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10th Anniversary of Quicktime
An anonymous reader submitted a story about the 10th anniversary of QuickTime which might not seem like such a big deal unless you set your mental wayback machine to 1991 and remember what we didn't have back then. Bits from Brian Eno and others. Worth reading.
Here is an history of QuickTime by a group of QuickTime developers, "Friends of Time" :
http://www.friendsoftime.org/
-J
Alexis 'jeriqo' BRET
It's important to understand that Quicktime is not a compression algorithm. If it were, then I would agree with your statement. However, Quicktime is one level above the compression algorithm--it can work with many different algorithms. There's no reason to believe that there won't be a MPEG-4 codec for Quicktime soon (if it's not available already).
While the most popular codecs involved will change, Quicktime will be around for a long time to come.
QuickTime is a PERFECT example of something Apple got ***WAY RIGHT***
they treated it as multiplatform product, ignrored what the competition was doing, updated it frequently to accomodate new technology and changing hardware/software bases, didn't try to make a fortune off of it, and worked with their user/developer base to make sure they got what they needed to deploy it, and treated it as an "open standard" to a large degree
QT has the most stable and best rendering collection of COCDEC's of any of the video players, and for quality of presentation, QT 3D is still way ahead of the competition...
the number and variety of the CODEC's available for QT show a mature platform that can do just about anything possible with the hardware available
i'm associated with a web design company that has done over 200 commercial web sites, including record artists and film sites....
and 3 years ago everyone of the media companies we did business with always wanted QT, NOW, when we get new "Developer Guidelines", they almost always ask for Real or WindowsMedia...
we've continued to push QT, but just finished a film site that we were ordered to use WindowsMedia "or else"
at this rate, WindowsMedia and REAL will not be leaving much room for a competitive product in the next 18-36 months
Hey Apple, how about QT for LINUX???? can it save the day????
or is QT going to be another "stranded" product???
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
Basically, quicktime allowed the birth of multimedia. The attitudes from the first posters were along the line of "say thank you, and don't forget to kick it as you walk on by"
Of course, if you really like MS Brand Duct Tape, then keep on kicking.
It is sort of like bitching at your grandfather:"I wish you were never born". Which is not exactly bright, on several levels.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
DivX is simply a codec. It is not a media layer. Codecs can be added and removed from applications and media layers. Example: I watch DivX movies under Quicktime using a file conatining the codec (although there are a few differing bastardised versions of MPEG4, generally the 3ivx, 4ivx, and 5ivx codecs I have installed here handle most formats.
Furthermore even with windows if you want support for many of these codecs you still have to go out and hunt down the codec. One of the most annoying things with avi files is the you never know what format they are in. The avi format actually can use as many as 15 separate formats (codecs) which are incompatable with each other.
What I have yet to see anywhere else is a single multimedia layer comprising MIDI synth, picture, video, panoramas, etc.
/rant/
It really is not Apple's fault that Linux developers have payed so little attention to developing Linux based solutions for Apple formats. I finbd it amazing how much of the horrible proprietary windows junk finds it's way to my linux/BSD boxen and how poor support is for Apple things. And then the galling thing is that Apple takes the blame for it here. One example was a suggestion that Apple by using their own filesystem for the iPod was horrible and proprietary and they should have used Fat 32. (reality check here) Apple should ditch their own file format and use Microsofts? kidding, right?
Microsft calls GPL evil, and Apple hires OSS developers and gives source code for core of their _current OS_ away and some of you guys still bash Apple for M$... go figure...
/rant/
ASCII art's not dead!
/. at work, I'll remember to wait at least 5 minutes after a new topic is posted)
Just reload the page at comments(-1).
(geez.. next time I read
Nouvelles de jeux et technologies en français. TC
Hey, I was selling Amigas in 1991... :)
What Quicktime got right (and it saddens me to see people falling over themselves to flame it B3KUZ 1TZ PRUHP1Et4RY) was that they spec'ed a really nice, solid API with architectural room to grow. When Quicktime was released, mainstream personal computers had 16-33 MHz CPU's, maxed out at 8-16 megabytes of RAM, a 32-bit video card cost >$1000, etc.
Quicktime's API was so clean that a video playing application (such as Popcorn or the original Simple Player) written for Quicktime 1.0 in 1991 can still run on top of Quicktime 5.x today, taking advantage of all the codecs written in the interim period. When Apple added PNG support to Quicktime, any program that relied on Quicktime for graphics file import immediately gained the ability to read PNG files, without even a recompile.
Quicktime is not a video player, it is not a streaming plugin, and it is not a replacement for MPEG.
Um, Quicktime has little to do with the compression format. It uses other people's compression algorithms to store the compressed video. The person who sets up the video can choose any number of compression formats.
I know there are some people out there who are annoyed that Linux is unable to read some Quicktime files out there. That's not Apple's fault at all, rather it is the fault of the compression format used. Most of the Quicktime files are compressed using the Sorenson codec, because of the superior quality and great compression it offers. The problem is that Sorenson holds the patent on the codec and they have only produced a decoder for Windows and MacOS. In order for Linux users to play those Quicktime movies which use the Sorenson codec, Sorenson would have to produce a Linux version of the decoder. There are a few programs out there that can play Quicktime movies, but only the movies that use codecs supported by Linux.
