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Microsoft Code in Every HD-DVD Player
Posted by
michael
on Sat Feb 28, 2004 03:25 PM
from the pay-your-microsoft-tax-today dept.
from the pay-your-microsoft-tax-today dept.
Neophytus writes "The DVD Forum steering group has given preliminary backing to Microsoft's VC-9 codec along with H.264 and MPEG-2 as mandatory playback modes for HD-DVD players. Having this technology, the most fundamental part of Windows Media Player 9, in every new DVD player could well give Microsoft major leverage into the Cable and Satellite TV markets where currently MPEG2 dominates. The approval is pending an update in licencing terms and other conditions within 60 days."
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Microsoft Code in Every HD-DVD Player
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Hmm... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
If they would have loaded these things with DRM right away there would have been more outcry from the knowledgable public (bit of an oxymoron there). Just having their plain codec onboard so many machines gives them the leverage to toss in DRM when the time is right.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.jimbosworld.org/)
Microsoft will no longer be the ones to control revisions added to the codec if it's approved. SMPTE will be.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.gekidoslair.com/)
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Funny)
I still can't believe they wanted to replace
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://blog.jrock.us/ | Last Journal: Sunday October 10 2004, @04:11AM)
MS? No. Never.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://bitshift.org/)
Let's take a look at the T2 disc that is available with WM9 HD content now.
To watch it, you have to install the player on the disc.
Then, the player needs to "call home" to make sure you're allowed to use it (via the Internet).
Then, the player needs to be updated.
Then the update needs to call home.
If it hasn't crashed by then (mine did, three times), you MIGHT get to watch your DVD.
Remember DIVX? Not the codec, the abomination Circuit City was pushing as an alternative to what we now call DVD? Basically a dial-home, pay-per-view DVD format.
Do we REALLY want that whole scenario all over again?
I HATE the way companies try to push all of this before the general consumer populace is even aware it's occurring. DVD early-adopters won the DIVX battle, but primarily because Circuit City was the only distributor, and they were easy to boycott. They were also in poor financial shape to begin with, and couldn't bankroll a protracted battle to push their format through.
MS can. MS will. And our DVD players will have to dial home to ask for permission every time we want to watch a DVD. And you can be certain that "ask permission" will morph into "pay for use" at some point in the future.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft submitted a codec standard. That standard was accepted as one of the new codecs that will be implimented (by the manufacturers) into the new style DVD players. MS has no control over individual implimentations. This is no different then how some DVD players can now play DivX DVDs (DVDs containing a DivX 5 compatiblity mode encoded avi), except that it will be standard on all units, not just a few special ones.
How does this benefit Microsoft?
Since it doesn't give them any control over your DVD player, no special software installed (you can't install software on a DVD player) like the crackhead suggests, they must be getting something. What they are getting is a foot in the DVD door. They can now make more comprehensive DVD burning tools in Longhorn (MS is also likely looking at trying to get digital video camera makers to support the codec too, so you can seamlessly move video from camera, to computer, to DVD-R). The other $advantage$ is that they are now the IBM of one of the new DVD codecs. If studios want to encode DVDs in this manner (which MS will of course strongly market it as the being the "best" choice) they'll want to use tools from the people who know the codec best, which means MS can make lots of money licencing encoders to the people who have lots of money to spend.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is, until MS wins the contract with most manufacturers to be the implementator of the software. Then, you'll no longer be able to separate the codec and the DRM package that comes with it.
Does bundling sound familiar?
One thin dime (Score:5, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/~Doc%20Ruby/journal | Last Journal: Thursday March 31 2005, @01:48PM)
Re:One thin dime (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Hmm...Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
what are the licensing terms? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.jimbosworld.org/)
Re:what are the licensing terms? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.ferion.net/ | Last Journal: Monday May 06 2002, @02:16AM)
That's pretty much how it's going to work, man. The industry really wants to prevent competition from their own customers.
