Next Wave: QuickTime Leaps to the Silver Screen and Beyond

Posted by Dennis Sellers Mar 14, 2005 at 12:11am

Neo is Macsimum News’ international man of mystery. If we told you more, we’d have to kill you.

Say Bye-Bye To the Era of the Silver Screen

When Apple’s Frank Casanova demonstrated their next generation H.264 video standard last summer, by running the Phantom of the Opera movie trailer on both a jumbo screen and a tiny 3G phone sized LCD, I thought that Frank was pushing it a little or that it was simply slight of technology—nothing up his sleeve however. Then he went and stated that “this codec changes everything.” Yeah, I guess sooooo—if you could ever pull that off, I laughed! Well it’s apparent now that someone has decided to Think Different. Check this out.

The Dolby Digital Cinema system has been engineered from the ground up for real-world projection booths. It is reliable, built to last, and has the flexibility to adapt to Theater’s evolving requirements. To make sure the transition to digital runs smoothly, it incorporates the open standards being established by Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) and is easy to integrate with existing automation and sound systems. Dolby is one of the many outstanding leaders that are at the core of the Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA) promoting the MPEG-4 open standard loudly (literally) and proudly.

Live Global Broadcasting – Testing…Testing 1-2-3
On October 11, 2004 China’s “Year of France” celebration was kicked off in style with an historic live performance by French artist Jean-Michel Jarre in Beijing’s Forbidden City. The event was relayed to Europe in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround with HD picture on Eutelsat and Astra satellites. The performance was a first in China because of the innovative high-tech live production and transmission using the Dolby Digital technology.

Dolby’s subsidiary called Via licensing Corporation which develops and administers patent licensing programs, announced on October 21, 2004, the formation of a joint patent license for the TV-Anytime Standard expected to be available in the second quarter of 2005. Six companies are involved in this process including ETRI, LG, NDS, Philips, Samsung, and Sharp. Click here if you’re interested in obtaining the BBC 2003, 47-page White Paper on TV-Anytime/Java.

Digital Cinema Initiatives

On Apple’s webcast he thanked the folks over at Universal (@44:38 on QT Webcast) and had done so before in connection with Apple’s iTunes/Pepsi promotion. Universal just happens to be a member of the Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) that also includes Disney, Fox, MGM, Paramount, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Warner Brothers Studios. DCI’s primary purpose is to establish and document voluntary specifications for an open architecture for digital cinema that ensures a uniform and high level of technical performance, reliability, and quality control. DCI will also facilitate the development of business plans and strategies to help spur deployment of digital cinema systems in movies theatres.

You’ll be interested to note that DCI Chief Executive Officer Chuck Goldwater recently said that “his group had talked with Microsoft, but that the JPEG standard proved more attractive for several reasons. We’ve had conversations with Microsoft, as we have with many vendors and manufacturers,” [but] Microsoft has a proprietary operating system, and one of our guiding principles and goals was to create technical specs based on an open architecture.” John Borland of C/Net writes: “The new technology standard could leave at least one major digital media player on the sidelines: Microsoft.” Oh no Mr. Borland, how that makes us weep!

QuickTime – JPEG 2000

The specific JPEG standard as referred to above is none other than JPEG 2000. The following are just a few things I’ve found of interest in relation to this concerning Apple:

Part 12 of JPEG 2000, ISO/IEC 15444-12, has a common text with Part 12 of the MPEG-4 standard, ISO/IEC 14496-12. It is a joint JPEG and MPEG initiative to create a base file format for future applications. The format is a general format for timed sequences of media data. It uses the same underlying architecture as Apple’s QuickTime file format and the JPEG 2000 file format.

Part 1 of the JPEG 2000 specification is the core component. A comprehensive, heavily optimized, fully compliant software toolkit for JPEG 2000 developers can be found at Kakadu: Kakadu is a complete implementation of the JPEG 2000 standard, Part 1—i.e., ISO/IEC 15444-1. This new image compression standard is substantially more complex than the existing JPEG standard, both from a computational and a conceptual perspective.

More than 60 organizations have taken out full commercial licenses to build and sell applications based on Kakadu. Some products that utilize Kakadu (there are many more) are:

° Apple’s QuickTime 6(for Mac only right now)
° Yahoo’s latest Messenger application (uses JPEG2000 for live video)
° Micro Images’ TNT products for Geospatial imagery

You could find a good overview of JPEG 2000 over at EE Times. For the sake of this report I’ll limit the article’s contribution to this: Network scalability: Unlike JPEG, JPEG 2000 has a defined file format especially for motion applications (known as Part 3). This flexible file format is based on the MP4/QuickTime format and allows for easy synchronization of the compressed image data with audio and other meta-data.

Kind of makes sense why Apple has added Pixlet to QuickTime now doesn’t it. And lastly, you could find yet a great JPEG 2000 overview-PDF for Digital Cinema Applications here.

Digital Cinema – for Movies, Live Concerts and Events

Is there no doubt that Apple’s Special Event with Steve Jobs, Bono, and the Edge was a glimpse of what’s to come in Live music events in 2005! Apple and Universal set this up in a theater for strategic reasons and to remind us of the original—intimate Rock-n-Roll experiences of the 60’s and early 70’s now long forgotten. While we saw the rebroadcast of this Apple event – count on a full U2 concert going “Live” sometime next year for real-world global distribution as was the event earlier presented concerning the China Live celebrations. It’s pretty easy to envision 40 million fans at $4.99 (the price of a video rental) “iTuning” into such an event – K’Ching!

