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QuickTime 6 Public Beta Available
krugdm writes "Apple has announced that a public beta of QuickTime 6 is now available. MPEG-4 support is there, as well as support for other technologies, such as JPEG2000, and Flash 5. The beta expires in October. An interesting in the FAQ's says that, '... because QuickTime 6 will include royalty-bearing technologies, a new QuickTime Pro key will be required to unlock pro functionality in the final release.'" It is available for Mac OS, Mac OS X, and Windows, and supports AAC audio too. I also wonder why MPEG-4 is ".mp4". ".mp3" isn't for MPEG-3, after all. Flummery!
No, it stands for MPEG-1 Layer 3.
Is your browser retarded?
Quote from the site:
Wow, Apple's coming out with some cool stuff lately! :)
- Steve
In other words, this has the ability to kill all the crap about "you need FOO player to see this video".
Actually .mp3 is the one that is not really fully logical. MP3 is MPEG-2 layer 3. It should be .mp2, or something. MPEG-4 -> .mp4 makes total and complete sense.
mark
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
Hey! It appears to work fine with CodeWeaver's CrossOver Plugin for Linux.
I just installed and ran it.
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
This is great. Quicktime should now be able to play XviD and DivX video. XviD especially. That's nice.
I was really hoping Apple would move more towards Free formats, however. AAC has good quality, but it's a nightmare of licensing restrictions. It looks like I'll still have to go to the QuickTime Components Project for Ogg Vorbis and exa-mozilla MNG support. All of my music is in Vorbis, and my movies convereted to OGM from AVI and MOV containers. OGM is a really nice container. No sync or seek problems at all. You can embed XML streams, for whatever purpose you'd like.
Even more importantly, QuickTime still doesn't have a lossless audio compression codec. Some FLAC would be nice. It really looks like FLAC might be moving closer to the Ogg project.
I mean, hey, unless Apple is going to make a car stereo system, this is probably the best component to plug into an OS X "digital hub." It does FLAC, with the new firmware.
Still, the ability to play XviD (valid MPEG-4 video) is a great step in the right direction. Kudos.
I'm as mimsy as the next borogove but your mome raths are completely outgrabe.
5-8 megabits per second of MPEG2, not MPEG4.
No no no! mp3 is MPEG 1 Layer 3 (audio).
That's funny, I didn't pay for mine. Yes, there is an upgrade to the pro version, which gives you video editing skills, importing features and the ability to watch the exclusive previews of Episode III when they come out.
Real has a pro version also that you would pay for, so... unheard of? I think not.
I don't know. Who is making you?
mark
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
You can download the source code here:
b eta-framework-1.0.tgz b eta-codecsbase-1.7.tgz b eta-sysdep-win32-3.0.tgz b eta-sysdep-macos-old-6.0.tgz b eta-sysdep-macos-x-1.1.tgz
http://developers.apple.com/downloads/qt6beta/qt6
http://developers.apple.com/downloads/qt6beta/qt6
http://developers.apple.com/downloads/qt6beta/qt6
http://developers.apple.com/downloads/qt6beta/qt6
http://developers.apple.com/downloads/qt6beta/qt6
Unfortunately the Sorrosen codec is not part of the download.
While this is great news, also note that a Public Preview of Quicktime Broadcaster is out.
t er
This allows you to encode video (for free) for delivery to a streaming server.
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/preview/broadcas
Actually, MP3 is MPEG-1 Layer III. Ironically, MP3 was never used for MPEG-1 files because of the licensing issues that later affected MP3.
I expect the big reason for ".mp4" instead of ".mpeg4" is for compatibility with 8.3 filename filesystems. Bear in mind that the MPEG-4 process was started BEFORE Windows 95 shipped.
My video compression blog
Yet Another Quote from Apple:
Divx might be a valid MPEG-4 codec, but they apparently don't use the MPEG-4 file format.
Apple will never port QuickTime to Linux in the near future, for pure political reasons. Luckily Quicktime is a fairly open standard so to everyone interested in an open and free implementation of QuickTime I strongly recommend to visit the OpenQuickTime Site on SourceForge. There are more links available there.
So, no need to buy anything :)
Code is Speech. No to Censorship.
UH it doesn't have the Sorenson codec which is the hole point of Running quicktime.
Anyway just use the Crossover Plugin from codeweavers.org. It runs quite nice and helped out watching all the bootleg trailers for star wars. =)
You only pay for the "pro" version of the player which is heard of in other formats ("Real" for example). Apple doesn't charge an arm and a leg for the streaming server (they may not charge for it at all in many cases!).
As far as I can tell they made the most money off of QT by buying stock in Akami :-) one would assume that unless they sold that stock though they ended up not making out so well...
The only content that I have seen that needs the "for pay" QT is the larger movie trailers. Everything else has been available with the free one. Heck, with a little work you can force feed iMovie the streams and not only play but edit them....
I have seen QT used for other things though, on the Mac it is pretty easy to put QT stuff in your own programs, so animated elements are frequently QT working for you. Even stills sometimes...