Re:what are the licensing terms? (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Monday September 06 2004, @08:46PM)
The amount that Microsoft would get paid (if any) would be pennies. I would probably bet that Microsoft would make a deal so they don't have to pay the licensing fee on the Xbox 2 to play DVDs.
Re:what are the licensing terms? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.kabewm.com/)
This still assumes the following:
1) HD-DVD takes off, and BluRay or (insert competition here) doesn't
2) The manufactuers mostly based in South East Asia don't sign on to the DRM & Royaltee Free Chinese HD DVD standard. (Wow China free'er than the US, interesting times indeed.)
3) They don't price themselves out of a cutthroat market
Those are all pretty big assumptions. With the average dvd player costing around 60 bucks, HD DVD will have to be really clear and cost really cheap to license.
In addition, with a free standard available in a region where all the manufacturing takes place there is a possibility that we may all end up using that instead. These South East Asian companies are like the OPEC of the Entertainment Industry, and don't think for one second that they don't realize they can wreak havoc on how things are done in the US with a few tweaks or changes here and there.
Re:what are the licensing terms? (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Saturday March 17 2007, @08:48AM)
Re:what are the licensing terms? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:what are the licensing terms? (Score:5, Informative)
(http://houndwire.com/)
Re:what are the licensing terms? (Score:5, Insightful)
Although by the time OSS catches up, Microsoft's going to have come up with something even better and patented it. Well, maybe not Microsoft, but somebody.
You can't chase a moving target by aiming at where they were six months ago.
Re:what are the licensing terms? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your comment gives the mistaken impression that OSS is somehow destined to always be behind proprietary software, as far as innovation and technical superiority is concerned. Microsoft and SCO love that notion, but unfortunately for them, it's not true. OSS is overtaking proprietary software in many areas, and it's reasonable to expect this trend to continue.
Here are just some of many examples of innovative, open-source software:
Re:what are the licensing terms? (Score:5, Informative)
It is also not a "pure" OO language, you can write linear script like, write procedural, even pure functional and ofource OO, or combine them all. Although the syntax is pretty strikt unlike perl, the way you can program is very open.
I'm not a windows programmer, but I have played with Python under windows, and a large part of the windows API is exposed "as standard" in python.
It is also very easy to add API and callbacks in Python. For example I build in a few days a coupling that alowed python to be used as a TopEnd (Transactional middleware) service/application component. (You were talking about transaction based systems)
Now, I'm sure not everything you mentioned are already exposed to python, but the parent also told about a full decade, that is 10 years.
And I am sure You could make everything you put in that list by yourself in a year, including learning python language and concept.
Python is very easy to pick up, even by non-programmers. There are people teaching Python to their 6 year olds. I've noticed there is even turtle graphics (from the old LOGO language) in Python.
Also the interactive python interpreter is very nice, you can test and learn concepts on its command prompt. even making TCP connections, opening windows, changing fields in excel, or connecting to a transaction system.
My languages of choice are Python/C, I know many more languages, but I don't need more. (except for work, but that is not by choice). I use C mostly if things needs to be fast (such as image, video or audio processing) or if I want to expose a API to Python.
Now, I'm certan that technicaly VB can easely be replaced by Python. There are many political reasons that this may not be the case.
Re:what are the licensing terms? (Score:5, Informative)
VC-9 has patents involved. You can't legally reverse engineer a patent and use it. Hell, you can't even legally use a patented item that you developed independently.
Re:what are the licensing terms? (Score:5, Informative)
Every modern codec requires licensing fees.
Like this? [vorbis.com]
Re:what are the licensing terms? (Score:5, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/~hummassa | Last Journal: Wednesday August 22, @05:11AM)
Re:what are the licensing terms? (Score:5, Interesting)
However, an open source player, distributed in source form, could be considered a sample implementation and might thus avoid said royalties for users savvy enough to be able to compile them on their own.
