1
00:00:04,120 --> 00:00:07,160
Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

2
00:00:07,200 --> 00:00:13,760
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

3
00:00:13,800 --> 00:00:16,520
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Johnathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with

4
00:00:16,560 --> 00:00:18,760
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works in my Heart Radio, and I love

5
00:00:18,840 --> 00:00:22,680
Speaker 1: all things tech. And you know, guys are really enjoy

6
00:00:22,720 --> 00:00:26,040
Speaker 1: watching video content on my computer or on my phone,

7
00:00:26,160 --> 00:00:33,320
Speaker 1: and I watch a lot of stuff online like documentaries, movies, comedies,

8
00:00:33,479 --> 00:00:37,800
Speaker 1: film criticism, web series, video game let's plays all this

9
00:00:37,920 --> 00:00:40,199
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And it's easy to take for granted

10
00:00:40,680 --> 00:00:42,479
Speaker 1: that we can watch this kind of stuff on our

11
00:00:42,520 --> 00:00:46,320
Speaker 1: devices on demand, wherever we are, whenever we want. But

12
00:00:46,400 --> 00:00:49,320
Speaker 1: it wasn't that long ago when such a thing wasn't

13
00:00:49,320 --> 00:00:53,880
Speaker 1: even possible, especially not without a specialized computer that would

14
00:00:53,920 --> 00:00:58,920
Speaker 1: cost thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. But one

15
00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:05,039
Speaker 1: collection of products, one software suite, really helped change all that.

16
00:01:05,800 --> 00:01:09,520
Speaker 1: And this suite would be quick Time. Now, as we're

17
00:01:09,520 --> 00:01:11,760
Speaker 1: going to see in this episode, it gets a little

18
00:01:11,760 --> 00:01:15,399
Speaker 1: tricky to talk about quick time because Apple referred to

19
00:01:15,600 --> 00:01:20,360
Speaker 1: many different components of quick time as quick time. But

20
00:01:20,400 --> 00:01:22,720
Speaker 1: we're gonna build up to that. Just keep in mind

21
00:01:22,760 --> 00:01:25,160
Speaker 1: that when we say quick time, it's more than just

22
00:01:25,400 --> 00:01:28,080
Speaker 1: a video player. It's even more than just a video

23
00:01:28,319 --> 00:01:33,160
Speaker 1: editing system or even a foul format. But we'll we'll

24
00:01:33,360 --> 00:01:36,640
Speaker 1: get there. So the story of quick Time is closely

25
00:01:36,720 --> 00:01:40,360
Speaker 1: tied to that of Apple and the Mac line of computers.

26
00:01:40,880 --> 00:01:45,000
Speaker 1: Apple was really positioning Mac to be the computer for

27
00:01:45,160 --> 00:01:52,400
Speaker 1: creative types, artists, musicians, filmmakers, and that was a calculated

28
00:01:52,440 --> 00:01:56,600
Speaker 1: decision early on, and it paid off. Chances are, if

29
00:01:56,640 --> 00:02:00,000
Speaker 1: you work in the creative industry, if you've been working

30
00:02:00,040 --> 00:02:02,240
Speaker 1: in it for the last say, five to ten years,

31
00:02:02,280 --> 00:02:07,200
Speaker 1: you've been working almost exclusively on Mac computers most likely.

32
00:02:07,240 --> 00:02:09,680
Speaker 1: I mean, we've seen some changes in the more recent years,

33
00:02:10,120 --> 00:02:12,120
Speaker 1: but for the longest time, it meant that if you

34
00:02:12,160 --> 00:02:15,240
Speaker 1: were doing audio editing, video editing, you were working on

35
00:02:15,280 --> 00:02:19,480
Speaker 1: a Mac. Well in the nineteen eighties, this sort of

36
00:02:19,520 --> 00:02:23,359
Speaker 1: got started when you had different people at Apple really

37
00:02:23,520 --> 00:02:28,399
Speaker 1: experimenting with how personal computers could work in this realm.

38
00:02:28,440 --> 00:02:31,800
Speaker 1: There was an engineer at Apple named Steve Perlman who

39
00:02:31,840 --> 00:02:35,560
Speaker 1: tackled the challenge of bringing video playback to personal computers.

40
00:02:35,800 --> 00:02:39,160
Speaker 1: Perlman had been interested in film and television and video

41
00:02:39,240 --> 00:02:42,840
Speaker 1: ever since childhood. He had experimented with clay animation while

42
00:02:42,840 --> 00:02:45,320
Speaker 1: he was in school, and around that same time, which

43
00:02:45,360 --> 00:02:47,760
Speaker 1: was in the nineteen seventies, he decided to build his

44
00:02:47,880 --> 00:02:51,280
Speaker 1: own computer. In the mid nineteen eighties, he was fresh

45
00:02:51,280 --> 00:02:53,760
Speaker 1: out of college and had already worked for companies like

46
00:02:53,840 --> 00:02:57,960
Speaker 1: Colco and Atari, developing graphics, processing, hardware and all that

47
00:02:58,040 --> 00:03:02,200
Speaker 1: on a liberal arts education, so he was largely self

48
00:03:02,360 --> 00:03:06,079
Speaker 1: educated in many of those fields. He joined Apple in

49
00:03:06,200 --> 00:03:09,240
Speaker 1: n and he headed up a project that eventually got

50
00:03:09,240 --> 00:03:12,040
Speaker 1: the name quick Scan. He was part of a team

51
00:03:12,040 --> 00:03:17,680
Speaker 1: of Mac engineers who were working on multimedia support. Multimedia

52
00:03:17,880 --> 00:03:20,800
Speaker 1: was sort of a catch all term, and it essentially

53
00:03:20,919 --> 00:03:25,200
Speaker 1: meant that you were working on software that could display

54
00:03:25,320 --> 00:03:28,160
Speaker 1: more than one form of media, as the name would suggest,

55
00:03:28,200 --> 00:03:31,920
Speaker 1: so maybe it could play audio and show text, or

56
00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:35,640
Speaker 1: also show video or animation. So in the early days

57
00:03:35,640 --> 00:03:40,000
Speaker 1: of multimedia, you couldn't just play digital video on a computer.

58
00:03:40,280 --> 00:03:45,600
Speaker 1: The earlier versions of multimedia technology involved computers controlling external

59
00:03:45,880 --> 00:03:49,160
Speaker 1: media playback devices like a laser disc player, so instead

60
00:03:49,200 --> 00:03:52,040
Speaker 1: of having it native to your computer, you'd have to

61
00:03:52,200 --> 00:03:56,360
Speaker 1: attach a totally independent piece of hardware and control it

62
00:03:56,800 --> 00:04:00,920
Speaker 1: using specialized software and connections, and originally that's all you

63
00:04:00,960 --> 00:04:03,040
Speaker 1: could do. You could just use a computer to control

64
00:04:03,080 --> 00:04:06,040
Speaker 1: the player itself, maybe navigate to different chapters on the

65
00:04:06,120 --> 00:04:09,200
Speaker 1: laser disk, that kind of thing that would end up

66
00:04:09,240 --> 00:04:12,360
Speaker 1: pushing the analog video out to a television set. The

67
00:04:12,400 --> 00:04:15,960
Speaker 1: laser disc player itself would Later on, engineers would develop

68
00:04:16,040 --> 00:04:18,640
Speaker 1: a way to play video on a computer screen within

69
00:04:18,680 --> 00:04:22,440
Speaker 1: a window using essentially was a television tuner, an analog

70
00:04:22,600 --> 00:04:25,880
Speaker 1: tuner that you would plug into an expansion slot on

71
00:04:25,920 --> 00:04:29,520
Speaker 1: a computer. But this was an analog connector, so we're

72
00:04:29,520 --> 00:04:33,880
Speaker 1: not talking about digital media here. It's still an analog signal.

