QuickTime 6 Public Beta Available

So... by Clue4All · 2002-06-04 02:31 · Score: 3, Interesting

It's out for MacOS, MacOS X (BSD), and Windows. Remind me again why we can't have a native Linux version of it?

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Re:So... by MouseR · 2002-06-04 02:37 · Score: 2

Remind me again why we can't have a native Linux version of it?
because nobody cares writing it?

It isn't necessarily Apple's job to port their software to every platform known to exist. Rightfully, Linux would be an interesting one, but Apple's first and primary platform if Mac OS X. The Windows port of QT is simply to help QT gain market share.
Re:So... by foobar104 · 2002-06-04 02:41 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's out for MacOS, MacOS X (BSD), and Windows. Remind me again why we can't have a native Linux version of it?

Same reason you can't have Photoshop for Linux, or Microsoft Office for Linux: because the vendor wouldn't make any money off of a version of their software for Linux.

The Windows port of QuickTime is important primarily because of licensing: Apple licenses the technology to companies like Adobe so they can use it in apps like Premiere, which are more popular on Windows than they are on the Mac.

But Apple knows that Linux users, as a rule, don't buy software. No third party would license QuickTime for Linux, because they couldn't make any money on their product. So there's zero motivation for Apple to port QuickTime to Linux.
Re:So... by zangdesign · 2002-06-04 02:43 · Score: 2, Insightful

Can you imagine the sheer hell involved with getting licensing payments on Quicktime out of the hardcore Linux crowd? I mean, can you really IMAGINE it?

Do you think Apple really wants to hear all the pissing and moaning that would accompany a non-free media player?

You'd have the industry on one side, suing the life out of the company, and Slashdot on the other, dissecting it down to the bits and complaining that the third bit in the eighth word would be more secure if it was open sourced.

Sheesh!

Yup. It's a troll. I've got 49 karma and nothing to do with it. Mod away!

--
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
Re:So... by IamTheRealMike · 2002-06-04 03:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

The Windows port of QuickTime is important primarily because of licensing: Apple licenses the technology to companies like Adobe so they can use it in apps like Premiere, which are more popular on Windows than they are on the Mac.
Wrong, the QuickTime port is primarily important on Windows because otherwise it'd be a niche technology with no media available in the format. Apple have to pay for most of the cool stuff to be encoded (exclusively) in it anyway.
But Apple knows that Linux users, as a rule, don't buy software. No third party would license QuickTime for Linux, because they couldn't make any money on their product. So there's zero motivation for Apple to port QuickTime to Linux.
Apple don't make huge amounts of money from it anyway, why do you think they charge for the player, something unheard of in other media formats. Also I get sick and tired of this Linux users don't pay for anything mantra, this is not true. Many if not most serious Linux users actually pay for their distro, from that point onwards it's pretty cheap because you don't NEED to buy software, not because we won't. As it happens, I wouldn't but QuickTime even if I could (and I could, because I also use Windows), because it's basically just a media player. Why should I buy a copy of Pro when I won't need its features?
All most people use QuickTime for is playing movie trailors and the occasional "enhanced" CD. To me, that isn't worth any money, especially as the alternatives work just as well for nothing.
Re:So... by foobar104 · 2002-06-04 03:03 · Score: 5, Insightful

And how, exactly, are they making money off the "free" versions they are giving out for all of the other platforms?

Hmm. Another sighting of the infamous non-reading anonymous coward.

Apple gives away the QuickTime Player software for free. This is a neat way to increase awareness of QuickTime technology among Windows and Mac users.

Apple makes money by licensing QuickTime technology to software companies that want to incorporate it into their own products. You find QuickTime technology in apps like After Effects and Premiere from Adobe, Cinestream from Media 100, and (duh) Final Cut Pro. You can also find QuickTime technology embedded in things like digital cameras.

Apple has already done extensive work to port the QuickTime libraries to Windows and to Mac OS X from Mac OS Classic, because third party licensees asked for support for those platforms. It seems that nobody is clamoring for QuickTime for Linux except desktop users who aren't going to be buying anything any time soon.

If you really want QuickTime Player for Linux, offer to buy it from Apple. If you are willing to pay the right price, and lots and lots of other people are also willing to pay, then Apple has a case for doing the port.
Re:So... by softsign · 2002-06-04 03:08 · Score: 2

They are making money off the people who upgrade to QT Pro, so that they can encode/edit movies. The free download of QT is a player only. Apps like Premiere will bundle QT Pro, which obviously means that Apple gets a cut.
Re:So... by Dephex+Twin · 2002-06-04 03:14 · Score: 4, Informative

why do you think they charge for the player, something unheard of in other media formats.

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.

Why should I buy a copy of Pro when I won't need its features?

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
Re:So... by jonabbey · 2002-06-04 03:14 · Score: 2, Insightful

But Apple knows that Linux users, as a rule, don't buy software. No third party would license QuickTime for Linux, because they couldn't make any money on their product. So there's zero motivation for Apple to port QuickTime to Linux.

Could we please let this trope die? The fact is, Linux users, as a rule, don't _have_ to buy software, because there is such a vast library of free software out there. Speaking personally, however, I do buy quite a bit of software that is only available commercially, and happily do so.

If companies want to sell software to Linux users, they should try, um, selling software to Linux users. If they want to make money at it, the software should ideally be substantially different/better than the free software available for the platform. This isn't necessarily easy to do.. no one is going to be able to come out with a basic web server that is so compellingly better than Apache to get large sales on Linux. QuickTime, however, could work, due to the large body of QuickTime-specific content out there.

It may be that if Apple released QuickTime for Linux, they might not make the porting costs on it, true. But there are more Linux users this year than there were last year, and from all the news reports about new institutional commitments to Linux, I firmly expect there will be more Linux users next year than this year. At some point some brave company will discover that they can make a decent living at selling software on Linux.

They won't make it, though, if they believe that Linux users are constitutionally allergic to commercial software, when many Linux users are simply allergic to paying more for a piece of software than they have to for the competition, which is just as true in the Windows and Macintosh world.

--
- jon

Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Re:So... by nguyenhm · 2002-06-04 03:17 · Score: 2, Insightful

Uh, no. Quicktime relies on a lot of the non-Unix parts of Mac OS X (e.g. the value-added, not-in-Darwin, Mac OS parts that make Mac OS X more than just another Unix).
Re:So... by bsartist · 2002-06-04 03:17 · Score: 2, Interesting

had a stupid business model.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Trying to sell software to a community that expects everything to be given away for free is a pretty stupid business model.

they won't pay for things they already own - would you?

As a matter of fact, I did. I bought Civ:CTP from Loki, even though I already owned the Windows version.

--
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
Re:So... by artemis67 · 2002-06-04 03:34 · Score: 2

Ah, but it's not just about making sales to earn revenue.

Silly rabbit. It's always about making sales to earn revenue. Brand loyalty doesn't mean squat if you can't translate that into a positive cash flow.
Re:So... by Dephex+Twin · 2002-06-04 03:40 · Score: 2

George Lucas and his best mate Steve Jobs unfortunately.

Really? Are they threatening the lives of your loved ones as well, or just you personally?

mark

--

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
Re:So... by foobar104 · 2002-06-04 03:50 · Score: 2

George Lucas and his best mate Steve Jobs unfortunately.

Gasp! Choke! Those bastards! Asking you to pay them money in return for getting something you want!

Sounds like it boils down like this. You wanted to watch the Episode II trailers in high resolution, and you got pissed off that you couldn't find a working pirated serial number for QuickTime Pro. Am I close?
Re:So... by foobar104 · 2002-06-04 03:52 · Score: 2

Ah, but it's not just about making sales to earn revenue. The other real reason for making a linux port available is that is would help them keep their market share.

According to everything I've read, desktop Linux has an even smaller market share than the 3-5% that goes to desktop Mac users.

I don't think Apple is quaking in their boots about a mass migration of Mac OS X users to Linux.
Re:So... by jonabbey · 2002-06-04 03:57 · Score: 2

Yea, how could Loki expect crap like Quake3 to compete with any of the rogue games...

I bought 10 games from Loki, what are you talking about?

Sorry, but free games suck and Linux users wouldn't buy commercial games. You can say what you want about the games being available for Windows first,

The big knock on Loki was that they were selling games that dual-booters already had for Windows. I wouldn't know, I don't dual-boot, but apparently a lot of people do. If you're a part-time Windows user, then sure, it makes a lot of sense to buy your games for Windows up front rather than waiting for months (years?) for the Linux version.

Of course, you're then a Linux user buying commercial software, you're just buying it on Windows. ;-)

but the same is true of _every_ application. There is no case where the "free" version is the undisputed "best" version.

Other than Apache, you mean? ;-)

The free version doesn't have to be the _undisputed_ best version to cause real problems for the commercial versions.. just look at IE on Windows for evidence of that. The free version has to just be good enough to make the customer think twice before pulling his wallet for the commercial stuff.

