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QuickTime Broadcaster is free. Its release is delayed because it’s built on MPEG-4 technology.
Casanova and company demonstrated a QuickTime Broadcaster actually working via a PowerBook G4 and FireWire-based camera, sending a broadcast wirelessly via AirPort.
QuickTime Broadcaster introduced: Allows you to use a Mac to broadcast QuickTime streams. Scales all the way from one-to-a few distribution to a one-to-content delivery networks, if you wish. As simple to use as a single pull-down window and a few buttons. Extensively customizable, however. Supports MPEG-4, all QT codecs, FireWire capture, much more.
Dr. Minoru Etoh, NTT Do Co Mo: Open standards are necessary to stimulate the acceptance and availability of mass market products. NTT Do Co Mo expects MPEG-4 will be seen as popular standard for mobile content delivery, authoring and playback. Demonstrated prototype mobile phone running MPEG-4 video stream.
Patrick Kane(sp?), VP Ericsson: People think of Ericsson as a company that makes terminal devices, like phones. There’s a lot more too it, though. Ericsson is encouraging content providers and developers to create 3GPP content that can be repurposed on wireless Internet devices which Ericsson is transitioning towards, as it migrates to packet-based communication technology.
Schiller: Sun, Apple and Ericsson are announcing a new wireless networking content delivery scheme for this technology.
Ann Wettersten, VP from Sun: Sun focused on created end-to-end solutions. Focusing today on delivery engine. Showing technology that supports MPEG-4, QuickTime, ISO-compliant, ISMA spec-compliant. Casanova then demonstrated Final Cut Pro exporting to a QuickTime movie, dragged and dropped file to the Sun server’s desktop icon, and played back via QuickTime. Same technology worked via a set-top box as well. “Standards work, good thing,” said Casanova. Wettersten said that demo/beta is available at https://www.sun.com/wireless/streaming.
QuickTime Streaming Server 4 is available today.
QTSS 4 supports native MP3 streaming. Casanova demonstrated a user-configurable playlist engine too. Skip protection — which depends on use of local buffers for when bandwidth disappears — now extended to MPEG-4 rather than just .mov files.
New QuickTime Streaming Server (version 4) coming as well, and it supports MPEG-4 as well. User interface has been updated as well. Casanova demonstrated QTSS4.
Schiller again: It’s ready for release but we’re not going to release it today. Delayed for licensing reasons; license is not complete. License hasn’t met Apple’s expectations yet. The license for MPEG-4 requires codec royalties Apple is happy to pay, said Schiller, but content royalties are being asked for by the MPEGLA as well. “We don’t that’s right,” said Schiller. “You can all play a part in this: e-mail licensing@mpegla.com.” Schiller encourages concerned parties to constructively explain why licensing structure should be changed.
Director of QuickTime Product Marketing, Frank Casanova took the stage. Demonstrated how MPEG-4 can be used to show data at different rates depending on the medium. All the music video segments he showed used AAC Audio as well. Demonstrated 128Kb-encoded AAC Audio compared to uncompressed AIFF. Did the same with 64Kb-encoded file as well.
Schiller explained that existing apps will support QuickTime 6 as well.
AAC Audio will make higher quality audio at lower file sizes.
QuickTime 6 preview: will deliver complete, full MPEG-4. MPEG-2 decode, Flash 5, more. Working hard on interoperability; “first class citizen;” G4 Velocity Engine accelerated; single-pass VBR encoding to ensure “great, great quality.”
MPEG-4 is the next step, said Schiller. Standard is based on the latest technology to have the greatest image quality over a scalable range of media. Apple and others are part of the ISMA, to make MPEG-4 a well-supported standard.
QuickTime supports many standards, as well — Schiller showed a long list of supported standards built into QuickTime.
“We have to resist that momentum because it’s holding back that marketplace.” Schiller said it’s inevitable. Apple has a solid foundation in open standard support, said Schiller — like FireWire, USB, Apache, Unix, 802.11b. (Made an oblique comment about Michael Dell trying to take credit for 802.11b’s popularity.)
Schiller talked about the benefits of supporting open standards even for consumer electronics like DVD players; televisions; compact discs, etc. “They are formats that allow us to create marketplaces.” Schiller extended the analogy to the Internet and HTTP, FTP, DNS, and so on. Schiller said the streaming market has not done that — .asf, .ram, and .mov compete with each other.
1.5 million page views per day to QuickTime area on Apple’s Web site. 300,000 new installs per day from Apple’s QuickTime Web site. 28,000 Web sites per day point back to Apple’s Web site to download QuickTime. Hotbot search showed 57,000+ sites with Windows Media Files, 109,100 for Real, 251,800 for QuickTime. Schiller cites QuickTime’s affordability and ease of use as examples of why that’s the case.
On QuickTime distribution: “Since we’ve started keeping track, there’s been over 250,000,000” copies of QuickTime distributed. QuickTime 5 has been most popular of all; 115,415,000 copies of QuickTime 5 distributed. Hundreds of commercially distributed software and enhanced audio CDs titles also include QuickTime too. The majority of these discs, said Schiller, include QuickTime.
QuickTime is one decade old. QuickTime was started in 1991. Schiller noted that Apple will receive a Grammy this year. QuickTime as a core technology had something to do with that, added Schiller.
Quicktime is well-positioned and actively involved in the future of digital media, said Schiller.
Apple VP of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller opened QuickTime live keynote. Explained that the event is held annually in Beverly Hills because so many QuickTime content developers are based in Los Angeles.