Ask Slashdot: What Quicktime Format for X-Platform?

Harry Zink asks: "Since there is no Linux solution for playing Apple's QuickTime 4 movies, I'm trying to offer to some of my clients (which do movie sites) versions of their trailers in a QuickTime format that *can* be viewed by Linux users (and, in fact, it should be listed as 'for Linux) - key query here being: What is the best QuickTime format and compressor for that purpose? What viewers exist on the Linux platform to view QuickTime, and what codecs do they support?" Let's change "Linux" to "cross-platform", here. There are several OSes that are also in the same boat as Linux when it comes to QuickTime support. It's sad how, up to QT4, QuickTime was known as the cross-platform multimedia format, but now it's gone the same route as AVI. Can QT compete? Should Apple rethink it's position and open up QT4? I certainly would like such a move.

Comments

Pot, Kettle, Black?

[pb]

Umm. all those "free software people" innovate all the time. And even if they didn't, what do you think Microsoft does? They buy, lie, beg, cheat and steal for their software. If you don't believe me, I could give examples (programs with non-innovative names and designs such as Windows, Money, Explorer, etc., etc.) but I'd rather give the positive examples, like C, or X-Windows, or frickin' *disk quotas*... (I don't know who 'invented' that one, but I know that Microsoft still hasn't implemented it, but won't until at least NT 5.0, when they start corrupting many innovative open standards made by those bothersome 'free software people'...)

As for audio and video, there isn't a whole lot of community knowledge about this. Actually, with mp3's, there's getting to be more people programming encoders and decoders for that, which is promising. But there has already been much time and money spent by corporations with deep pockets and many software patents in this field, and that makes things difficult.

So, I agree that there hasn't been a whole lot of free software audio/video innovation, per se, but we already have three major formats, with many versions and codecs, and some of them are open. But please don't say that because of this, free software isn't innovative, because that's simply wrong. It has to reimplement proprietary 'standards', but that should not be confused with always copying other people's implementations. Rather, it is providing open support for someone else's brain-dead protocols and formats, when they didn't have the courtesy to do it themselves. Got that?