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Darwin Streaming Server Beats Real, Windows Media
pinqkandi writes "Network Computing recently ran an extensive shootout of video streaming servers, in areas from setup to quality to buffering times. The free, open source Darwin Streaming Server, which streams QuickTime content, edged out costly and closed source Windows Media & RealVideo streaming systems." Well, it edged out Real. It blew Microsoft away.
Now if only the all-libre folks had a way of producing and viewing nice QuickTime movies...
There are ways to make quicktime videos without purchasing Quicktime pro, but most of them don't work very well, or use older versions of the quicktime mpeg4 based/inspired codec.
Can the darwin streamer be used to stream any other kind of media?
Tarkin support? Tarkin? Tarkin, anyone?
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Even if it only "edged out" Real in terms of streaming speed/whatever, it certainly blows the doors of Real in terms of quality.
Their "fractal" algorithm or whatever they're calling it has been ready for retirement for the last 3 years. Can you say artifacting? Especially in medium to high motion scenes. At low bandwidth it's about the only way to go, but for broadband applications, it's just ugly.
Not only that, but I'm glad to see another alternative in streaming media. More choices is inevitably better.
*everything* is Orwellian to cats.
Go opensource (darwin)! er.. closed source (quicktime)! er.. apple (the underdog)! er.. quicktime (best codec)!
I think this is great.. but what political stance can a mass of angry/happy slashdotter's take on this??
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Darwin sounds really cool. Perhaps it will evolve to become #1? Survival of the fittest streaming servers definitely applies here.
I admittedly have almost nil experience with streaming servers (or clients, for that matter) except for mp3 streams. I must say that I'm surprised that Apple's Darwin QTSS beat out Real and MS! Not bad for something open source and free. Didn't expect it, given my percieved relative unpopularity of it. Is it behind more sites that I seem to be noticing, or is it really a well-kept secret?
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
This would be a lot cooler if *everything* about Quicktime were open (including codecs). It's pretty silly that I can run the streaming server on Linux but I have to go to Windows or Mac to view the content.
---------
get your war on
I think in the end the player will determine which platform will be more succesful, and Microsoft is better placed there.
Not that I love Media Player, but it sure beats that crappy Real Player or that irritating nagware that is Quicktime. Plus it comes bundled with windows...
I know that whenever I'm presented with a choice of streaming media, I usually pick the one for mediaplayer.
I'd rather download something than stream it. Streams are often much lower quality and it prevents you from time-shifting it, which you should be able to do. For this reason I use Streambox VCR, which you can download here, for downloading .RM files and ASFRecorder, downloadable here, which lets you download streaming Windows Media files, so that you can time shift those as well.
It looks like OS X is becoming a serious contender for the server market. Now if Apple can get their ass in gear and make some serious sever hardware, it has a shot at boosting market share.
Does any one know about Darwin clients for Linux,
which also shows those standalone quicktime movies.
I am sick of not being able to see those quicktime
movies.
I'm not aware of a good open source streaming media format that also has good linux AND windows clients, which might explain why Darwin chose to stream quicktime format (or even more likely, there is something about the quicktime format that makes it supperior for streaming). But it would be nice to see something come up to bat against the major players here.
But just because I'm not aware of it, doesn't mean it does not exist. Where there is a software question, there is usually an open source answer. Can anyone point me in the direction of a good streaming format with clients for Windows/Linux/Apple? Perhaps a Java client is the answer.
----- sXe
Which one is better - Windoes Media Player runs on the Windows that comes with each new PC, built right in so the consumer doesn't have to do anything! It's tightly integrated with the OS just like the consumer wants it. WMP is going to win the mp wars, too. Sorry WinAmp, Real and Quicktime. That's just the way it goes these days. Better luck in the next life.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Quicktime isn't a compression codec. You're free to use whatever compression pleases your ear.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
and if you have to use 1.5 Mbps, why not just use MPEG. I would say WM and Real both do well at low and mid-range bitrates, but the sorenson codec sucks at anything but high bitrates.
The review didn't mention anyting about frame rate or video size. quality was mesured from screen captures, so I guess video framerate and audio are not part of the streaming media experience.
They also should have used S-video for all captures. The osprey 500 DV applies a filter when you use the IEEE 1394 port. This is not an apples to apples comparison. Why not just use the winnov card for all captures?
They also didn't mention how many streams a single server could handle. Real requires a heavy duty server, QT doesn't realy have specs, and I would bet Windows Media server does the best job.
And WTF is with the apple networking icon? Is there realy a need for that?
I believe you already know the answer to this question, this have discussed into oblivion...
