The technology that started the multimedia revolution is ten years old this month, and Apple is opening a new chapter with MPEG-4.
If you have ever used your PC to play music or watch a fashion show on the Net, now is the time to pay tribute to the technology that made it all possible: Apple Computer's QuickTime.
Ten years ago this month, Apple released the gold code, or final test version, of its breakthrough multimedia software, allowing video to be played directly on the Macintosh without add-ons such as a laser disc or video monitor.
QuickTime changed forever the view of the personal computer as just a desktop publishing tool and game platform, setting off a flurry of innovation that now threatens television as the dominant entertainment hub in the home.
Like so many other products first popularised by Apple, however, the legacy of QuickTime has been to inspire and create opportunities for others, even as Apple's own efforts have languished. After closing off its technology to outside developers for much of the 1990s, the company was blindsided by the arrival of the Internet -- giving rivals RealNetworks and Microsoft a chance to steal a market that many believed Apple should own.
QuickTime still has sway in the film and video world -- it is the exclusive format for the new "Star Wars" trailers on the Net, for example -- but has almost no presence in online music, the fastest-growing segment of the digital entertainment market. In a sign of its underdog status, Apple is tying the future of the technology to the acceptance of a new digital video standard known as MPEG-4.
"The Internet snuck up on us," said Peter Hoddie, a former QuickTime development team leader who runs Generic Media, a start-up formed with the goal of creating interoperability between competing digital media formats.
