Slashdot Mirror
Streaming Media - Can Linux Keep Up?
raphinou asks: "I am really worried because Microsoft is making serious progress on streaming media fields. Realplayer is available to Linux users. Windows Media isn't. How do you want Linux to succeed on the desktop if there aren't any streaming players for it? If Microsoft can convince broacasters to use Windows Media, they'll again control the desktop. It really makes me think about the Netscape thing. And I'm afraid we'll have the same end: RealNetworks dead. This is really the same thing: Microsoft is giving away for free what RealNetworks has to sell." What do you think? Have the BrowserWars become the StreamingMedia wars?
Or is he a liar?
Just tried every one of those with the latest build and none of them work.
doesn't shove a bunch of annoying advertising and AOL Instant Messenger into your face.
Wimamp is now owned by AOL just give them some time. Because of the buyout I no longer use Winamp. Go Sonique!!
can linux keep up with the amount of grits poured down my pants? thank you.
Plus the asf tools can compress a 320x240 15fps video as it's captured into a streamable file in realtime, quite a bit better than the other codecs can handle. AC3's on the other hand compress very slowly, slightly less than realtime for a 2 channel non-pre-processed stream. This is on a K6-2 350. Ac3 does have superior sound but not everyone has a 6 channel decoder, or even a simple 2 channel software decoder.
Its already happening. I wanted to get a few videos from wwf.com (thus posting anonymously), and almost everything was in asf fomrat.
And of course, everything else on the internet seems to be in quicktime format. None of these work in linux.
xanim supports at least one variant of H.263, but I think that right now there are a couple of variants on the file format. There's also H.263+.
.avi, I think (but won't swear to it!) that vic (one of the mbone tools) supports it also.
As far as using H.263 in a streaming context rather than in an
As far as a standard there is MPEG and we should use it but nobody does. Mainstream companies only care about windows and microsoft of course pushes this on them. However, RealPlayer is total crap. Unstable and horrible video and audio. The video isn't great but is at least better with Windows Media Player. The audio is excellent in WMP whereas the audio in RP is like a 1kbit MP3 inside a metal can. RealPlayer is completely useless and it pisses me off when its all a site has. If we don't want WMP to win due to its technically superiority (they must have contracted out parts since it works and works damn well), we need to come up with a standard server/client multiplatform user-freindly pair fast. Will that happen? You bet not! I just want nice big MPEG files t odownload anyway, screw streaming.
Perhaps because MPEG-2 is patented and it is really crappy at low bitrates. MPEG-4 is better suited to low bitrates (asf and quicktime are both derivitives of mpeg-4 aren't they?). I'm not sure what kind of patents and royalties are involved with mpeg-4 though. Anyone out there know?
Why keep trying to push it as a desktop OS? Do you guys understand how many angry returns of Linux software stores get?
Well, I don't know "how many angry returns" they get, if I did I expect I'd understand... so how many?
He probably doesn't know anyway; just another troll...
In the last year or so (post 2.2) hordes of companies have thrown themselves onto the Linux train. Do you really think we'd have the kind of support we have now if Linux stayed underground?
First of all there wouldn't be as many users (obviously), so the amount of information you could find online would diminish significantly. Everyone with a new Creative Labs sound card would be fsck'ed, and so would most people who want to use their 3d accelerators under Linux (NVidia & Matrox). The only way you could play Quake would be to use a 3Dfx card. And that would be about the *only* quality game you could play under Linux because I guarantee you that Loki wouldn't exist right now if Linux were still "underground".
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
I tend to agree. This is actually a brilliant observation. Now, don't get too big of a head. :^) I'm reminded of a plugin called Plugger a few years back...worked just by using external apps. I *think* there's another called Xswallow or something to that effect; I believe that's what FreeWRL uses to show VRML inside an HTML document in Netscape.
It's funny that many of the Big Ideas in Open Source have come from commercial ventures. It seems that there's a rather loud, yet rather small, segment that seems to think we should be using text terminals running Emacs from csh to do all our work.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
This is all groovy... but it's not going to matter if all of the content is produced for Miscrosoft's format.
Yeah, Rob already did it with OpenJpeg and a bunch of perl scripts. Why bother with RealNetworks and MS when you have Rob's solution GPLd already? We all know that GPL products are always superior.
Who really cares all that much about streaming media?
... yet.
Maybe for some segments, but for those in entertainmetn, especially for those in the adult side of entertainment there is no humor in it at all.