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
I don't want to spoil the open source pep rally here but there is ONE MS product that beats the equivalent OSS product, MS Office.
I have wondered for the longest time why a number of news outlets use Windows Media on their web sites, when the quality / stability totally blows. Maybe they're Microsoft trained gnomes who only use FrontPage, write ASP, and use IE. I don't know. But QuickTime blows the $hit out of everything else. I just wish more people recognized that.
StarOffice (OpenOffice) was nicer than MS Office when I used it.
The survey of folks deploying streaming servers said that the #1 most important thing when choosing a format was quality. But, the #1 most-deployed format was Windows Media, which was judged to be, by far, the worst format for quality. What does this tell us?
As a person that uses Linux for a Desktop.
Let me just say this..
I only see Windows and MAC on the download page.
Next stop.. avifile?
HOW ABOUT A QUICKTIME VIEWER FOR LINUX?
(With a current codex.)
Would that it were so. Unfortunately, it's difficult to top the MS Office suite, Outlook included. Certainly with OSS.
Frankly, the Office programs are what most business users need, and a good solid OSS solution would be beautiful, but it hasn't happened yet.
IP is just rude.
Is there any torture so subl
This would be a lot cooler if *everything* about Quicktime were open (including codecs). It's pretty silly that I can run the streaming server on Linux but I have to go to Windows or Mac to view the content.
:P
Amen brother.
This seems to be the trend... GNU/Linux is perceived as a server platform, as much as the commercial Unices are. I know several Unix admins that exclusevely use Windows as their desktop box using X servers/telnet/ssh to connect to the Unix boxes. Even they really can't view a Unix platform such as GNU/Linux as desktop (not because it doesn't have what it needs, but because they can't come to terms with it).
Take Lotus Notes... you can run Domino Server in Linux, but if you try to access the mail you are out of luck because Notes is Windows-only.
Most desktop frontends end up being Windows-only, while the engine is running on some Unix. Hell, HP, IBM and other Unix vendors encourage this!
Take mysql and CVS... there has been nice and friendly win32 graphical tools long before any was available in Unix. It seems people like it this way
In the end it is exactly as you said it: we end up powering the services and providing content that we can't view ourselves
cheers,
fsm
Kind thoughts do not change the world
Actually, there is one Microsoft product that beat an Open Source product, hands down. What is it?
Microsoft Product: WindowsNT
Open Source Product: crashme
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
When will nakednews.com support this format?
Method of processing duck feet
Here's a tip to get rid of the nag screen: Set your system clock ahead, say, 20 years. Run the quicktime player. When it asks you to buy the full version, click the "later" option. Exit the player. Restore your clock to the correct time. You won't get the nag screen again for 20 years.
"We created screen shots of the same scene from each player at different encoding rates: 56, 128, 256, 384 and 512 Kbps."
So they're not even testing motion or sound quality?
I have seen it first hand in the product our company produces. I am in QA, and even though I have raised several issues about the usability of our product, the end result is - it doesn't matter. The end user will use whatever they are told to use. We sell to hospitals, and cater to the administration needs, not the end user needs (nurses, stock people, etc). As long as we can sell it, and it does what the "higher-ups in the hospital want", the end user isn't a factor.
I think that is what would happen with a company setting up streaming media - the end user will use whatever they decide they will use.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
When did this happen? Is this the new look for the new slashdot? It looks kinda nice but... I don't know...
Talk about cheap, I mean really. They _give_ you the server, and have the unmitigated gall to ask you to pay less than one dinner for two at a nice restaurant for the software that lets you author media for it.
QuickTime is not portable software. It runs only on PowerPC-based Macintosh computers and x86-based PCs; if you want to use an Alpha or Sun box as an encode server, tough shit. Bochs doesn't count because video encoding is arithmetic-heavy, and Bochs doesn't dynamically recompile. That must be a really nice restaurant for a dinner for two to equal the cost of a low-end new PC.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I've often wondered why all of the player's gui's - Media Player, Real, and Quicktime - suck. All of the user interface research that has been done over the years must have been thrown away or forgotten.
--Jeff
ipv6 is my vpn
My company is using the Darwin Streaming Server for a client project to stream MP3's. You can create SMIL files that auto-detect the right bandwidth-specific version for your connection.
<smil>
<body>
<switch>
<ref title="Title of Song" src="rtsp://streaming.my.localhost/mp3/Title_ of_Song/128.mp3" system-bitrate="220000"/>
<ref title="Title of Song" src="rtsp://streaming.my.localhost/mp3/Title_ of_Song/40.mp3" system-bitrate="45000"/>
<ref title="Title of Song" src="rtsp://streaming.my.localhost/mp3/Title_ of_Song/20.mp3" system-bitrate="20000"/>
</switch>
</body>
</smil>
I don't know much about Linux/BSD software, but RealPlayer and QuickTime plugins can play these streams.
