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MacEdition Pro News : July 19, 2002: QuickTime gotchas, EyeTV, storage and revolutions

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MWNY is winding down but have you still got one more day at the expo and time to kill? Read on...

QuickTime 6 finally released, gotchas ahead

In case you slept through Steve’s keynote, the final release of QuickTime 6 is out. And not before time. Don’t blame Apple for the delay this time though – the hand-wringing over royalties with the MPEG-LA is responsible for that. QuickTime 6 is chock full of goodies, the fine print of which you can check out here. The jewel in the crown of course, is MPEG-4, which among many other things, actually made the MWNY keynote stream watchable. As Martha would say, it’s a really good thing.

However, there are a few caveats. Observant readers may wondering where the MPEG-2 playback ended up. When the QT6 public preview was released sans MPEG-2 playback, the public preview FAQ had this to say:

I thought QuickTime 6 included MPEG-2 decoding. Where is it?

The QuickTime MPEG-2 decode component is not available during the preview period but will be available when QuickTime 6 is final.

Yet a quick perusal of the features of QuickTime 6, both standard and Pro, reveal nothing on MPEG-2 playback. That’s because the MPEG-2 playback has ended up bundled as an add-on – let’s call it “QuickTime 6 Pro Plus”. It’s $19.95, on top of the $29.95 for the Pro edition. That’s $19.95 per operating system, a registration key for Mac OS X will not work on Mac OS 9, so that will be $70 for full QuickTime functionality – ouch!

One other word of caution before jumping into QuickTime 6: QT5 Pro keys, regardless of when you bought them, will not work with QuickTime 6. Royalty negotiations with the MPEG-LA are at least partly the reason for the need for new Pro registration keys. However, previous versions had a sizable grace period and it’s disappointing there’s no discount arrangement for recent QT5 Pro customers.

Combined with the pricing strategies for .Mac and Jaguar, Mac users could be forgiven for wondering whether history will remember them as “the last of the BOHICAns”...

Aye Carumba! It’s EyeTV!

Forget Steve’s keynote (some no doubt are trying to), EyeTV from El Gato Software makes going to MWNY worthwhile. What is it? Well for all intents and purposes it’s “iVCR” – a digital video recording system for the Mac:

Eye TV Digital Video Recorder frees you from TV schedules. Find shows you want to see and watch them when you want to watch them. Pause live television. Skip Commercials. Record your favorite shows permanently using your CD burner. EyeTV will change the way you watch television.
 

– Find Shows Fast

EyeTV’s integrated program guide helps you find shows of interest using keyword searches. Enter the name (or just part of the name) of your favorite actor, type of show (sports, comedy, action) or show title and let EyeTV find out when it is playing next.
 

– Watch TV on your Mac

EyeTV includes a 124-channel cable-ready TV tuner and MPEG encoder to digitize and send TV signals to you Mac over a standard USB cable (included). EyeTV software then displays the TV show in a resizable window or you can even watch full screen.
 

– Record without tapes

EyeTV can do everything a VCR does without the hassle of bulky VHS tapes. EyeTV only needs 650 MBs of disk space to store an hour of video on your hard disk. If you want a permanent copy, use your CD recorder to burn a VideoCD that is playable in your home DVD player.
 

– Pause “live” television

EyeTV gives you the freedom to attend to interruptions without missing your favorite shows. You can pause whatever you’re watching, whether it’s a live television broadcast or a recorded show, and then resume watching whenever you’re ready.
 

– Add an external remote control

EyeTV is compatible with the Keyspan Digital Media Remote. Our install CD includes a Keyspan key mapping file which can be imported into the Keyspan Digital Media Remote software. This will automatically configure your Keyspan remote for use with EyeTV. The EyeTV User’s Guide has complete instructions on how to add a Keyspan Digital Media Remote for use with EyeTV.
 

– Control your viewing

EyeTV lets you see more or less. You can use the Jump button to skip over the stuff you don’t want to see, like commercials or use the Instant Replay button to watch a favorite scene over and over . . .

EyeTV requires Mac OS X 10.1.5 or greater, a built-in USB port, 20MB disk space for the application, 650MB disk space for each hour of recorded video and an Internet connection for the program listings guide.

Don’t tell Steve but it looks like the Mac has just become a “brain off” device. EyeTV is available now for $199 but if you buy during the week of MWNY (that would be the week ending today) you get $20 off. So check it out quick!

Storage! Storage! Storage!

If you’re at MWNY and looking for the latest in hard drive storage, make sure you check out WeibeTech at booth #158 in the Jacob Javits Convention Center. They’re debuting several products at MWNY, namely the NanoGB, the Super DriveDock, the UltraGB and a three port FireWire card.

NanoGB is a new fast FireWire pocket drive. It also has a sister-product, the NanoGB-USB, for USB 2.0 connectivity. The Super DriveDock is a FireWire bus-powered bridge interface attachable to any 3.5-inch IDE drive (that’s right – a bus powered 3.5 inch IDE drive). The UltraGB is a bus-powered FireWire storage device utilizing 3.5-inch drives, no power cables necessary. Finally, the new three port PCI card from WeibeTech has one novel feature: the third port is for internal use, allowing owners of recent PowerMacs to install internal FireWire devices.

That booth number again – booth #158: Jacob Javits Convention Center.

Whatever happened to the revolution?

No, we’re not talking about the old Skyhooks song, but Runtime Revolution’s preview of its software development application, Revolution version 1.5, at MWNY:

Revolution 1.5, scheduled for release in 3Q 2002, continues Runtime Revolution’s mission to deliver the best in rapid application development. Version 1.5 builds on Revolution’s proven power and ease, bringing major new features to Revolution’s developer community:

  • XML library for creating and parsing XML documents
  • Spreadsheet-format text fields
  • New sound-recording architecture
  • MIDI music file creation and playing
  • Windows of any size and shape
  • Fully Perl-compatible regular expressions
  • Transcript Cookbook of useful script routines

In addition, OS X functionality is slated to increase across the board, with newly-available Unix functionality and better SQL database access on the OS X platform.

Macworld Expo attendees are invited to visit Runtime Revolution in the MacTech Central Pavilion at booth 2023, Wednesday through Friday:

  • Check out the latest enhancements to Revolution.
  • Chat with the Revolution development team.
  • See“Maggie”, the kilt-wearing, madly programming, Scottish teddy bear! Maggie comes to Macworld Expo carrying her soft toy Titanium Powerbook. Software developers of all ages are welcome to come along and have a look and a smile.

[...]

Several editions of Revolution, including the popular Small Business Edition and the Student/Teacher Edition, will be on sale throughout the show at the DevDepot store in booth 2023.

The Professional Edition, which includes technical support, more powerful database-access features, and all updates for a year, is priced at $995. Other license options include the Small Business Edition at $299; K-12 educational licenses starting at $25 (minimum ten copies); the free downloadable Starter Kit Edition; and discounted educational, multi-pack, and site licensing plans. Every edition enables developers to develop software on and build for every supported platform.

We just had to mention a press release that combines programming and teddy bears!

Looking for old ProNews segments? Check out our index at http://old.macedition.com/news/. Do you have news releases or tidbits of interest to the Macintosh professional? Send them to pronewsnotes@macedition.com.

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