An important World Dab event was held in Korea in October 2003. I’d like to point to a November 2003 announcement that came from the CEO of Media Development Authority of Singapore at the IDA-MDA formal launch of Digital Cinema. In his proud introduction to Digital Cinema he made reference to their direct association with the Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) in the United States. And for the sake of brevity I’ll present you with a collage of key excerpts from three varying speeches made that day:

The announcement of the release of DCI Technical Specifications Version 3.0 is an important step toward a common standard that can be embraced by all studios. This is because a common industry-wide specification for digital cinema is crucial for an open architecture that ensures a high level of technical performance, reliability and quality control.

To further inject vibrancy to the leisure and entertainment scene here[Singapore], one of the digital cinema systems will be deployed at The Legends Fort Canning Park, our new town club in the park, to screen live concerts, sporting, cultural events and other alternate content beamed to us via satellite. Audiences can then enjoy such screenings in a fun carnival atmosphere in the company of family and friends, to wine and dine in a park setting. (Hmm, that would be great idea for Chicago’s Millennium Park.)

For cinema audiences, going to the movies will be even more enjoyable with pristine digital images and sounds with every screening; image and sound distortion from film scratches, dirt and burns will be things of the past. Also, popular movies will be able to be screened on more screens and with higher frequency.

Additionally, Cinema halls can also be used to host events, functions and parties involving “live” videocasting and ‘live’ large-scale video conferencing. [Hmm…Been there, done that, when Steve Jobs, at last year’s WWDC 2004 (Keynote @ 1hr. 36min point) did just that—thank-you!)

While “non-film” content can be offered at Digital Cinemas, the MDA will continue to work with the industry to develop and produce more digital movies. Over the past year, the industry has shown a keen interest in developing digital movies and TV series. For example, the TV series Front Line was shot digitally on high definition cameras. (Hmm, On Apple’s “What’s On – News and Entertainment” webpage you could check out WBGH, a QuickTime TV channel—launch it and see Front Line for yourself – thank you!)

(The Illustration presents a typical digital distribution workflow envisioning servers at several key locations, connected directly to or with the help of Internet or satellite transmissions. Note: Illustration Courtesy of EVS Digital Cinema.)

Velocity Satellite

The Digital Cinema Initiative’s (DCI) new architecture requirements, which call for development of a complete 4K delivery system compatible with current 2K projectors has been found with the Velocity and Velocity Europe satellite services from Microspace. VELOCITY is Microspace’s high-speed “open architecture” video, data, and audio broadcasting service. VELOCITY provides a perfect solution for businesses that require economical and reliable video or high-speed data delivery to multiple locations. While on their homepage you could check out their large 750×450 9.1MB QuickTime Video Presentation (Sorry QuickTime only!) for a personal presentation.

You wonder if Apple is using the Velocity service for their iTMS EU service. Funny, Apple also has the Velocity Engine and then there’s the not so coincidental fact that Avie Tevanian has just joined the board of Green Hills Software who developed the INTEGRITY real-time operating system (RTOS) with the “VelOSity” microkernel in respect to the telematics arena in context with micro-browser and in-vehicle infotainment systems that utilize Satellite systems.

Interesting to note that one of the key customers using Microspace’s Velocity is none other than Boeing.

The Cell GPU

In this year’s WWDC 2004 Keynote (@ 1hr. 07min.point) Steve Jobs talked about the fact that their upcoming Core components within QuickTime would process through the GPU rather than the CPU. He said that GPU’s were crashing through Moore’s Law (pertaining to CPU’s) and were getting incredible high performance. Well there’s no doubt in my mind that Apple will adopt the Cell GPU for desktops and servers being that it’s a PPC based chip. Sony is to use Cell to power its next-generation game console as well as a network-centric television that will offer functions similar to a personal computer. The Cell processor will offer up to 10 times more power than conventional chips and able to shepherd large chunks of information through a high-speed Internet network. IBM and Sony are to launch computers aimed at video and movie creation with “Cell” computers arriving as early as the end of this year. Hmm, I wonder if that means Apple will sneak this into their next upgrade this year. Wouldn’t that be something! Nonetheless, 2005 will be fine.

The Cell GPU will be found on supercomputers on the high-end and 3G cellphones and other consumer digital handhelds and home devices. Silver Screen to 3G phone scalability is exactly what Frank Casanova demonstrated at this years Developer conference where he stated that H.264 changes everything. That sure sounds a lot like Toshiba’s president Tadashi Okamura who enthusiastically forecasted that the Cell GPU would “change the world”. Are we on the same track here? Yes, of course. Can you say, Paradigm-Shift? Yes, of course you can.

It’s a Wrap
Precept upon Precept, concept upon concept, the Next Wave of the Internet series is demonstrating Apple’s commitment to all things “Open”, be it open architectures, open standards or open source. In order to ever reach the vision of true ubiquity, which is where Apple’s eye-on-the-prize resides, being on the side of the global community is going to pay big dividends in the not too distant future. No, I’m not naïve to think that the “other guy in Redmond” is asleep, but Apple’s “under the radar” strategy hasn’t even begun to go into high gear. But what we’re finding is extremely exciting because of its technological depth and bold vision. Isn’t that why we first fell in love with the Mac? Yes, of course.

Apple’s QuickTime Leaping to the Silver Screen and beyond – is simply a reality in the Next Wave of the Internet.

Editor’s Note: This is a reprint of one of Neo’s articles that has appeared elsewhere last year. We’re running it for your perusal and to add it to the Macsimum News archives.

The Next Wave of the Internet Series
By Neo

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