--
- jon

Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Re:So... by foobar104 · 2002-06-04 03:58 · Score: 2

Yet you can buy Maya for Linux, which costs just a hair more than Photoshop or Microsoft Office.

I can speak to this. Are you aware that, according to insider information from Alias|Wavefront, Maya for Linux has lost more money for Alias than it has made? It cost more to port Maya to Linux than it has ever made back in sales.

It goes right back to what I said. People who use Linux-- as a gross but useful generalization-- don't buy commercial software. People who buy commercial software-- again, a useful generalization-- will not use desktop Linux.

As for the other items you mentioned, I reject your assertion that free software "kicks the hiney of its commercial counterparts." But that's an argument for another thread.
Re:So... by foobar104 · 2002-06-04 04:03 · Score: 2

That's funny since I just got done building a couple linux workstations for software that costs 10's of thousands of dollars per seat!

If your alternative was to buy Sun workstations with 4 GB of RAM, then you're clearly not a typical computer user, are you? You have built, in your words, "a couple" of workstations. "A couple" does not a market make.

Sorry. You're a niche.
Re:So... by foobar104 · 2002-06-04 04:10 · Score: 2

I think the opposite is true. Obviously not every Linux user is a die-hard zealot, but there are quite a few of them, and they're afraid that the rest of us will choose pragmatism over religion and migrate to OS/X.

I was trying to think of a way to say that very thing when I posted. Anecdotal evidence indicates that there's a lot of momentum behind Mac OS X in the fringes. People who reject Windows on religious grounds used to flock to Linux because it was the only appealing alternative: BSD is too mature (read "slow moving"), BeOS is marginalized to the point of irrelevance, and Mac OS Classic just wasn't that great. But Mac OS X is truly wonderful, and it sounds like lots of Linux users are coming to realize this.

Apple's even marketing OS X to UNIX users directly, in some of their print ads. They're well aware of the possibility of turning Linux or other UNIX users to Mac OS X.

So thanks for saying what I wanted to say, only better. ;-)
Re:So... by Sycraft-fu · 2002-06-04 04:33 · Score: 2

Unfortunately at this point in time, history seems to support the fact that Linux users by and large will not pay for software. The best receant examples are Quake 3 and Loki. Loki was dedicated to bringing games to Linux, and they couldn't make enough money to survive. Quake 3 had a simeltanious 3 platform release adn the Linux relerase did abysmal.

Now there are other factors involved here, however to an exec who is making money based decisions, this strongly indicates taht Linux users are not willing to pay for thier software.
Re:So... by stripes · 2002-06-04 05:22 · Score: 3, Informative

Apple don't make huge amounts of money from it anyway, why do you think they charge for the player, something unheard of in other media formats

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...
All most people use QuickTime for is playing movie trailors and the occasional "enhanced" CD. To me, that isn't worth any money, especially as the alternatives work just as well for nothing.

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...
Re:So... by foobar104 · 2002-06-04 05:30 · Score: 2

You're going to have to back that up for me to believe you, I'm afraid.

Can't do it. As I said, my information comes from inside sources within Alias|Wavefront. Since I can't back it up without getting myself or somebody else in trouble, I'll just retract my statement. My bad.

You reject three paragraphs of example and evidence without any counterclaim? You're better than Bush, Hollings, and Gates. :/

I'm just not all that interested in covering a subject that's off topic, and that's already been beaten to death elsewhere. With very few exceptions-- exceptions whose origins are mostly historical or marginal-- open source software is not as good as similar commercial software. Your examples are neither interesting nor significant, so I just don't feel like rehashing this old argument with you over them.
Re:So... by foobar104 · 2002-06-04 05:38 · Score: 2

wow way to latch on to one point and ignore everything else I said!

That's because the rest of what you said is irrelevant to the subject at hand. You are an exception, a data point way outside the normal curve. So what you do with your computers isn't representative of what most people do with them. What's your point?

Quicktime could potentially be usefull to a corporation as a multimedia delivery tool, and I therefore think that apple could potentially make $ off of a linux offering.

There you go again, making that leap between one isolated data point and the rest of the distribution. Yes, QuickTime is a useful intranet media delivery tool for corporations. But corporations do not typically deploy Linux on the desktop. Period. So jumping to the conclusion that Apple should port QuickTime to Linux for corporate customers just doesn't make any sense at all.
Re:So... by afidel · 2002-06-04 05:56 · Score: 2

I am telling you and repeated stories have shown that enterprises ARE deploying linux on the desktop, in fact right now we have about 5,000 desktops running linux, true that is compared to about 45,000 running either win2k or solaris, but it is still quite a few seats! Oracle is moving their entire business onto linux, that is a lot of seats. These may be tech companies that are the first wave, but once the business cases get hashed out and the studies done that prove the cost savings I think more and more companies will jump on the bandwagon.

--
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Re:So... by Graymalkin · 2002-06-04 05:58 · Score: 2

That is a retarded argument. Loki didn't die because of lack of public exposure. Who gives a fuck about what the general public knows, the Linux customers that existed didn't buy their software. The general public wasn't going to help matters much. If you installed a Linux distro it had the obligitory link to all of the places you could get software for Linux, including Loki's website.

--
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Re:So... by foobar104 · 2002-06-04 06:11 · Score: 2

I am telling you and repeated stories have shown that enterprises ARE deploying linux on the desktop, in fact right now we have about 5,000 desktops running linux, true that is compared to about 45,000 running either win2k or solaris, but it is still quite a few seats!

You seem to be ignoring one important fact that most people seem to have realized: Linux on the desktop does not work. If the desktop experience itself were acceptable-- it isn't-- then you'd run into the application gap. If it weren't for the application gap, you'd run into the untold thousands of compatibility and consistency problems.

The fact that your company-- whatever it is; you seem to have neglected to mention-- is experimenting with Linux on the desktop simply means that you folks haven't yet realized the error of your ways.
Re:So... by IamTheRealMike · 2002-06-04 06:20 · Score: 2

As a matter of fact, I did. I bought Civ:CTP from Loki, even though I already owned the Windows version.
Most didn't. And didn't you just contradict yourself: Linux users expect everything to be free, yet I was/am a Linux user and paid for something. ??
Re:So... by IamTheRealMike · 2002-06-04 06:25 · Score: 2

Gasp! Choke! Those bastards! Asking you to pay them money in return for getting something you want!
Not at all, I just think it's rather pathetic that Apple feels they have to pay people to use QuickTime in order to prop up sales of QT Pro. Being denied content, because I don't care to pay Apple (not Lucas bear in mind, Apple) is something that I don't like.
Sounds like it boils down like this. You wanted to watch the Episode II trailers in high resolution, and you got pissed off that you couldn't find a working pirated serial number for QuickTime Pro. Am I close?
Wrong again actually, I love the way you jump to conclusions. I don't like being asked to pay for an advert, ergo I must be a failed software pirate.
One - I am a modem user. Downloading the high res version would have taken way too long anyway.
Two - I prefer watching trailers at the cinema.
Three - I have never used QuickTime Pro because I have never needed/wanted to create QuickTime content. Therefore being asked to pay for features I don't want, because Apple paid off LucasFilm, just in order to see a promotional video pisses me off.
Re:So... by foobar104 · 2002-06-04 06:37 · Score: 2

One - I am a modem user. Downloading the high res version would have taken way too long anyway.

Two - I prefer watching trailers at the cinema.

Therefore being asked to pay for features I don't want, because Apple paid off LucasFilm, just in order to see a promotional video pisses me off.

First of all, do you have any evidence to back up that "Apple paid off LucasFilm" assertion? PPOR.

Aside from that, you (1) can't and (2) wouldn't watch the high-res trailers at home, but you're all offended that you've been asked to pay for them. Sounds like your opinion on this subject doesn't really matter very much. Apple isn't asking you to pay for anything, since you're not interested in watching the high-res trailers on the web site anyway.