No one at our company had ever done any sort of music streaming before, but I was able to convince the client to go with our solution. It (Darwin Streaming Server - free) is running under Linux (free) as a Apache/Tomcat JSP application (free).
It was the right decision financially (as far as keeping development costs down). It's also nice to see that our decision, in this instance, was the right one performance-wise as well.
get with the programme, Dino. No one cares about your voice in the wilderness. Watch as your enemies at Apple anihilate the world you know.
To use Quicktime over anything else.
I think Quicktime is better than Windows Media and 1000 times better than Real. Real is very buggy, at least for me. So, I refuse to use any Real products.
... It opens with a scene from Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension . Yay.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
that they actually missed MANY factors when writing this review.
I'm a little pro real server, so please bear with me.
First off, RealOne Player gold which just shipped has a new feature called Turbo Play, which basically eliminates buffering times if you are on a high bandwidth machine.
Second, Real Server probably has many more features, for one more codec support:
* RealAudio/Video
* QuickTime
* Avi
* Mpeg
* MP3
These are some of the more popular ones, eh?
Also, what about scaling? RealServer has been proven to scale well. How well does the Darwin server scale? To me it sounds like they only tried this test on a single client network.
There are Mac realplayers as well.. RealOne Player is the only player that is not available on the Mac, yet.
There just seems to be a few things missing from this article that weren't tried or left out.
Darwin server would be great to try out and play with. And it will probably work great for people who want to stream some mp3s from home so they can listen to at work, but from this review I dont get a feeling its something that would be a viable solution in the realworld of streaming where you may have thousands of people connecting to a stream from multiple countries, OS's, and bandwidth.
Aliens? Magnetic Rings?! Bah! Who needs that when we have
"Well, it edged out Real. It blew Microsoft away."
Which in english means "Microsofts R&D department will be hard at work absconding code from apple to make a new version of their streaming server."
Bah
Ra7
-
"Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" - RWE
The most amazing part is, the article is from March 18th, a whole three days in the FUTURE!
Obviously, Alexander Hartdegen is playing with us again. Since he can't change his past, he has come to the present to change the future, and Apple is his unwitting victim (forget Jeremy Irons and his hairy friends).
Just keep a watch out for temporal rifts sucking your teacups into the nether.
- The Amazina Llama
I should have said not one server product.
They certainly have command of the desktop office suite market.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
Outlook??? Yeah, right; I use Outlook all the time at work and it's a disjointed pain in the ass, poorly organized and badly designed. Somebody really had their head up their ass when they thought this sucker up.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
MS Office isn't really appropriate for most business settings, because nowdays, many businesses are connected to the internet and share documents with others. If you don't interact with outside organizations, MS Office may be ok. But if you do swap documents with outside organizations, you've got to be crazy to use Office. The macro language is too powerful and virus-friendly. That's like passing around executable binaries.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I downgraded my cable service from 128kbps/128k to 64k/64k. Why?
/.).
Besides the former company's lousy job (speed& latency), I learned that 56kbps streams abound, and you find a smaller percentage of 256kps or 80kpbs.
More importantly, people say 384kpbs is the minimum to attain a good TV experience, VHS-like. This is not common. And out of my reach, right now. We can only get 512k here -- ant it *is* expensive!
Also, new techniques and codecs may eventually bring down the requirements (recent news stories about this here on
Now, in the light of the above, I thank Real very much. Weren't for them what would be the viable options under 56k?
Yes, they charge for production. You can use that MS-alternative which is free. Except they got your money much before, when you acquired their OS.
What? You got it free? Ah, yeah, right... A dog's collar is free, too. Me, I'm like the wolf...
And yet it blows any other commercial e-mail package away for ease of use and fluid design. It challenges any open source/free alternative at the very least.
Outlook rules.
Only once, if you do it right.
When the screen comes up that says "Upgrade", "Later", etc., change your PC clock to something way far out in the future (2020 or so). Click "Later". Change your clock back.
Ta-da! No more nagware.
Sleep is just a poor substitute for caffeine, anyway. -Bob Lehmann
Umm... actually since they own 95% of the desktop market and a large share of the server market (small to mid-range especially) I don't think anyone could argue that MS is a has been with a straight face.
