l-dopa

QuickTime as a video container format used to be the shit — I remember oohing and ahhing over postage-stamp sized video on my LC II — but now it’s in danger of being surpassed in obiquity by Flash 7/8 as the internet video delivery mechanism of choice. QuickTime as a technology simply hasn’t been truly innovative in a decade; Apple has just continually bundled more codecs in and called it a point release. What is needed instead, I feel, are some new capabilities for digital media in general, and QuickTime is uniquely positioned to be capable of them. Here’s some examples of what I’d expect from a truly next-generation format like QuickTime:

• There should be some way for me to specify a timecode as well as a link to a particular part of a longer video. If I wanted to reference a moment exactly 22 minutes into Steven Colbert’s speech, that should be possible. As far as I can tell, no existing video format will allow me to do this.
• I should be able to meta-reference several different audio and video tracks from several completely disparate server locations and pull them together into one presentation via QuickTime. We are living in a recombinant, “mash-up”* culture, it would be useful to have QuickTime reflect that. As I understand it, SMIL promised this ability, but I’ve never personally figured out how to use it.
• DIVX support, for the love of god — it’s fucking embarassing that an open-source project like VLC continues to kick QuickTime Player’s ass in the sheer number of video codecs supported. If I download a video from the internet, QuickTime Player should be able to play it, no excuses.

~jeff

*(shudder)