]{
Re:what are the licensing terms? (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.cryptognomic.net/ | Last Journal: Monday November 19, @06:33PM)
This automatically excludes any open-source (ie FREE) implementations, as either the end-users (??) or the distributors (most likely) would be held responsible for unlicensed copies.
Yeah it's only Ten Cents, but it's a Big Legal Stick that The Monopoly can BEAT you with.
Score+1 for Microsoft vs OpenSource.
Hopefully... (Score:2, Interesting)
(http://www.treehugger.com/ | Last Journal: Friday March 19 2004, @12:15AM)
I don't know what exactly the chances of that happening are, considering Microsoft's record, but it's possible..
One can hope.
Re:Hopefully... (Score:5, Informative)
I'd like to see... (Score:1, Funny)
(http://www.philtur.com/)
Only if its cheaper :)
Uh oh. (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.citymax.com/)
Sometimes the shortest sentences can mean the most. Here's one: Uh oh.
Re:Uh oh. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Uh oh. (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder how long it will be (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah (Score:1, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Friday August 31, @07:08PM)
No facts, no reasons, no nothing. Just "OH LOOK EVERYONE M$ IS AT IT AGAIN!! KILL KILL!!!"
Re:Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.google.com/)
Yes that is the description of your posting. To the rest of us the
That is a lot of facts with a lot of implications.
If you study the history of standards and technology, you will know that that will most likely be very bad for consumers in the end (or for the standard itself to take off to begin with: what do you think will happen with the chinse hd-dvd standard with this news?)
Re:Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://ceejayoz.com/ | Last Journal: Monday June 05 2006, @06:14AM)
Yeah, well, apparently "the rest of you" can't read, or just prefer to bash Microsoft without justification.
As a condition to Microsoft before it could establish VC-9 as a standard, it had to strip VC-9 of proprietary status, Majidimehr said. The company satisfied that condition when it submitted the underlying video compression technology to SMPTE last year and opened up its software to developers for the first time. Now developers can download the technical spec, build on it and not be beholden to Microsoft.
Re:Yeah (Score:5, Informative)
It's no different than MPEG-4. An open, but not free, standard that you pay a royalty to the owner to use. Open standards can still be patented, all it means is that the technology is open to the world and there is a standard licensing fee that anyone can pay to use said technology.
Firewire would be another example. It's not a free technology, Apple owns it and you have to pay them royalties to use it. However the technical spec is open for anyone to look at and provided you pay the royalties, Apple is happy to have you implement their technology.
This is actually an example of the patent system working as it should. A company does research, makes the results available to the world to use, and profits from it. That was the intent as perscribed in the constitution.
It's called r-e-p-u-t-a-t-i-o-n (Score:5, Insightful)
Then the other side of it, what has Microsoft actually done that is new? You sure won't find much. They are excellent at doing a shoddy job of copying others.
Consider a serial killer, say that guy in Canada who murdered several dozen prostitutes. Would you suggest that some other prostitute should take a chance on that guy?
I doubt it. So why should anyone believe a thing Microsoft says, or have any expectations for future decency in any of their current activities?
Reputations take time to build. Microsoft has shot their own reputation so many times that it will take a wholesale change of corporate leadership to change their reputation, and years and years of reinforcing that new sense of ethics. In the meantime, they continue to reinforce their current reputation. Apologists like yourself do them no good.
Not surprisising (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://finnbiff.multiply.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday May 12 2007, @10:04AM)
Microsoft has clearly working towards extending their influence from PCs to more general game console/home entertainment centres.
My question is, why has there been no professioanl lobbyist for open source involved with this workgroup? At this level, technical merits don't matter. It's all about politics (which is kind of a good thing; I'd hate to live in a technocratic soceity run by engineers).
Here we go again (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Sunday April 11 2004, @07:41PM)
Microsoft doesn't make money off Media Player. It isn't a real selling point for Windows. Media Player isn't used in any productive manner by businesses.