So why are you all up-in-arms, again? Is it just about the principle of the thing? Angels and ministers of grace, defend us from a Slashdotter with his back up against a principle.
Re:So... by IamTheRealMike · 2002-06-04 07:24 · Score: 2

So what you're saying is, my opinion doesn't matter, because I'm commenting on something that doesn't directly affect me? If everyone thought like that, slashdot wouldn't exist.
And you seem to be missing the point - I'm offended and annoyed because I'm being asked to pay Apple for a trailer being produced by LucasFilm. Why is this? Do I have to buy three pints of milk before I'm allowed orange juice? Do I have to pay for new vacuum cleaner if I want to change my door locks? No, I don't, because they are not related.
So when LucasFilm announce that they're abandoning their policy of making trailers available in several different formats, and is taking the unique move of going Apple only, it annoys me, because it means I am excluded. Steve Jobs then goes and rants on about how great this is, as if forcing people to use QuickTime to view an arbitrary piece of video is progress. It's no better than Microsoft locking people out of MSN unless they use IE. Everybody condemned it, even though they are unlikely to use MSN themselves.
And finally, although LucasFilm have never admitted being paid off, they have never denied it either, only saying that "they work extremely closely with Apple". Strange though that they should restrict an -advert-, ie something they WANT people to see to drum up enthusiasm for the film, to a certain select group of people who have bought another companies product.
So finally, yes it is about principles. When all's said and done, it doesn't affect me, and probably never will as I don't use QuickTime. But you've got to have principles, otherwise a few years from now we'll wake up and find QuickTime's got a monopoly and that if we want to watch movies on our computer, we have to pay a tax to Apple. It's already happened with Microsoft, and I'm sure Apple would love to be in the same situation.
Re:So... by zangdesign · 2002-06-04 07:41 · Score: 3, Informative

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.
Re:So... by IamTheRealMike · 2002-06-04 08:30 · Score: 3, Insightful

Well to a certain extent you're right, but it's causal: using Linux doesn't mean you're cheap, sometimes you're using Linux because you are cheap. For instance - me. I'm a classic case of this. I don't own any commercial Linux software other than my distro, because being a student I'm constantly poor. I want to be able to do lots of things with my computer, but I can't afford Photoshop/OfficeXP/WindowsXP etc. So part of the attraction of Linux was that it'd free up my meagre funds for non-computer related stuff. There were plenty of other attractions of course, but that was one of them.
On the other hand, as Linux gains wider acceptance, becomes higher quality etc, the people using it just because it costs nothing will become an ever decreasing minority. I would be quite happy to buy software for Linux, but it'd have to be really good, something I really needed and was much better than the free version (or there was no free version). Because commercial software is relatively new to Linux though, that often isn't the case.
That'll change as Linux becomes more mainstream of course, then maybe Apple would be able to make a profit selling QuickTime Pro - but really I'd love to see their sales figures for that software. I've never actually met anyone who has it, although I've met many people who use the standard QuickTime. Considering that most people are not content creators, it seems the market for it would be fairly limited anyway.
Re:So... by foobar104 · 2002-06-04 08:32 · Score: 2

Man, you're really bothered about this. I think you're being silly.

I'm offended and annoyed because I'm being asked to pay Apple for a trailer being produced by LucasFilm. Why is this? Do I have to buy three pints of milk before I'm allowed orange juice? Do I have to pay for new vacuum cleaner if I want to change my door locks? No, I don't, because they are not related.

First of all, you don't have to pay Apple a dime. I have two Macs-- a laptop and a desktop-- and I watch movie trailers in QuickTime on both. Because I don't have a QuickTime Pro license for the laptop, I watch only the lower resolution versions. I still get to watch the trailers for free, and you could, too. Apple doesn't charge a penny.

Even if Apple did charge for the privilege of watching the Star Wars trailers, they'd be completely within their rights to do so. LucasFilm produced them, but Apple distributes them, and they're free to charge a fee for that distribution if they want to. You might as well be asking why you have to pay the grocery store for the milk, when they don't own the cow.

So when LucasFilm announce that they're abandoning their policy of making trailers available in several different formats, and is taking the unique move of going Apple only, it annoys me, because it means I am excluded.

You are no more or less excluded than people who have no computers at all. Just like people who own no television are excluded from seeing Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If you want to see the content, get a Mac or a PC and watch all you want. Poof. Problem solved.

And finally, although LucasFilm have never admitted being paid off, they have never denied it either, only saying that "they work extremely closely with Apple".

Oh, well then it must be true. Sheesh.

But you've got to have principles, otherwise a few years from now we'll wake up and find QuickTime's got a monopoly and that if we want to watch movies on our computer, we have to pay a tax to Apple.

Have you so little faith in free market economics? If what you say had even the slightest grain of truth to it-- if the slippery slope were anything less than a rhetorical trick to play upon the weak-minded-- then we'd all have been prisoners of monopoly after monopoly long ago. It just doesn't work that way, dude.
Re:So... by bsartist · 2002-06-04 09:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

I understand that there are a variety of reasons for commercial software's relative lack of success in the Linux market. Some people are cheapskates, some are poor, some see commercial software as morally wrong, etc., etc.

The point I think you're missing here is that bean counters don't care about any of that. They're not making value judgments about Linux users, they're simply adding up the numbers. For the sake of argument, let's say it cost VaporWare, Inc. $x to produce a Linux version of their Foo application, and it made $y. A Linux version of Foo II will only see the light of day if y is a larger number than x.

I just don't see a good business case to be made for Apple porting QT to Linux. It would be a huge effort with a minimal return on investment.

--
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
Re:So... by IamTheRealMike · 2002-06-04 09:21 · Score: 2

You're right about the bean counter issue, but I'm not sure it'd be a huge effort. Presumably QuickTime is already a largely cross platform product as there are Mac and Windows versions available. Perhaps (hopefully) there won't even be a need for it, as Apple will make it a fully open format allowing open sourced software to read Quicktime files, in which case it all becomes something of a moot point anyway. Whether that'll happen or not I don't know, historically this hasn't been made very easy by Apple. Maybe the fact that they dropped the proprietary codecs will make the difference.
Re:So... by IamTheRealMike · 2002-06-04 09:28 · Score: 2

Man, you're really bothered about this. I think you're being silly.
And I think you're not bothered enough. The laissez-faire attitude is fine when things are going well, but the who-gives-a-damn attitude is why Windows now dominates the market, and IE hasn't significantly improved for a whole generation. First of all, you don't have to pay Apple a dime. I have two Macs-- a laptop and a desktop-- and I watch movie trailers in QuickTime on both. Because I don't have a QuickTime Pro license for the laptop, I watch only the lower resolution versions. I still get to watch the trailers for free, and you could, too. Apple doesn't charge a penny.
Sure that's the case now.. but it sets the precedant: who's to say that Apple won't decide that if you want to watch any res of trailer at all, you need to buy the Pro version. They probably won't because of the negative PR, but they're already treading that path. You are no more or less excluded than people who have no computers at all. Just like people who own no television are excluded from seeing Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If you want to see the content, get a Mac or a PC and watch all you want. Poof. Problem solved.
The difference is that televisions are made by more than one company, and are based on open standards. Maybe now QuickTime has finally dropped the dependancy on proprietary codeces it'll be a fully open format and we'll start seeing other companies/organisations produce quicktime players. That hasn't happened yet though. Have you so little faith in free market economics? If what you say had even the slightest grain of truth to it-- if the slippery slope were anything less than a rhetorical trick to play upon the weak-minded-- then we'd all have been prisoners of monopoly after monopoly long ago. It just doesn't work that way, dude.
Funny - tell the 90% of people who use Windows because that they're not prisoners of a monopoly. I think you'll find that difficult to argue. The slope is very slippery indeed, which is why platform companies go to such lengths to try and lock people in to their own products. Most people believe (and for many quite rightly) that in order to use their computer, they must have Windows. I'd state that makes Windows roughly equivalent to a tax. It could so easily become the same for video.
Re:So... by foobar104 · 2002-06-04 09:43 · Score: 2

...IE hasn't significantly improved for a whole generation.

That kind of hyperbole just makes you sound like a moron. IE hasn't existed, in any form, for anywhere near a generation. You should know better.

Sure that's the case now.. but it sets the precedant: who's to say that Apple won't decide that if you want to watch any res of trailer at all, you need to buy the Pro version.

Oh, that would just be terrible! You'd have to pay somebody to get something in return! You'd have to choose between giving them money, and going without! Agony!

Funny - tell the 90% of people who use Windows because that they're not prisoners of a monopoly.

Okay, genius, please describe for us your vision of the perfect world. It's wrong for Apple to charge for QuickTime, evidently, so would you say that they should just give it away instead? Where is the line? At what point, and under what circumstances, does it become okay for a company to charge for its products?

Let's see what you really have to say.
Re:So... by bsartist · 2002-06-04 10:52 · Score: 2, Informative

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!
Re:So... by Vicegrip · 2002-06-04 11:16 · Score: 2

Your two examples:
A company with fraud & management problems.(Loki)
A company with fraud & management problems.(Corel)

These fine examples are why you have concluded that you can't sell software to people who use Linux?

Excuse me while I go and laugh my head off.

--
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
Re:So... by BitGeek · 2002-06-04 15:09 · Score: 2

Some facts about Quicktime people don't seem to know:

1) Quicktime doesn't have a "Pro" version-- the PLAYER has one, but quicktime itself comes in only one version for multiple platforms.

If you didn't want to pay for the pro player, all you had to do was write your own player-- which, since quicktime provides really high level APIs-- is like a dozen lines of code. I've done it in 6 lines of code.

2) Apple makes money on Quiktime by driving media professionals to the Mac OS Platform. That is why its not in their best interest to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars to license sorenson or MPEG4 video or other codecs in order to ship a free linux player.

If Linux users were willing to pay the money necessary, someone could easily port Quicktime to Linux and would have apple blessing. They just aren't going to spend the hundreds of millions to pay the license fees and give a free player out-- and the person who did this port would have to pay licensing fees themselves and therefore charge for the Quicktime Linux ... and then you'd complain about that.