Since they are also a moving target in the software category -- i.e.: they are always modifying their products, dare I say improving them and enhancing them -- I don't think anyone who wants to survive in the software industry could afford to discount them today.
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
An AC wrote:
;) Microsoft's developers don't seem to mind the sky high cost of Visual Studio.Net. Lets see Microsoft give that away for free!
> Its a classic Bait and Switch. Apple will always charge money for
> video compression deliverred stock in their normal Quicktime, and
> will never offer source to the compressors.
Apple doesn't have the rights or the ability to give you the source to the compressors of others that they license to use in QuickTime. Good Grief! The whole reason they are not releasing QT6 is because the MPEG-4 people are demanding that content creators pay them a tax to use it, over and above the $2 million Apple will be paying them to license it. Apple is going to bat for its users here, and you have the gall to blame them for not giving you someone else's source code!
> Apple charges (GOUGES) its dwindling developer base.
Oh yeah, right! A whole twenty bucks to get a CD of their developers tools FedExed to your doorstep. Wow, that's highway robbery!
The old Apple was greedy and stupid, sure. Their greed nearly killed them. The new Apple, born in December 1996, is on the whole, wiser and more compassionate. This is the Apple that:
- Based the core of their new OS on open source (and gave back the source, which was not required by the license).
- Slashed the price of their Web Objects from $50,000 to $699.
- Gave away their OS X developer's tools for free download ($20 for CD).
- Went to bat for their users to avoid extra end user charges (for MPEG-4 content creation) for Quick Time Pro users.
- Opened the source of their Darwin Streaming server.
- and a lot more.
> Developers have priciples... and the number one priciple is that they
> HATE being exploited.
No, you just hate having to pay to get anything in life.
> They expect Apple to PAY THEM to read new manuals, not the other
> way around.
>
> They expect Apple to PAY THEM to adapt and ebrace new proprietary
> system technologies, not the other way around.
Actually, that is what your *employer* pays you for, and expects you to do if you want your salary to continue going up. If you are programming as a hobby, it is its own reward.
> They always give long marketing-speak excuses why they wanted 895
> dollars for newton programming manuals
>
> They use excuses such as : default IBM OS/2 programming manuals
> from IBM cost 5000 dollars in March 1987.
>
> Sigh.......
>
> OS/2 is dead, Apple.
So's Newton, so why are you expecting to be able to get programming manuals for it, at any price? Anyway, IBM OS/2 didn't die due to the price of the programming manuals (actually, last I heard, another company was still developing versions of OS/2).
> Offer some video compression source code (pay your consulting
> suppliers if you need to) or shut the hell up.
It's two million dollars (plus content creating costs) just to put MPEG-4 in QuickTime. Do you really want Apple to go broke to give you free source code?
If you want the source that badly, go gripe at the MPEG-4 people.
> I hope Darwin crap dies as well as slow buggy MAc OS X.
> (Mac-O-Sux)
Oh, go argue point with Aqua Mothra! Grrr...
On December 14, 1996, Mothra resurrected an apple tree.
On December 14, 2001, she returned to see its fruit:
OS X, the Apple of Mothra's Aqua eye.
Please add Visual Studio to that. I've tried CodeWarrior, the Borland IDE, KDevelop, Project Builder, vi, emacs and Visual Studio. Visual Studio blows them ALL by a large factor in MY opinion.
(Apple's) Project Builder is getting there, and is extremely good for a version 1.0 (well, 1.1.1) but there is still some work left to do, especially on the debugging side. GDB is nice, but not being able to step into C++ templates classes majorly sucks, for instance, or not being able to set watches in the UI...
One shall speak only if what one has to say is more beautiful than silence
I hate streaming video. It looks like crap. So I don't really care if one is slightly better than the other.
Even digital broadcast, which we prolly watch every day, is clunky and unreliable (sounds like the Net doesn't it?). As someone who PAYS FOR THE BLOODY CABLE, I gotta say I'm completely disappointed in each and every digital "entertainment" technology so far. Not good enough. If I can find an alternative, I'll take it in a second. I'm seriously considering cutting all cable and simply using DVD collections and trades. Hey, as long as Buffy the Vampire Slayer is on disk, I don't need cable (if you get me).
I firmly believe digital technology cannot deliver high quality over a distance. Even through a wire. 1001010100101010 --- are too fat!
Actually, I was referring to the actual slashdot title graphic at the top left of the screen. And the horizontal dividers betweeen posts. They have an iMac look to them.
But now I see that they are only for stories in the "Networking (Apple)" section. Must be a feature I was unaware of.