73
00:04:34,120 --> 00:04:37,839
Speaker 1: And I've talked about analog signals versus digital signals in

74
00:04:37,880 --> 00:04:42,240
Speaker 1: the past, but just as a quick refresher, analog signals

75
00:04:42,400 --> 00:04:47,840
Speaker 1: scale to represent a specific value. UH. You would think

76
00:04:47,880 --> 00:04:52,159
Speaker 1: of an analog signal as an analogy of whatever it represents,

77
00:04:52,480 --> 00:04:55,320
Speaker 1: whether that's audio or video or whatever. That's why it's

78
00:04:55,320 --> 00:05:00,760
Speaker 1: called UH. An analog signal, it's an analogy. They are continuous,

79
00:05:01,279 --> 00:05:05,840
Speaker 1: these signals, they can be continuously variable, and a digital

80
00:05:05,880 --> 00:05:09,400
Speaker 1: signal is different. It quantifies the information it is carrying

81
00:05:09,839 --> 00:05:13,239
Speaker 1: in and changes it all into digits, into zeros or ones.

82
00:05:14,120 --> 00:05:18,200
Speaker 1: So an analog thermometer might use liquid mercury to create

83
00:05:18,240 --> 00:05:21,800
Speaker 1: an analogy of your body temperature. So you put the

84
00:05:21,800 --> 00:05:26,880
Speaker 1: thermometer in your mouth. The liquid mercury will then expand

85
00:05:27,200 --> 00:05:29,160
Speaker 1: based on how warm you are, and then you can

86
00:05:29,200 --> 00:05:33,080
Speaker 1: read out the the reading on the thermometer. That's the

87
00:05:33,120 --> 00:05:38,320
Speaker 1: analogy of your body temperature. A digital thermometer would quantize

88
00:05:38,440 --> 00:05:41,960
Speaker 1: the heat measured by the device and then put it

89
00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:44,960
Speaker 1: on a display. Now this does not automatically mean that

90
00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:48,120
Speaker 1: one method is better than the other. The precision of

91
00:05:48,160 --> 00:05:52,400
Speaker 1: the actual measurement is independent of whether it is digital

92
00:05:52,520 --> 00:05:56,000
Speaker 1: or analog. That is a separate thing that has to

93
00:05:56,080 --> 00:06:00,160
Speaker 1: be addressed on its own. But one thing to take

94
00:06:00,200 --> 00:06:04,159
Speaker 1: away from this is that digital and analog are fundamentally

95
00:06:04,160 --> 00:06:07,560
Speaker 1: different approaches, and you need different types of circuits in

96
00:06:07,680 --> 00:06:11,400
Speaker 1: order to process the signals or generate these signals. You

97
00:06:11,400 --> 00:06:15,040
Speaker 1: couldn't send a digital video feed to an analog TV

98
00:06:15,160 --> 00:06:17,680
Speaker 1: tuner in a computer. It wouldn't be able to handle

99
00:06:17,720 --> 00:06:22,599
Speaker 1: that information. One of the limiting factors of bringing video

100
00:06:22,800 --> 00:06:27,320
Speaker 1: into the computer world was really the problem of data.

101
00:06:27,680 --> 00:06:32,400
Speaker 1: How much information that video represents. If you wanted to

102
00:06:32,640 --> 00:06:36,240
Speaker 1: create a color video, if you wanted to to to

103
00:06:36,400 --> 00:06:40,159
Speaker 1: play a color video with sound as a digital file,

104
00:06:40,480 --> 00:06:42,839
Speaker 1: that would require a lot of bits, all those zeros

105
00:06:42,839 --> 00:06:45,400
Speaker 1: and ones in order to manage it, which means that

106
00:06:45,480 --> 00:06:50,680
Speaker 1: file sizes would get incredibly large, particularly by the standards

107
00:06:50,720 --> 00:06:53,479
Speaker 1: of the day, I mean by the nine standards. You

108
00:06:53,520 --> 00:06:56,320
Speaker 1: were talking about computers that when they were you know,

109
00:06:56,480 --> 00:07:00,279
Speaker 1: starting to creep towards the the megabyte storage as you

110
00:07:00,320 --> 00:07:04,159
Speaker 1: were like thinking, this thing is is enormous. Well, these

111
00:07:04,160 --> 00:07:08,120
Speaker 1: files would dwarf that. So you weren't just limited by

112
00:07:08,120 --> 00:07:10,800
Speaker 1: hard drive size for storage, I mean that's one part,

113
00:07:11,520 --> 00:07:14,680
Speaker 1: but you were also limited by how much data throughput

114
00:07:14,880 --> 00:07:17,600
Speaker 1: the buses in your computer were able to manage. And

115
00:07:17,640 --> 00:07:20,960
Speaker 1: a bus is essentially just a pathway. It's a think

116
00:07:20,960 --> 00:07:23,640
Speaker 1: of it as like a highway that data can travel through,

117
00:07:24,200 --> 00:07:26,440
Speaker 1: and the width of the highway tells you how many

118
00:07:26,480 --> 00:07:29,840
Speaker 1: cars can go through at once. So if the bus

119
00:07:29,840 --> 00:07:33,680
Speaker 1: has a lower throughput, if it's a narrower highway, then

120
00:07:33,680 --> 00:07:36,280
Speaker 1: you get bottlenecks. You've got all these cars trying to

121
00:07:36,280 --> 00:07:38,960
Speaker 1: get through, and we're assuming that all the cars can

122
00:07:38,960 --> 00:07:41,760
Speaker 1: travel at the same speed. We're not taking all the

123
00:07:41,800 --> 00:07:44,720
Speaker 1: other elements of traffic into account here, but if you

124
00:07:44,760 --> 00:07:48,160
Speaker 1: have a narrower highway, then fewer cars can pass through

125
00:07:48,200 --> 00:07:51,440
Speaker 1: in any given amount of time. So even if you

126
00:07:51,480 --> 00:07:54,040
Speaker 1: have a very fast processor, it won't do you any

127
00:07:54,040 --> 00:07:57,080
Speaker 1: good if the buses can't have that capacity to carry

128
00:07:57,160 --> 00:07:59,680
Speaker 1: a lot of data for every given unit of time,

129
00:07:59,720 --> 00:08:03,080
Speaker 1: like every second. So how much data are we actually

130
00:08:03,080 --> 00:08:09,720
Speaker 1: talking about? Well, Apple's Advanced Technology Group or a t

131
00:08:09,960 --> 00:08:13,320
Speaker 1: G had an animation team that were determined to create

132
00:08:13,360 --> 00:08:19,800
Speaker 1: a computer animated short using Apple computers for all the

133
00:08:19,840 --> 00:08:24,760
Speaker 1: different production side, they created a three minute presentation called

134
00:08:24,920 --> 00:08:29,120
Speaker 1: Pencil Test, and it's an animated feature that features a

135
00:08:29,160 --> 00:08:32,560
Speaker 1: cute little pencil icon that jumps off a MAX screen

136
00:08:32,640 --> 00:08:36,400
Speaker 1: and it turns into a two dimensional figure inside our

137
00:08:36,520 --> 00:08:40,400
Speaker 1: three dimensional world. And then we follow this little pencil

138
00:08:40,440 --> 00:08:43,800
Speaker 1: graphic as it attempts to try and get back into

139
00:08:43,840 --> 00:08:46,640
Speaker 1: the MAX screen. It's just trying to get home. Fund

140
00:08:46,679 --> 00:08:50,680
Speaker 1: side note, Andrew Stanton worked on this piece. He would

141
00:08:50,760 --> 00:08:53,560
Speaker 1: later go on to write and direct feature length computer

142
00:08:53,600 --> 00:08:58,600
Speaker 1: animated projects at Pixar. Anyway, according to Bruce Leak, who

143
00:08:58,600 --> 00:09:02,599
Speaker 1: would become the lead developed of quick Time, this animated

144
00:09:02,640 --> 00:09:08,040
Speaker 1: demonstration required an enormous amount of effort and resources to produce.

145
00:09:08,679 --> 00:09:12,920
Speaker 1: It took several minutes to render a single frame of animation,

146
00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:16,679
Speaker 1: and there were five thousand frames to get through in

147
00:09:16,760 --> 00:09:20,439
Speaker 1: those three minutes. So to do that, the team devoted

148
00:09:20,440 --> 00:09:24,520
Speaker 1: a couple of dozen Apple computers to start rendering frames.

