Letters from Microsoft: An Employee Tosses His Zune

RoughlyDrafted Magazine ^ | Tuesday, August 18, 2009 | Daniel Eran Dilger

[Star Traveler]

Letters from Microsoft: An Employee Tosses His Zune
August 18th, 2009

by Daniel Eran Dilger

Windows Enthusiasts like to paint me as biased against the Zune because I didn’t get a free gift basket from Microsoft and then turn around with a CNET-style gushing review of the me-too player that manages to consistently slink a year or two behind Apple. But what does one of Microsoft’s own developers think of the device? Here’s an independent report from a person deep inside the Zune maker.

The developer, whom I’ll call “Mike Rosoft,” volunteered the following experience with the Zune in an email: “[some months after being hired] … I did the dutiful thing and bought a Zune 120 gig, thinking it would be better than the 80g iPod I had before. I saw some plusses and minuses to the software interface and the potential of the social and Zune pass aspects (good ideas, typically flawed execution) but I didn’t give much thought to the actual audio quality.

”I figured I’m using a lossless codec, it’ll be true CD quality, I have some nice Creative Aurvana earbuds, it should sound pretty good. But I have pretty sensitive hearing, and over a long time I noticed that I wasn’t enjoying the music as much when I played it on the Zune. It didn’t sound as good as I expected it to, and I was starting to think it was a function of stress and depression, but that wasn’t it.

“Because after I got the iPhone I spent a day transcoding all the music from my collection that I expected to want to listen to from the original Apple lossless files to 256 Kbps AAC (standard iTunes Plus preset). It was only slightly involved. I’d right-click a bunch of songs, convert to AAC, and then with smart playlists and sorting on various columns, I’d drag the converted ones to my iMac with file sharing, import them to iTunes (copying them to the right directories and stripping the ” 1“ added to the name to avoid a collision with the original lossless version with the same extension) and finally deleting the transcoded version from the original PC. I lost my play counts and star ratings, but I’m fine with that.

Cutting Corners on Quality.

”After syncing the first batch and plugging in the same Aurvana earbuds, I almost instantly realized that i’d been robbed, by the Zune, because the AAC version sounded amazingly good, obviously better than the uncompressed version on the Zune. So now my whole music collection takes up like 25 gigs of flash and sounds better than I had ever expected.

“I believe they either f*cked up the DAC or the analog circuit pathways on the Zune and lost like 10dB or more of signal to noise. I think the stereo channels might be leaking into each other also. It just sounded muddy and I’d been using it all this time, not just with the earbuds but in my commute to work every day in the car.

”BTW, I think I could perhaps tell the difference between AAC and lossless after very carefully listening to each version, but the differences would be so subtle as to be meaningless in terms of enjoyability. Whatever they screwed up in the Zune to make the lossless version sound so flat and dead was much worse.

“Music is a very important part of my life and Microsoft robbed me of a portion of that enjoyment through typical corner cutting and short-sightedness. I’ve decided I’m going to find a nice grassy space this weekend and get my roommate to film me smashing up the Zune with a giant pipe wrench, a la the scene from Office Space where they smash up the printer. Should be a YouTube hit, especially with the story of why I’m doing it.

The Great Exodus of Microsoft’s Talent.

”Did I mention to you that after the layoffs, people have been resigning right and left? Always the same story, going to do something else, not sure what, but something else. Two weeks notice, see ya. I’ll be doing the same tomorrow morning along with a friend who’s quitting for the same reasons. In fact, he’s been frustrated longer than me, probably because I was blaming myself and not the real problem of the toxic work environment.

“We can’t figure out: how can you make a great product with shifty tools, and how can you make great, or even acceptable, tools on top of a shifty platform? You can’t ratchet up the quality, certainly not when you haven’t been allotted sufficient time to do so. You can only try to prevent the quality of everything from dropping further into mediocrity.”

Rosoft hasn’t yet posted his video or his story, but when he does I’ll link to it.

Up next: if you think Microsoft’s cutting corners on the Zune in the manner of the Xbox 360 is the worst example of the company’s failing to learn from its previous mistakes, get ready for a big surprise. Because Microsoft is preparing to replicate one of the biggest, most uncontroversial blunders of the recent decade in its misguided efforts to imitate Apple.

