Apple's QuickTime announcement came the same day that Microsoft said the beta version of Windows Media 9 Series, a competitor to QuickTime 6, would enter its test phase on 4 September. The timing of Microsoft's announcement, and others planned for this week, could be a move by the software titan to steal some thunder from Macworld, say analysts. Windows Media 9 uses proprietary codecs -- or formulae for compression and decompression of files -- for delivering streaming audio and video content over the Web, while Apple is supporting open-standard MPEG-4. MPEG-4 is a successor to MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, technologies that are instrumental for delivering digital broadcast transmissions over cable, satellite and the Web. MPEG-2 also is the video standard adopted by Hollywood for DVDs. In addition, MPEG-4 is seen as a possible successor to MP3, the hugely popular audio format for compressing music digitally. Content creators can use MPEG-4 and its predecessors to condense large digital video or audio files into smaller ones, which is essential to delivering them smoothly over the Web or to tiny devices such as cell phones. MPEG-4, which has better compression bit-rates than MPEG-2, also adds features in the areas of interactivity, e-commerce and digital rights management. One of MPEG-4's advantages is delivering higher-quality video streaming using smaller files. Another allows instant-on capabilities, rather than forcing the user to wait for the player to cache the digital audio or video before playback starts. "QuickTime 6 certainly is better positioned to take advantage of some of the toolsets in MPEG-4," said Yankee Group analyst Ryan Jones. "Microsoft has taken a proprietary codec and underneath that a proprietary platform and layered on new features that QuickTime 6 with MPEG-4 already has." He referred specifically to the instant-on capability, "which beat Microsoft to market with that feature." By supporting MPEG-4, Apple hopes to get a leg up in media streaming, where it has been running a distant third to Microsoft and RealNetworks. Because MPEG-4 is not dependent on a particular player, wide adoption of the format could greatly help QuickTime adoption. "Content developers should get very excited, but for the next quarter or so consumers shouldn't get too excited," Jones said. "It's going to take awhile for the content developers to integrate all the new QuickTime capabilities, specifically MPEG-4, before consumers see Internet content that is marketedly different." Apple released a QuickTime 6 preview release in early June. "Our public preview period lasted just over a month, and nearly 1 million people downloaded the preview client," Casanova said. The final version of QuickTime 6 is available from Apple's Web site in versions for Mac OS 9 and OS X and for Windows. Staff writer Stefanie Olsen contributed to this report.
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