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`Academic OneFile - Document - High noon: big players ready for video showdown
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`High noon: big players ready for video showdown
`Eric J. Adams
`MacWEEK. 6.44 (Dec. 14, 1992): p46.
`Copyright: COPYRIGHT 1992 IDG Consumer & SMB, Inc.
`http://info.idgcsmb.com/
`Abstract:
`
`Nov 10, 1992 will be remembered as an important day to digital-video professionals because IBM, Microsoft Corp
`and Apple all announced developments that provide or will provide video standards making it easy to port movies
`between platforms. Apple is busy developing QuickTime for Windows, but it now faces competition from Microsoft's
`Video for Windows, and Audio Video Interleaved file format, as well as from IBM's upcoming 32-bit OS/2 Multimedia
`Presentation Manager/2 (MMPM/2), which will enable OS/2 users to view several video clips at the same time.
`Industry analysts indicate that it was not an accident that IBM, Microsoft and Apple made the announcements all on
`the same day. The coordination was a result of awareness by the companies that their products will need to operate
`on different platforms to be successful.
`
`Full Text:
`
`A flurry of emerging video standards from Apple, Microsoft and IBM allows for easy porting of movies between
`platforms.
`
`By Eric J. Adams
`
`If you are a digital-video professional or simply an aficionado, you'll want to remember the date Nov. 10, 1992. One
`analyst described it as "a digital-video multimedia day which will live in infamy."
`
`What exactly happened on that day to merit such dubious recognition? Before noon Pacific time, Microsoft Corp.
`announced its Microsoft Video for Windows; Intel Corp. announced Indeo, its souped-up video-software
`compression scheme; Apple dropped the details on QuickTime for Windows; and IBM Corp. unveiled a 54-page
`white paper detailing its "multimedia computing vision," along with a beta version of its OS/2 Multimedia
`Presentation Manager/2 (MMPM/2).
`
`Whether the day will live in infamy remains to be seen, but many users and analysts agree that by day's end many
`questions had been answered -and still more raised - about the future of desktop video standards and the role they
`will play over the next few years, particularly for multimedia developers.
`
`Standard fare. Perhaps the most important development of the day for QuickTime title authors was that both Apple
`and Microsoft not only promised but delivered technology to make it easy to port movies across platforms.
`
`At the same time, however, QuickTime, once the unquestioned video-authoring platform and distribution vehicle of
`choice, now faces stiff competition from rival Microsoft with its Video for Windows product and Audio Video
`Interleaved (AVI) file format. And early next year, Apple's foray into Intel-land with QuickTime for Windows will meet
`with more competition as IBM is expected to ship its 32-bit MMPM/2, which will allow OS/2 users to view several
`video clips simultaneously.
`
`"It's no coincidence that these announcements came on the same day, " said William Coggshall, analyst with
`Pacific Media Associates, a Mountain View, Calif., market research company. "There's a recognition on everyone's
`part that this stuff has to work on multiple platforms. This is good news for authors who want to port their work
`across platforms, which is just about everybody."
`
`Standards are important in all areas of computing, but they are critical in digital video because so many elements
`must come together to make movies, which are developed, ostensibly, to be distributed and played on many
`platforms.
`
`Microsoft does movies. When Microsoft began work on its multimedia extensions for Windows 3.0, the company
`claimed there would be links to digital-media files. When it saw the success of QuickTime in the digital-video arena,
`the software giant rushed to acquire technology from a number of third-party vendors to piece together Video for
`Windows. But far from a hodgepodge product, Video for Windows is a good start, according to David Baron,
`associate editor of Digital Media: A Seybold Report, based in San Francisco.
`
`"Video for Windows is the functional equivalent of QuickTime 1.0," Baron said. "It's not as good as QuickTime 1.5
`but not as bad as it could be."
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`Video for Windows is three things: an extension to the Windows 3.0 operating environment, an architecture for
`encasing different media types and a retail product. Shipped in a shrink-wrapped box for $199, Video for Windows
`includes a set of low-end software tools for playback, capture and editing of video; three compressor-decompressor
`(codec) algorithms; and a CD-ROM containing hundreds of sample video clips.
`
`Compression drop. Using Intel's Indeo compression technology, Video for Windows offers what Microsoft is calling
`"scalable performance," a feature (such as QuickTime's) that automatically adapts the size and frame-per-second
`rate of the image to the hardware available in the playback computer without the user having to change the
`software or the video file.