Guess what iceberg Balmer’s delirious company is going to aim towards for its next Titanic disaster! (Hint: it’s a far larger mistake than the whole ‘two years late iPod touch clone + Zune HD software problem’ I discussed in the last article.)

[Star Traveler]

Hmmm..., doesn't sound good over there at Microsoft... :-)

[Star Traveler]

Some Zune/iPod comparison from a Microsoft employee...

[proxy_user]

”Did I mention to you that after the layoffs, people have been resigning right and left? Always the same story, going to do something else, not sure what, but something else. Two weeks notice, see ya. I’ll be doing the same tomorrow morning along with a friend who’s quitting for the same reasons. In fact, he’s been frustrated longer than me, probably because I was blaming myself and not the real problem of the toxic work environment.”

I can’t imagine anyone doing that in today’s economy without having $5 million cash in the bank. Of course, many of these guys probably do,

[RinaseaofDs]

The drinking of bathwater there goes on unabated.

They are being hammered from all sides, and really have no answer for it.

Windows 7 is gut-check time. If this thing isn’t clearly better, they may be toast.

[loungitude]

This article sounds like BS. I am not taking sides with ipods or Zunes, just calling it like I smell it.

[theFIRMbss]

>The developer, whom I’ll call “Mike Rosoft,” volunteered the following experience with the Zune in an email

I've got an email
that says I can make millions
by helping some guy

transfer his money
from a Nigeriam bank.
Soon I will be rich!

[Buck W.]

My Toshiba Gigabeat F40 works just fine...

[tfecw]

I can’t imagine anyone doing that in today’s economy without having $5 million cash in the bank. Of course, many of these guys probably do,

I did it, despite the doom and gloom of every IT job going to india, there will always be a place here for those 20% that do 80% of the work. Now,if this was an interview with a plant worker at Chevy, i'd def agree with you.

[Star Traveler]

I can’t imagine it either... but a lot of those kinds are chasing the next rainbow... :-)

[Star Traveler]

Well, there is a difference between the “Nigerian 419 Scam” type of e-mails that are spammed out by the thousands and hundreds of thousands to anyone — and — an e-mail sent specifically to a long-standing blogger who reports on these things... :-)

[Star Traveler]

You said — Now,if this was an interview with a plant worker at Chevy, i’d def agree with you.

—

Yeah, a different type here... for sure... :-)

[djf]

My “earbuds” weigh 170+ lbs each. And can take over 1000 watts.

I don’t hike much anymore...

;-)

[driftdiver]

I bought my son a Zune after his iPod was stolen. He likes the Zune better.

Every company has disgruntled employees. Are we to believe that a disgruntled employee is a impartial and trusted source?

[newfreep]

I created a company that imports/distributes some VERY high end audio products as the exclusive US representative. Previous brands I have repped included a $350k amplifier and I've heard the best sounding components including cost no object digital sources.

That said, I'm using Win-XP but after downloading Safari for XP, my digital downloads sound noticeably better than IE8 - more clear & detailed.

I have no idea what Apple does on the audio side but my experience has been very good but still not in same ballpark as a good CD player or analog turntable/arm/cartridge combination.

[Star Traveler]

You said — Are we to believe that a disgruntled employee is a impartial and trusted source?

—

When he confirms things that we sorta knew already... well... :-)

[aft_lizard]

Please explain to me how a browser makes a difference in how a song sounds after downloading? There are no sound codecs independent of either.

[Star Traveler]

You asked — Please explain to me how a browser makes a difference in how a song sounds after downloading? There are no sound codecs independent of either.

—

Well, I can’t speak specifically for that other poster, but I can say that I’ve read that Apple was also loading/installing the QuickTime components along with the Safari Browser.

And I have heard that those QuickTime components will produce better quality sound than the software that was there already from the Windows platform.

So, it could be that what is being heard — is playing from those QuickTime audio components after they were installed along with the Safari Browser being installed.

[driftdiver]

“When he confirms things that we sorta knew already... well... :-)”

Yes some see what they want to see

[driftdiver]

Or it could be a load of crap

[Gay State Conservative]

Gee....a piece bashing Microsoft.How unusual.Windows XP works just fine for me.As does Office.And Money (which,IMO,is far superior to Quicken).

[Star Traveler]

Kinda works on both side of the fence... eh? :-)

[Star Traveler]

You said — Or it could be a load of crap

—

Well, how music sounds and the “quality” is somewhat subjective, but there are audiophiles who swear that they can “hear differences” in different quality equipment. I probably can’t like some of those people can, but that doesn’t mean the differences in quality don’t exist.

