Apple Rolls Out Newest Version of QuickTime for Macintosh

Multimedia Software Adds Many Advanced Features for Both Developers and
Consumers

CUPERTINO, California--August 21, 1995--Furthering its leadership in
multimedia, Apple Computer, Inc. today announced the availability of
QuickTime 2.1 for Macintosh, the newest version of the industry standard
multimedia software. QuickTime now offers enhancements that will enable
developers to create multimedia titles that are even more feature rich.

QuickTime, Apple's software architecture, supports the integration of media
such as sound, video and animation in a consistent, seamless fashion to
personal computers. It is the only architecture that can truly deliver
multimedia content across multiple platforms.

"Apple continues to push the envelope in multimedia innovation with this
new version of QuickTime, especially for that vast majority of developers
that use the Macintosh for multimedia content creation," commented Tom
Ryan, director of Media Products at Apple. "The new features found in
QuickTime--from sprites to advanced audio support--demonstrate Apple's
continued multimedia leadership."

QuickTime is much more than simply a playback engine for video and audio.
It includes extensive authoring and editing capabilities, including the
ability to manipulate text and capture sound and video. The QuickTime
architecture enables developers to work with diverse types of multimedia
content--MPEG, software video, animations, internet sound, text, MIDI
sequences, virtual reality scenes, still images, motion JPEG, CD-quality
sound--and work with them all as QuickTime movies. This allows developers
to focus on creative content instead of how to integrate different
technologies.

New Features of QuickTime 2.1 for Macintosh QuickTime 2.1 for Macintosh
offers many new features including:

-- Sprite Toolbox/Sprite Track

Character-based animation, or sprites, has always played an important role
in multimedia. The new sprite toolbox in QuickTime 2.1 provides developers
with a high-performance sprite engine, with all sprite images stored as
QuickTime compressed images. QuickTime 2.1 for Macintosh also adds a
sprite track, which allows sprite animations to be included as part of a
QuickTime movie. Because the sprite animation is contained in a movie, it
is automatically synchronized with other multimedia elements such as
sound. A movie using a sprite track can be more highly compressed than a
traditional QuickTime animation, as each character image is only included
once.

-- Modifier Tracks

QuickTime 2.1 for Macintosh includes a new Modifier Track feature which
allows for the creation of extremely dynamic movies. For example, instead
of playing video in the normal way, a video track can send its image data
to a sprite track. When the movie is played, the video track appears as
one of the sprites.

Another use of the Modifier Tracks is to store a series of sound volume
levels, enabling a developer to dynamically adjust the volume of a sound
track. Similarly, Modifier Tracks can store dynamic location and size
information, enabling a video track to move and resize as it plays.

-- Sound Manager Performance

Sound Manager 3.1, included with QuickTime 2.1 for Macintosh, provides
significantly enhanced recording and playback performance on all Power
Macintosh computers. In fact, performance increases of 500 percent or more
have been achieved. Because Sound Manager 3.1 handles sound more
efficiently on the Power Macintosh, more time is available for playing
QuickTime video tracks, resulting in higher frame rates and smoother
overall video playback and recording.

-- New Audio Compression Formats

Sound Manager 3.1 provides two new audio compression formats for 16-bit
sound: IMA and Law. The IMA 4:1 audio compression format is based on an
Interactive Multimedia Association standard. The Law 2:1 format is an
international standard for compressing voice-quality audio (typically
16-bit, 8 kHz speech), often used in telephony applications and on the
Internet as the encoding format for ".AU" sound files. Sound Manager 3.1
also enables third-party audio compression algorithms to be integrated by
providing a plug-in architecture for audio compressors and decompressors.

-- Bigger, Higher-Quality Video

Using a new technique for authoring video content, QuickTime 2.1 for
Macintosh enables content developers to create video that is larger and
looks better on most computers, yet still plays back well on slower
systems. Now consumers can play movies at full-screen on most computers;
on entry-level computers, the video can be played back at half size.

