Apple Announces QuickTime 6 Public Beta

Despite ongoing negotiations with MPEG LA over MPEG-4 licensing fees, Apple on Tuesday issued a Public Preview of QuickTime 6 - the first mainstream media player to support MPEG-4. For both Windows and Mac, the beta includes instant-on streaming and support for AAC, the next generation MPEG-4 audio format.

"QuickTime 6 delivers the world's first complete media solution for creating, streaming and viewing MPEG-4 content," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs in the announcement. "MPEG-4 is an open standard being adopted by wireless, computer and entertainment companies around the world because it delivers the highest quality digital video, and allows content creators to scale the quality/bandwidth tradeoff all the way from MPEG-2 quality to dramatically lower bandwidths for streaming over the Internet."

Jobs stressed that any licensing issues over MPEG-4 will be worked out by the time the final version of QuickTime 6 makes an appearance in Jaguar - the next version of Mac OS X slated for late summer. Apple on Tuesday also released a small update to OS X -- version 10.1.5 -- which features bug fixes and interface tweaks.

Microsoft is expected this summer to release a beta of its own next-generation digital media technology, code-named Corona. But Microsoft has not yet pledged its support for MPEG-4, initially focusing only on its own Windows Media codecs.

The QuickTime 6 Public Preview is available for all versions of Windows except 95, and may be downloaded via FileForum. For more information on QuickTime 6 and for Mac OS downloads, visit apple.com.