It’s also a boon for Web developers, because the QuickTime browser plug-in lets you view a host of media types that might otherwise require separate proprietary plug-ins. Developers of QuickTime-based software can easily add the ability to import or export the supported formats. One of QuickTime’s big advantages is the long list of image, audio, and video formats it supports. As with the real-time streaming functions, many of these features were designed to make QuickTime more appropriate as a universal media format for the Web. With its open-source strategy, Apple hopes that other developers might step in with such products, but there’s no guarantee that they will do so.Īside from the real-time streaming capabilities, QuickTime 4 adds new playback software, a more flexible installer, a handful of new file formats, and improved versions of the Sorenson and Qdesign codecs that were introduced in QuickTime 3. Microsoft and RealNetworks are well established in this market, and both offer specialized software for handling tasks related to live streaming, such as pay-per-view operations. A single QuickTime movie can even include streams originating on multiple servers.ĭespite these advantages, there’s no assurance that Apple’s streaming technology will catch on. QuickTime product manager Steve Bannerman notes that streaming content can be incorporated with other media types, so you could have a CD-ROM title that pulls in a live video stream, or an interactive QuickTime movie with controls that let you jump from one video channel to another. Neither server is available in a Mac version.Īpple’s streaming technology also benefits from the other capabilities in QuickTime. In contrast, the streaming servers from Microsoft and RealNetworks are based on proprietary streaming protocols. Because QuickTime streaming is based on standard Internet protocols, Apple says it should be relatively easy for developers to create cross-platform versions of the software. Silicon Graphics, IBM, and Cisco Systems are already working to incorporate QuickTime streaming functions into their servers.
Apple will also offer an open-source version of the software, the Darwin Streaming Server, that developers can download for inclusion in their applications (see “Apple Goes Open Source with Mac Server,” News, June 1999).īy opening its streaming software, Apple hopes to make it as easy as possible for developers to include live broadcast capabilities in their server products.
QuickTime 4 supports live streaming through Apple’s new QuickTime Streaming Server software, which Apple will make available as a free update to Mac OS X Server.
However, unlike RealNetworks’ RealMedia or Microsoft’s Windows Media (formerly NetShow), QuickTime 3 did not support streaming of live audio or video broadcasts. QuickTime 3 introduced the ability to stream QuickTime movies over the Internet, meaning you could begin watching a movie as it was being downloaded.
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