It really is simple-- if you want a technology and don't have it, create it or join a project to help create it. If it is availible but you have to pay for it and don't want to, then create your own or join a project to create your own.

IF the effort of helping to create it is too much for you, but you sitll don't want to pay for it, then you DON'T really want it.

Otherwise what you are asking for is something for nothing. Unless you're a communist (and therefore intend to get your something for nothing using a gun-- ie a looter) then you're a hypocrite when you complain that someone hasn't paid your way to have something you aren't even motivated enough to help create yourself.

--
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/ 1816257

Re:.mp3 IS for mpeg-3 by Clue4All · 2002-06-04 02:33 · Score: 2, Informative

No, it stands for MPEG-1 Layer 3.

--

Is your browser retarded?

Re:.mp3 IS for mpeg-3 by pudge · 2002-06-04 02:35 · Score: 2

No. MP3 is for "MPEG Layer 3", not "MPEG-3".

any upgrade plans? by valmont · 2002-06-04 02:37 · Score: 2

I recently bought QT5 Pro. Will i be able to get a QT6 Pro key for free or cheaper?

--
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices

No-Wait Streaming by shmert · 2002-06-04 02:38 · Score: 5, Interesting

One of the coolest things they demoed for Quicktime 6 was no-wait streaming, where there's no pause while the frames get buffered. You can even scrub back and forth over the timeline, streaming. Combined with an Xserve dishing out >500 simultaneous DVD-quality quicktime streams, Quicktime is looking pretty sweet. Now why don't more sites start using it?

--
You drank my drink, you drunk!

Re:No-Wait Streaming by foobar104 · 2002-06-04 02:49 · Score: 2

Combined with an Xserve dishing out >500 simultaneous DVD-quality quicktime streams....

You can't be serious. I've never even seen a DVD-quality stream-- 5-8 megabits per second, that is.

Surely you mean something around or less than 1 megabit per second.
Re:No-Wait Streaming by IamTheRealMike · 2002-06-04 03:08 · Score: 2

One of the coolest things they demoed for Quicktime 6 was no-wait streaming, where there's no pause while the frames get buffered.
Huh? All streaming players support this to some extent, you just switch the buffering time to be very low, or zero. Are you sure you're not getting confused with very fast streaming, over a LAN? That would look like no wait.
Combined with an Xserve dishing out >500 simultaneous DVD-quality quicktime streams, Quicktime is looking pretty sweet. Now why don't more sites start using it?
That situation would require approximately 5 gigabits of outgoing bandwidth (a DVD uses about 10mbit/s of bandwidth). Are you insane? Nobody apart from people in large corporations or universities could watch that. QuickTime doesn't really have any major advantages over other technologies as far as I can tell, other than it being made by Apple and therefore given lots of marketing. Why should I choose QuickTime over Real, or Windows Media, or hell even standard MPEG?
Re:No-Wait Streaming by schwatoo · 2002-06-04 03:54 · Score: 2, Interesting

Huh? All streaming players support this to some extent, you just switch the buffering time to be very low, or zero. Are you sure you're not getting confused with very fast streaming, over a LAN?

No. I've been playing around with QT6's "Instant On" streaming all morning. It's very impressive. It isn't just a case of having a low buffer time. Try it, you might be impressed too.

--
I have trouble with passwords among other things.
Re:No-Wait Streaming by BitGeek · 2002-06-04 14:39 · Score: 2

QuickTime doesn't really have any major advantages over other technologies as far as I can tell

Because you're ignoring them. The technology for instant on streaming isn't setting the buffer to zero. It involves a lot of things, an it was quite amazing when I saw it. Like bending light- it seemed to violate the laws of physics. but it does work and it wasn't a hack.

But according to you, they just didn't buffer. Funny, that's why the stream kept playing when steve pulled the cable connecting the boxes? (And before someone jumps in and says "SEE! LAN LAN! They cheated!" a 100kbit stream is still a 100kbit stream even when its going over a 100mbit cable.

Sheesh.

--
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/ 1816257
Re:No-Wait Streaming by SmittyTheBold · 2002-06-04 17:52 · Score: 2

BUT you gave the non-open nature of the product as the reason for its lack of popularity. WMV/WMA and Real are both proprietary, but they're both rather popular.

(I haven't looked at the stats lately, but my guess is actually that MS's formats are in the lead, while QT and Real are probably about even these days.)

--
± 29 dB

Not flummory, marketing... wait... by danro · 2002-06-04 02:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

I also wonder why MPEG-4 is ".mp4". ".mp3" isn't for MPEG-3, after all. Flummory!

Obviously they are trying to get MPEG-4 off the ground by riding on the popularity of the widly known ".mp3" file extention.
They are using a familiar "brand name" name, and mp3 is the "Coca Cola" of computers.
Just another marketing trick...
...not supposed to make any sense, just to give people that warm fuzzy feeling inside and get the royalties flowin.

--

"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."

Re:Not flummory, marketing... wait... by Dephex+Twin · 2002-06-04 03:03 · Score: 3, Informative

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
Re:Not flummory, marketing... wait... by Coyote · 2002-06-04 03:09 · Score: 2, Interesting

Quoting the MPEG site,on MPEG-4 at http://mpeg.telecomitalialab.com/standards/mpeg-4/ mpeg-4.htm

"MPEG-4, with formal as its ISO/IEC designation 'ISO/IEC 14496', was finalized in October 1998 and became an International Standard in the first months of 1999. The fully backward compatible extensions under the title of MPEG-4 Version 2 were frozen at the end of 1999, to acquire the formal International Standard Status early in 2000."

So MPEG is trying to capitalize on themselves?

--
My metamoderation cancels your moderation
Re:Not flummory, marketing... wait... by Anonymous Coward · 2002-06-04 03:13 · Score: 2, Informative

No no no! mp3 is MPEG 1 Layer 3 (audio).
Re:Not flummory, marketing... wait... by danro · 2002-06-04 03:33 · Score: 2

"magic" values

Like MIME types?
To determin file type by the extension is getting a little old IMHO.

--

"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
Re:Not flummory, marketing... wait... by Dephex+Twin · 2002-06-04 03:34 · Score: 2

Well, I guess my point was more that .mp4 wasn't obviously just cashing in on .mp3 in some way... the extensions are pretty dang confusing overall.

mark

--

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
Re:Not flummory, marketing... wait... by Dephex+Twin · 2002-06-04 03:37 · Score: 2

Yeah, sorry...

I don't know. I guess more than three letters are needed to distinguish all of these.

mark

--

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
Re:Not flummory, marketing... wait... by L.+VeGas · 2002-06-04 03:52 · Score: 3, Funny

When I bought my Apex, there was a big sticker on the box that said "Plays MPEG-3!"

That was kind of funny, but it was even funnier trying to explain it to the Circuit City salesman. Kind of like trying to teach my dog geometry.

--
Best Windows Freeware
Re:Not flummory, marketing... wait... by DennyK · 2002-06-04 04:03 · Score: 2

To determin file type by the extension is getting a little old IMHO

Old? I think it's a perfectly logical method, myself, although I don't neccesarily like the way Windows locks application associations to file extensions instead of actual file types. (I get tired of jumping through hoops to open plain ASCII .doc files in Notepad instead of Word...) An extension, however, is an excellent tool for telling at a glance what kind of a file you are looking at, especially in a CLI. How else do you propose looking at a long, unfamiliar directory listing and picking out the HTML files from the text files, or the audio tracks from the video clips?

Extensions are handy markers, but I do prefer the way they're implemented on *nix...allowed and easy to use, but not required, and not really used by the OS itself.

DennyK
Re:Not flummory, marketing... wait... by benwaggoner · 2002-06-04 04:21 · Score: 3, Informative

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

BROADCASTER is the cool part... by Steve+Cowan · 2002-06-04 02:38 · Score: 4, Informative

In my opinion even more exciting: check out QuickTime Broadcaster at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/preview/broadcaster / (only for Mac OS X)...

Quote from the site:

Welcome to the Public Preview of QuickTime Broadcaster, Apple's live encoding software that lets you produce professional-quality live events for online delivery--quickly, easily and affordably.
QuickTime Broadcaster takes full advantage of QuickTime, the most powerful digital media technology on the Internet. The combination QuickTime Broadcaster, QuickTime Streaming Server 4 and QuickTime 6 provides the industry's first end-to-end MPEG-4-based Internet broadcasting system. Whether you are a novice or a professional, QuickTime Broadcaster is designed to meet your needs.

Wow, Apple's coming out with some cool stuff lately! :)

- Steve

Why this matters, especially to *nix folks by frankie · 2002-06-04 02:42 · Score: 5, Informative

Quoted blatantly from Apple's site:

MPEG-4 File Format (.mp4): Since the QuickTime file format is at the foundation of MPEG-4, QuickTime 6 supports .mp4 files as first-class citizens. So with QuickTime 6, you can author professional-quality, ISO-compliant MPEG-4 audio and video files that can be played back not only by QuickTime 6, but by any other MPEG-4-compliant player. Learn more about MPEG-4.

