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QuickTime To Move To MPEG-4

Posted by timothy on from the quicktime-is-polymorphously-perverse dept.

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.

5 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Quicktime for Linux? by ebooher · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ok, label me as naive here, but how does the inclusion of MPEG-4 video have anything to do with Quicktime being available for Linux? (Which it already is by the way, in a manner of speaking.)

    It isn't like the Sorenson codec couldn't run under Linux. It runs just find under BSD/Darwin with Quartz (read as OS X). Apple just has absolutely no interest in making a streaming video client for Linux.

    The standard and original Quicktime libraries have been available on Linux for a while, check out http://www.heroinewarrior.com/quicktime.php3 but all of the "cool movie trailers" available on Apple's website are in Sorenson, and it's Sorenson that isn't available under Linux. Chances are, if they *do* embrace MPEG-4 it will probably be an Apple / Quicktime specific version so that we still won't see it under Linux.

    However, I've read that their streaming video server runs just fine.

    Just my 2 cents worth of nothing

    --
    "Genius may shine aloof and alone, like a star, but goodness is social, and it takes two men and God to make a Brother."
  2. Don't Steal Music? by Bwana · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is good news for Apple, but there is a snippet of this article that raises an interesting issue:

    Analysts predict that rather than pursue an "embrace and extend" strategy, Microsoft and RealNetworks will stick to their guns and continue marketing their own formats. Although those products will not have MPEG-4's interoperability, the companies say advantages include smaller file size, better image and sound quality, and more advanced digital rights management software. Both RealNetworks and Microsoft have invested heavily in creating anti-copying technology that would make it safe for record labels and other content owners to sell their products online.

    Steve Jobs' stance has always been that stealing music is a problem of the "community" and not "technology". I wonder if Apple will stand behind this philosophy with MPEG4 or join Microsoft and Real Networks in their security schemes. Just a thought.

    --

    "Electric Relaxation" - ATCQ
    - Bwana
  3. "Would we need it?"? Huh? by Wakko+Warner · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You *do* know there are various different kinds of things that are labeled "MPEG 4", right? Up until recently, we couldn't play "DiVX ;-)" files, for example, on Linux, and that was a hacked-up version of Microsoft's MPEG-4 implementation (which we also couldn't play). The only reason they play on Linux at all is because someone swiped the libraries from a Microsoft player and figured out how to hook into them. Do you really think, once Apple figures out how to make their own, proprietary version of MPEG 4, that Linux will stand a chance in Hades of playing any more movie trailers than it can today?

    - A.P.

    --
    "Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
  4. It's not that we need it by VFVTHUNTER · · Score: 4, Interesting

    it's that we need to NOT need it. What I mean is that the only movies I can't play right now are the ones with Sorensen and other proprietary codecs. Were Apple and folks to stop using these, I would be able to play pretty much anything.

    I use MPlayer. It supports every codec (save Sorensen et al) that I've run across. It has a gui now, or it runs from the command line (for all the people who want to script their multiple-file porn). Furthermore, it's actually better than WMP for several reasons, my favorite being that WMP requires you to have an entire AVI file on disk before it will play it, whereas with MPlayer you can start watching while you are still downloading it.

    If this doesn't seem important to you, consider downloading a 200MB file only to discover its crappy quality. With MPlayer, you can check it as soon as you've downloaded enough bytes to play a few frames, thus saving tons of bandwidth, not to mention disk space or time spent unraring things.

    I use MPlayer only, but I have seen other OSS players and they are just as good. Lastly I will mention that the day I got MPlayer up and running was the same day that I killed my last Win* partition. I haven't rebooted since :)

  5. Major problem.. by Ogerman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Something that most people forget is that ALL of the MPEG codecs are possibly non-free in the US due to software patent issues. This is because MPEG as an ISO standards body accepts patented technology when deciding on standards.. (oh yeah, and because the US has evil software patents in the first place) Contrast, for example W3C, the web standards body, which does not accept patented technology, although this was recently debated. So either way, open standard or not, MPEG4 is freely available for use on Linux.

    Software patents are a threat to free software and free speech. Just say NO!