Technology licensed from Roland will give QuickTime 3.0 a library of 100 instrument sounds as well as more parameters for controlling music playback.
Using technology licensed from Roland Corporation, Apple's QuickTime 3.0 multimedia playback software will now include a library of 100 instrument sounds as well as more parameters for controlling music playback. Roland is a well-known manufacturer of electronic musical instruments and audio equipment that is making a foray into multimedia products.
Apple says the new technology will give software and Web site developers new capabilities for playback of high-quality music in an interactive format.
Apple's soon-to-debut QuickTime 3.0 technology has already added support for several new digital media technologies, including AVI (a commonly used full-motion Windows video standard) and DV (a format used by new digital video cameras).
Apple is planning on extending QuickTime features in other ways. At a recent industry conference, Apple said it intends to give users the ability to apply different special effects to a video clip in real time. The company is also adding the ability in QuickTime VR (for virtual reality) scenes to "stitch" a series of photos together automatically to quickly build a 360-degree view of an environment.
The final release of QuickTime 3.0 for the general public is expected to be ready in January of 1998, according to Apple.