Or am I the only one that can see them?!? :-)
Whose fault is that? Linux is, after all, the platform where "barely good enough" is just fine. If you ask "how do I do xyz", the geeks will always refer you to some command line tool, when 90% of the people would prefer a GUI tool. If you complain, they say the CLI tool works fine, so why bother? You can't convince them that it's a problem.
Microsoft spanks open source in the desktop operating systems market, which is the 95% of the computing population that ISN'T running a server.
Clue - users don't want to be told to use a command line in order to make their system work.
lets assume that we want OS X to move to x86-64. I would love this as well, get Apple using fast, 64-bit chips. Alas, there is already a TON of software for the Classic and current OS X that would either not run, or would have to be recompiled. Older Classic software would have to run in an emulator... blah. It's just way too much complication, and then unless they use a pretty custom mobo architecture w. x86-64, they will get muscled out but discount systems. So its pretty much a losing situation for Apple any way you cut it that way =\
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
if you want to use an Alpha or Sun box as an encode server
If you can afford a Alpha or Sun encoding setup, I really doubt you'd have any problem with
affording a sub-$1000 PC to use as a dedicated QT encoder.
Not everyone uses $platform because it's free.
C-X C-S
Second, I thought things like MPEG1-4 were "open" standards, just not "open-source" or "free".
So as you can see, either I'm very confused or a lot of people are confusing the terminology. I'm not always sure which.
Really? I hadn't seen a single dicussion of MacOS X specifically for AMD x86-64 only, myself...
One reason that might be an attractive move for Apple is that it *wouldn't* run on IA32. Hammer systems will be significantly more expensive (and hopefully higher quality) than typical x86 systems.
It wouldn't necessarily be a high-volume item (well depending on how Clawhammer does;), so it might provide a nice, easy transition to a portable OS. Again, that is: OpenStep was ported to five or so CPU architectures and MacOS X is essentially up-to-date OpenStep with a facelift.
Java is a first-class development language on OSX, and fat binaries are available. Again, OpenStep was developed to easily accomodate multiple CPU architectures. Software developers would have to endure a little pain, but would sell more product.
The final point is that Apple can charge whatever it wants for the OS and limit things that way. I think if it hit the right sweet spot ($300?) it would generate plenty of revenue for not that much of an investment. The folks who want white-box Hammers are a very different crowd from Apple's traditional user base.
Don't forget that both hardware bases use the same peripherals and cards, so driver support is a no brainer.
Amazing to see such a good idea get such a negative response... ;-)
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
I don't want to spoil the open source pep rally here but there is ONE MS product that beats the equivalent OSS product, MS Office.
Three years ago, I would have agreed. But thinks are changing.
For small text documents, AbiWord is easier than the singing-paperclip-bloated MS Word. It's heavily used now by my clinets for office memos and two page documents.
For large text documents - LaTeX is pretty hard to beat for productivity, but for the middle ground (40 pages of test) MS Word does a better job, provided it doesen't crash on you.
Excell - the spreadsheet of StarOffice/OpenOffice is just a good.
Access - with it's 'Jet' datastore is a joke. Use a real tool like Postgresql with Access if you like to keep your data, or replace it all toegther with free software in your choice of laguages.
Outlook - Evolution is darn close to being an Outlook killer. Give it six months to work out the *few* bugs left.
Powerpoint - the whole idea of computer aided presentations is a joke. Learn to speak in front of people - it's not that hard.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Apple liscensed sorenson for the mac and windows versions of quicktime; why not release an "official" quicktime (closed source if need be, with sorenson) for linux? Maybe it's because they'd rather not see linux succeed as a desktop OS?
(they obviously had no choice about making quicktime for windows; a format with no windows support wouldn't make it too far)
__
Choose mnemonic identifiers. If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem. - Larry Wall
If AMD comes through as promised, the first Hammers will be at a 3400+ PR rating. That's the equivalent (according to their metrics) of a 3.4 GHz. original Athlon in throughput. Discounting Altivec vs. SSE, that is at least twice as fast as those 1 GHz. G4s...and they're 64 bit CPUs so they can tackle problems the G4 can't touch. Finally, each Hammer has it's own memory controller, so a dual CPU system has double the memory bandwidth of dual G4s with DDR...except of course your current Mac is still using PC133 SDRAM. Every Clawhammer CPU will work in a two-way SMP system.
Apple will have to work very hard to compare to that. They've overpromised on CPU performance for a long time, I'm skeptical of the G5. And I haven't even touched on Sledgehammer, which has dual DDR controllers (per CPU) and scales to at least 8-way systems...
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Its kinda elite move against Apple who has been suing everyone trying to imitate OSX via skins/themes. In my opinion of course.
which is slimmer, faster, and arguably renders better than mozilla.
