Next Wave: Tiger Revving-up for QuickTime TV Live-Network

Posted by Dennis Sellers Mar 16, 2005 at 12:01am

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

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 Apple Doctrine

In a recent Business Week interview with Steve Jobs, something important surfaced that with a little context sets up this chapter of the Next Wave of the Internet Series. Here are the key phrases Steve made during that interview:

I’ve always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do. Take audio. For years, the primary technology was the [marking mechanism] inside a CD or a DVD player. But we became convinced that software was going to be the primary technology, and we’re a pretty good software company.”

“So that led us to believe that we had a chance to reinvent the music business, and we did.”

Putting this into context, Steve Jobs is basically stated that they were able “to reinvent the music business” with Apple’s FairPlay, which they own and control, in sync with the MPEG-4/ACC open standard. They win and the open standard wins recognition. Okay, point taken.

The Next Great Thing

Let’s take Steve Jobs’ logic concerning the music business and apply it to the next big thing that will be IP/TV, commonly referred to as i-TV. In last year’s WWDC Keynote, Steve Jobs placed extraordinary emphasis on Apple’s next iteration of QuickTime and the new MPEG-4 component contained therein known as Part-10 or H.264. He pointed to the fact that this new open standard was being adopted into next generation DVD players and and so on and so forth. Next came Frank Casanova’s demo of H.264 in action playing the Phantom of the Opera movie trailer. Frank Casanova concluded his segment by emphatically stating that “this codec changes everything.” In part, it will change everything because H.264 allows content to be streamed to a wide range of digital devices, be it an on-stage Jumbo screen or 3G phone, as Frank demonstrated.

This was a very interesting choice of demonstration, because there’s history going back to sometime in and around the 2001/2002 timeframe where Frank Casanova demonstrated Pixar”s then latest movie-trailer for “Monster Inc.”. At that demo, Frank took the running trailer on the desktop and zapped into the application dock while the trailer still ran. I remember the audience really getting a kick out of that. But at the time, there was really nothing to associate that demo with any real-world application. It was simply fascinating. Ah, how times change. Only in hindsight can we now connect the dots as to what Apple was actually working on. Yes…MPEG-4 Part 10. What Frank Casanova had in fact just demonstrated was advanced real-time streaming scalability form the desktop to wrist-watch, which is even smaller than the cellphone demo last June.

The reason that this is so vital is that in that same time frame it was announced that Apple, Ericsson and Sun had joined forces in order to develop a new standard for video streaming in mobile phones. The new standard was to be based on an ISO-specified MPEG-4 format and would use Apple’s QuickTime as a “wrapper” format for the video. The new standard didn’t have an official title back then but we now can see that in fact it has become MPEG-4 Part 10 (H.264).

The interesting “ISO specified” Part-10 is like saying OS Part-10. Ya right, let’s get real. The precedent is that Apple, Sun and Ericsson announced the forthcoming standard, the vast majority of us then forgot it was ever announced and now we have MPEG-4X … I mean Part 10, of course.

Think about it, did you ever hear Apple go “goo-goo” over H.263? No. So it’s abundantly clear that there’s indeed a vested interest in this particular version, because they own it in part, just as Steve Jobs said a few weeks back: “I’ve always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do.” Thanks for the clue Steve—we now get it!

So with the knowledge that Apple has part control of this standard that pertains to video, we can now extend it to its logical conclusion: To reinvent the TV business—and they will! So let’s take a peek at the great developments underway behind the scenes as Apple revs up their QuickTime TV Live-Network.

Flashback to QuickTime TV – 1999

This was the year that Apple premiered the QuickTime TV network with Steve Jobs enthusiastically announcing that that ABC News, Rolling Stone, VH1, HBO and fox had signed on to deliver content. QuickTime TV (QTV) began with featuring partner “channels” including movie trailers, music videos, and news in Apple’s popular QuickTime multimedia format.

Jobs had said that Apple wanted to “make the best experience for viewers to watch video on the Internet,” and announced that more than 900 streaming servers would be strategically placed around the world to bring QuickTime content to viewers.

Now to QuickTime TV – 2005

The primary focus at the World DAB Forum held in korea in 2003 was broadcasting standards that would drive next generation digital broadcasting systems. Those chosen for Audio and Video were none other than ACC and H.264 AVC, which were prominently highlighted throughout the presentation targeting Digital Mobile Broadcasting (DMB) for both terrestrial and sattelite broadcasting systems powering the next generation IP/TV market.

Apple’s Tiger a Winner

Apple’s next iteration of OS X Tiger based QuickTime will now hold the keys to the file, audio and video file formats being adopted by WorldDAB. As the de facto standards behind digital mobile broadcasting for IP/TV in the fastest growing economies on the planet today supporting Eureka-147 DAB (Such as China, Taiwan, Europe etc.), this is a huge win for Apple, make no mistake about it. In this context, the report filled by TrendWatch back in January of this year entitled Apple Computer Gains Share in Broadcast Market, is given new light. The report pointed to an unusual leap in Apple’s market share from 8 to 26 percent in just one year. It stands to reason that this leap was the direct result of those attending the World DAB forum! Obviously leading broadcasters around the world got the message. No matter how the paid Wintel political “spinmeister” try to negatively frown on this as meaningless, the numbers don’t lie – broadcasters are diving into Apple’s technology line-up big time. Hey Wall Street, do the math.

In addition, this goes a long way to explaining why Apple launched their beta Xsan lineup at this year’s National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) spring event, doesn’t it now

Lastly on this point, did you take notice of the first slide’s reference to MPEG LIVE TV and the three services it will provide: audio, video and yes, data! This is going to be very important going forward.

Apple’s Mobile Broadcasting for the Enterprise Market

Take note of this second World DAB slide that provides an overview of the two IP/TV centric Satellite Systems A and E that are now in operation or on track for 2005. Both Eureka-147 and ITU-R BO.1130-4 are specific standards-based forms of S-DMB that support MPEG-4 Part-10 and AAC+ (aacPlus is the next generation ACC). Information regarding current cross-platform technologies relating to IOBC based DAB (the standard for the United States) will be generally covered under the sub-header Java TV, below.

ISMA: On October 15, 2004 ISMA 2.0 specifications were released standardizing AVC.

Open standards based multimedia in the enterprise is further enhanced with ISMA 2.0 with a number of new enterprise centric work items such as Rich Media object synchronization, Enterprise DRM, Live server failover specification and Closed Captioning.

With the next generation of MPEG-4 Part 10 is going way beyond just entertainment by allowing handhelds and other digital devices to run business applications. We can now understand why enterprise partners such as PeopleSoft and Business Objects (see both press releases) have been so enthusiastic about signing onto Apple’s Safari browser and why Apple held a special session at this year’s WWDC called Safari in the Enterprise. Guest presentations from IBM, PeopleSoft and SAP were on board this session. That speaks volumes! And, if Apple doesn’t beat me to market first, I’ll be discussing one of the enterprise applications that are coming to this platform in the coming weeks ahead that could define this emerging mobile platform/network.

Java TV and Related Standards

Illustration: Apple’s QuickTime components containing MPEG-J (Java).

Java TV Brief: Java TV technology is poised to remake our definitions of what television viewing is all about. The creation of a standard Digital TV platform (J2ME+Java TV API) will broaden opportunities for application developers and content creators. They will be able to develop one set of products, and distribute them to a wide range of Java Technology enabled Digital TV receivers on a variety of networks. Hardware manufacturers will benefit from the scalability and reusability offered by both Java and advanced MPEG-4 Technologies. Sun Microsystems has been promoting MPEG-4 standards as both an alliance partner to Apple in addition to being a founding member of ISMA.TV (see members list).

I made an earlier reference to Java TV meeting the requirements of Eureka 147 standards. To meet those standards Sun Microsystems works with Java tool maker Strategy & Technology Ltd that provide a suite of software containing two crucial tools called TSBroadcaster and Broadcast Builder which provides transmission and management of DSM-CC object carousels for broadcasters and operators using DVB-MHP(Digital Video Broadcasting—Multimedia Home Platform) and MHEG-5.

MHEG-5 is an International Standard arising from work in the Multimedia-Hypermedia Experts Group of ISO-IEC. It deals with interactive TV presentation and interaction. See MHEG.TV Standards and/or pick up the PDF.

Interrelated – Sun Microsystems OnRamp: On May 4, 2004 Sun introduced “OnRamp to OCAP”. OnRamp is a Java technology-based middleware platform targeted at the legacy set-top boxes that are currently deployed in large numbers by U.S. cable companies. CableLabs, Charter, Cox, GoldPocket, Liberate, Motorola, Philips, Sun Microsystems, Time Warner Cable, and Vidiom Systems are working together as members of the Expert Group to define the new specification.

OnRamp is in relation to the OpenCable Application Platform. It’s relevance could be best related to the March 2004 announcement between and Korea’s largest digital media operator, Broadband Solutions Inc., who launched their first interactive TV system utilizing CableLabs DOCSIS® Set-Top Gateway (DSG) for web surfing, t-commerce, email, online gaming and so forth for consumers. It’s this type of system on the way to our markets in 2005/2006.

While researching this system, I came across Cisco Systems offering Quick Start for IP/TV which just happens to mention setting up QuickTime as follows: Step 2—Download Apple QuickTime Version 6 or later from the Apple website, and install it on the computer running IP/TV Server. Refer to the “Installing Apple QuickTime Components” section in Chapter 2 of the Cisco IP/TV Broadcast Server User Guide for more information. Thanks Cisco!

Apple, the Internet Company

Apple’s commitment to open-standards and next generation technologies will play a central role in delivering consistent quality of service (QoS) streaming video and data services to the forthcoming IP/TV market serving both consumer and pro markets alike. With Apple’s QuickTime TV Network Platform going LIVE in 2005, we could begin to understand a statement that Steve Jobs made back in January 2000that provides us with the big picture:

“We believe Apple will be one of the ten most profitable Internet companies in the next ten years.”

Addendum

Historical Presentation: I highly recommend that you download this World DAB PDF (if you have a fast system) in order to see the full set of slides referencing MPEG-4 PART-10 that will give you a great overview of what’s in the pipeline in respect to Apple’s forthcoming QuickTime Live TV-Network. This is likely the presentation that marked a historical shift in Apple’s future.

Please Note: The World DAB PDF was the first PDF ever to be accompanied with a warning that downloading it could damage your computer. Perhaps that could be true for slower outdated systems.

H.264 is a high compression digital video codec standard written by the ITU-T (shown on slide 2 of article). This standard is identical to ISO MPEG-4 part 10, also known as AVC (Advanced Video Coding). The branding of the two as H.264 AVC is in recognition of both International Standard groups.

DAB Definitions: DAB—digital audio broadcasting. DVB—digital video broadcasting. DMB—digital mobile broadcasting; S-DMB—satellite digital mobile broadcasting; T-DMB – terrestrial digital mobile broadcasting. DVB-H: Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld

Differing DAB standards: Eureka 147 (Europe, Taiwan, Australia, Canada, China, South Korea and others; IBOC (U.S. only); ISDB-T (Japan only). See ITU-R for definition. ITU-R BO.1130-4 Q is the Satellite delivery recommendations specification.

The Next Wave of the Internet Series
By Neo

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