149
00:09:24,559 --> 00:09:26,959
Speaker 1: Some of them could only render part of a frame

150
00:09:27,000 --> 00:09:28,880
Speaker 1: at a time, and they would have to render another

151
00:09:28,920 --> 00:09:31,560
Speaker 1: part of the frame and then assemble all of that

152
00:09:31,800 --> 00:09:34,480
Speaker 1: at the end of it. Each frame took up about

153
00:09:34,520 --> 00:09:37,880
Speaker 1: a megabyte of storage space, and these computers had between

154
00:09:37,960 --> 00:09:42,520
Speaker 1: forty and eighty megabytes of storage. The entire video would

155
00:09:42,559 --> 00:09:48,040
Speaker 1: represent five gigabytes of data, so this is an enormous

156
00:09:48,120 --> 00:09:52,040
Speaker 1: file that far outstrips the storage capacity of the computers

157
00:09:52,080 --> 00:09:55,720
Speaker 1: that are actually creating the animation. So to get around

158
00:09:55,720 --> 00:09:59,200
Speaker 1: this problem, the team would load about one frames worth

159
00:09:59,240 --> 00:10:03,040
Speaker 1: of animation of time onto a custom digital video storage

160
00:10:03,080 --> 00:10:07,920
Speaker 1: machine that cost around a hundred thousand dollars. Then they

161
00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:12,760
Speaker 1: would export those frames onto videotape, and they built the

162
00:10:12,880 --> 00:10:16,640
Speaker 1: full Pencil Test animated video one hundred frames at a

163
00:10:16,720 --> 00:10:19,920
Speaker 1: time onto videotape until they got all five thousand frames

164
00:10:19,920 --> 00:10:22,600
Speaker 1: on there. This obviously was not something that you could

165
00:10:22,600 --> 00:10:25,520
Speaker 1: load onto a floppy disk and then just plug into

166
00:10:25,640 --> 00:10:28,280
Speaker 1: your average Mac in order to watch. Even though all

167
00:10:28,320 --> 00:10:30,920
Speaker 1: the animation, all the music, all the production was done

168
00:10:30,920 --> 00:10:33,160
Speaker 1: on Max, so you'd actually have to watch it on

169
00:10:33,240 --> 00:10:36,440
Speaker 1: something other than a Mac computer. They couldn't handle playing

170
00:10:36,480 --> 00:10:39,160
Speaker 1: this back, so something would have have to be done

171
00:10:39,240 --> 00:10:43,040
Speaker 1: to manage this sheer amount of information. If future Mac

172
00:10:43,080 --> 00:10:46,040
Speaker 1: computers were to have a practical means of playing video

173
00:10:46,120 --> 00:10:51,400
Speaker 1: on screen, quick Scan would rely upon massively parallel graphic

174
00:10:51,600 --> 00:10:55,520
Speaker 1: animation and video decompression chips. So, in other words, it

175
00:10:55,600 --> 00:10:58,719
Speaker 1: required special hardware, these special chips that you would have

176
00:10:58,800 --> 00:11:02,360
Speaker 1: to install into a comput eater, and Apple doesn't tend

177
00:11:02,480 --> 00:11:06,320
Speaker 1: to like people opening up cases and and messing with

178
00:11:06,360 --> 00:11:10,280
Speaker 1: stuff inside. Typically, the way you would get an upgrade

179
00:11:10,320 --> 00:11:12,280
Speaker 1: on an Apple computer is that you would purchase it

180
00:11:12,360 --> 00:11:14,720
Speaker 1: straight from Apple and you would have them install it,

181
00:11:14,840 --> 00:11:17,280
Speaker 1: or you would just buy a new piece of hardware

182
00:11:17,280 --> 00:11:21,080
Speaker 1: from Apple. So this was not something that would come

183
00:11:21,120 --> 00:11:24,120
Speaker 1: standard with a Macintosh. It would be very, very expensive,

184
00:11:24,520 --> 00:11:28,760
Speaker 1: and ultimately Apple decided that they weren't going to pursue

185
00:11:28,920 --> 00:11:33,280
Speaker 1: quick Scan as a commercial product, but as part of

186
00:11:33,280 --> 00:11:38,840
Speaker 1: the actual development, Perlmand created a video codec called Road Pizza,

187
00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:44,360
Speaker 1: or at least informally called road Pizza. It's usually called

188
00:11:44,360 --> 00:11:48,640
Speaker 1: the Apple video codec. But what is a codec. That's

189
00:11:48,640 --> 00:11:52,160
Speaker 1: a word we used to describe a technology that can

190
00:11:52,440 --> 00:11:57,200
Speaker 1: encode and decode a digital data signal. The word itself

191
00:11:57,320 --> 00:12:01,560
Speaker 1: is a combination of coder and d coder code deck.

192
00:12:02,520 --> 00:12:06,319
Speaker 1: It can be hardware. It typically is software the way

193
00:12:06,320 --> 00:12:08,200
Speaker 1: we talk about today, but it can be a piece

194
00:12:08,200 --> 00:12:10,760
Speaker 1: of hardware as well. And there are lots of different

195
00:12:10,800 --> 00:12:14,840
Speaker 1: types of codex. There's not just one single version. Some

196
00:12:14,960 --> 00:12:18,080
Speaker 1: are used to convert analog signals to digital signals or

197
00:12:18,200 --> 00:12:21,800
Speaker 1: vice versa. Some are used as a compression technique to

198
00:12:21,880 --> 00:12:25,760
Speaker 1: reduce the file size for digital information to make it

199
00:12:25,840 --> 00:12:29,840
Speaker 1: manageable for the purposes of playback storage and transfers. But

200
00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:33,600
Speaker 1: they all take some form of input and transform it

201
00:12:33,679 --> 00:12:36,080
Speaker 1: in some way. If you have the same codec on

202
00:12:36,160 --> 00:12:38,800
Speaker 1: two ends, like if one person has a CODEC on

203
00:12:39,240 --> 00:12:41,319
Speaker 1: their machine and you have a codec on your machine,

204
00:12:41,320 --> 00:12:44,319
Speaker 1: it's the same codec, then you can use that to

205
00:12:44,679 --> 00:12:47,800
Speaker 1: encode information, send it to your friend. They receive it,

206
00:12:47,880 --> 00:12:49,760
Speaker 1: they can then run it through the codec which will

207
00:12:49,880 --> 00:12:53,400
Speaker 1: decode that information back into its original format, and then

208
00:12:53,440 --> 00:12:55,199
Speaker 1: they can do whatever they need to do with it.

209
00:12:55,679 --> 00:12:58,440
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, you can do stuff like compress

210
00:12:58,520 --> 00:13:03,600
Speaker 1: it or change the style of signal. So interestingly, Apple

211
00:13:03,600 --> 00:13:07,960
Speaker 1: would announce that it was working on a multimedia enabling product.