But, if you make sure that your video codec, which only Media Player will can ever use to it's full potential, is the de facto standard, and insure that Media Player only runs on Windows.....
Re:Here we go again (Score:5, Informative)
(Last Journal: Wednesday May 16 2007, @12:43PM)
Re:Here we go again (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.theantix.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday April 12 2005, @02:47PM)
What is MS decided one day not to support OSX?"
You're just another one of those slashdot OSS zealots, aren't you? I bet you can't name three examples of technologies that they used in this manner. What's that, you say you can? Well I'm sure this time they will be nice and fair, despite their past history and obvious motivation. Stop trolling.... la la la I can't hear you la la la!
Re:Here we go again (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the slowest thing I've ever used; VLC and MPlayer play back Microsoft's own video format far faster than their own product does. I can usually play back high-resolution DivX movies fine on my old iMac, but if I try to watch a crappy little WMV I often get about 1fps in WMP. Oh, and the interface is horrible (tries to look like a native OS X app and fails) and I often run into video it refuses to play. That's not even mentioning how you can't install it if your drive is formatted as UFS.
"Microsoft Code in Every HD-DVD Player" (Score:1)
Mixed feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
However, this quote reduced the fear factor for me: "Last September, Microsoft submitted its Windows Media Series 9 as a standards candidate to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE)--a first for the company and a marked departure from its longtime commitment to keeping its technology proprietary".
At least they went to an appropriate standards body and are sharing this codec with the public. It's an interesting thing when a technology takes the path from proprietary to standard. Lots of technologies take the path from research -> standard, and not as many go from proprietary -> standard.
It's a truly funny article (Score:5, Insightful)
"All those fears were on their mind," Majidimehr said. "At the end of the day they said, We're going to trust Microsoft."
Now, forgive me from laughing at that, but my mind is wandering towards the various ways that Microsoft will exploit this for their own gain:
1) They can increase the licence fees on the new DVD-9 standard. That's not ineffective because once endorsed and DVDs are released, all players will have to support (and pay) for Microsoft's DVD-9 even if other formats are supported.
2) They will 'extend' the standard. You can see this coming, can't you? "New DVD-9.1 with extra tracks that are only accessible if you buy Microsoft's new dvd player/software/media unit... etc. etc." This is pretty predictable.
3) They will offer discounts for those players that remove support for the other standards, thus forcing DVD producers to produce in the only format guaranteed to be multiplayer. Again, pretty predictable -- it's what they always do.
4) They will patent the transmission of "over the air" DVD-9, so any future Tivo like device will have to pay royalties.
I could go on, but you see where Microsoft's going with this. It's a horrible, horrible decision for the DVD steering committee. They've just voted themselves into the guillotine. "Trust Microsoft" -- sheesh!
Re:It's a truly funny article (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://felter.org/wesley/)
Who said anything about DVD-9? We're talking about HD-DVD, which is not the same thing.
2) They will 'extend' the standard.
Who cares? The DVD Forum will ensure that every HD-DVD plays on every HD-DVD player. Even "basic" HD-DVDs will be so high quality that I don't care about extensions.
3) They will offer discounts for those players that remove support for the other standards
The DVD Forum won't allow this. If your player has the HD-DVD logo on it, it must play every HD-DVD disc, period.
Excuse me, but royalties are paid on DVDs TODAY (Score:5, Informative)
Neither MPEG-2 nor the other technologies that are part of the DVD standard are free (save for possibly PCM audio). Furthermore, the hardware royalties are quite nominal as shown by the proliferation of DVD players, on the order of less than a dollar as the FAQ shows clearly. MPEG-4 Part 10 (aka H.264) and MPEG-2 are still available for use in authoring DVDs. Nobody is forcing anyone to use WMV9 if they don't want to. Just because Microsoft's CODEC is included in the standard doesn't mean that they're taking over anything. It's not mandatory.