In other words, this has the ability to kill all the crap about "you need FOO player to see this video".

Re:Why this matters, especially to *nix folks by Lysander+Luddite · 2002-06-04 03:12 · Score: 2

Unless of course the video is in Real or WiMP format.
Re:Why this matters, especially to *nix folks by jonabbey · 2002-06-04 03:18 · Score: 2

In other words, this has the ability to kill all the crap about "you need FOO player to see this video".

Would that this were so, but the only thing that MPEG-4 took from Quicktime is the media wrapper, IIRC. The extremely low-bit-rate, high compression codec wasn't Apple's.

The fact that Apple's QuickTime 6 tools can produce MPEG-4 files doesn't mean that Apple is going to put its proprietary Sorenson codecs to bed, and as long as those codecs are used, the files won't be viewable on Linux without some sort of emulator or convertor.

--
- jon

Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Re:Why this matters, especially to *nix folks by Anonymous Coward · 2002-06-04 03:21 · Score: 2, Informative

In other words, this has the ability to kill all the crap about "you need FOO player to see this video".

Sure it does. And pigs will fly over the skies, and hell freezes over.

The MPEG-4 file format is just a wrapper. The video and audio is still encoded by some codec. In the case of Apple, it is the Sorenson codec that has no player for UNIX architectures (you can have some luck with WINE, although flawless performance seems only to come by paying for Crossover).

The problem with playability NEVER came from file formats - it ALWAYS came from patent protected codecs. The patents in question have over a decade before expiration, so it seems likely there will never be a UNIX player for Quicktime movies made with the Sorenson codec.

The ball is entirely in Apple's court too - they have exclusive licensing rights over the patents in question.
Re:Why this matters, especially to *nix folks by frankie · 2002-06-04 04:06 · Score: 2

just a wrapper. The video and audio is still encoded by some codec. In the case of Apple, it is the Sorenson codec
That would be correct, except for this little tidbit:

Apple developed its own ISO-compliant MPEG-4 video codec to provide the highest quality results across a wide spectrum of data rates - from narrowband to broadband and beyond. This revolutionary codec offers compression times and video quality that rival those of the best proprietary codecs available, yet it provides true interoperability with other MPEG-4 players and devices.

Yes, *nix players will still be locked out if content producers choose to use Sorenson. But now Apple is saying that there's a decent alternative.

Has anyone done side-by-side tests of Sorenson/Apple MP4/Divx/etc?
Re:Why this matters, especially to *nix folks by TellarHK · 2002-06-04 04:20 · Score: 2

Hrm. Maybe someone in the Open Source community ought to take a cue from this kind of thing and propose a new kind of media playback method. Codec-included video. Considering video files are just friggin' huge, it wouldn't hurt at all to embed 1-200K of codec information at the beginning of every file. Maybe this is the kind of standard that needs to be brought into existence in order to help avoid problems with backwards compatibility in the future as well.

The way I figure it, design a player system that loads codecs from the data file/stream, as well as having the basics included in it. This way you get the flexibility of the player you need, Open Sourced and you can still have proprietary decoding mechanisms that'll play on any system with the player.

Encode it with commercial software, or Open Source if you want, and it'll play on anything.

Sounds logical to me.

--
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
Re:Why this matters, especially to *nix folks by benwaggoner · 2002-06-04 04:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

Er? Not even close.

MPEG-4 uses a Profile@Level structure, which strictly defines what codecs and parameters a given file can use. For example, QuickTime can export a compliant ISMA Profile 1 MPEG-1 file. This mandates the MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Video codec, either ACELP or AAC audio, maximum 352x288 resolution, and certain data rate limits.

ANY MPEG-4 player which claims to be ISMA compliant needs to be able to play this file, and QuickTime needs to be able to play an ISMA compatible MPEG-4 file created by a different vendor.

The whole point of MPEG-4 is interoperability - if that doesn't work, than the technology won't either.

For the Linux crowd, this means a MPEG-4 file will be as easy to play as a MPEG-1 is today, but with much, much improved quality at a given data rate, and support for real-time streaming. You can stop yelling at Apple about porting QuickTime, since you'll just use someone else's MPEG-4 player with their content, and it'll just work.

The risk is that support for Profile@Level combinations will vary. Certainly, a lot of cell phones use ISMA Profile 0, which means 176x144 maximum resolution, the Simple instead of Advanced Simple codec, etcetera. And there are more advanced codecs coming down the pike that improve quality, but won't work with today's ISMA profiles.

But hey, nothing that folks who deal with RPMs all day don't know about.

--

My video compression blog
Re:Why this matters, especially to *nix folks by daviddennis · 2002-06-04 04:33 · Score: 2

I thought a codec was a program which did encoding and decoding, so it would have to be compatible with the host operating system, different for each computing platform.

So much for a cross-platform player :-(.

Or am I missing something?

D
Re:Why this matters, especially to *nix folks by jafuser · 2002-06-04 05:12 · Score: 2

This could be possible with a generalized instruction set or virtual machine, however then our data files could be more prone to hosting viruii :)

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Re:Why this matters, especially to *nix folks by daviddennis · 2002-06-04 08:02 · Score: 2

Every virtual machine I know of is turtle slow, and it strikes me that high-speed performance is just about the most important thing about a codec. No joy for the virtual machine, then.

You're right about virii, though, although a sandbox limiting functionality might be able to control that problem, and of course using binary code would make things even worse, as MS has found with ActiveX.

D
Re:Why this matters, especially to *nix folks by SideshowBob · 2002-06-04 12:34 · Score: 2

MPEG-4 includes a video codec, and any system which purports to support MPEG-4 support had better be able to decode the standard codec bitstream.

Ergo, no, the .mp4 files should be just as standard as .mpg and .mp2 files.
Re:Why this matters, especially to *nix folks by BitGeek · 2002-06-04 14:22 · Score: 2

The fact that Apple's QuickTime 6 tools can produce MPEG-4 files doesn't mean that Apple is going to put its proprietary Sorenson codecs to bed

Right. Its hte fact that the MP4 video codec is really superior thats going to put the Sorenson codec to bed.

Remember, the Sorenson codec isn't Apples "proprietaryness"! ITs a shame that all this hatred goes Apples way for licensing someone elses codec and giving it away for free! That's silly!

Quicktime has always, from the beginning, supported multiple codecs. As a content producer, you could create content in any codec you wanted and ship it, and if Quicktime didn't come natively with that codec, you could have licensed it to Apple and they would have shipped it. IT ships with a grab bag of codecs and always has-- leaving it up to the content producer which codec they would use, and attempting to support all the codecs they could for consumers.

The reason Sorenson was so popular was that the content producers CHOSE IT, not because Apple "made" anyone use it!

MPEG4, however, has better licensing terms (its just as proprietary as Sorenson! Exactly as "proprietary to Apple").

Yet, notice that Apple has threatened to withhold its support for MPEG4 unless these licensing issues are resolved-- and as the largest supplier of consumer playback software in the world, Apple's throwing a lot of weight around (100M Quicktime shipped last year compared ot 90M for Real)

So, once again, Apple fights the good fight, and you guys bash them.

--
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/ 1816257
Re:Why this matters, especially to *nix folks by BitGeek · 2002-06-04 14:26 · Score: 2

Look - this is just doublespeak, and end-runs around the truth. The truth is that Microsoft and REAL are not committed to MPEG-4,

Is this why Real has licensed MPEG4 and is a member of the IMSA? (A major MPEG4 streaming group.)

They haven't decided yet how to make money off it (probably a per-use streaming fee on streaming video), but they will. And, because they have patents behind them, they can decide to change their business plan whenever they like.

Of course this isn't true. Once the licensing terms are set, they can't change them. That's part of the standardization process.

--
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/ 1816257
Re:Why this matters, especially to *nix folks by BitGeek · 2002-06-04 14:30 · Score: 2

Whether Apple will allow a native linux player is kinda like asking whether Apple will allow a player that uses Sorenson.

This is just plain bigotry on your part.

First off, Apple doesn't own the patents on the MPEG4 video stream. Apple does own the Quicktime file format, and that they have opened.

so as far as technology Apple does own, they have opened it widely on free licensing terms. So your position is proven false.

As to the video codecs, which Apple, AGAIN, does not own, Apple has been throwing its weight around to get better licensing-- the current scheme calls for a 2 cents per hour streaming content fee if you serve an MP4 video stream. Apple has threatened not to ship QT6 with MP4 if this cost is in the final license... and has had QT6 complete for 3 months waiting for this to be resolved.

So, in fact, Apple is doing the opposite of what you claim. Why the bigotry?

--
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/ 1816257
Re:Why this matters, especially to *nix folks by Lysander+Luddite · 2002-06-05 02:35 · Score: 2

Hey, great. Guess what? I don't use MPlayer. I use Macs. I can't even get WiMP for Mac to install due to their crappy install script. Nevertheless, MS has specifically stated in the same article IIRC that their next generation Corona media will NOT play on the Mac. Will MPlayer play that?