IE is bigger, slower, and renders not quite as well as mozilla. Reasons:
bigger) Just not noticed because IE is loaded when the operating system is loaded itself so the average person does not realize that they loaded a very big and complex browser and just think that the extra 30+ seconds after the desktop shows up is normal. There are tools out there which allow you to remove IE from windows (wow. windows is actually more stable at that point as well) and you will see just how much bigger IE is.
slower) Again this is a illusion due to the fact that IE is already loaded into memory. Try loading up mozilla and then spawning a new browser to see which one goes faster.
renders better) Considering that mozzilla is actually W3C compliant and IE has lots of areas where it is not, I do not see how you can possible make this claim.
So, to stream videos you need to pay for the tools.
What about streaming live audio like radios?
What does it needs?
Does Daewin Streaming Server do it all?
I've not been able to get the plugin to
work, either from within the browser or as
a standalone on Mandrake 8.0 or 8.1.
It starts up and then X freezes hard.
I've not had much help from the codeweaver folks
in this regard. I would be interested if anyone
has got this working on mandrake.
Magnus.
Does a product have to be made from the ground up as an open source project to be a 'triumph of open source'?
It seems to me that when open source has become so appealing that commercial software producers find it benefitial to release their source code to the world and continue development as an open source project, that is the truest triumph of open source.
I'd rather see Photoshop open sourced than use The GIMP anyhow.
Kevin Fox
wrong. Real streams better than anyone else at modem rates. WinMedia streams best at broadband rates and QuickTime kills them both for progressive download and interactivity. Still, what do I know, I only do video compression for a living...
That was classic intercourse!
Well, Apple on AMD is a moot point since Apple on x86 whatsoever *never* gonna happen(don't quote me on that). Apple makes most of their money from Hardware. but even if still went for x86, they would be on course for collision with MS, and you don't want to fsck with MS on their home turf unless you got a bloody good idea of how to beat them or you got a death wish as a company.
So, what would MS do if Apple started stealing x86 sales from them?, well, stop developing ie and office for example, bye, bye apple..
ALso, apple has to remain compatible with all old PPC software already out there, without too much of speedloss, etc... that's gonna be hard.
ALso a CPU swap only would invole so much prpoble that it would cost more than it was worth. THere's nothing wrong with the PPC architecture in itself, on the contrary, it's much more pretty and *should be* more scaleable than x86. the problem has been motorola who's been screing things up. I think Apple should rather change CPU manufacturer to IBM an dget their PPC from there.
Yes, I wish they were available for x86 too and no I don't like MS business methods... but, who said life was fair??
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
All of the user interface research that has been done over the years must have been thrown away or forgotten.
With QuickTime 4, Apple threw their own Human Interface Guildelines out the window and made something that looked cool, which Microsoft promptly copied. Users complained, so QuickTime 5 fixed some of the UI problems a bit (using a slider bar for volume instead of a stupid wheel). The brushed metal look is also used by the "i" apps (iMovie, iTunes, iDVD, iPhoto) which I also find to be frequently counterintuitive. Maybe QuickTime 6 will be better?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
The authoring isn't the problem. The playback is. Offering a system that doesn't play on Linux or FreeBSD (unless you count OS X as being FreeBSD), or anything else that's not Mac or Windows, is NOT a win for open source like the summary falsely claimed - it's using one open source project (the streaming server) to hamper another (the OS'es that can't do quicktime because Apple won't release the Sorensen Codec (and it would be illegal under DMCA to reverse engineer it nowadays even if you could figure out how {damn DMCA}.)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
But the unfortunate fact of the matter is that Outlook has an installed base of incredible size. How do they retain so many with a product so poor?
Answer: The product wasn't designed to be a usable, powerful, intuitive MUA. It was designed to provide the most customer lock-in possible, period. In this, it, and all the MS desktop apps, have succeeded admirably. Except maybe WMP.
IP is just rude.
Is there any torture so subl
GUI design was turned over to the Marketroids, with no input from engineers, or anyone else with any sound training or experience. Now, the programmers just get an MRD that says "Make it do X, and make it look like Y" and that's it.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Powerpoint - the whole idea of computer aided presentations is a joke. Learn to speak in front of people - it's not that hard.
Personally I think computer aided presentations is great. It means I can get a copy of the slides used in a presentation later. Especially good for college students at wired colleges. (No more need to take all those notes:) Of course, why they can't just use some jpegs or png's and an image viewer I don't know.