The same thing has happened with AVI on the Mac. There are a few Intel codecs that are used by AVI files which have no Mac version of a decoder. Thus, viewing an AVI on a Mac is kind of a crap shoot. I'm sure that this is a planned thing by Intel. Fortunately AVI seems to be dying a slow death as better formats are appearing.
That being said, Quicktime fully supports mpg. In fact, there are only a few odd or proprietary formats that Quicktime can't or doesn't support.
Sapere aude!
QuickTime is an API framework for passing data through converters. These converters are called codecs (from encode, decode.)
Sorensen is probably the highest quality video codec with good compression for QuickTime. But there are a dozen other free codecs, including the widely available H.263 codec.
QuickTime is available on Linux, it's only the Sorenson codec that is not.
Given these simple facts, why does the Linux community continue to bitch about the absense of QuickTime for linux? Where are the open-source codecs to replace Sorenson? Why isn't the community insisting that web authors use a more widely available codec than Sorenson?
Or, to invert the question, why aren't the few open-source codecs that _are_ being developed being developed as QuickTime codecs? Why can't I get OggVorbis as a QuickTime codec? If the open source world built codecs for QuickTime, they would be usable with a minimum of fuss on Mac OS, Windows, and Linux, which would have a huge impact on adoption. Plus, so much of the boilerplate work, like authoring and playback software, would already be done for them!
It's sad, the opportunity being wasted like this.
-pmb
I had a QuickTime movie of my rabbits, on my personal homepage in 1995 which, if you had the QT plugin installed, would start playing as soon as it calculated it could reliably play the whole movie without having to pause. The little control bar filled up with gray and then it started playing automatically... very cool.
Considering that the prototype of pro-quality streaming was QuickTime Conferencing in 1994, allowing n people each to stream video to n-1 friends, I think you've got your chronology turned around a bit.
And I don't know what you mean by "portal functionality" but if you mean what I think, that's pretty trivial :)
Well, that's kind of the point; it wasn't just a codec. At a time when everyone else was doing FLC animation (shudder) or straight-shot MPEGs, Apple envisioned a media format which was extensible and flexible. Its design played well with time. Basically the multimedia revolution has been another case of Apple being the skunkworks R&D department for the entire industry.
VP3 is an open source QuickTime video codec that some people claim rivals Sorenson in quality (I haven't tried it myself).
1. That isn't "most features" that is one feature (two if you rally consider "portal functionality" a feature).
2. QuickTime's streaming technology is drastically different from Real's; It uses some of the same codecs as non-streaming video and really helps blur the line between streaming and non-streaming video, making the different versions of the video much easier to manage. QuickTime also uses the RTSP standard.
3.QuickTime's streaming technology delivers at least 4x the clarity of the same video encoded with the Real codec at the same bitrate, so in any event you have to admit that QT streaming video runs circles around Real and WM
4. QuickTime Streaming Server is open source, so you can go look at the "guts" yourself and stop your reflexive Apple-bashing
Oh yes, QuickTime has brought about a revolution in digital media!
True; the sarcastic parts of your post seem to be more accurate.
And nobody has ever duplicated it or surpassed it since!
I think a large part of the article was about how many people have duplicated it. QT still ships with the best codecs, integrates more technologies, and lets content creators do more, so player notwithstanding it is still the best video technology.
It's a media format wrapper (not a codec like MPEG...
That is why it was such a revolutionary technology, although Apple does take a role in the development of some of QT's important codecs, the reason QT allowed multimedia to spread was that it allowed you to deal with codecs transparenttly, even today most people still just think they're dealing with QuickTime video whether it is compressed with the Video or Sorenson codecs, nor will they be aware if the audio is uncompressed, MP3, PureVoice, or QDesign, or even if the author switches codecs midstream (do that with your "equivalent if not better tools").
QuickTime didn't start a revolution. It didn't change the world.
Yeah, that multimedia thing never really caught on.
The author has a very valid point: QuickTime is one of the very few technologies that was responsible for the explosion of a technology and is still the premier technology for it. Don't try to tell me that there are better technologies for multimedia content delivery; real multimedia professionals are not using MPEG or Real, and WM is almost as big a joke as the current Real codec. Today, Cleaner and the Sorenson codec are the Photoshop of high quality web multimedia, sure there are GIMPs of web multimedia, but don't try to say they are better.
I know many /.ers can't use real QuickTime, and I really think Apple should create a Linux version, but lets not have a bunch of sour grapes.
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
It really is not Apple's fault that Linux developers have payed so little attention to developing Linux based solutions for Apple formats.
If the quality of responses here is representative of the Linux/Open Source community at large, and I hope it is not, then it would seem that they can't even comprehend what QuickTime is.