One of our most profitable sites relies on streamed video and streamed audio to do it's thing and we have build sites for clients that serve hundreds of simultaneous audio/video feeds.
Just like porn jpegs helped drive faster modems and better video cards (not to mention bigger disk drives)...
Just like the desire for cybersex drove the rise of AOL and IRC....
The desire to watch pretty girls do bad things is driving streaming video.
The adult side of the web is, unlike the other sides consistently and very profitable. We often have uses for technology the rest of you can't see one for
Ken
--> Fight tyranny and repression.... read
You're not a geek, so leave slashdot. Any geek would know that the quality is dependant upon the bitrate set when encoding the stream. Your name suits you Wakky AOL Warner.
Very true, the IETF is working on a transport method.. the payload protocol is still undecieded.
bash# lynx http://www.slashdot.org >>/dev/geek
I read the orig question as asking what protocol would be used to broadcast the actual data. That is undecieded. I think we are all in agreement that it will be tcpip using UDP or Multicast.
But that actual data encoding method could be Real or MPEG-x or seomthing completey new (and hopefully open)
----------------------------------------------
Matt on IRC, Nick: Tuttle
----------------------------------------------
bash# lynx http://www.slashdot.org >>/dev/geek
Matt on IRC
Streaming media is not necessarily a joke. With 80kbps streams the sound quality is sufficient to replace, say, a small radio in the office -- I used this a lot to listen to foreign radio stations. Several universities are also making lectures and speeches available in streaming formats for later perusal, either video or audio only, and I have found this to be a really neat thing after missing some interesting quest speakers. And just imagine the implications of there was a free server and free client!
Don't underestimate the power of the people. Look how far Linux, GNU etc has come.
I would like to point out one more scary thing concerning all of this.
Microsoft has positioned Media Player on 9x% of all desktops. They have a new (closed?) format out called wmc or wmsomething - (not wmf) - i have seen it in their sdks. It is half the size of mp3 and the same quality. ZD tested it against unknowing listeners and they preferred the sound of the MS format. This format apparently also has support for limited viewing/playing.
This bothers me. Here we are developing some awesome codecs ourselves, and they have to go and try to circulate the world on their own closed standard. We are not the "Linux Community" in this case, as impotantly as we are the "World Programmers Community". We make the decissions on which direction software heads. We are the people. When some megalith gets the opportunity to give that concept a black eye something has gone amazingly astray.
Does Microsoft not know this, did they get the memo? I'll send them another copy of the memo, that would be gr-eat.
--
Marques Johansson
displague@linuxfan.com
Marques Johansson
WMP is a lot more stable than RealPlayer too. Real has some catching up to do!
The emphasis will come from your words, not the way you dress them up. Be sparing of markup.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
Two weeks ago I tried the then newest build of WINE.
things that run perfectly or almost perfectly: winamp, wordpad, notepad, calculator, mineswapper, hedit, tetrinet, ultraedit32...
things that are flawed: ie, winzip, palm desktop...
things that don't run at all: explorer, winjammer, icq, directx games (i got a blank screen), njstar...
You get a mixed bag of results. And I'm now only trying to run stuffs that linux doesn't have (e.g. wordpad)
One question though - where's the winelib? I've installed and run wine and haven't found the winelib files anywhere on my system. Are they inside wine's executable?
It's often been said that the perfect marraige for the new OS's is Linux as the server, BeOS as the desktop... And perhaps this is just more evidence to that theory. A new format that is shared between linux and be (and the new Internet Appliance OS "Stinger") would be a perfect match! Very recently, three students decided to work on a new Streaming format API at SourceForge, perhaps some linux developers should look into collaborating with these students?
Actually, there's already services like On2.com which provide broadband streaming. They use Duck Truemotion CODEC... is there any support for Truemotion on Linux?
You're right that rhe API needs to be in place before we can expect CODECs, whether binary or open source, to become available.
However, there *is* already a standard emerging for Linux - the "Video for Linux 2" (V4L2) API. This isn't in the release kernels yet (V4L is), but it is available, and there are drivers for it for most cards including the popular Bt848 based ones.
V4L2
One of the significant improvements in V4L2 is that it does support a CODEC API.
Mark Podlipec had had some success in getting companies to release propietary CODECs for xanim, given the standard he has established there, and I expect that an OS level API like V4L2 would with a bit of encouragement get a fuller set of CODECs released. Don't expect open source though, since the better CODECs represent significant intellectual property value for the commercial companties that developed them. But with the infrastructure in place, it'll be possible for an open source CODEC to emerge if people are interested in working on it.