<rant>What I can't stand is when the office idiot sends around their document in powerpoint format. Or an invitation to a party. WTF???</rant>
Running the Real Player in Classic (emulation) is kind of a pain. Unfortunately, my favorite radio program "This American Life" has everything in Real format (at least it's not Windows Media.)
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Linux is an alternative, desktop OS. Macintosh OS is an alternative, desktop OS. People like UNIX, want a desktop OS, choose between OS-X and Linux. I'm not saying this is the way it is...but maybe the Mac guys look at it this way. Apple won't make linux quicktime because linux is direct competition?
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
it's called BUSINESS as in CAPITALISM. it's what puts food in your belly and clothes on your back. Fucking hell!
That was classic intercourse!
... is this just for MacOS X Server or can regular old MacOS X users work the software as well? The page lists the Mac requirements as OS X 10.1, but when I try to find the download I am refered to the propretary OS X Server version.
omnia tua castra sunt nobis
Because, as it was pointed out, it would take a signifigant amount of work to get QuickTime ported to Linux, just as it took a long time for Windows.
/no/ copies of QuickTime Pro.
However, as much as it would be nice to do, there isn't enough marketshare to justify the price of development. Much as we would like it to be so, companies cannot sink very much money into Linux, especially since the Linux community is not very famous for paying for their software, and they would probably sell close to
When encryption is outlawed, ?o'AZ-,++o+i++##4AoA+-/-C++bI+/.+~
My experiance with computer aided presentations has spoiled my from them forever. If you use it to display a *few* key ideas - that's ok, but the dancing bears and the cheesy music is a waste of time.
In my capacity as a developer - I have to give bid presentations several time a quarter and standing up and speaking clearly keeps by victem's attentention on me and my ideas, and not the flashy presentation behind me.
I often sit in quietly on my competetor's presentations - and they abolsutly kill their message with powerpoint. They often can't get the hardware working right and they can't tailor their presentation to the vibe that they are getting from the audience.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Doing a quick search on Yahoo! Shopping I came up with tons of places where you can get firewire cards for sub-$25. It's not the high-priced game it used to be.
That page is wrong (and it's been wrong for awhile now, somebody has yet to clue in the marketing person who did that page...). It works fine on Mac OS X Client (I know, I'm using it right now).
All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
maybe some day you should learn to read.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Why would you downgrade your cable service just to watch low-res streams? You can still watch 56k realmedia files on a faster connection...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Quicktime on linux has been done, it just doesn't support Sorenson(sp?) codecs which, unfortunately, the majority of streaming video on the net uses.
The full Quicktime suite of apps might be harder, but all most linux users really want is a viewer/plugin that handles Quicktime movies.
...of the article was the software ratings compared with the user survey:
What is the most important aspect of a video stream?
Low Bandwidth 27%
Quality 73%
Video Quality Report Card:
QuickTime 4.1
Real 3.7
WMP 2.5
In what format do you provide content to your users?
QuickTime 22%
Real 31%
WMP 42%
In other words, with quality being the most important factor, WMP wins - despite being the lowest quality of all. (Both QuickTime and Windows Media solutions are free) Hmmm... sounds like other familiar Microsoftian stories.
I haven't completely read through the APSL, but it looks similar to the GPL (of the 20% I read). This is a good thing, as if it was totally free, then you'd see a rather large company we all know about use the code, like they do for all other free source code they find.
On a properly secured Domino server, you can't access mail from the server console even on Windows
Well, at work I use GNU/Linux in my personal box, and thus the only way I have to read mail is because they opened the Domino Webmail for me... of course it's much slower and makes reading and sending mail rather painful; due to security reasosn no POP or other method is allowed, so I am effectively incapable of reading mail like everybody else because I do not have a client.
I just wished that someone made a fetchmail alike program to download and send messages usgin the Domino protocol, allowing me to use my own mail program (hard because of the id file, etc).
cheers,
fsm
-- if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic - Lewis Carrol
How can Apple release an official version if Sorenson won't license their codec for linux? Apple isn't to blame here, blame Sorenson for depriving Linux users.
Geez, man. Apple Open-sources two major software apps under a public license, and all you complain about is "Why not more?" Ingrate.
I sure don't! BTW: Have you seen the latest Starwars Trailer on the apple.com website? OH WAIT! You have to BUY QT Pro to view it! All the hype and you have to pay! I just downloaded it off Kazaa. How about the QTTASK listed in your processes? I couldn't find any way to disable it within the program. Had to remove it from the registry. F*** QT.
/.
How much is a Firewire Camcorder? Sure wasn't free.
/.
