PRESS RELEASE
12 February 2002
Apple Previews QuickTime 6 with MPEG-4
Release Awaits Changes to MPEG-4 Licence
QUICKTIME LIVE, LOS ANGELES - February 12th, 2002
Apple today previewed QuickTime 6, featuring full support for MPEG-4, the emerging standard for streaming high-quality content to computers and other digital devices. QuickTime 6, along with Apple's new QuickTime Streaming Server 4 and the new QuickTime Broadcaster (see related release), enables the first complete MPEG-4-based streaming media solution.
Although the QuickTime 6 software is complete and ready for release, Appleis delaying its release until MPEG-4 video licensing terms are improved. TheMPEG-4 licensing terms proposed by MPEG-LA (the largest group of MPEG-4patent holders) includes royalty payments from companies, like Apple, whoship MPEG-4 codecs, as well as royalties from content providers who useMPEG-4 to stream video. Apple agrees with paying a reasonable royalty forincluding MPEG-4 codecs in QuickTime, but does not believe that MPEG-4 canbe successful in the marketplace if content owners must also pay royaltiesin order to deliver their content using MPEG-4.
“MPEG-4 is the best format for streaming media on the Web, and QuickTime 6is the first complete MPEG-4 solution”, said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “MPEG-4 is poised for great success once the licensing terms are modified to allow content providers to stream their content royalty-free”.
QuickTime 6 provides a fully scalable, ISO compliant MPEG-4 solution forstreaming media to the widest range of devices.
Key features of QuickTime 6 include:
- Apple-developed video codec for encoding and decoding MPEG-4 videocontent;
- support for Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), the next generation audioformat;
- support for CELP, the MPEG-4 speech codec for reproduction of naturalspeech;
- adherence to the Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA) 1.0specification;
- MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 playback, ideal for content creators who wish topreview and share work throughout the production process;
- Flash 5 support;
- DVC Pro (PAL) support;
- updated user interface with a new, easy-to-use “Favourites” interface and easier access to QuickTime content; and
- skip protection enhancements.
QuickTime is Apple's industry-leading, standards-based software fordeveloping, producing and delivering high quality audio and video over IP,wireless and broadband networks. Last year, 80 million users downloadedQuickTime Player via the Internet while tens of millions more copies weredistributed via digital cameras, software titles and enhanced music CDs.
As the platform of choice for content creators worldwide, QuickTime deliversthe full media experience for thousands of unique titles of enhanced musicCDs and software titles. Additionally, QuickTime ships on more than 150digital camera models to provide consumers with the highest quality mediaplayback experience.
Apple also announced the immediate availability of QuickTime StreamingServer 4, Apple's advanced open-source, standards-based streaming server,now with MPEG-4 and MP3 streaming capabilities. QuickTime Streaming Server4 does not require a MPEG-4 license and is therefore immediately available.
QuickTime Streaming Server 4 features include:
- full MPEG-4 support, allowing MPEG-4 content to be streamed live or on-demand;
- ability to serve MP3 files or playlists to standard MP3 players, such as iTunes, QuickTime player or WinAmp;
- enhancements to the Web-based administration tool; and
- skip protection enhancements.
QuickTime Streaming Server 4 is available as a free download from:www.apple.com/uk/quicktime/products/qtss.
Apple is a co-founder of the Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA), whichis dedicated to the development of products and technologies that adhere toindustry standards. QuickTime was chosen by the International Organisationfor Standards (ISO) as the file format for MPEG-4, providing the softwarewith a deep level of compatibility with the standard.
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