It's simple, really. by tswinzig · 2002-06-04 02:43 · Score: 3, Interesting

I also wonder why MPEG-4 is ".mp4". ".mp3" isn't for MPEG-3, after all.

That's because geeks at some hoighty-toighty European institute created the MPEG-2 Layer 3 format and file extension, while Steve Jobs wrote Quicktime 6 and it's file extension, all by himself, "out of one, solid block of wood."

Or it could be because .mp4 for MPEG-4 makes much more sense than .mp3 for MPEG-2 Layer 3, in hindsight. (How many .mp2 files do you have laying around?)

--

"And like that ... he's gone."

Re:It's simple, really. by benwaggoner · 2002-06-04 04:34 · Score: 2

I have have plenty of .mp2 files lying around, downloaded from the paleolithic music web site Addicted to Noise, back before MP3 took off. .mp2 files are normally MPEG-1 Layer II audio, like used in most MPEG-1 files.

I've also seen some MPEG-2 video files using that extension as well.

Three characters really aren't enough for meaningful extensions, eh?

--

My video compression blog
Re:It's simple, really. by extra88 · 2002-06-04 06:02 · Score: 2

Now I really have to question your claim that "your" company has had an end-to-end MPEG4 system for a year. First you don't name the company and just say "search Google." Now you claim that Apple has come into MPEG4 late which just isn't so. The MPEG-4 file format is based on QuickTime's file format which was decided at least 3 years ago.
MPEG-4 Overview from the MPEG working group
"The file format is designed to be independent of any particular delivery protocol while enabling efficient support for delivery in general. The design is based on the QuickTime® format from Apple Computer Inc."

Animated Reply Movie by QuonsetTheHut · 2002-06-04 02:44 · Score: 5, Funny

[Extremely relevant multimedia reply - Requires Slashdot Pro to read. Please submit your Visa number....]

--
"Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly"

Kudos to trolltech by stud9920 · 2002-06-04 02:49 · Score: 4, Funny

Now Qt 6 is released, the KDE team can start working on KDE 6 !

Re:Other Big News: eMac by Bob+McCown · 2002-06-04 02:56 · Score: 5, Funny

Of course the other big news is that the eMac is now available to everyone

Yea, but I'm a vi kind of guy...

mp4 by yawnmoth · 2002-06-04 02:56 · Score: 2, Interesting

I also wonder why MPEG-4 is ".mp4". ".mp3" isn't for MPEG-3, after all.

this is nothing new. The people over at DivXNetworks have been using the mp4 extionsion for mpeg-4 for just about as long as they've been around. it has less restrictions than the avi file format does.

I just wonder if they are as "ISO compliant" as Apple's gonna be, heh.

Did you mean: flummery ? by Pauly · 2002-06-04 02:57 · Score: 5, Funny

Flummory!

Hey Pudge, did you mean flummery?

flummery (flm-r) n. pl. flummeries

Meaningless or deceptive language; humbug.
1. Any of several soft, sweet, bland foods, such as custard.
2. A sweet gelatinous pudding made by straining boiled oatmeal or flour.
3. A soft dessert of stewed, thickened fruit, often mixed with a grain such as rice.

I'm pretty sure you did...

CrossOver by xanadu-xtroot.com · 2002-06-04 03:04 · Score: 5, Informative

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.

A little dissappointment in a great improvement by DarkVein · 2002-06-04 03:05 · Score: 3, Informative

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.

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Divx 5's .mp4 doesn't seem to work by spotter · 2002-06-04 03:09 · Score: 2

so I figured that I would try to see if we could get Divx 5 to work in QuickTime now, as both claim to be ISO compliant.

well, first I had to use virtual dub to remove the audio from my Shawshank rip (Divx 5's avi->mp4 convertor doesn't seem to like files with audio) then I was able to convert it to mp4. However, when "run" in quicktime it gets the timing correct, but doesn't display anything (much like audio playing) it doesn't even display a blank window of correct size like it does with avi's it doesn't know the codec for.

oh well.

Re:Divx 5's .mp4 doesn't seem to work by CynicTheHedgehog · 2002-06-04 04:17 · Score: 2

I've been trying like hell this weekend to get some of my divx files to play on my new iBook. By and large the most prevalent problem is seeing a correctly timed video stream, but having the audio cut off a few seconds in. I think this is because the audio stream is encoded using veriable bit rate MP3, which QT can't handle. The best solution I've found is to run the divx files through DivX Doctor (available at VersionTracker) and using the 3ivx codec (also available at VersionTracker) to play them. You can set up DivX doctor to be the default application for running, say, .divx or .avi files and have it automatically play them in QuickTime when it's done doing it's magic. Works pretty well, other than the 30 second processing time up front.
Re:Divx 5's .mp4 doesn't seem to work by CynicTheHedgehog · 2002-06-04 04:21 · Score: 2

Oh, forgot to mention: QT6b doesn't work any better than QT5 did, so I'm back with DivX Doctor and 3ivx for now.
Re:Divx 5's .mp4 doesn't seem to work by frankie · 2002-06-04 04:23 · Score: 3, Informative

get Divx 5 to work in QuickTime now, as both claim to be ISO compliant.
Yet Another Quote from Apple:

Other technologies that report to be MPEG-4 compliant, yet are not contained in an .mp4 file, will not interoperate with QuickTime 6 or other MPEG-4 players. Divx and MPEG-4 from Microsoft are common examples.

Divx might be a valid MPEG-4 codec, but they apparently don't use the MPEG-4 file format.
Re:Divx 5's .mp4 doesn't seem to work by benwaggoner · 2002-06-04 04:47 · Score: 2

A .Divx file made by Divx 5.xis structurally an AVI file, with MPEG-4 Simple or Advanced Simple video and normally MP3 audio.

QuickTime 6 knows how to read AVI files, MPEG-4 video, and MP3 audio, so hopefully it could play the file. I'll check once it's downloaded and installed.

Note earlier versions of Divx were based on proprietary Microsoft binaries, so those wouldn't ever run under QuickTime.

Divx 5.0.2 does have a command-line option to make a .mp4 file. However, I don't think it knows how to make MPEG-4 audio (either AAC or CELP).

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My video compression blog
Re:Divx 5's .mp4 doesn't seem to work by bnenning · 2002-06-04 04:59 · Score: 2

Another alternative for Mac OS X is vlc. It seems to play most DivX files unmodified, and as a bonus also plays DVDs without the screen capture restrictions that Apple was forced to build into their player.

--
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Re:Divx 5's .mp4 doesn't seem to work by frankie · 2002-06-04 06:04 · Score: 2

Actually, Quicktime supports VBR as of version 4.1 or higher.
Re:Divx 5's .mp4 doesn't seem to work by spotter · 2002-06-04 06:24 · Score: 2

Divx 5 has the capablity to make mp4s (hence the subject line). It's no wonder that the .avi didn't work, but one might have thought that the mp4 would have worked.
Re:Divx 5's .mp4 doesn't seem to work by robertchin · 2002-06-05 07:52 · Score: 2

VBR yes, but it does not support VBR MP3s when they exist inside of AVIs. It's been a long time bug that apple never fixed.

Re:Time to Encode my new videos for QT6! by tomdarch · 2002-06-04 03:09 · Score: 2, Insightful

Frankly, why care? You chose Win98 knowing that it is insecure and buggy. MacOS users get little sympathy when they ask for kindness because of limited availability of apps caused (supposedly) by their small market share. If you can afford to pay M$FT, you can afford to deal with this problem. Actually, maybe you should get yourself a Mac! Now with ROOT!

Not to mention... by artemis67 · 2002-06-04 03:11 · Score: 2

that comercially mass-marketed consumer-level software, by and large, has yet to really succeed in Linux. Loki Games just recent went belly up, and Quake III for Linux was a giant sucking hole on id's cash flow statement.

Considering that Apple's marketing plan for QT is to give away the base player for free and hope that a small percentage of those users will pay for registration, is there really any hope that they can recover their investment on the Linux side?

mpeg-4 by simpl3x · 2002-06-04 03:19 · Score: 2, Interesting

i believe that this is in reference to the compression quality of mpeg-4. the licensing issues have made apple quite frustrated, since qt6 will be the first mpeg-4 capable media player available. i am not sure of the number of "dvd quality" streams that qt6 can handle, but the rumors are that it will be a great media server. we'll all believe 500 streams when we see it though.

Re:mpeg-4 by benwaggoner · 2002-06-04 04:19 · Score: 2

Fast start is actually a result of better managing the buffer between the streaming server and the client. What it does is tell the player to start playing as soon as the first frame has been transmitted, instead of waiting for the usual few seconds of buffering. This only works if you have significantly more bandwidth available than the stream requires, so it won't help with modem stuff much. It works with any codec, not just MPEG-4.

Also, RealONE already supports the Envivio plug-in for MPEG-4 playback. PacketVideo and Philips also have MPEG-4 players available.

