discussed elsewhere, I'm curious as to how a codec can be incompatible with Unix. Not currently implemented for Unix, yes, but incompatible, no. It's just a stream of bytes at the end of the day -- and that's *very* compatible with Unix.