No; according to the xanim home page, Sorenson has an exclusive agreement with Apple. The details of the codec cannot be released to anyone, even under NDA, unless both Apple and Sorenson renegotiate this agreement. Whenever people ask them about this, they take the easy way out, and blame each other.
*yawn*
and it got a 5... shows you how ignorant most people truly are.
that you'll ALSO have the crappiest possible solution.
MS: "We will shove our crap *right* down your pipe. We *have* no shame, nor fear! Who will dare stop us? The DOJ? Don't make us laugh!!"
It's late, and I'm halfway through a bottle of Chianti, so bear with me on this, because this is a little long ...
.2 release to upgrade. I'm loyal, but not naive.)
Even if the licensing terms of the Sorensen codec permitted Apple to release the specs for Quicktime, I'm confident that they wouldn't. I'm pretty sure I understand why. And I agree.
It's all about the brand.
Explanation By Example
Once upon a time, I was a loyal Microsoft user. Dos, Windows 3.1, Windows 95. I had invested time in the system, knew how to get work done using those tools. When a knowledgeable friend suggested that I upgrade my trusty HP Vectra to the newly released Windows NT 4.0, I did so. After the third time the system crashes SO HARD that I had to reinstall the operating system from scratch, I was so irritated at Microsoft that I swore I wouldn't believe their lies again. I went and bought a copy of Red Hat Linux 4.2, and began the long, painful process of self education.
RedHat 4.2 was much, much more difficult for a casual user than MS Windows NT 4.0. But Microsoft's marketing machine was in overdrive at the time, trying to convince the world that Unix was dead, that NT was the future - and, more importantly, that NT was the best computing experience I would get. Microsoft flat out lied to me. The Linux community, on the other hand, never once suggested that I wouldn't have to sweat, curse, and study in order to use their Stone Soup operating system.
I don't mind hard work. I will not tolerate being lied to.
You might be asking at this point, "What the hell does this have to do with the parent article, or even with the subject line of this post, ferchristssake?"
My point is that Microsoft damaged their brand. They misrepresented themselves - they created a significant negative impression in my mind, and I haven't given them a penny since. At the same time, RedHat created a positive impression on me by NOT overselling themselves, by being truthful with me, and I have happily bought a copy of every x.2 release of their software since. (I always wait until the
Apple's single strongest asset is it's brand. As I sit here typing this article on my recently purchased Titanium Powerbook running OS X, I understand the truth of that. I've been a Linux user for the past six years, but never bothered to try any of the BSDs, until Mac OS X. Why? Because Steve Jobs, legendary control freak and perfectionist, has staked his professional reputation on the Apple brand. You know that if you buy a Steve-Jobs-Apple product it will be as good as anything else out there. Apple is all about providing the best computing experience that you can get as a user.
(Don't believe me? Feel the urge to say something in defense of Linux that this point? Think about how many hours it took you to become fluent with linux + the desktop manager of your choice. Spend that same amount of time with Mac OS X and the Aqua interface. After that time, you will find me happy to compare and contrast.)
Proprietary is not neccesarily bad
Apple will probably never Open Source QuickTime, and I don't mind. It's Apple's technology, and they have no social or moral obligation to release it into the wild. But while QuickTime is an Apple technology, when I am presented with multiple formats to select from when viewing multimedia on the web, I always choose QuickTime. It's not out of loyalty. It's because I know, based on experience, that Apple's technology will provide the best user experience.
Happy to spend money
How many of you work on a Windows machine during the day? How often do you use QuickTime and see that annoying "Upgrade to QuickTime Pro now" ad?
Since I began an experiment to use my Apple laptop exclusively for a month (no better teacher than experience) I have spent the $40 for Quicktime 5 Pro. I've also spent a similar amount of money for the OmniWeb browser. Why? Because I was so impressed by the experience those products provided me on this platform that I was happy to give them my money. I don't use Open Source software because I'm cheap. That's a small amount of money to give to people who make a damned fine piece of software.
It's all about the brand, and how seriously the owners take that brand. I don't trust Microsoft, because in my opinion Microsoft doesn't want to have the best damned software out there. Microsoft doesn't care if I have The Best user experience. Microsoft is happy with Good Enough. I trust Apple. Apple DOES want to have the best damned software out there. It's (mostly) not Open Source, and they want to control the experience from the hardware on up, and you have to pay more for that experience. But Apple is very, very good at what they do. Ideology aside, it's worth the money. I'll spend more money with Apple, because I'm so impressed with what i've seen so far. And I'll take a chance on the Next Big Thing that Apple produces. Again, because I've been consistently impressed by what I've seen.
It's all about the brand.