212
00:13:08,160 --> 00:13:10,680
Speaker 1: They had a name for it, they called it quick Time,

213
00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:14,480
Speaker 1: and they announced this in n at a conference, So

214
00:13:14,520 --> 00:13:19,640
Speaker 1: this was public information, but behind the scenes, there were

215
00:13:19,720 --> 00:13:22,520
Speaker 1: only a few people who were even aware that Apple

216
00:13:22,640 --> 00:13:26,760
Speaker 1: was trying to pursue such a thing, and very few

217
00:13:26,800 --> 00:13:31,480
Speaker 1: people were actually attached to the project. Bruce Leak would

218
00:13:32,440 --> 00:13:36,000
Speaker 1: end up actually kind of volunteering for this. He heard

219
00:13:36,040 --> 00:13:40,280
Speaker 1: about the project from this conference, didn't know anything else

220
00:13:40,320 --> 00:13:43,560
Speaker 1: about it. He hadn't heard anything internally about it, but

221
00:13:43,720 --> 00:13:46,600
Speaker 1: he had just started wrapping up work on a previous

222
00:13:46,640 --> 00:13:49,800
Speaker 1: project he was in charge of over at Apple and

223
00:13:49,880 --> 00:13:54,080
Speaker 1: thought that this was a really interesting challenge. So he

224
00:13:54,200 --> 00:13:56,560
Speaker 1: said in a panel discussion in two thousand eighteen that

225
00:13:56,640 --> 00:13:59,319
Speaker 1: he and others had to actually ask around about this

226
00:13:59,360 --> 00:14:01,640
Speaker 1: because they all thought it was a cool project, and

227
00:14:01,760 --> 00:14:04,800
Speaker 1: ultimately they ended up there because Apple had sort of

228
00:14:04,840 --> 00:14:07,280
Speaker 1: made this commitment that they were going to create this

229
00:14:07,880 --> 00:14:10,480
Speaker 1: this software suite, but they did not yet have a

230
00:14:10,559 --> 00:14:13,440
Speaker 1: roadmap on how to actually get there. In fact, originally

231
00:14:13,760 --> 00:14:18,800
Speaker 1: Apple was talking about collaborating with third parties to develop

232
00:14:18,960 --> 00:14:24,280
Speaker 1: this multi media enabling platform. Ultimately, they would choose to

233
00:14:24,480 --> 00:14:27,320
Speaker 1: not do that. They decided to do it all internally.

234
00:14:27,840 --> 00:14:31,800
Speaker 1: Carlman's quick Scan would never become a commercial product, as

235
00:14:31,800 --> 00:14:35,240
Speaker 1: I mentioned before, largely because it had that specialized chip,

236
00:14:35,280 --> 00:14:38,960
Speaker 1: but the road Pizza codec lived on to become part

237
00:14:39,080 --> 00:14:42,720
Speaker 1: of quick Time, so part of the quick Scan project

238
00:14:42,760 --> 00:14:46,760
Speaker 1: would become an integral part of the quick Time suite.

239
00:14:47,280 --> 00:14:50,560
Speaker 1: Much of what would become quick Time emerged from various

240
00:14:50,640 --> 00:14:54,280
Speaker 1: research teams within Apple's Advanced Technology Group or a t G,

241
00:14:55,040 --> 00:14:59,960
Speaker 1: including the compression methodology. So this wasn't necessarily one group

242
00:15:00,040 --> 00:15:03,520
Speaker 1: for people who just started programming. They actually drew upon

243
00:15:03,560 --> 00:15:07,360
Speaker 1: the expertise and the contributions of lots of different people

244
00:15:07,400 --> 00:15:10,640
Speaker 1: at Apple who happened to be working on related technologies

245
00:15:10,680 --> 00:15:13,840
Speaker 1: at the time. So let's talk about compression for a second.

246
00:15:14,000 --> 00:15:16,760
Speaker 1: That's tricky stuff. Not only do you have to figure

247
00:15:16,800 --> 00:15:19,680
Speaker 1: out how to maintain the integrity of the information you

248
00:15:19,720 --> 00:15:23,480
Speaker 1: planned to store or to send while it takes up

249
00:15:23,600 --> 00:15:26,920
Speaker 1: less space with video, you have another issue. You have

250
00:15:26,960 --> 00:15:29,920
Speaker 1: to figure out an efficient way to unpack it. You

251
00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:32,960
Speaker 1: have to how how to decompress it. Efficiently, because if

252
00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:35,240
Speaker 1: it takes too long to decompress when you want to

253
00:15:35,280 --> 00:15:38,840
Speaker 1: play the video back, you get delays in playback, and

254
00:15:38,880 --> 00:15:41,520
Speaker 1: that is frustrating. No one would have wanted to use

255
00:15:41,600 --> 00:15:44,400
Speaker 1: quick time if it took a really long time from

256
00:15:44,400 --> 00:15:47,560
Speaker 1: pushing the play button to actually getting video to play back.

257
00:15:47,960 --> 00:15:50,880
Speaker 1: So that was a big challenge. The other big challenge, obviously,

258
00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:54,760
Speaker 1: is how do you compress stuff without losing too much data.

259
00:15:54,920 --> 00:15:58,840
Speaker 1: That's the problem with lossy formats, and I've talked about

260
00:15:58,880 --> 00:16:03,080
Speaker 1: that a lot in previous episodes. A lossy format is

261
00:16:03,160 --> 00:16:06,880
Speaker 1: one in which you essentially get rid of any information

262
00:16:06,920 --> 00:16:10,800
Speaker 1: that is deemed to be superfluous, unnecessary, what have you.

263
00:16:11,480 --> 00:16:15,280
Speaker 1: All that gets tossed aside because if you can't see

264
00:16:15,320 --> 00:16:18,440
Speaker 1: it or perceive it, then it doesn't really matter, and

265
00:16:18,480 --> 00:16:21,080
Speaker 1: then you just keep the absolutely necessary stuff. In that way,

266
00:16:21,120 --> 00:16:26,160
Speaker 1: you can shrink file sizes, but that obviously raises questions

267
00:16:26,240 --> 00:16:31,320
Speaker 1: as to who determines what is acceptable for loss So

268
00:16:31,400 --> 00:16:33,640
Speaker 1: these were big problems that they had to tackle, but

269
00:16:33,800 --> 00:16:35,880
Speaker 1: they got to work on it. And I'll talk a

270
00:16:35,880 --> 00:16:39,000
Speaker 1: little bit more about their development process in just a moment,

271
00:16:39,040 --> 00:16:42,400
Speaker 1: but first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor.

272
00:16:49,920 --> 00:16:52,440
Speaker 1: During the development of quick Time, Leak and his team

273
00:16:52,520 --> 00:16:55,680
Speaker 1: encountered lots of different challenges. One was just getting the

274
00:16:55,680 --> 00:16:58,640
Speaker 1: timing right on video and sound and making sure that

275
00:16:58,680 --> 00:17:01,720
Speaker 1: they would stay in synchronous station. As Leak would say

276
00:17:01,800 --> 00:17:06,200
Speaker 1: in the February panel discussion at the Computer History Museum event,

277
00:17:06,920 --> 00:17:10,679
Speaker 1: we think of video as playing back at thirty frames

278
00:17:10,800 --> 00:17:13,480
Speaker 1: or sixty fields per second. I talked about that in

279
00:17:13,520 --> 00:17:17,440
Speaker 1: the r c A podcasts recently, but Leak said, in reality,

280
00:17:17,480 --> 00:17:20,879
Speaker 1: it's more like fifty nine point nine seven frames per second,

281
00:17:20,880 --> 00:17:25,399
Speaker 1: which is really close, but uh, it can make a

282
00:17:25,440 --> 00:17:28,359
Speaker 1: difference over time. If your video is just a few

283
00:17:28,400 --> 00:17:30,800
Speaker 1: seconds or a couple of minutes long, the differences might

284
00:17:30,840 --> 00:17:34,520
Speaker 1: not really get to be noticeable, but as videos get longer,

285
00:17:35,240 --> 00:17:38,520
Speaker 1: that discrepancy can lead to the audio and video getting

286
00:17:38,520 --> 00:17:42,840
Speaker 1: further and further out of synchronization, which becomes really distracting

287
00:17:42,880 --> 00:17:45,560
Speaker 1: over time. And they wanted their tool to scale up

288
00:17:45,600 --> 00:17:48,560
Speaker 1: so that they could be used for longer videos, so

289
00:17:48,600 --> 00:17:51,680
Speaker 1: they had to be more precise when designing the encoding tools.