QuickTime is not a movie format, at least in the sense that a LOTR trailer is a movie. It is not a codec. It is not an application with a window. It is an architecture and a set of organizing principles to tie time-dependent data together that negotiates amongst an essentially unlimited number of codecs and data formats.
Now, it just so happens that one common use of QuickTime is LOTR trailers. It also just so happens that a lot of people use the Sorenson codec. It also just so happens that there's a somewhat ugly piece of software called the QuickTime Player 4 (but the previous version still works and is nicer). However, that doesn't define what QuickTime is. Maybe people are confused by the fact that the name QuickTime is used in conjunction with other words. Maybe people are confused by the fact that the word used in QuickTime is "movie," even though Apple goes to great lengths to explain that it is not necessarily a literal movie of image frames. Honestly, though, I would expect a community of hackers to be able to look under the hood.
For the people talking about MPEG4, well, it does begin to approach this level of universality, but that's because it is based on Quicktime, with Apple contributing heavily to the standard! MPEG4 is, to all extents and purposes, a new version of QuickTime with some codecs included.
There is nothing to stop you, me, or any Open Source developer from using the QuickTime architecture and file format to do anything from a movie player to controlling the geometry in a 3rd-person shooter to keeping track of thunderstorm data. However, in order to do that, it is necessary to appreciate the value of an overarching architecture rather than a tool to do a thing in a file format.
I wonder if this lack of what must be called "vision" is emblematic of Open Source. I certaintly hope it is not. However, it would be consistent with some of the problems with making a desktop acceptable to the consumer.
One doesn't need to integrate software to the point of stupidity as does Microsoft. However, to achieve synchronicity in a system of pieces, it is even more important to have architectures and organizing principles on the order of QuickTime.
I can produce an image file on the Macintosh and write drivers for QuickTime and be sure that any reasonably well written image-processing program on the Macintosh will be able to use it automatically without my having to do anything else, and that's just the beginning. Doesn't anyone think this kind of capability would be useful on an open operating system?
No, no, no ... you guys are talking about this like it's a QuickTime vs Real vs MS Media Player war, like the only issue is the media player clients, or streaming video. The video has to exist on the computer in the first place before you can convert it to Real or MS formats and stream it. What you're taking for granted is that this stuff even exists on computers at all. That's what the 10 year anniversary of QuickTime is about. It's the UNIX of multimedia. Saying that QuickTime is no good because more people watch streaming video in Real or MS than in QuickTime Player is like saying whether ASCII or XML is good or not depends on which text editor you use. The reason there are multiple text editors in the first place is because we have these text formats that are easily interoperable, so much so that we take them for granted. That's what QuickTime did for video and multimedia.
... the authors are using QuickTime, the editors are using QuickTime. In other words, there's a workflow that starts in a camera and ends in your RealPlayer or MS Media Player and QuickTime was in the middle somewhere. In a sense, RealPlayer and MS Media Player are QuickTime players, but you convert the QuickTime to Real or MS formats. The fact that all this stuff has a long, long history and is well-integrated into the entire Mac platform is why Apple's iMovie and iDVD are years ahead of everyone else in consumer DV editing and DVD creation (really, the only true consumer entries, not even requiring any hardware or software installation beyond plugging in an iMac). Working with these different rich media types is just much older news on the Mac. The maturity benefits the user like the maturity of Apache over IIS benefits the server user. Apache and QuickTime are so much better than IIS and Windows Media that serving Web pages or working with rich media is taken for granted and many people don't actually ask themselves whether Microsoft's tools just aren't cutting it in the real world, to the level that other tools are.
The video you're watching in RealPlayer was at one point a QuickTime file
QuickTime is also much more than just streaming video or Sorenson streams. It handles all kinds of media, and a QuickTime movie is actually a wrapper for multiple media tracks. So you can easily add a MIDI soundtrack (just by cutting and pasting) to a video presentation, playing the lightweight music file through the built-in software synth that supports DownLoadable Sounds (DLS). Then you can layer on a Flash movie for an interface, and a spoken narrative in MP3. You can add transitions that are built-into QuickTime itself. All of these tracks exist within the single wrapper file.
Really, you can't overstate how important QuickTime has been and is now to any kind of computer multimedia.
Microsoft's earlier Video for Windows effort was even found in court to contain stolen QuickTime code. The didn't just copy the architecture, they also used Apple code. It's not surprising, but it's just symbolic of how much more of a leader Apple has been on this front.
QT doesn't have a codec, precisely. It's a framework. The QT format allows for multiple codecs.
For example, QT for the Mac comes standard with the following codecs for video:
You can also install your own codecs. I seem to have:
There are a comparable array of audio codecs.
Most of the stuff you see on the web these days is Sorenson. But content creators usually don't work in Sorenson; they work in the higher-quality codecs. I'm leaning towards On2VP3 these days, although in the past I was pretty much a straight-up Indeo man.
It also allows you to encode without using a codec, i.e. raw data & Big Files. This is what the really serious editors with the Really Big Drives (Avid and so on) use.
BTW, the DivX ;-) player for the Mac uses a QuickTime framework, and can play the DivX inside QT player.
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore