Delivering Video-Based Content on the Net

March 1998 — Volume 3, Number 2

Delivering Video-Based Content on the Net

Jim Duber
UC Berkeley
<dub@sirius.com>

Multimedia is about to reach new levels on the web thanks in large part to Apple’s new QuickTime 3.0. Although the final release has yet to be announced, this breakthrough technology has already garnered several important awards (including Videography’s National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) ’97 Editors’ Choice Award, Television Broadcast Magazine’s NAB Editors’ Pick of Show Award, and the 1998 NewMedia Hyper Award for System Software, among others) and widespread recognition among developers. While Apple has struggled financially as of late, the QuickTime system extension, which enables the playback of synchronized digital audio and video on standard desktop computers, has been a strong favorite among developers for both Mac- and PC-based developers for quite some time.

There are competing formats for digital video of course, most notably MPEG and AVI, but until recently there was no effective way to deliver video on the web due to bandwith constraints. After all, the typical user doesn’t want to wait an hour or so before being able to view a 3-minute clip of with a "postage-stamp-sized" movie. The recent releases of RealVideo (player and plug-in) and VivoActive are proof that the bandwidth problems are being solved. Both allow audio and video streaming over the net, and the quality is generally acceptable, even over a 28.8 modem connection. In fact, a press release of February 23, 1998 announced that RealNetworks had secured a deal to acquire Vivo Software, Inc., an arrangement which should lead to the creation of more tools for producing streaming video for the RealNetworks players.

However, clearly QT3, when it is finally released, will still be a step ahead. Here’s a list of some of what it promises:

multiple-language text tracks (for multilingual subtitles, for example)

support for streaming video, sound, graphics, animation, text, MIDI, MPEG, AVI, 3D and VR data

multiplatform playback (no need to develop separate versions for Windows or Macintosh users)

built-in synchronization (allowing events to occur as planned no matter the speed of the processor) [-1-]

new and improved compression formats (most notably Sorensen) which produce smaller files needed for streaming while retaining quality playback)
"smart streaming" (automatically selects an appropriate file version based on viewers’ connection speeds)

Another sure sign of QuickTime’s strength is demonstrated by a recent announcement by Apple Computer Inc., IBM, Netscape Corp., Oracle Corp., Silicon Graphics Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc. which said that the International Standards Organization (ISO) had adopted the companies’ joint proposal to use Apple’s QuickTime file format as the starting point for the development of a unified digital media storage format for the MPEG-4 specification. Standardizing the file format for digital media will provide a common target for content creators and should kick off a torrent of video production for the Web.

In a very short time, the "video cabinet" of the "resource room" that is the World Wide Web will offer plenty of movies that instructors and students of TESL/TEFL can use for instructional content. I’m also fairly certain that somewhere, right about now, course developers are also busy at work in creating primary materials in this format as Internet-based courseware continues to mature.

Editor’s Note: Dashed numbers in square brackets indicate the end of each page in the paginated ASCII version of this article, which is the definitive edition. Please use these page numbers when citing this work.

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