290
00:17:52,160 --> 00:17:56,760
Speaker 1: Another challenge was reading information from c d s. Early on,

291
00:17:57,000 --> 00:17:59,760
Speaker 1: as a computer would seek out information on a CD,

292
00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:01,840
Speaker 1: you would actually have to find where in the c

293
00:18:02,040 --> 00:18:06,240
Speaker 1: D the data was located. Everything else on the computer

294
00:18:06,280 --> 00:18:09,800
Speaker 1: would just stop. Essentially, the computer is thing, hang on second,

295
00:18:09,840 --> 00:18:11,880
Speaker 1: I'm looking for that for you, But you don't want

296
00:18:11,880 --> 00:18:14,600
Speaker 1: that to happen while you're watching video either. So Apple

297
00:18:14,640 --> 00:18:16,639
Speaker 1: engineers had to work really hard to come up with

298
00:18:16,680 --> 00:18:21,520
Speaker 1: solutions that would allow for a CD ROM to seek

299
00:18:21,520 --> 00:18:24,439
Speaker 1: out information in the background in anticipation of when it

300
00:18:24,440 --> 00:18:28,159
Speaker 1: would need to pull that data for playback purposes. And

301
00:18:28,200 --> 00:18:31,560
Speaker 1: so there was some hardware stuff they were working on,

302
00:18:31,640 --> 00:18:35,320
Speaker 1: not just the software side. They also brought on an

303
00:18:35,359 --> 00:18:37,640
Speaker 1: audio teams so that QuickTime would be able to work

304
00:18:37,680 --> 00:18:40,520
Speaker 1: with multiple channels of audio, and that it would be

305
00:18:40,520 --> 00:18:43,760
Speaker 1: able to work with different sample rates and sample sizes

306
00:18:43,800 --> 00:18:47,200
Speaker 1: of audio and mix them all down to work with video.

307
00:18:47,640 --> 00:18:51,360
Speaker 1: So this would involve converting all that audio into a

308
00:18:51,440 --> 00:18:54,840
Speaker 1: single format that would work with the associated video files

309
00:18:54,880 --> 00:18:58,439
Speaker 1: no matter what format the original audio is in. The

310
00:18:58,520 --> 00:19:01,480
Speaker 1: result was a suite of soft where that was remarkably

311
00:19:01,800 --> 00:19:05,399
Speaker 1: useful and innovative for the time. So, for example, if

312
00:19:05,440 --> 00:19:08,520
Speaker 1: you were watching a video on your home machine and

313
00:19:08,600 --> 00:19:11,400
Speaker 1: your processor didn't quite have the umph to keep up

314
00:19:11,440 --> 00:19:15,560
Speaker 1: with demands, rather than have the video stall out or

315
00:19:15,720 --> 00:19:19,160
Speaker 1: two worse, have the videos start to lag behind the audio.

316
00:19:19,720 --> 00:19:22,520
Speaker 1: Quick Time would adjust the frame rate. You would get

317
00:19:22,560 --> 00:19:25,399
Speaker 1: fewer frames per second. That would end up making the

318
00:19:25,440 --> 00:19:28,679
Speaker 1: action a little more jittery and jagged, but the action

319
00:19:28,720 --> 00:19:31,800
Speaker 1: would stay in sync with the soundtrack. So instead of

320
00:19:31,880 --> 00:19:35,080
Speaker 1: the video slowing down with the same number of frames

321
00:19:35,400 --> 00:19:37,560
Speaker 1: and the audio getting more and more out of sync,

322
00:19:38,400 --> 00:19:43,280
Speaker 1: the video would just cut out, uh, interstitial pictures. So

323
00:19:43,320 --> 00:19:46,080
Speaker 1: you might say, all right, well, to keep up with

324
00:19:46,200 --> 00:19:50,480
Speaker 1: the audio, we're gonna cut frames two, three, We'll keep four,

325
00:19:50,600 --> 00:19:53,560
Speaker 1: so we'll go from one to four to seven to

326
00:19:54,080 --> 00:19:58,760
Speaker 1: ten or whatever. This does make it much more jittery,

327
00:19:58,800 --> 00:20:02,080
Speaker 1: as I said, but at least you're sticking with the

328
00:20:02,119 --> 00:20:05,959
Speaker 1: audio instead of having the audio quickly get ahead of

329
00:20:05,960 --> 00:20:09,200
Speaker 1: what you're watching. Now, if you were using a then

330
00:20:09,240 --> 00:20:12,560
Speaker 1: current Mac two C I system that would be the

331
00:20:13,480 --> 00:20:16,840
Speaker 1: a standard Mac at the time that quick Time was released,

332
00:20:17,640 --> 00:20:19,840
Speaker 1: you would be able to play a video at a

333
00:20:19,880 --> 00:20:24,399
Speaker 1: blistering ten whole frames per second at a resolution of

334
00:20:24,400 --> 00:20:28,240
Speaker 1: a hundred sixty by one pixels. And yeah, being a

335
00:20:28,320 --> 00:20:31,640
Speaker 1: little facetious with that description, film plays back at twenty

336
00:20:31,680 --> 00:20:37,399
Speaker 1: four frames per second um. If you have stop motion animation.

337
00:20:37,760 --> 00:20:40,440
Speaker 1: A lot of stop motion animators would animate at twelve

338
00:20:40,480 --> 00:20:43,080
Speaker 1: frames per second in order to kind of save a

339
00:20:43,160 --> 00:20:47,399
Speaker 1: little bit on labor. But typically you want to stick

340
00:20:47,440 --> 00:20:50,520
Speaker 1: too closer to twenty four and as I said, standard

341
00:20:50,560 --> 00:20:54,000
Speaker 1: video is closer to thirty. They managed ten, but still

342
00:20:54,160 --> 00:20:56,760
Speaker 1: it was a phenomenal achievement. Together, the team was able

343
00:20:56,800 --> 00:20:59,600
Speaker 1: to meet the goal of getting a multimedia enabling product

344
00:20:59,640 --> 00:21:03,800
Speaker 1: ready to ship within a year. Bruce Leak showed off

345
00:21:03,840 --> 00:21:07,000
Speaker 1: the product at the Worldwide Developers Conference in May nine.

346
00:21:08,600 --> 00:21:11,840
Speaker 1: The video he showed at that event was Apple's iconic

347
00:21:12,040 --> 00:21:14,760
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four commercial for the Macintosh, one of the

348
00:21:14,760 --> 00:21:17,760
Speaker 1: most famous commercials of all time, directed by none other

349
00:21:17,840 --> 00:21:22,000
Speaker 1: than Ridley Scott. The beta version for quick Time would

350
00:21:22,040 --> 00:21:25,200
Speaker 1: become available in the summer of nineteen and the finished

351
00:21:25,200 --> 00:21:31,080
Speaker 1: product followed on December two. The first third party product

352
00:21:31,160 --> 00:21:34,960
Speaker 1: to feature the technology was a CD rom book on

353
00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:38,840
Speaker 1: desk called From Alice to Ocean, which was about various

354
00:21:38,880 --> 00:21:45,280
Speaker 1: locations across Australia. Sorry Australians, I didn't mean to butcher

355
00:21:45,359 --> 00:21:49,639
Speaker 1: your accent. The original release of quick Time included three

356
00:21:49,680 --> 00:21:55,000
Speaker 1: codex One was the Apple video codec, essentially Road Pizza

357
00:21:55,480 --> 00:21:58,240
Speaker 1: and that one was meant for live video, The second

358
00:21:58,320 --> 00:22:02,359
Speaker 1: codek was responsible for coding and decoding animation, and the

359
00:22:02,480 --> 00:22:06,720
Speaker 1: third was a codec for eight bit images. Many many

360
00:22:06,760 --> 00:22:09,399
Speaker 1: others would follow for a quick Time over the years.

361
00:22:09,880 --> 00:22:12,800
Speaker 1: Quake Time also included a player, probably the most famous

362
00:22:13,600 --> 00:22:19,159
Speaker 1: part of the quick Time suite. It also had a players. Essentially,

363
00:22:19,160 --> 00:22:21,960
Speaker 1: it's a piece of software cabable of playing back files

364
00:22:22,040 --> 00:22:24,960
Speaker 1: saved in the quick Time time file format. And this

365
00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:27,320
Speaker 1: is where we start running into a problem, actually, or

366
00:22:27,320 --> 00:22:31,080
Speaker 1: at least a frustrating issue. Apple began referring to the codec,

367
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:35,880
Speaker 1: the player, and the file format as quick Time, so

368
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:40,560
Speaker 1: all three of these different things got the same name. However,

369
00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:44,800
Speaker 1: over time the software would change, and as digital archivist

370
00:22:44,880 --> 00:22:48,080
Speaker 1: Becca Bender wrote in her paper Too Many quick Times,

371
00:22:48,240 --> 00:22:49,600
Speaker 1: which by the way, is a great read. It's a

372
00:22:49,680 --> 00:22:52,040
Speaker 1: very short read. I recommend you you seek it out.