In fact, in reading about the history of QuickTime and its operation on Windows systems, I have read that Apple was able to show Microsoft how to get better quality results (from their audio and video components running on Windows) than the Microsoft and Intel people even thought was possible in the first place. I understand it surprised them.

So, I wouldn’t doubt that some people can actually “hear” the better quality. I wouldn’t claim to be one of those who can hear it though — but as I said — it doesn’t mean that others are not hearing it.

[driftdiver]

The browser makes no differents as that is simply the user interface for downloading. The quality of digital music depends largely on its sampling rate. How many times each second the sound wave value is presented.

What matters is the original file compression, or sampling rate. The more frequent the samples of the sound wave the closer it is to the real analog sound.

There are thousands of codecs. The better ones are more expensive and require more resources to run. most of them sound the same to the average ear.

[Star Traveler]

You said — Windows XP works just fine for me.

—

I understand, and I’m sure it’s that way for a lot of people..., too...

Heck! I know some people who could just as easily live in a barn as anywhere... But, others like a nice home and nice furniture and stuff... so it’s all in one’s taste, I guess.

[mysterio]

I don’t know how good or bad the zune is, but breaking it seems stupid. Clear it out, and give it to some little kid who can’t afford an Mp3 player. That’s what I would do. Some kid would probably love the thing.

[driftdiver]

true audiophiles prefer analog because it is far superior to any digital music.

there is a difference. The average person has an untrained ear and cannot tell the difference.

[mysterio]

true audiophiles prefer analog because it is far superior to any digital music.

I agree. A dust free record, a well maintained needle, and when it hits that vinyl, it's pure butter.

However, I sometimes have a problem mounting my turntable on my hip when going out for a walk. During those times, I enjoy my Ipod.

[driftdiver]

ipods are fine and so are zunes

[Star Traveler]

You said — The browser makes no differents as that is simply the user interface for downloading.

—

I think what many may be “missing” here — is that Apple also installed QuickTime components along with doing the Safari Browser installation. At least, at one time they did that.

Now, what can happen (and maybe this is what is being alluded to here) — is — that after a Safari Browser installation was done, things sounded different and better (can’t say for sure, but this sort of sounds like what is being said...). And that could be possible, because the QuickTime components would have been installed at the same time (at least there were at one time in the past, when Safari was being installed).

And what you said about there being a lot of different codecs is correct, but no matter what codec you have, if for some reason the current system you have does a *lousy job* of playing it back — no matter how good the codec which produced the sound, it’s still going to sound *terrible*.

NOW..., if some QuickTime software was installed at the same time (as Safari) and it “took over” the sound operation of the machine (at least for some tasks, as is the case with QuickTime) — then — it *can sound better* under those circumstances, because QuickTime was able to do things to sound and video that Microsoft and Intel didn’t even know could be done in the first place.

That’s how I would see this situation...

—

As an additional note here, it could also mean that when something is playing “in the browser” (a plug-in for the browser), QuickTime can also be specified as the one who will take over and do the playing of the audio in the browser. In that case, that would be another instance of possibly sounding better than before.

[PIF]

“ithout having $5 million cash in the bank. Of course, many of these guys probably do”

Maybe not that much but a lot. Knew a few ofthose folks years ago. If any of those guys got in early, they could well be worth north of 250 mil. But relatively new guys much less - but likely after a five years there they could have 1-2m in the bank/stock options, plus an expensive home on Mercer Island.

I think if I had that much and quit, I’d be just fine - especially if I were in my 20s, 30s and had MS on the resume.

[Star Traveler]

You said — I don’t know how good or bad the zune is, but breaking it seems stupid.

—

I guess that’s life in the “fast lane” over at Microsoft... LOL...

[PIF]

Hoping to make the hearing aid people rich, are we?

[Star Traveler]

You said — true audiophiles prefer analog because it is far superior to any digital music. there is a difference. The average person has an untrained ear and cannot tell the difference.

—

That’s what I “hear” from others who claim to be “audiophiles” — but I wouldn’t know if they really do or not. I suppose they can tell...

BUT, even so... they’re not going to be able to carry it around with them in analog... LOL...