This will be a big push for EVD (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Re:This will be a big push for EVD (Score:5, Informative)
(http://felter.org/wesley/)
Sceptical.. (Score:5, Interesting)
A quote that can be compared to this:
"Emacs would be a great Operating System, if someone wrote a good text-editor for it"
Well, Windows Media Player would be an awesome operating system, if someone wrote a good app for viewing videos. Dont misunderstand me here, wmp is good, but it would be better without all of the effects and features that does nothing more than slow down the entire program. This makes me think of something: In Windows 3.1/3.11 there was this program called mplayer. It worked perfectly, it didnt have any other features than those you need, and it was stable as hell. It is still included in Windows98, but like notepad: Microsoft does not like keeping simple things simple. I can only hope they do so when injecting their code into my DVD-player..
embrace and distend (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/~Doc%20Ruby/journal | Last Journal: Thursday March 31 2005, @01:48PM)
Three manditory playback modes means (Score:5, Informative)
(Last Journal: Thursday September 09 2004, @09:38PM)
Re:Three manditory playback modes means (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Monday March 20 2006, @08:33PM)
Concentrating only on users (i.e. neglecting HD-DVD player producers), if every man were an island unto himself, then yes.
Vendors, of course, will have to pay royalties to MSFT if they want to be able to claim to support the standard (which will be important).
Unfortunately, we're not islands. We don't produce all of the movies we watch ourselves, so we're not free to choose the format. If MSFT's format doesn't see widespread use, then it's not a big deal. If the format becomes the major format for future DVD movies, then there's no way of going around it short of not watching HD-DVD. And while one can vote with one's wallet, that only has a certain scope. I.e. if the general masses don't care enough, there's not much you can do about it, aside from throwing your gnat's weight into it.
Personally, given how the current Western corporations are all about screwing the end user (Palladium/NGSCB, DRM at every turn, LaGrande, DVD-CSS, and its followup), I see a huge market for Asia to snag. And I, for one, will cheer them on if they let me do what I want with the movies I purchase. I bought the music/movies; I'm not stealing them or helping others steal them; they have no right to abridge my use of it.
Feeding the Machine (Score:2, Insightful)
(http://six5535.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday June 23 2004, @01:47AM)
If this gets put through we will (in)voluntarily be helping the corporation whom we all love to hate. Other than the licencing issues, what other problems will this create? More costly DVD players?
I really can't see this working out in places like Belgium (where you'd be hard-pressed to find an un-chiped dvd player.) Most countries other than the US have no respect for this money hungry corporation, but everyone uses their products. This 'company' is trying to force people to use them again, and again.
This should be struck down by FTC regulations, within the allotted '60 days.'
Since it's media player based... (Score:5, Funny)
Um an idea (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://libtom.org/)
This way the content producers can use the codec they like not the ones they are forced to by another governing body. OSS people can use their Xvid [or whatever] and the commercial entities can use their MPEG2 [or whatever].
Put something like a Crusoe with CMS+8MB of ram in the player and just load the codec at play time. Cheap, power efficient and enough MIPS to run any decent codec.
Tom
Re:Um an idea (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://finnbiff.multiply.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday May 12 2007, @10:04AM)
You are clearly viewing this from the techie's point of view. All that is secondary for those who get to decide.
Re:Um an idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Just take some time to think about the cheapest general processor based system you have ever seen that is capable of decoding MPEG-2 without dropping frames, and then compare it to the sub-50 dollar DVD players out there. It is a nice dream, but the price is a lot higher overall, and customers would be resistant to such a market change.
Bad idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Kjella
Being in DVD doesn't help Cable/DBS... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ease the translation (Score:5, Interesting)
HDTV content really does look and sound awesome and I itch to get my hands on HD movies. But if it would require a whole new format HD-DVD would fall flat on its face, not because of the need for new players as having to introduce another disc format in stores at a time when DVD has huge momentum. It would annoy customers and retailers.