QuickTime 6 does represents the first mass-market MPEG-4 authoring, distribution, and playback system. This is a Good Thing.

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My video compression blog
Re:mpeg-4 by frankie · 2002-06-04 04:35 · Score: 2

mpeg-4 codecs for WMP

Not MPEG-4 compliant. They use selected bits and pieces of draft versions of the standard, plus proprietary stuff. Kinda like the difference between MSIE6 and Mozilla.

Secure format by WebMasterJoe · 2002-06-04 03:20 · Score: 2

From Apple's site:

While other formats and versions come and go, MPEG-4 will safeguard multimedia content for a secure future.

My first reaction to this is, MPEG-4 will probably also come and go, unless it is the holy grail of video compression - we'll be able to improve it in the future. Secondly, it looks like they're quietly mentioning some DRM stuff being thrown in, which may or may not be a good thing.

The Internet Media Streaming Alliance, which is apparently located in Tuvalu, has a decent, fairly trustworthy collection of "Sponsor Members," including Apple, Cisco, IBM, Philips, and Sun Microsystems. I'd much rather trust DRM technology to these companies than Microsoft, Real, the RIAA, the MPAA, Fritz Hollings, or AOL-Time-Warner-Netscape-HBO-CNN (even though that last one is a "Participant Member"). It looks as if this latest scheme will focus on quality, while quietly adding in DRM - which is the only way it's going to work in the current climate. And I think it would be acceptable to the public: If you put out a product that is superior enough in quality, consumers are willing to sacrifice some of their time-shifting and space-shifting rights. If the balance isn't quite right, then the technology will have to be adjusted. The same thing happened with DVDs and the DivX format (the Circuit City thing) - Quality was higher, and even though the average user couldn't record DVDs and retain the same quality, consumers are increasily accepting the new techology. DivX didn't balance our fair use rights properly and failed.

I hope MPEG4 gets the balance right, so we can finally get a popularly-accepted standard for digital video. It's nice to have free video files available on P2P networks but the quality isn't there, and most of us would be willing to pay the right price to get a high-quality video file. If not, there's still regular old TV.

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I really hate signatures, but go to my website.

Re:Secure format by WebMasterJoe · 2002-06-04 04:08 · Score: 2

That's the second time I've heard this; they must have been very, very quiet about it, because I seem to have missed it. Where is it mentioned again?

12th paragraph, last sentence on this page - under the section Everyone's a Winner. All they say is that it's a secure format, no real details are given. (if somebody finds any, please post them!)

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I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
Re:Secure format by WebMasterJoe · 2002-06-04 05:26 · Score: 2

If you took a 10 second look at the site you'd know that they are 'apparently not' in Tuvalu. Their contact page says Mountain View, CA: http://ism-alliance.tv/html/about/contactus.shtml
But if you look at their domain name, you'd see it ends in .tv, the official suffix for Tuvalu. I was being sarcastic - if their domain was .uk, wouldn't you expect them to be in the UK?
I know they're not really located in Tuvalu - it's a small Polynesian country with no resources and only 10K or so people. Prior to the internet, their biggest revenue was letting foreign countries license their phone lines (mostly for porn I believe). In 1998, Tuvalu licensed their .tv domain since it was so desirable to those foreign people with internet access.

The .tv domain (like Tonga's .to domain) was originally meant for citizens of that country. These bastardized domains also carry a slight stigma since it's not a .com or .net, and since they falsely represent the nationality of the company, I make sarcastic comments.

--
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.

Yes, but... by artemis67 · 2002-06-04 03:24 · Score: 2

Real sells their servers while Apple gives QT Server away. Real's business model probably has the Linux server income subsidizing most or all of the expense of porting the player.

Re:Yes, but... by artemis67 · 2002-06-04 04:00 · Score: 2

And Yahoo! Pager sells advertisements, not subscriptions.

So Apple should completely rework their QT business model just to finance a Linux player of dubious financial value?

You have to understand though, Yahoo has a significant portion of their business in online advertising. Apple doesn't, and probably doesn't want to be in that business.

To my knowledge, Apple has only had one foray into online advertising, and that was with the Sherlock web search utility. For whatever reason, it was short-lived; the banner ad is still there, but now it's all Apple.com ads. I'm guessing one of two things happened: a) they found that the expense in setting up an advertising department was more than the potential revenue, or b) decided that the advertising business was not the business they were in, nor did they want to be in it, which is great; they should focus on the stuff they know how to do, and leave stuff they don't know how to do to everyone else.
Re:Yes, but... by astrodawg · 2002-06-04 05:39 · Score: 2, Informative

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.

Re:How much better is AAC, anyway? by nguyenhm · 2002-06-04 03:26 · Score: 2, Interesting

Apparently, AAC is the Cadillac of lossy encoding, with the highest quality for a given bitrate you can get. Developed by Bell Labs or something like that.

That's funny... by sterno · 2002-06-04 03:42 · Score: 2

So apple, deciding they cannot make money on it, does not realease anything for Linux. Then codeweavers releases the crossover plugin and does :). Anybody who says money can't be made selling to Linux users should take a look at how they are going about it.

I'll admit to the fact that one of the reasons I use Linux is because I dont have to pay for it. Having said that, I have paid for a copy of the crossover plugin, and I have also paid for RedHat's little subscription up2date service. The thing that's nice about Linux, is that to get into the game, you can do it for free. If you are willing to pay you can get enhancements, increased convenience, etc. I'm not forced into it like I would be if I ran Windows.

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This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service

Re:That's funny... by foobar104 · 2002-06-04 04:00 · Score: 2

So apple, deciding they cannot make money on it, does not realease anything for Linux. Then codeweavers releases the crossover plugin and does :).

I guess you missed the part in the middle, about third-party licensees. Apple doesn't consider QuickTime Pro licenses to be a significant revenue source. The revenue from QuickTime comes from third parties, which license QuickTime for use in their own commercial products.

Since nobody is asking to license QuickTime for Linux for commercial use, Apple has no motivation to port QuickTime to Linux.

Ta-da.

Why kill MPEG4 by zenyu · 2002-06-04 03:48 · Score: 2

Why the hell did the MPEG4 people have to go and kill their own format this way??

They probably don't care so much about computer playback of video. I think the MPEG video codecs were mostly aimed at television sets. They think of the television model where the $5 for the decoding patents pales in comparison to the cost of the hardware. The computer market is a jucy secondary market, but they don't want to canabalize the TV market. This assumes HDTV in most countries will adopt MPEG4. They are also looking at the cost of developing the technology and thinking, we don't have a plan for profiting here...

MPEG4 is chock full of computer file formats too so if it takes off at all there will be a lot of partial MPEG4 support, and no single player that supports everything. Some will use patented tech, some not, at least with MPEG4 the competitor can pay the patent holder a royalty and try to compete.

Re:Not quite... it's much worse than this. by foobar104 · 2002-06-04 04:06 · Score: 2

I am fairly certain that Microsoft is the
reason - one part of their support of Apple,
financially and by producine IE and Office,
is that Apple must do whatever they can to
not support Linux.

This doesn't sound right. Microsoft entered into their agreement with Apple years ago, before Linux was even on anybody's radar. Doesn't sound to me like such a clause is very likely to exist.

Even if this were true, Microsoft's agreement with Apple has expired. The field is wide open now.

Quicktime Broadcaster, too. by greygent · 2002-06-04 04:12 · Score: 3, Informative

While this is great news, also note that a Public Preview of Quicktime Broadcaster is out.
This allows you to encode video (for free) for delivery to a streaming server.

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/preview/broadcast er

About "instant-on" (Re:No-Wait Streaming) by e271828 · 2002-06-04 04:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

All streaming players support this to some extent, you just switch the buffering time to be very low, or zero.

"Instant-on" is not quite the same thing as setting your buffer size to zero. Typically, setting the buffer size to zero in a player means that there is no buffering for the entire duration of the program. This means that if you want to watch without interruptions, the available bandwidth between the server and you must exceed the bit rate of the stream at all times; since the encoding is at a variable bit rate, you will often see peaks in the bit rate which need really high bandwidth to sustain the stream.

However with "instant-on", the playback begins immediately, but the buffer continues to build. This means that you need a fairly high bandwidth initially in order to start the playback and build up the buffer, but--after that initial period--the buffer prevents interruptions which would otherwise have been caused by the peak rate of the stream going beyond the available bandwidth. So "instant-on" is not the same as setting your buffer to a fixed size of zero. Now this isn't really revolutionary; to researchers in the field the question is why everyone hasn't been doing this all along.

As an aside, the "skip protection" feature of Quicktime streaming is simply over-buffering; i.e. using the available bandwidth to build up the client buffer as much as possible instead of maintaining a fixed size buffer.

QuickTime doesn't really have any major advantages over other technologies as far as I can tell, other than it being made by Apple and therefore given lots of marketing. Why should I choose QuickTime over Real, or Windows Media, or hell even standard MPEG?