I suppose they can do the “analog trip” at home and in some special listening room... but otherwise (elsewhere...), they’re going to get digital... :-) At any rate, you’re probably talking about 1% of the market for all of these kinds of things that are sold, who are going to insist on “analog” instead of digital (if it’s even that much...).

[Star Traveler]

Exactly, analog is not very portable... :-)

[driftdiver]

“In that case, that would be another instance of possibly sounding better than before.”

Or worse, depends on the starting point.

[Star Traveler]

You said — Or worse, depends on the starting point.

LOL... yeah, I guess that could be true, too... if the original audio was terrible... :-)

[driftdiver]

you said - if the original audio was terrible... :-)

yep everything is relative. ipods are nice, but expensive. expensive to buy, and expensive to fill with songs.

zunes are just fine for hauling around on your hip.

[djf]

Lol!

I only turn them way up if I know I'm working outside!!

[ChinaGotTheGoodsOnClinton]

I am still using my Zune 30 which I got for like 80 bucks a year and a half ago or so.

It has been though some nasty mountain bike crashes and with this audiophile earbuds I got at Costco it sounds GREAT.

Also my whole collection of 140+ CD’s took up only 20 gigs so I still have a lot of free space on this thing.

The newer MP3 players are slimmer and have better screens but I really can not think of a good reason to cough up 200 bones when this old thing still works so well.

[Star Traveler]

Well, I don’t know if you’ve heard the excellent sound that comes out of it, with good earbuds — and — 256 AAC encoded music. It’s absolutely stunning and you can hear it all...

Advanced Audio Coding
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

You can rip it with the good QuickTime components at 256 AAC encoding — or — you can get music from the iTunes Music Store, already encoded at 256 AAC from the music companies, themselves. That’s virtually *uncompressed* for the non-audiophile/non-trained ear... if you will.

Now, once again, I’m not one of those audiophiles so perhaps they may say that they can hear *more* from their special set-up at home with vinyl — but an iPod, with good earbuds and 256 AAC rip — and you’ve got absolute dyn-a-mite.... :-)

I really don’t think you can beat it... AND... if I understand this former Microsoft employee right, it appears he says that Microsoft has “muddied up” the sound in their Zune... that’s something to consider...

[Star Traveler]

Yeah, I can understand... if you’ve already got something and it’s working okay... then why dump it...

But, when you do get ready to go for another one, do consider the iPod. I think you’ll be impressed with the sound — with some good earbuds (say the $50-$125 kind; they do go higher you know... :-) ...), and then the 256 AAC rip of the music (or from iTunes Music Store of the same quality rip), along with the high quality sound produced from the playback components of QuickTime in the iPod....

Put all three of those together, and it will knock your socks off... :-)

[Richard Kimball]

I went through the web site from the subject article, and the author definitely hates MS, but it’s a knowledgeable dislike.
One of the things I’ve noticed is that since Gates left, MS has been essentially rudderless. For years, their business model has been to take over a maturing market, but the Zune, Bing, the new MS Stores, the Aqua interface, the “Gadgets” the attempts at an online music store, all seem to be utterly clueless copying of other companies.
Microsoft’s strength has been it’s dominance and it doesn’t work well where it can’t use monopoly power to kneecap competitors.
BTW, was watching a news show on TXCN, and they were announcing the new Zune, and the news reader says, “And Microsoft is releasing the new Zuny this week. Or is it Zuun?” He looks at the other anchor and she shrugs. Then, he comes back and pronounces it correctly, and says, one of the camera men knew how to pronounce it.

[Star Traveler]

Yeah, and if you’ve been around the Macintosh for a while, you know that website has been up and publishing for quite a while...

And it’s very informative, too. The guy does know what he’s talking about.

[Star Traveler]

Here’s what a lot of Windows people need to know about why the quality is so much better with iTunes, iPod and QuickTime...

---

The Secret Weapon Inside iTunes

Apple strikes back in the battle for digital media rights, production, distribution and playback.

‘Hell froze over,’ the big headline at the release of Apple’s iTunes for Windows, may have suggested that Apple was doing the unthinkable in releasing an application for Microsoft’s Windows platform. Nothing could be more wrong.

The release of iTunes for Windows is really a chilling strike on Microsoft’s hellish plans for world domination through Digital Rights Management, and a key part of Apple’s plan to steal back leadership of the desktop digital media industry that Apple invented.