WM9 can fit a feature length film at 720p with decent 5.1 sound in 3-5 GB. With so many DVDs now coming as a 2-Disc set anyway it doesn't seem like much effort to throw in a HD WM9 version along side the standard DVD version and some movies (e.g. Terminator 2) have already done this. No need for a new production processes, wacky labeling at retail outlets, etc. This way those of us wanting HD content won't get snubbed while waiting for a more lossless based (MPEG2) HD-DVD format to get settled and at the same time it won't upset the currently booming DVD market.
The only annoying thing about movies like this at the moment is they usually require that the player bundled with the movie is used to aquire the license instead of just the standard media player. Most of those bundled players are annoying and mess up far more often. It will be nice when the internet authentication based DRM gets removed so I can just watch things on my netless media PC.
You can view clips of WM9-HD stuff on the MS website, but honestly their samples are a little disappointing and the two feature length films I watched in the format looked WAY better. It takes quite a bit of horsepower to play the 1080p clips, but the 720p ones aren't so bad. I for one hope to see WM9-HD to pick up ASAP.
Hedging their bets.... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/)
With movies, I imagine most people would wait much longer for the "winner" than for burnable DVDs - after all, I plan to have my movies far longer than my DVD burner.
Noone wants to get stuck with the Beta of HD-DVDs. Particularly since this standard is probably going to be around until we move to something better than HDTV - goodness knows how long that'll take.
But for now, my 19" CRT is the only thing doing HDTV anyway. So I guess, no hurry.
Kjella
Total DOmination Is the goal (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/~nurb432/ | Last Journal: Friday August 27 2004, @03:24PM)
Too bad the ramiciations for the users will mean total lack of choice and total lack of control... ( on the users part
Another brick in the wall (Score:5, Funny)
Service Pack (Score:2)
I should expect firmware XP or some fancy name to go with it right?
Obligatory Clippy ;-) (Score:5, Funny)
Newest Versions of XVID (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.dbzn.net/)
This amount is based on me burning dvd video backups using codecs like xvid and others video files using wm9 codec to be played on the pc versus me burning in mpeg2 for standalone dvd players.
Just don't buy it (Score:1)
(http://web.mac.com/crackedbutter | Last Journal: Monday January 01 2007, @07:57PM)
mplayer support (Score:1)
A format without a purpose.... (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Wednesday December 01 2004, @10:25AM)
How many people really out the longing for better than DVD resolution and are willing to pay for it.
The only obvious reason to push this new-and-improved DVD is to try for a whole new round of DRM lock-in. Since they lost the CCS battle, they'll start over with DVD-HD. Feh.Remote Transmission from the Mothership (Score:2, Funny)
What if... (Score:2, Insightful)
(http://www.csbanana.com/)
How would Slashdot Linux zealots bash them then?
Total Control (Score:3, Funny)
2) Microsoft audio codec (optional)
3) Microsoft DRM
4) Media companies displaced by Microsoft as the middleman between studios and consumers.
I must give MS credit for their patience - world domination doesn't happen over night and they know it. MPAA and RIAA don't seem to get this do they? Or do they think they'll somehow control MS?
The Three Words of Doom (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.cryptognomic.net/ | Last Journal: Monday November 19, @06:33PM)
And before you caffeine-freak mods cut off my air-supply, I'm hoping there'll be some rational commentary here.
I realise all they're currently doing is mandating that some form of Monopoly-Tech be one of the several supported codecs, but seriously - is this a sign that MS is "moving in on" DVDs and is there any scope for them to (in some way) take ownership of key aspects in a way that "Us Geeks" (ie The Thinkers, as opposed to The Sheep) would not be happy with?
In Bed with The Monopoly (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.cryptognomic.net/ | Last Journal: Monday November 19, @06:33PM)
Anyone want to comment whether the navigation (ie menu on the left) works under other browsers?
That explains (Score:2, Funny)
(http://www.madpierre.uklinux.net/ | Last Journal: Thursday April 28 2005, @06:31AM)
Not a lot of fun (Score:3, Informative)
(http://server.com/)
Here's the kicker- I played the HDTV version alongside the MP2 version and I couldn't see a dramatic difference in quality.
