Apple exec talks up QuickTime 5

Casanova lauded the revised multimedia software's support for the Sorenson Video 3 codec as well as the ease with which users will be able to extend its compatibility with additional compression-decompression standards.

"A hallmark of QuickTime has been its video quality," Casanova said. "Sorenson Video 3 takes that to the next level and allows content providers to move their content to the next level. The quality it offers is incredible. Sorenson will remain our primary codec, but we're letting third parties extend it even further."

This extensibility comes courtesy of a new Component Download feature, an expansion of the Automatic Updater in QuickTime 4. All QuickTime developers can work with Apple to have their own codecs available for download from a secure Apple server, Casanova said.

If users come across a company's site and need a codec to view or play files, they won't have to go to another web page and download it, then restart. They can download and implement the codec dynamically and on the fly.

"Now, more than ever, QuickTime can be extended to more users," Casanova said.

Leading web developers whose technologies take advantage of the Component Download feature include:

• DDD, which takes existing video and encodes it in 3-D for viewing with 3-D glasses.
• Pulse 3D, which provides playback of low-bandwidth 3D interactive animations.
• BeHere, which delivers 360-degree streaming and on-demand video.
• Sealed Media, which allows content developers to "seal" their media and set up digital rights management (DRM) solutions for streaming live or on-demand content.
• iPIX, which makes virtual-reality software that provides dynamic-imaging solutions for creating 360-degree spherical images and movies.
• On2, which provides high-quality broadband video, encoding, and playback.

For instance, On2.com's VP3 codec will allow any QuickTime user to decode On2-encoded content; QuickTime Pro customers will be able to encode video for broadband distribution within the QuickTime Pro application. On2's VP3.2 codec provides for full-screen, full-motion, television-quality streaming video at data rates as low as 200 Kbits per second, according to Douglas A. McIntyr, president and CEO of On2.

The Component Download feature should quell concerns that Apple (aapl) is returning to proprietary software and hardware, Casanova said: "QuickTime is the most open standard on the Internet."

QuickTime 5 was announced yesterday at the QuickTime Live! conference, along with QuickTime Streaming Server 3, the next generation of Apple's software for streaming audio and video over the Internet. Public previews of both are available immediately for Mac users to download from the QuickTime web site and the Streaming Server web site, respectively.

The public preview of QuickTime 5 for Windows will be available by year end, and the final versions of QuickTime 5 and QuickTime Streaming Server 3 will be available in early 2001, according to Apple.

In addition to the updated media player and the Component Downloader, QuickTime 5 will feature:

• The Skip Protection feature, which can download and buffer streaming data faster than real time, affording the QuickTime 5 player an ample supply of data stored in case of a "hiccup" on the Internet.
• A new Hot Picks guide highlighting new QuickTime TV content.
• Easy developer support for delivering new user interfaces, or "skins."
• An improved digital video codec for improved iMovie playback performance.
• Real-time video-editing support for applications such as Apple's Final Cut Pro.

Phil Schiller, Apple vice president of worldwide product marketing, told attendees of his Tuesday QuickTime Live! keynote speech that Apple's goal for QuickTime 5 was to provide tools to make the personal creation of video better, to improve Internet delivery, and to let developers expand QuickTime into new, unexpected areas.

"I hope that when get together in another year, we'll be showing things so amazing that we couldn't even dream of them the year before," Schiller said.

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