It’s a plan that’s all about QuickTime, the magic behind iTunes and really, Apple’s best kept secret. Microsoft has been trying kill QuickTime for the last decade; after attempts to compete with the technology failed, they’ve tried to threaten, sidetrack, sabotage and lately just FUD it out of existence.

While Apple faces competition from several angles, nobody anywhere offers anything that approaches the power, breadth and ability of the QuickTime Media Layer. That’s critically important because QuickTime is the last, best hope for a world of digital content not captive under the iron fist of Microsoft.

The Tech behind the Tunes

The triumvirate of Apple’s iPod, its iTunes application and its iTunes Music Store represent a convergence of Apple’s best technologies and core strengths. It pairs the company’s remarkable ability to create innovative interfaces and desirable hardware with their QuickTime Media Layer and the WebObjects database application server they acquired as part of NeXT Software in 1997.

There’s nothing really new to say about Apple’s beautiful hardware and intuitive software combination. It rocks.

As for WebObjects, its contribution is essentially a slick way to publish the interface a Mac OS X Cocoa application over the Internet, either to regular web browsers, as with the Apple Store, or to thin client applications, like the music store in iTunes. While companies like Sun like to pontificate about the future using buzzwords like ‘thin client’ and ‘network computing’, Apple quietly delivered, in iTunes, what is perhaps the largest and most impressive distributed application and thin client in the world, built upon WebObjects.

It’s certainly not obvious why Apple isn’t giving more credit to WebObjects. Before NeXT was acquired by Apple, WebObjects was about the only thing left at NeXT that Steve Jobs could get excited about. Dell built their original success in web sales using it, and the US Postal Service redefined their business with it. Apple seems to like the product pretty well, as they use it to power GSX, their internal parts and warranty repair software used worldwide by dealers and repair centers, along with support.apple.com and a host of other internal systems.

Still, the really juicy secret of iTunes for Windows has to do with QuickTime. Apple released a music application for Windows to sell music, and they sell music to sell iPods. With competing devices selling for as little as a quarter the iPod’s price, and plenty of bootleg music available on the web to freely download into simpler devices, it’s hard to imagine how Apple can command 70% of the portable music market’s dollars. The answer obviously involves the iPod’s nearly perfect design, but the real magic behind the curtain is something imitators can’t knock off: Apple’s QuickTime Media Layer. Why that’s the case will take some explaining.

---

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/insideitunes1.html

[Star Traveler]

Second part...

---

Inside iTunes: Part II

The QuickTime Media Layer: Apple’s Best Kept Secret.

Apple defined multimedia before it was even a term, with the announcement of QuickTime in May of 1991, and its introduction at the January 1992 MacWorld in San Francisco. QuickTime was an ambitious project. While it was initially derided as a ‘jerky postage stamp video’, the technology was more than just a cutting edge movie player running on hardware that wasn’t quite to the task; it was an architecture for playing anything time related.

QuickTime developed into being essentially an operating system for media. It can package audio, video, instructions, timecodes and other temporal information using a variety of codecs; different codecs offer strengths suitable for the task at hand and the type of media. QuickTime magically handles the translation between codecs, abstracts the differences in hardware, layers together tracks of data and effects and keeps them all in sync. QuickTime also provides a programing environment to control the playback interface and orchestrate interaction between different types of media.

Apple planned their vision for QuickTime to reach beyond the Macintosh. Later that same year, in 1992, Apple announced QuickTime for Windows. Apple delivered QuickTime 2.0 first on the Mac, and then on Windows in 1994. Since QuickTime was an integrated component of the Macintosh System 7 operating system, the Windows version had to include a direct port of a lot of the secret Macintosh toolbox code. Consequently, it largely bypassed Windows to talk directly to the video hardware.

Concerned about Apple’s encroachment upon the PC market they intended to control, Microsoft released a competing standard called Video for Windows. But their product couldn’t match QuickTime’s performance because Windows, as a graphic DOS application, had never been designed to work with media.

The following year, Apple brought a legal suit against San Francisco Canyon, the developer they used to bring QuickTime to Windows. Canyon had resold Apple’s intellectual property to Intel, who then provided it to Microsoft for use in Video for Windows. In order to catch up to QuickTime’s performance on the PC, the stolen code allowed them to bypass Windows and use QuickTime’s architecture instead. Apple later sued Intel and Microsoft directly, and Microsoft was eventually forced to remove some of the offending code.

