[opendtv] Re: News: Video board approves Apple-supported codecs
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "OpenDTV (E-mail)" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 13:26:58 -0500
I'm not completely positive about this, but
isn't this article full of BS?
To begin with, H.264/AVC is either a little
older than or about as old as WM9. The article
here states that "'Windows Media 9 is a few years
old and it's evolved a few times,' said Casanova.
'AVC is brand new -- it's just at the very
beginning of its quality and optimization curves.'"
Bull. H.264, ex-H.26L, was already defined by
August of 2002, when it was described in
Communications Design Magazine and doubtless
many other sources.
In the August 2002 article, it mentions the ITU's
Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) had started
work on H.26L in 1997, and by 2001 was already
comparing the results with the codecs available
within the MPEG-4 standard profiles. Since WM9
wasn't even out until 2002, I'm not sure how it's
supposed to be older. Wasn't WM9 introduced at
the same time as WinXP?
Also, in 2001 MPEG joined with the ITU-T VCEG to
form the Joint Video Team (JVT), to bring forward
work on H.26L. I'm not claiming that Apple was
absent in any of these groups, but they were not
explicitly mentioned, either. Sounds like a large
ITU effort to me.
I'm not disputing that QuickTime uses MPEG-4 file
formats, but it's news to me that MPEG-4 file
formats and AVC were Apple inventions, and that
AVC is any newer than WM9. I think the cart got
placed in front of the horse? Here's what I'm
referring to:
"'The investment we made in the MPEG-4 standard is
paying off incredible dividends for QuickTime and for
Apple,' Frank Casanova, Apple's director of QuickTime
product marketing, told MacCentral. 'Allowing the ISO
the use our file format has turned out to be the best
decisions we could have made.'"
Is this for real? Anyone know?
Bert
--------------------------------------------
http://www.macworld.com/news/2004/11/09/avc/index.php
November 09, 2004 1:10 pm ET
MacCentral
Video board approves Apple-supported codecs
By Jim Dalrymple
The Digital Video Broadcasting Steering Board (DVB)
has approved a revision to its implementation
guidelines for audio and video codecs over a broadcast
Transport Stream. The revision includes two
technologies supported by Apple Computer Inc., H.264
or Advanced Video Codec (AVC) and High Efficiency AAC
(HE-AAC) audio codecs.
AVC and AAC are codecs supported by MPEG-4, an open
standard technology based on the QuickTime file format
and adopted by the ISO governing body.
"The investment we made in the MPEG-4 standard is
paying off incredible dividends for QuickTime and for
Apple," Frank Casanova, Apple's director of QuickTime
product marketing, told MacCentral. "Allowing the ISO
the use our file format has turned out to be the best
decisions we could have made."
AVC was discussed less than a year ago as an
up-and-coming codec, but in recent months the
technology has gained traction being ratified for the
HD-DVD and Blu-Ray specs -- the two new standards for
high definition content on DVDs.
"AVC is clearly the chosen direction, which comes as
no surprise to me because interoperability across any
industry is important," said Casanova. "Any
proprietary technology would naturally get shutout
where interoperability and openness is required.
MPEG-4 provides a level of openness and compatibility
that all of these different industries from 3G to HD
all require."
In addition to the ratification by DVB, AVC has
received the nod from the MPEG-4 group, the 3GGP group
and the Association of Japanese Broadcasters. While
worldwide support for the technology has been quick,
the United States broadcasters have yet to ratify AVC,
except for use in HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. With the
benefits the technology brings to broadcasters, Apple
thinks it's just a matter of time.
"The broadcasters in the U.S. haven't made a final
decision about what technologies they will use, but I
think it's just a matter of time," said Casanova.
"Japan and the European community have gone forward
and I have no doubt that as the broadcast communities
here in the U.S. decide how to make the most effective
use of the bandwidth available, they will chose AVC.
It makes good business sense -- it saves them
bandwidth and at the same time gives them more
programming flexibility."
With its ability to encode content for so many mediums,
Casanova sees uses for AVC in many of the everyday
things we do today, including DVD movies, Cable
television providers, on-demand television in hotels
and next-generation cellular telephones. For example,
with AVC, DVD content authoring houses could use the
same size DVD disk, but output the content in HD
quality.
"Cable providers will be able to encode their content
at HD quality and send it down the wire at the same
data rate as MPEG-2, yet get much better quality,"
said Casanova.
As with MPEG-4 itself, AVC is an open standard, which
means that many different companies contribute to the
process of evolving the codec into something the
public sees on their computer or television.
"This is a technology that we've been intimately
involved with for a while -- everybody, including
Apple is very excited about this. It's about
interoperability, standards and openness -- something
we've been all about across QuickTime and much of Apple
for a long time."
Competition from Microsoft
Microsoft Corp. is touting its Windows Media Player 9
format as competition for AVC, but Casanova sees several
reasons that AVC will win out in the end, not the least
of which is performance.
"Windows Media 9 is a few years old and it's evolved a
few times," said Casanova. "AVC is brand new -- it's
just at the very beginning of its quality and
optimization curves. This puts us in an incredible
advantage from a competitive standpoint because Windows
Media has likely had most of its optimizations and
performance wrung out of it already by Microsoft's
engineers and we're just getting started."
Microsoft has submitted the Windows Media 9 format to
the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers as
a standard, but unlike an open standard, only Microsoft
can make changes and enhancements to the Windows Media
format. With an open standard like AVC, all member
companies contribute to the technology.
"We feel so confident about this technology against the
competition [Windows Media 9]," said Casanova. "We have no
concerns at all -- we are thrilled with it from a video
standpoint and certainly I couldn't be happier from a
worldwide industry adoption perspective."
Apple has long preached the benefits of using and
promoting open standards in its software. It is the
interoperability of these standards that Apple believes
will lead AVC to continue to be adopted in the future.
"The DVB selection of AVC is just one more example of
where the world is insisting on open standards," said
Casanova. "It doesn't matter if you're a cell phone
manufacturer, broadcaster or producer of HD decoded
video, interoperability counts. AVC is being ratified
into relevancy by all of these standards organizations
and Apple is right there.
"In this world of 'my codec is better than yours' -- this
codec is better," said Casanova.
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