I wonder? (Score:2, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Monday September 25 2006, @07:02PM)
Rip all you want but they won't play on anything.
Either that or they will crash 5 times during each movie.
activation (Score:1)
M$ post... (Score:2, Funny)
(http://daishi.aeoth.net/)
Blu-ray discs (Score:2, Informative)
Check out this report [thedigitalbits.com] comparing the two at CES. HD-DVD sounds like it is getting left in the dust.
You're all missing the point... (Score:1)
It's the rest of Windows Media that will have to be implemented by *somebody* for it to work that should be worried about.
Illegal monopoly, again... (Score:2)
It also seems to be directly related to the media player issue for which Europe is in the process of setting the fine.
The legislators must stop this at all costs, or the Illegal Monopoly will continue to grow and they will never be able to stop it.
Of course the relevant software will be trash, but the ignorant masses will neither know nor care that they are the victims of yet another con trick by an organisation whose only expertise is in flouting the law worldwide.
Well until it supports ogg... (Score:2)
DVD Easter Eggs? (Score:2)
My unusual experience with WM9 (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Thursday November 29, @09:35PM)
Download the HDTV WM9 sample clips from Microsoft.com...
Convert them to MPEG-2.
Compare filesizes.
Now, for those of you too lazy or unable to do this, here's what happens. First off, MPlayer doesn't seem to be able to extract the framerate of WM9, so you have to approximate one, which will leave video/audio slightly out of sync, but I digress... When you convert it to MPEG-2, you will see that the max-quality MPEG-2 version is only double the size of the WM9 version.
Among other things, this says that the main advantage of WM9 is it's lossy removal of visual details... If someone was to simply build a better visual filter that video could be run-through before converting it to MPEG-2, then you'd have very good results, in a format that everyone can play right now.
Secondly, since MPEG-4 (simple profile) gives high quality video at less than half the size of MPEG-2, you could pretty easily produce MPEG-4 files that contain the same information, but are significantly smaller than WM9 videos.
So, the key thing here is to get a video filter that further removes unneeded information. It would allow current DVDs to hold HDTV-quality video, with little increase in decoding power needed. Why change codecs every few years, when you could just improve visual filters and get better results?
Re:No Way? (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://finnbiff.multiply.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday May 12 2007, @10:04AM)
And why is that?
Anyone can buy a license for writing a legit DVD player for Linux today. I don't see how that would be different in the future.
Just license the damn thing.
Re:Anyone actually doing this? (Score:4, Informative)
(http://theravensnest.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday November 27, @07:07AM)
As far as I know, the only company which does this is Intervideo, who make LinDVD. LinDVD is not available to the general public, however, and is only licensed to OEMs making Linux-based DVD players.
Re:Linux DVD players... (Score:5, Insightful)
MPEG2/4 requires payment of royalties as well.
Re:Its a conspiracy!!!!1111 (Score:1, Funny)
"All your DRM are belong to us"?
Re:And this is proff (Score:3, Funny)
TV got you already, huh?
Re:Linux DVD players... (Score:2)
(http://ralph.cx/)
Re:spelling bug (Score:2, Informative)
Licence Defintion [reference.com]
KFG
Re:No Way? (Score:2)
So what was stopping the world from watching DVDs in Linux? I thought it had more to do with nobody obtaining a license, then writing the application, and selling it as shareware/retailware.
If that's the case, then you have nobody to blame but yourself. Either fork over a few dollars or write it yourself.
I do agree that the next standard should be open and free. But, That's not how things work. Big industry comes up with specifications for big industry products. It's to be expected that they would be self-serving. It feels a lot like having to pay sales taxes on grocery items.
Re:Linux DVD players... (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday February 21 2002, @04:37PM)
This may be the beginning of the end of playing windoes media on linux... oh wait.