Contrary to popular perception, the primary problem with DivX support on macs is not lack of the proper codecs. There are actually three different DivX codecs for mac (the 3ivx, DivX, and ffmpeg projects - however windows media audio, which some files use, is only indirectly supported via DivX doctor). The real problem is quicktime's inability to read AVI files with variable bitrate audio encoded into them (vbr support was not part of the original official spec, and microsoft has since declared the format "obsolete" in favor of windows media). This has been a problem with quicktime for years, and they STILL haven't fixed it in QT6 preview, despite rumors to the contrary. The only solution is to extract the audio and video tracks and stick them together in quicktime format, using one of a variety of tools (see the sites above). DivX.com claims to have come up with an elegant hack around the issue, but they have yet to release it. Video LAN client claims to be able to play back DivX avis without doctoring, but doesn't work well at all yet.
The good news is you can play back just about any DivX file out there. The bad news is you're going to have to do a little more work than just downloading Quicktime and expecting it to play - You have to go get and install the DivX codecs yourself, and turn all your DivX AVIs into MOVs with the proper tools. I can only assume the Quicktime crew could have fixed this vbr AVI problem if they wanted to a long time ago, and possibly did - but for undisclosed reasons, they choose not to or aren't allowed to release or work on it.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Apple wasn't selling those ads in Sherlock. When Apple first introduced Sherlock, the search engine people were upset because people would get search results and not the ads that they depend on for revenue. So, Apple put the ads in so that the search engines could send their ads to users.
I'm criticizing the majority of Linux users who want every piece of software to be free (I love it when people keep trying to put spin on what write - there's no spin, just opinion).
Look, it's not a rational position in today's world. Far be it from me to always adopt a rational position, but at times it get's a little shrill here.
Fact is - somebody has to get paid to produce software for the masses. Open Source (with a few notable exceptions) concentrates software development efforts on producing tools for a technical elite. This can be attributed to a lesser marketshare and thus a lower reward for producing good, universal tools (even for free), but very few people seem interested.
Widespread acceptance demands that the bulk of software written be simple to use (and no, the command line won't cut it) and designed to the expectations of an extraordinarily wide range of user capability.
For better or worse, Apple and Microsoft do produce those tools, and as faulty as their products may be, they have put extensive research into making their products as user-friendly as possible. The overall complexity of their software is a combination of legacy requirements, desire of users for new capabilities, and of a need for the company to market their products.
The common attitudes around here are:
1. MS is bad and deserves to be destroyed.
2. Commercial software is bad and deserves to be destroyed.
3. Anything not written for Linux (preferably exclusively) is bad and deserves to be destroyed.
4. Stallman is either good or bad, but should be worshipped as a god (preferably an elder god, apparently).
5. Jon Katz is bad and deserves to be destroyed (I can't figure that one out, so I just ignore him).
Does it come as so much of a shock to anyone that someone would play Devil's Advocate? And no, I may not be particularly good at it, but I'm working on it.
So that's my two cents. Mod it as a troll or whine or whatever. Personally, I prefer the term nerdality-impaired, but go figure.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
I just bought a TiBook, and was pissed that there was no way to play full-screen video. I have been urged to "Go Pro!" but I am NOT paying 29.99 extra just to have full-screen!
So, I got Cellulo (available from versiontracker) which is a superb Free Quicktime player, and watch video fullscreen - without paying Apple MORE money!
P.S. To those who say that it's my duty to "Support Apple!" I urge you to look on my desk - a new Powerbook is certainly support enough in my opinion.
P.P.S. To get rid of those annoying Quicktime Pro nag screens, use this trick:
1. Before you ever launch Quicktime, set your clock to some point in the distant future (I used 2020).
2. Run Quicktime, and when you are asked if you want to "Go Pro!" hit the "Later" button.
3. Set your clock back to the correct time and date.
4. Enjoy no more nag screens until after the date you set in the control panel!
What are you, a parrot?
There's plenty of evidence that indicates that Linux software just doesn't sell well enough to justify the investment. Loki tried it, and failed. Corel tried it, and failed. Even WordPerfect failed to sell, despite the fact that Linux users are screaming for a viable replacement for MS Word.
Sure, most of these titles sold a few copies; I didn't claim otherwise. But none of them sold well enough to justify their continued development - that's why they're gone.
You and your l33t h@x0r friends may have bought every game that Loki produced, but that isn't evidence that Linux software sells well. A financial report from a company that sells software for Linux, and makes a profit doing it, would be.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
No. MPEG4 is not "DVD Quality" Its FAR SUPERIOR to DVD.
I don't think that's really a very accurate statement, in any frame of reference.
There exist some extremely high quality MPEG-2 encoders. Some of them are used to produce DVDs-- particularly of the Superbit variety-- and some are used to compress over-the-air HDTV. These are a far cry from the software encoders some people use to generate movies on their PCs.
MPEG-4 is still very immature. It's impossible to fairly compare MPEG-4 encoding to MPEG-2 encoding in any meaningful way. Especially when you fail to control for data rates.
The only remotely objective comparisons of MPEG-4 to MPEG-2 I've seen to date have taken MPEG-2 source material (usually from DVD) and re-encoded it with MPEG-4. That doesn't really tell you anything. I haven't had the time, or the gear, to take uncompressed reference material and pass it through MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 encoders. That's a test I'd like to see.
What it sounds like you're saying is that bad MPEG-4 encoding is superior to bad MPEG-2 encoding. I won't argue with you there. But that's not sound basis for making a blanket judgment like yours.