Stripped of the stolen performance code, Video for Windows became synonymous, like Microsoft Bob and WinCE, with bad software. So Microsoft entirely scrapped the name and started over with a new plan of attack. Today, while Microsoft admits on their website to having released Windows 1.0 and 2.0, and even suggests that customers used them, they carefully make no mention of Video for Windows.

Meanwhile, by 1996 Apple’s Mac OS was stagnating and begging for an overhaul or outright replacement. But QuickTime continued to shine. Apple had introduced QuickTime VR for immersive video, a QuickTime Music Architecture and new QuickTime conferencing features, and QuickTime was establishing itself as the clear leader in the content creation and distribution. This positioned the Mac as the place to create content for multimedia CDs and the developing web audience, even while the Mac platform itself lost marketshare.

---

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/insideitunes2.html

[Star Traveler]

Third part...

---

Inside iTunes: Part III

Microsoft: We hate your baby, please kill it

Microsoft responded to QuickTime’s success with announcements for Active Movie and Active X, which planned to do everything QuickTime could do; it would even be cross platform. Microsoft even defined a new Surround Video product to compete with QuickTime VR. It turned out to be almost entirely vaporware, but the false promises did little to displace QuickTime as the architecture for video, music and other multimedia production.

Active Movie and Active X turned into little more than a movie playback system and an API for video games. Later renamed DirectShow and DirectX, it became Windows’ architecture for dealing with video and graphics. Failing to deliver on cross platform promises did not slow down Microsoft’s advances in the industry, but ignoring the Mac market did allow Apple a home base to continue developing QuickTime.

QuickTime continued to gain support from third parties with the announcement of version 3, which simplified playback within web browsers and offered a way to start Internet playback before the download was complete. This was a direct blow to Microsoft; after initially failing to anticipate the impact of the Internet, Microsoft was now determined to control both the desktop web browser and all Internet servers, particularly the potentially lucrative video streaming market.

Apple senior vice-president Avadis Tevanian Jr. testified during the Microsoft antitrust trials that Microsoft approached them and demanded they drop QuickTime as a content delivery system. According to Tevanian, Apple executive Peter Hoddie asked Microsoft officials, “Are you asking us to kill playback? Are you asking us to knife the baby?” to which Microsoft official Christopher Phillips responded, “Yes, we want you to knife the baby.”

Apple continued development on QuickTime despite efforts by Microsoft to use all their resources to obliterate the entire media content and delivery market. Further insult to Microsoft was caused by the ISO’s choice of Apple’s QuickTime, instead of Microsoft’s proposed Advanced Streaming Format, as the architecture behind the developing MPEG-4 standard.

Microsoft responded by announcing Chromeffects, a technology that promised to deliver complex multimedia over low-bandwidth connections. Using HTML, XML, C++, VBScript, and Jscript, developers would turn a web browser into a rippling, 3D space with audio and video playback. A MacWeek article from August of 1998 quoted David Card, an analyst at Jupiter Communications as saying, “[Chromeffects is] cool software, and it’s not often I say Microsoft has cool software. Apple doesn’t have anything comparable.”

By the end of the year, Microsoft had shelved Chromeffects and moved on. Apple jumped decisively into the video streaming, starting 1999 with a promotional film trailer for Star Wars that attracted 6.4 million downloads. In the same year, Apple introduced QuickTime 4, which introduced streaming using standard Internet protocols, and partnered with Akamai to set up a movie trailer download site called QuickTime TV.

Apple’s late entry into the streaming server market put it in third place behind the established Real Player and Microsoft’s movie player of the week. With really no way to get installed on new PCs beyond voluntary downloads, Apple’s movie trailer park was its best chance at distribution. Apple also bundled its software with an array of hundreds of digital cameras. While Apple had the technology, Microsoft controlled the software put on desktops.

---

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/insideitunes3.html

[Star Traveler]

Fourth part...

---

Inside iTunes: Part IV

QuickTime Strikes Back

Apple’s defiant competition with Microsoft saved QuickTime from the fate suffered by other technologies, like Java, who thought they were partnering with Microsoft and instead ended up being ‘embraced and extended’ to death. At Apple’s acquisition of NeXT, the company found an operating system and management team able to keep up the fight, and Apple unleashed a series of attacks on Microsoft’s plans to control the content delivery industry.

