Wednesday, December 05, 2001

CNet has an article on the 10th anniversary of Apple's Quicktime, which made a significant contribution to the seeding and growth of digital video and computer video editing. The article note that the next version of Quicktime will be adopting MPEG-4, a more open standard compared to Real Video and Windows Media. A lot of engineering research is going into streaming MPEG-4 right now, especially at IBM and engineering universities. I've been reading a lot of it for a paper I'm writing on Internet audio and video (over IP). I wonder if Quicktime joining the MPEG-4 consortium will help keep it afloat against the bigger, more proprietary players? I must admit, however, that I am a fan of Real Media. For streaming its codecs can't be beat, especially under G2 SureStream where one media file can be encoded to stream out at variable bit rates to accomodate users on different bandwidths. I also think Real Audio 8 is top-notch, since it incorporates Sony's ATRAC perceptual encoding as it's primary codec now -- the same codec used in minidisc, which, by the way, sounds much better than mp3, no matter how you slice it. Although they don't really publicize it, Real Networks provides support for progressive media through it's Webactive website that provides access to dozens of progressive radio programs like Counterspin and Democracy Now in Exile, and through its low-cost streaming media development and support service RealActive. In fact, the company used to be named "Progressive Networks." It's too bad that Real nonetheless has to make their codecs proprietary and get in bed with the music industry and it's harebrained schemes for selling crippled music on-line.
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