373
00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:55,000
Speaker 1: It makes it really tricky to have a meaningful conversation

374
00:22:55,040 --> 00:22:57,879
Speaker 1: about quick Time. There are two different media players that

375
00:22:57,960 --> 00:23:00,439
Speaker 1: have the name quick Time. I'll talk about those a

376
00:23:00,440 --> 00:23:04,480
Speaker 1: little bit later. There are two different and actually incompatible

377
00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:08,000
Speaker 1: file types, and they're they're both not only are they

378
00:23:08,040 --> 00:23:10,120
Speaker 1: called quick Time, they both have the same file type

379
00:23:10,160 --> 00:23:13,080
Speaker 1: designation of dot m o V, though, to make things

380
00:23:13,119 --> 00:23:16,080
Speaker 1: even more confusing, they can also be dot QT. And

381
00:23:16,880 --> 00:23:19,800
Speaker 1: there is a codec called quick time. Not all quick

382
00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:22,280
Speaker 1: times are equal. And this the reason this is a

383
00:23:22,320 --> 00:23:24,359
Speaker 1: big deal, you might wonder, well, why do you care?

384
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:28,119
Speaker 1: Is that should you ever need to access a specific

385
00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:31,840
Speaker 1: video file from say an archive, Let's say, do you

386
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:35,200
Speaker 1: know of a digital video you need to get access

387
00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:38,320
Speaker 1: to it? It's useful to know whether you'll be able

388
00:23:38,359 --> 00:23:41,639
Speaker 1: to play it given particular software or equipment that you

389
00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:45,120
Speaker 1: have available. And I'll talk more about that a little

390
00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:47,480
Speaker 1: bit later. And while I'm on the subject of confusion,

391
00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:51,600
Speaker 1: if you are a gamer, you're likely familiar with the

392
00:23:51,680 --> 00:23:55,360
Speaker 1: concept of quick time events, but that is a different thing.

393
00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:58,920
Speaker 1: Quick time events don't have anything to do with Apple's

394
00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:03,080
Speaker 1: quick time. The QuickTime event quick time in those cases

395
00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:06,679
Speaker 1: are two separate words quick time, the product from Apple

396
00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:09,760
Speaker 1: is done as one word quick time. Now. Not only

397
00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:13,520
Speaker 1: was QuickTime a pioneer product for computer video, it was

398
00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:17,479
Speaker 1: the first Apple system software product to be sold on

399
00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:22,640
Speaker 1: its own. Previous system software products would come pre installed

400
00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:25,719
Speaker 1: on new hardware, which would leave out anyone who already

401
00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:28,359
Speaker 1: owned a Mac So if you bought a Mac and

402
00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:31,760
Speaker 1: then this new software came out, the only option you

403
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:34,680
Speaker 1: would have is to take your existing Mac to a

404
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:38,840
Speaker 1: licensed Apple dealership and have them install the new software

405
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:42,400
Speaker 1: on your computer. You couldn't just buy it off the shelf,

406
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:45,720
Speaker 1: but quick Time change that. You could actually go to

407
00:24:45,760 --> 00:24:48,480
Speaker 1: a store, you could buy it out of a box.

408
00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:50,239
Speaker 1: You could bring it home and install it on your

409
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:53,960
Speaker 1: own machine. That precedent would be followed by numerous Apple

410
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:58,720
Speaker 1: system software products, including the Systems seven operating system update

411
00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:03,159
Speaker 1: for Mac os that was first of of Apple's Maco

412
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:08,720
Speaker 1: S versions to be sold in its own retail box.

413
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:12,800
Speaker 1: But quick Time also became available as a free download

414
00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:16,840
Speaker 1: with limited features. This was before the days of the

415
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:19,679
Speaker 1: Worldwide Web, so users would have to dial into a

416
00:25:19,720 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 1: bulletin board system or BBS to download the system extension

417
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:28,520
Speaker 1: for their Mac computers. Now, initially quick Time was only

418
00:25:28,600 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 1: for Max, but the team reluctantly had to face harsh reality,

419
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:39,879
Speaker 1: which was there were a lot of IBM PC compatible

420
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:43,080
Speaker 1: machines out there, a lot of Windows machines out there

421
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:47,040
Speaker 1: tons in fact, and if they wanted to establish their

422
00:25:47,119 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 1: new format, they were going to have to develop a

423
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:53,280
Speaker 1: version of quick Time for Windows. They figured it wouldn't

424
00:25:53,320 --> 00:25:56,119
Speaker 1: necessarily have all the features of the Mac version, but

425
00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:59,200
Speaker 1: it should at the very least allow for playback features.

426
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:03,160
Speaker 1: No one was eager to jump on that project. According

427
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 1: to one of the team members, it was seen as

428
00:26:05,119 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 1: an unpleasant task. Or to directly quote team member Peter

429
00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:13,879
Speaker 1: Hattie quote, it's hard to understate how much that was

430
00:26:13,960 --> 00:26:19,760
Speaker 1: seen as pure evil end quote. So in not long

431
00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:24,320
Speaker 1: after releasing quick Time for Mac, Apple contracted with another

432
00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 1: company called the San Francisco Canyon Company to support the

433
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:31,560
Speaker 1: quick Time tools to Windows. The first quick Time for

434
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:37,320
Speaker 1: Windows released on in November in But while Apple's intent

435
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:41,240
Speaker 1: was to disseminate quick Time across a wide variety of computers,

436
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:46,239
Speaker 1: engineers at Apple smelled something fishy the following year, so

437
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:50,720
Speaker 1: you see, they contract with this company, San Francisco Canon Company,

438
00:26:50,760 --> 00:26:55,880
Speaker 1: to help develop the quick Time for Windows. Then Microsoft

439
00:26:55,920 --> 00:27:00,800
Speaker 1: comes to that same company and hires them to work

440
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:05,080
Speaker 1: on Microsoft's videos software on the Windows platform. It's called

441
00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:09,879
Speaker 1: Video for Windows, and specifically they wanted them to work

442
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:12,800
Speaker 1: on video for Windows that would be running on machines

443
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:18,720
Speaker 1: that had Intel processors. In the new Video for Windows

444
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 1: program debuted and Apple engineers suspected that the contractor had

445
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 1: actually included some of Apple's code in Microsoft's product, so

446
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:36,639
Speaker 1: Apple sued San Francisco Canyon Company. On December six, Apple

447
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:41,400
Speaker 1: sought and received a restraining order against Microsoft from distributing

448
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:45,640
Speaker 1: video for Windows. So Microsoft responded by stripping out all

449
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:49,760
Speaker 1: the code that the San Francisco Canyon Company had contributed

450
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:52,879
Speaker 1: to that product. A couple of years later, it became

451
00:27:52,920 --> 00:27:57,199
Speaker 1: clear just how ugly the fight had become between Apple

452
00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:01,200
Speaker 1: and Microsoft. It was pretty vicious. Apple had been threatening

453
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:05,240
Speaker 1: to sue Microsoft for several billion dollars over a couple

454
00:28:05,240 --> 00:28:09,920
Speaker 1: of major things, one of them being this QuickTime disagreement,

455
00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:12,919
Speaker 1: and Microsoft in turn was threatening to cancel the publication

456
00:28:13,400 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 1: of Office uh for for mac So the Office Suite,

457
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:21,760
Speaker 1: which was an incredibly popular productivity suite still is what

458
00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:25,719
Speaker 1: would no longer be supported for for Macintosh. And then

459
00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:29,200
Speaker 1: there was also issues with web browsers. It just got

460
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:32,240
Speaker 1: really ugly, with both teams saying oh yeah, well, if

461
00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:34,720
Speaker 1: you do that, I'm going to do this, and eventually

462
00:28:35,359 --> 00:28:38,360
Speaker 1: they settled out of court. Microsoft would end up purchasing

463
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 1: a hundred fifty million dollars of non voter stock in Apple.

