QuickTime: The Internet Live

Apple emphasized its commitment to digital video and streaming media technologies this week at the Seybold Publishing conference. At his keynote speech on Monday, Steve Jobs, Apple's interim chief executive officer, reviewed news on QuickTime and said the company is "really serious about digital media; Apple invented it some time ago."

QuickTime 4.0, the latest version of Apple's digital media platform, features "streaming" of live and stored video and audio over the Internet. According to Apple, streaming means you can experience high-quality playback even over a 28.8-kilobits-per-second modem. Available in its final version since June as a free download from Apple's site, QuickTime 4 lets you "download stuff and stream stuff live," Jobs said.

May the QuickTime Force Be With You

True to its powerful marketing of late, Apple worked with Lucasfilm to develop the popular QuickTime Star Wars video trailer. Since its release in March, Jobs said, there have been more than 25 million downloads of the QuickTime Star Wars trailer, making it the "largest digital media event ever."

Apple wants QuickTime to become the video standard for Internet streaming. To that end, QuickTime 4 supports streaming standards, RTP, RTSP, SDP, FTP, and HTTP-and video and animation formats such as AVI, DV, Macromedia Flash, OpenDML, GIF, and FLC. It includes the QuickTime Player with user playback, audio controls, and one-click Internet access; the QuickTime Picture Viewer, which supports most popular image files; and the QuickTime Web Browser Plug-In. QuickTime compression technologies let you optimize the playback of various multimedia formats for dial-up Internet access or CD-ROM.

Available as a $29.99 upgrade, QuickTime 4 Pro adds advanced authoring and playback capabilities such as multiformat editing. Users can integrate video and audio from QuickTime-supported formats, including streaming.

Streaming for the Big and Small

An open protocol available for free download, the QuickTime Streaming Server enables any server running RTP/RTSP to broadcast QuickTime content over the Internet.

"We're not in the business of taxing for server software," Jobs said. "We give the code away."

Through Apple's QuickTime TV program, Internet content companies that download the Streaming Server software can broadcast live QuickTime streaming video and audio straight from their servers.

For its broadcast network, QuickTime TV uses the Internet, which doesn't guarantee timely delivery of live video. But Apple has partnered with Internet content deliverer Akamai to minimize broadcast delays.

New to the QuickTime TV network are music video channels from Rhino Records and Warner Bros. Records, which let you purchase the music you preview. Rhino and Warner join other QuickTime TV content partners ABC News, BBC World News, Bloomberg TV, Disney, ESPN, Fox News Online, Fox Sports Online, HBO, National Public Radio, RollingStone.com, and The Weather Channel.

Although you can only get Disney radio in certain locations, through QuickTime TV "you can go to the Disney Channel and listen to Disney Radio from anywhere in the world," Jobs said.

Apple will host a QuickTime Live developers and users conference at the Los Angeles Convention Center from November 8 to 11.

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