QuickTime To Move To MPEG-4

spav writes: "Looks like Apple will be embracing MPEG-4 for its new versions of QuickTime according to C|Net News.com. That could mean quicktime for Linux, but would we need it?" This sounds like a start toward OS-neutral video, but until companies decide not to add proprietary layers making otherwise widely-available formats unavailable, it won't be the end. The first half of this article dwells on QuickTime's 10th birthday, but then gives slightly more detail on the MPEG4 transition.

Comments

Platform neutral... eh ?

[MosesJones]

MPEG 4 allows you to put lots of things inside the stream, all of them can be platform specific, or hardware specific or whatever. MPEG2 was a rendering of video standard. MPEG4 is a bundling of multimedia content standard. HTML, MPEG2, whatever can be bundled.

So maybe they'll just bundle QuickTime movies inside the MPEG4 stream but allow a "Flash" style overlay in another content stream.

Re:Platform neutral... eh ?

[znu]

Where do you think the MPEG-4 file format came from? It's QuickTime's file format, or something very close; Apple submitted it to MPEG. So this won't really be a very large change for QuickTime.

This isn't going to do a damn thing for Linux; the QuickTime file format was already completely documented. The problem is codecs, and as you point out, MPEG-4 does nothing to prevent encapsulation of stuff encoded with proprietary codecs.

Now, if everyone starts using the video codec frequently called MPEG-4 (not to be confused with the file format specification called MPEG-4) along with MP3 sound tracks, maybe we'll finally get fully standards-based video. But Sorenson 3 is a damn tough codec to beat on quality.

Linux needs all the help it can get with video

[NSParadox]

I'm not sure how Quicktime is necessarily relevant from Linux, but I know that Linux could use all the help it can get in the movie department.

I have been running three Linux servers (good 'ol LAMP) and a Win2K desktop for the past year or so, and decided that the only way I could learn more about my servers is if I immersed myself in Linux all the time. After installing RedHat 7.2 on my desktop, everything for the most part worked great, EXCEPT for the video.

Frames were constantly being lost or being frozen. I had incredible difficulty resolving dependencies when COMPILING FROM SOURCE (this isn't an example of rpm problems). And about half of the MPEG's I have simply don't play. I don't know whether this is due to "proprietary" MPEG formats that Windows Media Player supports, or if it's just a matter of me not having the right codecs, but it's frusturating as all hell, and I feel it's one of the biggest issues preventing Linux from becoming a viable desktop OS, even for the not-entirely-newbie of us.

NSParadox

Clever people

[YearOfTheDragon]

"In order for (MPEG-4) to succeed as a standard, it has to be used," said Susan Kevorkian, an analyst with IDC.
Excel files are a standard for most business.
But this don't makes Excel files a standard but only a common used format.
While industry didn't understand this difference, standards aren't going to success.

Let me guess...

[wirefarm]

The first push to use those extra layers will be for licensing.
I doubt it will be for things that actually *improve* the end viewer's experience, but more for things that *limit* your allowed experience.
Why do I have this feeling? Before I moved from the US, I used to love wathing foreign films; I would watch Asian or European films with English Subtitles. (On VHS from any video store.) I naively figured that with DVD technology, I would be able to rent a French movie in Tokyo and be able to turn on English subtitles. I mean, your typical DVD movie is ~4GB- that leaves what, like 3GB for 'extras'? I guessed that multi-lingual subs would be a no-brainer.
Guess what? I over-estimated the no-brainer part...
With this bad taste already in my mouth, I have little hope that Quicktime will use these extra 'layers' in any way that I will find useful.

You're forgetting something...

[Millennium]

This sounds like a start toward OS-neutral video, but until companies decide not to add proprietary layers making otherwise widely-available formats unavailable, it won't be the end.
Um, the QuickTime file format is the standard file format for MPEG-4 (at least, according to the MPEG group's standard). You can find free documentation for it at http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/2160/ fformats/fformats.htm; look in the "Animation" section.

The QuickTime codecs are proprietary, true, as is Apple's own implementation. But the QuickTime file format isn't.

The issue is more complicated that "proprietary"

[chriscmp]

First off, the _format_ of quicktime files has been "known" in the public domain for many many years. One of the first public domain implementation, XANIM, was based on reversed engineered knowledge of the format and Apple doesn't appear to have tried to prevent the dissemination of this information. In fact, by handing this same format to the MPEG-4 committee it is actually MPEG-4 that has become quicktime, not the other way around. That said, there are _MANY_ different video codecs which are supported inside the Quicktime format, some invented by apple (Road Pizza) and others by third parties(Cinepak, Sorenson). The point is that even if Apple _wanted_ to release the source to quicktime, they could not. (For example XANIM's author was required by the owners of Cinepak to release only "object" versions of his reverse engineered implementation. I note they were nice enough not to completely shut him down. ) That said, the base MPEG-4 video/audio codec is most clearly a specification open to all, and you can expect Linux implementations.