`
`With Video for Windows, for instance, a movie played on a 386-based machine without additional video hardware
`will be displayed at one-tenth screen at 15 frames per second. The same movie on a 486 processor will play on
`one-quarter screen at 24 fps. If you add in a video accelerator, such as those based on the Intel i750, the movie will
`play on the full screen at 30 fps on either the 386 or 486.
`
`More importantly, Video for Windows brings this capability to Intel-based machines - a market 10 times the size of
`the Mac market. Although Intel's DVI (Digital Video Interactive) has provided this capability since 1987, the fact that
`users had to send their video clips to Intel for processing may have kept it from becoming a standard.
`
`"For business users, all this is a very strong statement because [Video for Windows] grafts onto existing
`applications and skill sets," said John Donovan, analyst with WorkGroup Technologies, a market research and
`consulting company in Hampton, N.H.
`
`QuickTime crossover. Most importantly for QuickTime developers, since Video for Windows includes a utility to
`convert QuickTime movies to AVI format for playback in the Windows environment, the potential audience for
`QuickTime-developed movies has grown overnight by 14 million, the estimated number of Windows users
`worldwide.
`
`During the Nov. 10 unveiling of Video for Windows, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates announced that in the second quarter
`of 1993, Microsoft will make available, free of charge, a utility that will act as a QuickTime player for AVI files.
`
`Out of the box, Video for Windows supports OLE (Object Linking and Embedding), which means that more than
`150 existing Windows-based applications automatically inherit digital-video capabilities.
`
`"Users of standard business applications can drop in a video segment just like any other data type," said Rob
`Glaser, Microsoft vice president of multimedia and consumer systems.
`
`Though drop-in video may seem like old news to QuickTime developers, Video for Windows has other things going
`for it, according to Bill Caffery, vice president and director of Advanced Technology Groups for The Gartner Group,
`a Stamford, Conn.-based market research company.
`
`"Video for Windows is better- designed [than QuickTime] to accommodate future strides in compression technology
`and the exploding market of board vendors that will be compatible with the AVI file format," Caffery said.
`
`Apple ups the ante. Still others believe Apple has the digital-video plum with QuickTime. "What Microsoft has done
`is physically two years behind QuickTime," said Rick Doherty, editor of Envisioneering, an industry newsletter
`based in Seaford, N.Y. "[Video for Windows] offers neither the cleanliness nor the surprise-free results that you get
`on the Mac. If I were to start authoring tomorrow, I would author on the Mac and publish on the PC."
`
`Joan-Carol Brigham, director of graphics and multimedia research at International Data Corp., a Framingham,
`Mass., market research company, agreed. "Apple definitely has the leg up. On the Mac, the sound is there, the
`video subsystem is there. Video authoring is no big deal." But, she said, "Apple is going to have to work like crazy
`because Microsoft is going to be incredibly effective at getting the standard out there cheaply."
`
`In October, Apple upped the ante again with QuickTime for Macintosh 1.5, which provides higher compression
`ratios; support for Eastman Kodak Co.'s Photo CD technology; full-screen, full-motion video with add-on hardware;
`bigger screens for software-only playback; a d an improved user interface, as well as other improvements.
`
`And unlike Video for Windows, which will cost users $199, QuickTime 1.5 is free of charge for Mac owners,
`available with System 7.1 or via bulletin board and user groups.
`
`A window to QuickTime. Three weeks after the release of QuickTime 1.5 (and literally minutes before the Microsoft
`Video announcement), Apple lifted the curtain on QuickTime for Windows, its initial implementation of the
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`QuickTime architecture for the Windows environment.
`
`QuickTime for Windows 1.0 provides Windows users with enough software to play back and control QuickTime
`movie files and compressed still images. Unlike Video for Windows, QuickTime for Windows is not a retail product;
`rather, it is being sold as a software development kit for $295 to programmers and developers, who can add
`QuickTime playback capabilities to their applications with Dynamic Link Libraries.
`
`The initial release of QuickTime for Windows does not support OLE, although support will be included in Version
`1.1 of QuickTime for Windows, slated for release in February 1993, according to Mike Holm, Apple product line
`manager for cross-platform technology. Version 1.1 also will include full support for Intel's Indeo codec and include
`Compact Video, Holm said.