464
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 1: Apple agreed to make Internet Explorer the default Mac operating

465
00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:51,600
Speaker 1: system browser at least until Safari really debuted, and there

466
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:55,720
Speaker 1: were other considerations that were made as well. But yeah,

467
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:58,360
Speaker 1: it was not a pretty thing for a long time.

468
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 1: While all that was going on, Apple engineers continued to

469
00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:04,720
Speaker 1: work on an update quick Time, releasing new features and

470
00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:08,480
Speaker 1: fixing bugs as they found them. Quick Time, too added

471
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 1: support for what was essentially MIDI files and equipment. I

472
00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:14,280
Speaker 1: did episodes about MIDI a while back, so if you

473
00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:17,440
Speaker 1: want to learn about that fascinating technology, you should go

474
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 1: check those out. It's m I d I, really neat technology. However,

475
00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:26,840
Speaker 1: the MIDI support would not stick around with quick Time forever.

476
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:30,880
Speaker 1: That's a bit of a spoiler alert. Before I get

477
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:34,000
Speaker 1: into that next bit, let's take another quick break to

478
00:29:34,080 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: thank our sponsor. Now, I'm not gonna go through each

479
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:47,480
Speaker 1: and every version of quick Time to talk about all

480
00:29:47,520 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 1: the features that were added or tweaked, because that would

481
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 1: be super dull, But I will hit some highlights and

482
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:55,760
Speaker 1: also talk about some of the software that helped raise

483
00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 1: awareness of quick Time and some of the products to

484
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:01,680
Speaker 1: A big one was popular game that came out way

485
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:06,080
Speaker 1: back in from a developer called Cyan. That would be

486
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:09,680
Speaker 1: the infamous puzzle game Missed, in which you would try

487
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 1: to solve a series of really tricky puzzles to work

488
00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 1: your way through narrative um and had lots and lots

489
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 1: of quick time video in it as kind of the

490
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 1: beginning of an era of of games that would incorporate

491
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:29,080
Speaker 1: video to various degrees of success or hilarious degrees of failure,

492
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:32,320
Speaker 1: depending upon your point of view. Software wasn't the only

493
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 1: source for QuickTime content, however, It's easy to forget. Streaming

494
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:40,160
Speaker 1: video has not been around that long. Before you had

495
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:45,680
Speaker 1: platforms like YouTube. Online video creators typically would upload their

496
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 1: video files to a server, and then users would download

497
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:52,480
Speaker 1: the video files. That's how I watched the first few

498
00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:55,160
Speaker 1: seasons of the web series Red Versus Blue. I would

499
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 1: visit the site each week looking for the latest episode,

500
00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:01,240
Speaker 1: and I would download it to my computer. You couldn't

501
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:02,880
Speaker 1: just watch it in your browser. You actually had to

502
00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 1: download the file and then watch it on your computer

503
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:09,480
Speaker 1: from storage. It would take ages because I did not

504
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 1: have very fast internet connectivity at that time and the

505
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:15,840
Speaker 1: files were pretty big. Now, you could watch the episodes

506
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:18,760
Speaker 1: on a quick time player or with red Versus Blue.

507
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:21,960
Speaker 1: Windows Media Player also would support it. This wasn't an

508
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:25,480
Speaker 1: ideal solution for content creators either, because they would often

509
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:29,080
Speaker 1: have to pay large fees for all that data moving

510
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 1: across the network. Rooster Teeth, the company that makes Red

511
00:31:32,480 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 1: Versus Blue, was paying a bill that was in the

512
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 1: thirteen th dollars per month range. That's not a small

513
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:43,920
Speaker 1: amount of cash. With quick Time three and on, Apple

514
00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:47,640
Speaker 1: would release the basic suite of software for free. Users

515
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,719
Speaker 1: could opt to pay for a more feature rich version

516
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:54,120
Speaker 1: with a purchase of a quick Time Pro license. That

517
00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:59,160
Speaker 1: version could also read lots of different image file formatsically

518
00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:05,280
Speaker 1: stuff like gif I refused to say, jeff and jpeg

519
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:10,160
Speaker 1: images as well. Outside of Apple, the I S O

520
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:14,560
Speaker 1: I e C. Motion Pictures Expert Group was working to

521
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 1: establish standards to encode audio visual objects under the collective

522
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:25,960
Speaker 1: designation of MPEG four. During this process, several entities, including Apple,

523
00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 1: suggested that the group use Apple's quick Time file format

524
00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:33,320
Speaker 1: as a basis. That's the one that uses the file

525
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:37,240
Speaker 1: extension designation of dot m o V or dot QT,

526
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:40,400
Speaker 1: but dot imo V is way more popular, and just

527
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:43,760
Speaker 1: to say, like, let's start from here as our our

528
00:32:43,840 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 1: foundation for this standard approach. This was Steve jobs big

529
00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:52,520
Speaker 1: plan for the quick Time team when he returned to Apple.

530
00:32:53,040 --> 00:32:57,240
Speaker 1: He had been sort of in exile for a few years,

531
00:32:57,320 --> 00:32:59,720
Speaker 1: and when he came back. One of the things he

532
00:32:59,760 --> 00:33:01,840
Speaker 1: did as he told the QuickTime team, we should make

533
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 1: quick Time the standard for computer video, and that they

534
00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:09,440
Speaker 1: were going to do this by reviewing proposals that the

535
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 1: IMPEG group had accepted in the past. He was saying,

536
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:15,960
Speaker 1: let's look and see what they like, and then let's

537
00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:19,400
Speaker 1: make sure we write a proposal that writes toward the

538
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:21,680
Speaker 1: kind of stuff that they have accepted in the past,

539
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 1: and now I'll give us our best chance. And it worked.

540
00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:27,280
Speaker 1: Now that's not to say that the dot m ov

541
00:33:27,520 --> 00:33:30,560
Speaker 1: files became the new standard, but rather the starting point

542
00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 1: for developing that standard. The QuickTime file format formed the

543
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:38,000
Speaker 1: foundation that's a lot of alliteration for the I s

544
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:41,360
Speaker 1: O base media file format also known as i B

545
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:48,160
Speaker 1: m FF catchy, and in Apple released QuickTime four, which

546
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 1: includes support for streaming video. Apple also published the QuickTime

547
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:56,160
Speaker 1: streaming server software right at that same time. So now

548
00:33:56,200 --> 00:33:59,920
Speaker 1: we're finally seeing streaming video kind of making its way

549
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:04,040
Speaker 1: into QuickTime support. But again that it would take. It

550
00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 1: would take the formation of several platforms like YouTube for

551
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:11,799
Speaker 1: streaming video to actually become a, you know, a reality

552
00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 1: for the average Internet user. QuickTime six, which came out

553
00:34:16,640 --> 00:34:19,000
Speaker 1: in two thousand two, was the first version to support

554
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 1: the MPEG four format for playback and for import and export.

555
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:28,480
Speaker 1: It also supported the Flash five standard. Later, Apple updated

556
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:34,000
Speaker 1: the QuickTime file format built on ibm FF, they retained

557
00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:36,560
Speaker 1: the file extension dot m o V. So now you've

558
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:42,400
Speaker 1: got two different QuickTime file formats, one pre ibm FF,

559
00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:48,960
Speaker 1: one post ibm FF, and we typically call them QuickTime

560
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:55,240
Speaker 1: File Format Classic and QuickTime File Format Current. By the way,

561
00:34:55,560 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: if you have a QuickTime file format a dot m

562
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:01,839
Speaker 1: o V file in front of you, it is not

563
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:05,719
Speaker 1: necessarily easy to tell which kind you have, whether it

564
00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 1: was pre or post IBMFF. You can't really tell just

565
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:12,279
Speaker 1: by looking at it. You typically have to get more

566
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 1: information first. If your player software can work with either

567
00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:19,239
Speaker 1: type of file, you're all set. You could watch it

568
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:21,279
Speaker 1: no matter what, so it doesn't really matter to you

569
00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 1: which format it's in if you can just watch it

570
00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:27,360
Speaker 1: either way. But then for Mac users you've got quick

571
00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:32,000
Speaker 1: Time Player ten or player x, it's it's the room

572
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: in numeral ten that released in two thousand nine, and

573
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:39,000
Speaker 1: that changed things up considerably. First, the name was already

574
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:42,239
Speaker 1: a little confusing because the version of quick Time immediately

575
00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:48,560
Speaker 1: before ten was version seven. I guess seven eight nine.