Quicktime streaming has an advantage to broadcasters: the server is open-source and free as in beer. You can download the latest snapshot via CVS, and contributions to the source from the public are welcome. The streaming protocols are all standards based (RTP/RTSP). Of course, you could always encode the data with a proprietary codec, but if you used an open codec, then the streams could be played back by any standards compliant player, not just Quicktime Player.

Finally, although ideas like "skip-protection" and "instant-on" are fairly obvious to anyone who spends some time thinking about these issues, the fact remains that only Apple seems to be taking the initiative to incorporate these into its servers and clients. What new features (from a streaming perspective) have Real and Microsoft offered in the new releases of their products? While Apple does have a big marketing push, that does not take away from the fact that there is solid work going on behind the scenes.

Quicktime 6 is actually benefits Linux users by Aqua+OS+X · 2002-06-04 04:32 · Score: 2

Remember folks, although the QuickTime player does not run on Linux, Apple is still pushing very very hard for the adoption of ISO-compliant MPEG 4 media (and other types of cross platfrom media). This means you will not have to worry about which media player you have residing on your desktop. Once these royalty issues clear up (which they may have), most media players should be supporting mpeg4 by the year's end.

So, seriously, who cares if this media player can't run on Linux. Ya I guess being able to have the sorenson codec would be nice, but I think a lot of web developers are going to favor content which plays any place on anything. I know I will. It'll be nice not to save content in multiple formats or write dumb java scripts which check media players.

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"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"

Re:How much better is AAC, anyway? by benwaggoner · 2002-06-04 04:38 · Score: 2

AAC is Advanced Audio Coding. it was actually created by Dolby Labs, with help from Sony, AT&T, and Fraunhofer.

And yes, it is really quite excellent. I'd say a 64 Kbps AAC is typically comparable to a 128 Kbps MP3, although it is somewhat dependent on content. I really, really hope that a future version of the iPod and other mobile devices support it.

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My video compression blog

Re: I recommend.... by Ahaldra · 2002-06-04 04:44 · Score: 2, Informative

Hi,

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.

What a load of crap by Vicegrip · 2002-06-04 05:27 · Score: 2

"But Apple knows that Linux users, as a rule, don't buy software. No third party would license QuickTime for Linux, because they couldn't make any money on their product. So there's zero motivation for Apple to port QuickTime to Linux."

I am a professional. If I need a tool, I evaluate the pros and cons of each solution offered; price is only a factor. Every other professional I know does this too. That is all.

I've bought a number of Linux software products and in each case it was because I felt the commercial solution matched my requirements best.

This comment is just FUD.

--
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Re:dvd quality by foobar104 · 2002-06-04 05:33 · Score: 2

It's DVD quality in the same vein that mp3 is cd quality.

Oh. You mean it's DVD quality in the sense that it's not.

Just to clarify the point here, DVDs are encoded with MPEG-2 at variable bit rates that average between five and eight megabits per second, depending on the disc.

A Sorensen or MPEG-4 stream encoded at between one and two megabits per second is not, and cannot be considered, "DVD quality."

Still no AVI with vbr audio support by cryptochrome · 2002-06-04 05:35 · Score: 5, Informative

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.

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---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?

Show me one reason to use it. by Jacek+Poplawski · 2002-06-04 06:25 · Score: 3, Interesting

It's not open source (DivX _is_ - libavcodec). There is no Linux version. Why should I care?

Re:Show me one reason to use it. by greygent · 2002-06-04 07:59 · Score: 4, Insightful

Are you supposed to care?

Do you have to care?

Are we supposed to care?

Does every single Slashdot reader love and run Linux?

Should Slashdot abolish any noteworthy topics, and just post about Linux?

I know, it's moronic of me, this being posted on APPLE.slashdot.org and all!

Grow up, and go outside, it's almost summer time for fuck's sake. Time to tear down that RMS poster, and toss the Tux penguin you sleep with every night...

Arrogance by gidds · 2002-06-04 08:21 · Score: 2

Not all /.ers use Linux, any more than all internet users use Windows – another arrogant misconception.

Some use Mac OS X. (I'm one.) We're pleased to hear about this. It was posted in the Apple section, which you can opt not to view. No-one's forcing you to read this story, to use the software, or even to care about it.

This site isn't just for things you personally care about. (Thank goodness!)

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Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.

Quicktime Full Screen? by andrewski · 2002-06-04 09:46 · Score: 2, Informative

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!

Re:Quicktime Full Screen? by robertchin · 2002-06-05 07:50 · Score: 3, Informative

You can create an Applescript applet which will set movies to full screen mode. Then all you need to do is drop the quicktime movie onto the applescript. I believe apple has written this applescript themselves, it should be available somewhere on their quicktime or applescript areas.

Re:Brushed Metal Hell by stripes · 2002-06-04 10:04 · Score: 2

some overpaid designer's faux brushed metal skin cluttering up the window

Rumor has it in OS X 10.2 the "metal look" is available to 3rd parties (boo!), and can apparently be disabled as well (yeah!). I may not be looking forward to iChat, but I am looking forward to a metal-less iTunes!

beta? by gol64738 · 2002-06-04 12:30 · Score: 2

quicktime 6 is now in beta? windows, too?
when did quicktime 5 ever leave beta? i never did get quicktime 5 in windows to work without being crashy/buggy.

quicktime on the mac is a really decent product. i wish they would completely overhaul the windows version from the ground up though...(oh, and a linux version too, please!)

Re:beta? by donglekey · 2002-06-04 15:19 · Score: 2

very true, half my crashes in IE 6 (I use mozilla now baby) were from quicktime, and that is saying something. Oh well, its about fuckin time jpeg2000 got through the door.

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This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org

Re:dvd quality by BitGeek · 2002-06-04 14:36 · Score: 2

A Sorensen or MPEG-4 stream encoded at between one and two megabits per second is not, and cannot be considered, "DVD quality."

This statement is the logical equivilent of saying "A Yugo or Mercedies that goes 60 MPH is not , and cannot be considered "Buick Quality".

No. MPEG4 is not "DVD Quality" Its FAR SUPERIOR to DVD. MPEG2 is pretty ugly to my eye, and an MPEG4 stream a 1megabits compared to a 5-8megabit MPEG2 stream is no comparison-- the MPEG4 looks MUCH BETTER THAN DVD QUALITY.

Excuse me for all capsing, but sheesh, this is a new technology. Recognize that.

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Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/ 1816257

How about all the Aqua mods? by 2nd+Post! · 2002-06-04 14:40 · Score: 2

How about every single thing Apple develops that Linux folk appropriate or use?

I'm not saying it's right or wrong...

But Aqua widgets and Platinum themes and the modern WiMP paradigm and, gee, laser printers, TrueType fonts, PostScript fonts, multi-monitor setups, sound on PCs, wysiwyg, etc.

To put it another way, Apple is going to popularize MPEG4 where Microsoft would as soon abandon it in favor of WMF, an in popularizing MPEG4 increase the number of files you can view in .mp4 format.

Imagine if there were no .mpg videos for you to watch? A world of *only* Quicktime or AVI files?

And now you ask, "Why should I care?"

--

GPL Deconstructed

Re:dvd quality by foobar104 · 2002-06-04 14:53 · Score: 3, Informative

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.

Re:Doesn't work by BitGeek · 2002-06-04 15:49 · Score: 2

Funny, QT6 is free. You can download it now from www.apple.com/quicktime.

Oh, and before you start calling other people slaves, you might look at the ideology you are advocating, and that of the people you support. RMS's communism made more slaves than capitalism ever had.

People say those who work for companies are "slaves" to them, but they ignore the fact that those employees could leave any time they wanted- but in the socialist paradises they advocate, leaving your job means death.

Lets stop with the doublespeak. If you want QT then help make such technology for Linux.

Or buy it. IF you don't then stop complaining.

Or do you think you have the right to something for nothing? Thats you're business model? Historically, it never works.

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Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/ 1816257

Know your MPEGs. by n6mod · 2002-06-05 05:42 · Score: 2

I also wonder why MPEG-4 is ".mp4". ".mp3" isn't for MPEG-3, after all. Flummery!

Umm, because .mp2 is for mpeg2 (though .m2v and .m2a more common for elementary streams)

.mp3 is a mutant. It stands for MPEG-[1|2] Layer III. MPEG-1 defined the standard, and MPEG-2 allowed a wider range of bitrates, so MPEG-2 Layer III is pedantically correct, but MPEG-1 Layer III is probably not incorrect. Further, Layer II (which you sometimes also see as .mp2, and is also called "Musicam" for historical reasons) works better for many encoders at high bitrates.

But the real confusion here is that MPEG-3 doesn't exist. It was reserved for an HDTV standard, but ATSC and friends decided that MP@HL MPEG-2 works just fine. ATSC, like NTSC DVD's use AC3 audio. (Even though most players are perfectly happy with it, MPEG-2 audio is not legal for NTSC DVDs, only PAL).

Now, as to what MPEG is thinking with the next standards (-7 and -21), who knows...

-Z

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