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Native MPEG-4 Streaming

QuickTime 6 provides support for native MPEG-4 streaming. Standard hinted MPEG-4 files can be served directly, without converting to .mov files.

For authoring in QuickTime 6, there are new packetizers and reassemblers, one for audio and one for video. These are used to take a .mov or .mp4 and produce a hinted .mov, or a hinted .mp4. (MP4 files have in them a definition of hint tracks, which is the QuickTime version of hint tracks.) Authors can then take this movie and place it on a Streaming Server. The MPEG-4 file format includes hint tracks which are the same as native QuickTime hint tracks.

Using QuickTime Streaming Server 4––Apple’s streaming media server––for example, you can serve ISO-compliant hinted MPEG-4 files to any ISO-compliant MPEG-4 client, including any MPEG-4 enabled device that supports playback of MPEG-4 streams over IP. You can also serve on-demand or live MPEG-4 streams, and reflect playlists of MPEG-4 files.

Note that QuickTime 6 does not support interleave for RTP audio packing.

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