576
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:52,759
Speaker 1: Uh No, Apple chose to name quick Time ten that

577
00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:55,759
Speaker 1: way because it would align with OS ten. So I'm

578
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:57,879
Speaker 1: going to give that one a pass. But the real

579
00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:01,040
Speaker 1: trouble is that quick Time ten mar to departure from

580
00:36:01,040 --> 00:36:04,200
Speaker 1: Apple and its support of creators, something that was a

581
00:36:04,239 --> 00:36:07,160
Speaker 1: bit of a theme across multiple software suites like Garage

582
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:10,600
Speaker 1: Band and Final Cut. Gone was the support from Middie,

583
00:36:10,960 --> 00:36:14,160
Speaker 1: so it's no longer in quick Time. Gone was the

584
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:17,879
Speaker 1: frame counter indicator. Gone were some of the playback options.

585
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:20,680
Speaker 1: Gone was the ability to playback video that had been

586
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:24,800
Speaker 1: encoded with Road Pizza or Apple Animation. So, in other words,

587
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:27,520
Speaker 1: the stuff that was the formation of the earliest versions

588
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:30,640
Speaker 1: of quick Time, those were no longer compatible with the

589
00:36:30,680 --> 00:36:34,720
Speaker 1: most current version of quick Time. You could not play

590
00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:39,680
Speaker 1: all QuickTime files even with this quick Time playback software,

591
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:44,680
Speaker 1: which seems counterintuitive. Uh So it does get a bit confusing.

592
00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:48,319
Speaker 1: In two thousand nine, Apple began to transition over from

593
00:36:48,320 --> 00:36:51,919
Speaker 1: the foundation of quick Time which is called qt Kit,

594
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 1: sort of the underlying framework for it and they began

595
00:36:56,120 --> 00:36:59,680
Speaker 1: to shift toward a different technology called a v foundation.

596
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 1: That continued with the release of mac Os ten Lion,

597
00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:08,880
Speaker 1: which happened in October. Apples released iTunes ten point five

598
00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:12,960
Speaker 1: for Windows, which actually did away with the necessity for

599
00:37:13,040 --> 00:37:16,359
Speaker 1: Windows users to install quick Time. It didn't include quick

600
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:18,799
Speaker 1: Time in the installation. You didn't have to have quick

601
00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:21,759
Speaker 1: Time on your computer to run iTunes. This was brand new.

602
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:26,200
Speaker 1: All other previous versions of iTunes required quick Time, so

603
00:37:27,239 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 1: this appeared to be the beginning of the end for

604
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:35,120
Speaker 1: the venerable software in Apple chose to end support for

605
00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:37,560
Speaker 1: quick Time for Windows. Now, there are a lot of

606
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 1: people out there who still have quick Time installed on

607
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:45,279
Speaker 1: their Windows machines. That is a bad idea because it

608
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:48,480
Speaker 1: could serve as a point of vulnerability for your computer.

609
00:37:48,560 --> 00:37:52,320
Speaker 1: It could provide the opportunity for a hacker to target

610
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 1: and exploit that software and get access to your computer

611
00:37:56,560 --> 00:38:01,600
Speaker 1: or perhaps install malware on your machine. And the reason

612
00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 1: why this is a problem is when a company stops

613
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:08,279
Speaker 1: supporting software, they no longer issue updates to it, which

614
00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:11,240
Speaker 1: means they can no longer patch any vulnerabilities that are found,

615
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:15,560
Speaker 1: So any vulnerabilities that are discovered continue to be vulnerabilities.

616
00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:19,279
Speaker 1: So it's a good idea to uninstall QuickTime on a

617
00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:21,440
Speaker 1: Windows machine if you happen to have it on one

618
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:25,239
Speaker 1: of those seekle and alternative like VLC Media Player. By

619
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:27,960
Speaker 1: the way, this isn't just me offering this advice. The

620
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:33,000
Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security said the same thing. In in

621
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:37,439
Speaker 1: Apple announced that it in its effort to move from

622
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:40,840
Speaker 1: thirty two bit apps to sixty four bit apps, it

623
00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:43,880
Speaker 1: would be phasing out support for older software, and that

624
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:47,359
Speaker 1: includes older versions of quick Time, including the quick Time

625
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:51,160
Speaker 1: seven player, which had remained an optional installation from mac

626
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 1: os ten snow Leopard even as the quick Time Player

627
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 1: ten was released. So you might have wanted to keep

628
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:02,320
Speaker 1: quick Time seven because it had some options that QuickTime

629
00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 1: ten got rid of, including the ability to play those

630
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:10,759
Speaker 1: older QuickTime files. But now they those pieces of software

631
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:15,640
Speaker 1: will fail without compromise because of this move from the

632
00:39:15,760 --> 00:39:19,840
Speaker 1: thirty two bit to the sixty four bit approach for apps.

633
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:25,920
Speaker 1: So yikes. So you could argue that QuickTime is largely

634
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:30,560
Speaker 1: obsolete today. It was very important for establishing computer video,

635
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:36,440
Speaker 1: but today it's not nearly as instrumental technology. Uh, it

636
00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:42,000
Speaker 1: is definitely obsolete on Windows machines, so things like HTML

637
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:45,360
Speaker 1: five have done away with the need for external players

638
00:39:45,600 --> 00:39:48,920
Speaker 1: online like web browsers can natively play a lot of

639
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:54,239
Speaker 1: media now thanks to the the the the features of

640
00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:58,919
Speaker 1: HTML five. Apple still supports quick Time for mac os ten,

641
00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:02,080
Speaker 1: but the last date was ten point four and that

642
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:05,480
Speaker 1: came out several years ago, so we're kind of sun

643
00:40:05,520 --> 00:40:07,920
Speaker 1: setting it now. One other thing I do want to

644
00:40:07,920 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 1: mention before I conclude is that an interesting thing about

645
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:13,719
Speaker 1: quick time was that it gave opportunities for developers to

646
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:20,000
Speaker 1: create time based synchronized apps that weren't necessarily video playback.

647
00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:23,760
Speaker 1: Apps like the tools for quick Time were so dependent

648
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:28,880
Speaker 1: upon keeping accurate time that developers could leverage that and

649
00:40:28,880 --> 00:40:33,440
Speaker 1: create software for other applications that also relied heavily on

650
00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:38,759
Speaker 1: keeping accurate time, stuff like scientific measurement software. I think

651
00:40:38,800 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 1: that's pretty darn cool that it all came out of

652
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:43,920
Speaker 1: a desire to be able to play video on a

653
00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:48,720
Speaker 1: computer screen. Anyway, that wraps up this retrospect on quick

654
00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:52,759
Speaker 1: time and it's importance in technology. I look forward to

655
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 1: doing a lot more episodes kind of like this as

656
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:57,319
Speaker 1: well as the ones where I focus on companies and

657
00:40:57,360 --> 00:41:00,000
Speaker 1: people and other types of tech. If you have suggestions

658
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:03,600
Speaker 1: for topics, send them to me. The email addresses tech

659
00:41:03,640 --> 00:41:06,760
Speaker 1: stuff at how stuff works dot com, or you can

660
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:09,600
Speaker 1: pop on over to tech stuff podcast dot com. That's

661
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:12,759
Speaker 1: our website you'll find other ways to contact me. You'll

662
00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:15,399
Speaker 1: also see a link to our merchandise store that's over

663
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:18,400
Speaker 1: at t public dot com slash tech stuff. Every purchase

664
00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:20,760
Speaker 1: you make goes to help the show, and we greatly

665
00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 1: appreciate it, and I'll talk to you again really soon

666
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:32,920
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics because

667
00:41:32,960 --> 00:41:43,960
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com