NEWS • OCTOBER 10 , 2000
Apple Offers QuickTime 5 Preview
Media Cleaner Pro upgrade brings interactivity to video

by David Nagel
Executive Producer
dnagel@digitalmedianet.com

At the second-annual QuickTimeª Live! conference today, Apple¨ released public previews of QuickTime 5 and QuickTime Streaming Server 3, the next generations of AppleÕs industry-leading software for creating, streaming and playing high-quality audio and video over the Internet. QuickTime 5Õs many new innovations include an updated media player with a new QuickTime TV (QTV) network channel display and new audio controls; a new component downloader for adding plug-ins on the fly; and support for new web codecs including Macromedia Flash 4, Cubic VR and Shoutcast. QuickTime 5, in combination with the new open-source QuickTime Streaming Server 3, offers ÒSkip Protection,Ó a collection of Apple-invented technologies that ensures a higher quality experience for watching and listening to Internet streams. ÒSkip ProtectionÓ protects against media Òskipping,Ó or dropping frames, caused by the unpredictability of Internet transmissions. ÒQuickTime is the standard for Internet audio and video and is being used to deliver the latest in Internet content to millions of surfers around the world,Ó said Philip Schiller, AppleÕs vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. ÒThe new technologies in QuickTime 5 enable a new generation of web-based audio and video solutions delivered with greater reliability than ever before.Ó In addition to the updated media player, the new Òin-placeÓ component downloader and Skip Protection, QuickTime 5 also features: * Hot PicksÓ guide highlighting cool, new QuickTime TV content; * support for Sorenson Video 3*; * easy developer support for delivering new user interfaces, or ÒskinsÓ*; * an improved digital video codec for improved iMovieª playback performance;and * real-time professional video editing support for professional applications such as AppleÕs Final Cut Pro¨. Leading web developers whose technologies take advantage of the new 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 ÒsealÓ their media and set up digital rights * management (DRM) solutions for streaming live or on-demand content; * On2, which provides high-quality broadband video, encoding and playback; and * iPIX, which makes virtual reality software that provides dynamic imaging solutions for creating 360-degree spherical images and movies. Availability The public previews of QuickTime 5 for the Macintosh¨ and QuickTime Streaming Server 3 are available immediately for download from www.apple.com/quicktime and www.apple.com/quicktime/servers, respectively. The public preview of QuickTime 5 for Windows will be available by the end of the year. QuickTime 5 and QuickTime Streaming Server 3 will be available in early 2001.

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