Apple began aggressively moving QuickTime into the pro space, rolling out features to impress broadcasters and video professionals. Apple rescued a languishing QuickTime-based non-linear film editing project at Macromedia, led by the former developer of Adobe Premier, and turned it into Final Cut Pro.

Film editors started using Final Cut Pro on the side, simply to harness the magic of QuickTime to convert media documents and churn out quick previsualizations. Four versions later, Apple has an entrenched network of diehard Final Cut editors to compete with industry leader Avid. Apple also acquired Shake developer Nothing Real and Logic developer Emagic, further building upon plans to play in the high end digital production world.

QuickTime has also conquered on the low end, being the key component to a series of consumer applications that take advantage of its magic. QuickTime powers most digital cameras, particularly ones that also capture video and audio clips. Apple’s FireWire has been built into every digital camcorder as the standard way to move DV content, and QuickTime makes using DV as easy as using an audio-in jack. Similarly, Apple’s own iPhoto, iTunes, iDVD and iMovie enable home users to work with digital media with the ease of a word processor. QuickTime’s support for the underlying details enabled Apple’s success in quickly rolling out the ‘iLife’ suite of tools and in introducing iChat/AV for video conferencing.

---

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/insideitunes4.html

[Star Traveler]

Fifth part... [last one in this series...]

---

Inside iTunes: Part V

D.R.M. or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Of course, the QuickTime architecture isn’t needed to simply listen to music. Where QuickTime again becomes a key technology is in the area of Digital Rights Management. DRM aims to control digital media so it can only be used in ways the creator wants. Content creators, and particularly their distributors and marketers, have a history of severe paranoia, always worried that content users are not paying them as much as they could be.

The movie industry fought viciously against the introduction of the VCR, fearing they would lose profits if consumers could watch programming without commercials, or copy films for playback by an audience other than the one intended. The introduction of Digital Audio Tape was so feared by music labels that they insisted on draconian copy protection systems being legislated into the standard, which jacked up the price and delayed DAT until it was largely irrelevant. With the invention of recordable optical disc technologies, labels are again looking for a way to distribute content locked down to a single use.

Microsoft quickly acted to design an architecture of severely restricted media use. Through an initiative called Windows Media, the company licensed designs for playback devices that use a special file format locked down by the media creator. An array of security levels provide for different levels of paranoia, but also contribute to confusion for users.

Before Windows Media, CD buyers knew they could play the CD in any CD player, and rip tracks from the CD to copy for use with digital mp3 players. With Windows Media, a purchased track might only work on a computer or a special player, may or may not be able to be recorded to CD, and if fees aren’t paid for a subscription, all the content they think they own can suddenly expire. Additionally, if a purchased track fails in an attempt by a user to record it to CD, Windows Media might assume the task was complete and expire the ‘right’ to try burning it again.

Windows Media is a hit with distributors and manufacturers, but consumers have failed to show much support for the services that use it. If consumers had no other choice, Windows Media might eventually catch on. To that end, Microsoft hopes to make common standards like mp3 go away, replaced with the Windows Media format it owns.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, Apple, with iTunes for Windows, has introduced a far more consumer friendly system of DRM that allows users consistent and reasonable rights to use what they purchase, and provides reasonable protections for media creators and distributors.

Apple’s DRM is built into QuickTime. Suddenly, protected tracks bought through iTMS can play back on QuickTime anywhere, from Macs to PCs to Apple’s own iPod. Tracks can also be burned to CD to play anywhere CDs play. Microsoft countered the iTunes success by complaining that Apple’s system fails to support Windows Media, and warned that would limit its appeal to consumers who want the right to buy Microsoft technology. Windows users responded by downloading iTunes and installing QuickTime.

Apple has established itself as the destination for purchased music on the Internet, defined the standard for reasonableness in protected media, developed and built the most desirable music player in the industry, and offered consumers an alternative to Windows Media. And this week, Apple deployed to millions of Windows users, voluntarily, the latest version of their QuickTime software, further extending their reach in providing cross platform media creation and playback. Hell certainly has frozen over.

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http://www.roughlydrafted.com/insideitunes5.html

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A side note here.... DRM has finally been removed from the songs at the iTunes Music Store, as the music companies finally “gave up” and took if off the table. Apple finally won out over the music companies, in this instance... :-)

[aft_lizard]

That still has nothing to do with the browser. THe browser is nothing but a portal for you to access and download information.

[driftdiver]

And when did I say the browser had anything to do with it?