`
`Out the window. But the biggest news about QuickTime for Windows is not what's in it but what's been left out. It
`doesn't include support for the Media Command Interface (MCI), a set of software-access protocols developed by
`Microsoft and IBM. MCI allows all Windows-compatible application software to control a variety of multimedia
`devices, including CD-ROM drives, audio and animation players.
`
`"Apple has said all along that QuickTime for Windows wasn't going to be MCI-compliant. But it makes you step
`back and ask, why not?" said one consultant who asked not to be identified. "That means application developers
`have to recompile code to work with QuickTime for Windows. No vendor likes to do that, and I think it was a terrible
`strategic mistake on Apple's part."
`
`Dueling standards. Apple counters Microsoft on several fronts. First it quickly provided a list of vendors that have
`promised support for QuickTime for Windows. The list includes such heavyweights as Lotus Development Corp.,
`Macromedia Inc., WordPerfect Corp., Corel Systems, Adobe Systems Inc. and Claris Corp., among others.
`
`Finally, Apple argues that QuickTime is simply the superior digital-video architecture. "Microsoft Video for Windows
`demos well, but the veneer is thin," said Apple's Holm. "Its file format is not that rich, it can't have multiple sound
`tracks, and [audio-video] synchronization wanders.
`
`"Meanwhile, you can create a QuickTime movie that has several different language soundtracks, and QuickTime
`will automatically figure if the machine is running the Japanese, French or English operating systems; decide which
`soundtrack should be played; and play it in 24-bit-, 16-bit- or eight-bit-color mode. QuickTime can figure out the
`optimized image display," Holm said.
`
`Both QuickTime for Windows and Video for Windows include Mac applications that allow you to convert Mac
`QuickTime files to Windows format. It remains to be seen if AVI-formatted files will require conversion to run on the
`Mac.
`
`"QuickTime runs on both machines, it looks great on both machines, and it will save users a lot of grief," Holm said.
`
`Nevertheless, Holm said Apple is "considering" MCI support in future versions.
`
`Out of the Blue. IBM, meanwhile, is trailing behind both Apple and Microsoft with its Ultimedia multimedia
`architecture, according to many analysts. Ultimedia is an open architecture designed to run on DOS, Windows and
`OS/2 machines. To date, only a few third-party vendors have promised support, and the multimedia version of
`Presentation Manager 2 just went into beta with no shipping date announced.
`
`The IBM white paper relies heavily on the promise of future technologies, such as ScriptX, the object-oriented
`scripting language developed by the Apple-IBM joint-venture Kaleida Labs Inc. Most analysts, therefore, are placing
`their bets on Video for Windows as the video standard on the Intel side, and QuickTime on the Macintosh.
`
`Standard and deliver. But the competing formats will meet the demands of different users, according to Greg
`Sheppard, principal analyst with Dataquest Inc., a San Jose, Calif., market research company. "The average Video
`for Windows user will be someone playing the stuff back. QuickTime is targeted more at developers."
`
`Few analysts, and even Gates, doubt that Video for Windows will persuade QuickTime authors to switch platforms.
`"In the Windows environment Video for Windows will be dominant, and in the Mac environment QuickTime will be
`dominant," Gates said during the news conference announcing the availability of Video for Windows.
`
`"The real winner of all this is the title author," said Pacific Media's Coggshall. "They don't have to worry about
`distribution anymore. Movies developed on one platform will play on another, and while there are still minor
`problems with conversion, it's nothing in comparison with the other unnatural acts that multimedia developers have
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`to perform everyday."
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`Academic OneFile - Document - High noon: big players ready for video showdown
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`Still others believe it's far too early to tell which system will be dominant or even what each will look like by the time
`desktop video makes its full impact in the corporate world. "It will clearly take several years for video to become a
`broad horizontal business technology," said Nick Arnett, president and chief analyst of Multimedia Computing Corp.
`of Campbell, Calif. Until then, QuickTime authors can enjoy the best of both worlds: QuickTime authoring and PC
`distribution.
`
`Source Citation (MLA 7th Edition)
`Adams, Eric J. "High noon: big players ready for video showdown." MacWEEK 14 Dec. 1992: 46+. Academic
`OneFile. Web. 1 July 2016.
`
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