[Rmh1572]

i have a very biased pc friend who says that mpeg 4 is just a product hyped up by apple and it really sucks compared to real player and microsoft. i know that looks like i am comparing two different things it is just i don't know what realplayer and microsoft use. i was hoping to get a mac or unbiased point of view thanks.

[memento]

It looks like your biased peecee friend is trying to SOUND like he knows what he's talking about when he really doesn't. MPEG4 has never been hyped by Apple. As a matter of fact MPEG4 is not even supported in Quicktime yet. MPEG stands for the Motion Picture Experts Group and they are in the process of writing the ISO standard for MPEG4. It is meant to be a standard than anyone can use. I think it is intended for digital TV (?) and is supposed to allow streaming video at DVD quality. They may have recently completed it, but I'm not sure. Regardless, Micro$haft uses some hacked up version of it in their PROPRIETARY Windows Media Player. Their trying to take over by becoming the "defacto" standard. (I just wish that the MPEG would hurry it up, we're in the digital age here, things move fast).

So show this to your PC friend. If he MEANT to be referring to Quicktime 4, then that's another story! Sorenson 2 (and version 3 is supposed to be even better) totally kicks Real and Micro$loth!

[pdot]

one thing I remember reading a few months ago is that MPEG4 was originally based off of a quicktime concept. I don't remember what exactly, but I think it has to do with a quicktime file's versatility and reliability.