Daniel,
It's important to distinguish between authoring and distribution
formats. Certainly, a BlackMagic codec QuickTime movie will look better
than a WMV, since it's uncompressed 10-bit. But you'd never distribute
content like that - an hour of 1080i 10-bit uncompressed is over 400 GB.
WMV9 can do the same hour of video in 6-8 GB for distribution, and still
look great.
QuickTime has many unique features for authoring, like reference movies,
and a great set of authoring codecs. However, QuickTime authoring codecs
haven't seen a significant upgrade since Sorenson Video 3 back in of 2001.
QuickTime also lacks scalability, like the multiple bit rate features of
Windows Media and RealMedia. And multi-channel audio playback. And 3rd
party usable DRM. QuickTime is still the best format when integration with
rich and interactive media is required, but is lagging far behind for linear
delivery of a rectangle of video and audio.
The good news is that there are scalable and interactive profiles for
MPEG-4 (and have been for at least four years), so Apple could implement a
more standards-based solution today. It does seem like the QuickTime team's
engineering efforts are more focused on the authoring side (enabling Final
Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, iMovie, iDVD, iTunes, etcetera) than on the
distribution side.
Ben Waggoner <http://www.benwaggoner.com>
Compressed Video Consulting, Training, and Encoding
My Book: <http://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm>
Cleaner e-book: <http://www.cmpbooks.com/cleaner>
on 12/3/03 22:50, Daniel K. O'Connell at email@hidden wrote:
> Funny, one might have gotten the impression after reading your 'experts
> article' on MS' site and your glowing endorsement of
> Windows Media that you prefer the quality of WM:
>
> "This article is about how to get that first HD piece built during
> lunch, to prove to yourself and your bosses that Windows Media provides
> the highest quality encoding available".
> http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/
> zerotohdsixty.aspx
>
> Do you really believe Windows Media provides the highest quality
> encoding available? How do you think Black Magic's codec stack up
> against it? I notice the screen shot of Final Cut Pro export showed
> that Black Magic was used. Also on the same page is a shot of Pro
> Coder (Windows app) with text describing that it can read native
> QuickTime files. This further suggests that QuickTime be used initially
> - as I know many developers prefer to start with a QT encoded file even
> if later it will be converted to another format.
>
> You may be making the distinction between authoring and encoding as two
> different processes which they of course are. But besides the multi
> bit-rate feature of WM, what does it have that QT doesn't? I agree
> that Apple needs to get off the fence and offer a true MBR solution (I
> hope they are not going to wait for MPEG group to implement it). And
> It is good that we push Apple to offer the features that we need and
> think will make them more competitive in the marketplace. It might be
> better though if you qualified your statements so as to be more
> constructive and instructive to those such as myself who may not have
> your knowledge and expertise.
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