-- 256 Color Cinepak

Previously, images compressed with Cinepak, the most common digital video
compression format in use today, have been stored in a format using
millions of colors. However, most computers only have 256 color display
devices, resulting in noticeable image quality degradation when Cinepak
movies are played. QuickTime 2.1 for Macintosh adds a 256 color format to
Cinepak, enabling high-quality video playback without any color
remapping.

-- CD-ROM AutoStart

The AutoStart feature--available since the introduction of QuickTime
2.0--enables multimedia developers to create CD-ROMs that automatically
start up when the disc is inserted. QuickTime's AutoStart capability makes
it even easier for consumers to use CD-ROM titles.

-- Easier Text Track Creation

QuickTime 2.1 for Macintosh adds a settings dialog so users can control the
font, font size, style and color of the text. Text tracks, part of
QuickTime since version 1.5, are frequently used as captions for video,
song lyrics, and more.

-- Importing Internet Sound

Using QuickTime 2.1 for Macintosh, Sound Manager 3.1 and any
QuickTime-aware application (such as Apple's MoviePlayer or Simple Text),
a consumer can now transparently open and play ".WAV" and ".AU" format
sound files, commonly found on the World Wide Web.

-- Additional Features

QuickTime 2.1 for Macintosh provides many other advanced features,
including:

- Full-Screen Support: QuickTime 2.1 for Macintosh provides a convenient
way for developers to easily change the monitor resolution within their
title so the content fills the entire screen.

- QuickTime Conferencing Support: QuickTime 2.1 for Macintosh, with its
support for compressing audio as it is captured, is used by QuickTime
Conferencing--Apple's videoconferencing solution--to reduce the amount of
network bandwidth required to transmit high-quality audio.

- Apple MPEG Support: QuickTime 2.1 for Macintosh supports the Apple MPEG
Media System, providing expanded MPEG support for multimedia developers.

- Professional Digital Video Enhancement: QuickTime 2.1 for Macintosh
includes play back support that allows digital video compression cards to
provide QuickTime with memory to store compressed video data as it is read
from the disk. Demands on the processor's bus are reduced by up to 50% for
the compression cards that support this feature, providing for smooth
video play back at even higher data rates.

End-User Price/Availability

The QuickTime 2.1 for Macintosh runtime software is available immediately
for end-users, for US$9.95. QuickTime is available on-line in The Store on
ZiffNet/Mac and ZiffNet. ZiffNet/Mac members can type GO MACSTORE and
ZiffNet members can type GO STORE. QuickTime 2.1 is also available on the
Macintosh Users Group (MAUG) on CompuServe. To access, users can type GO
QTIME. QuickTime 2.1 for Macintosh is also available on the World Wide Web
at http://quicktime.apple.com/

Developer Price/Availability

The Software Developers Kit (SDK) for developers is expected to be
available in late 1995, for a price of US$99. Developers can license the
software free of charge for redistribution with applications, titles and
media clip libraries that support QuickTime.

System Requirements

QuickTime 2.1 for Macintosh requires a color Macintosh computer running
System 6.0.7 or later.

Apple Computer, Inc., a recognized pioneer and innovator in the information
industry, creates powerful solutions based on easy-to-use personal
computers, servers, peripherals, software, on-line services, and personal
digital assistants. Headquartered in Cupertino California, Apple
(NASDAQ:AAPL) develops, manufactures, licenses and markets products,
technologies and services for the business, education, consumer,
scientific & engineering and government markets in over 140 countries.

Customer Information Contact: If you are considering the purchase of an
Apple product and would like to have product information faxed to you,
please call 1-800-462-4396 in the U.S. or (415) 598-4329 in Canada. If you
do not have a fax machine or would like to locate an Apple authorized
reseller near you, please call 1-800-538-9696. Customers outside the U.S.
should contact their local Apple representatives for information.

Apple's home page on the World Wide Web: http://www.apple.com/ The
QuickTime Online home page on the World Wide Web is:
http://quicktime.apple.com/
 
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