Linux & OSS have a lot more people working on it that MS does
I was thinking of this today and my guess is that there actually are more people writing code for the Win32 platforms if you count the shareware writers (and you can't possibly leave them out). They produce some great programs as well.
Linux has the advantage, though, that not everyone has to start a project from scratch because all the code written before you is already there, and thus the wheel is being reinvented far less often. So the total number of programs for Linux is smaller but the good pieces are more likely to be kept alive, no matter what their original author goes to next.
We broadcast in windows format because Real Media Really sucks. It crashes, it's a resource/memory hog and a nightmare for our customer service department.
Is there a standard for streaming media? If not, then one should be made, or followed. If MicroSofts format is good enough, let's use it. Let's make a Linux player for the same format. If its not good enough, let's make a windows-media-player thingie that can take care of Micro$ofts standard, and let's make our own in addition.
Personally I think that we should follow the already established standards - instead of reinventing the wheel time after time again. There is no need for a new standard, if the current is good enough.
--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - arcade@kvine-nospam.sdal.com - arcade@efnet
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
JavaScript/JScript to ECMAScript
DHTML to DOM
Right now, the same thing is happening with the IM vendors. In my opinion, this actually allows things to move faster, as opposed to being a barrier to progress. Oh, and yes there is a standard for voice over IP, there are a whole set of them in fact. The most common one is H.323.
--jb
Out of curiousity, how close is WINE to being able to run media player, and quicktime for that matter?
At my college there are all kinds of streaming media files on our resnet that I would love to be able to watch on my computer, but unfortunately I always end up having to walk down the hall to borrow another computer to use media player and quicktime.
~Chris
Darwin isn't a bad server....
But where is the free production platform? Does Quicktime have a free tool to generate the live streams?
Have you tried compiling Apple's Darwin Streaming Server under Linux? It's open source, easily configurable, and Apple doesn't charge by the stream.
True, people are still waiting for a Linux QT client, but your fears about Micro$oft domination of streaming may be premature.
There are some IT types who will adopt MS streaming just because it comes from Redmond, but these folks are no different than the IT types who used to grasp at any solution IBM offered, because it came from IBM. We used to call them dinosaurs.
-Dave
It's an open standard, there are at least two open source implementations that I know of, and the quality/compression appears to be about the same as MPEG-4.
we still don't have a good browser (not-large and klunky, doesn't crash when it finds a java applet, etc...) and now people want to focus on streaming media. How many people really have fast enough connection to use it effectively anyway. I just see any "panic" about this to be silly. maybe next year, but it seems to early to be concerned right now.
I wouldn't worry too much if I were you. Open source video codecs will be difficult I think, but the windoze people don't have them either.
.DLL's under wine. There's is already a .VQF (proprietary audio standard) plugin for xmms, using wine to execute a windows native .DLL. I figure the same can be done with the video codecs.
I see some future in using the binary windows
I was into the BeOS for a while. I really liked it when it's motto was "One processor isn't enough" Now it's the media OS. Blah. At first it was quite a revolutionary system built up on SMP, preemptive multi tasking and multi threading. Then they kept changing processors (Remember the original BeBox? I do) not to mention the binary formats. The BeOS does have a good design and has lots of things going for it. The jury has made a decision on it though and pretty much it's that "We don't care"
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
Actually I don't know anyone who had to pay for their Realplayer. I know I didnt have to pay anything when I downloaded mine. It sounds like you got you facts out of a Weeties packet.
ASF isn't a compression codec. It's a "media delivery system" as MS calls it. Most of the ASF movies are compressed in MPEG4, the MPEG standard for streaming a/v. So, don't jump the gun and blame MS for the fact that someone didn't encode the video in a high enough bitrate. ASF could just as easily be used with MPEG 1 and have wonderful quality.
Well, I've always been a bit annoyed with Linux's streaming media capabilites. Hell I remember how impressed I was when I first watched a high quality mpeg in X. It's certainly come a long way.
The wars over browsers, streaming media, user friendliness, etc, will always go on. If you haven't noticed this world's business seem to have a "I'm better than anyone else" look.
Sure Windows can display neat ASF movies, or whatever they do lately. I don't exactly keep up with them. Do you need to reboot after swapping NIC's in Windows? Yes. Do you usually have a 2-3 day uptime in Windows9x? I do. Is windows a more stable, secure, reliable, and robust operating system than Linux? Of course not. Anyone who has spent a month with Linux can tell you that.
My point is this is trivial. Linux doesn't need to be used everywhere. Maybe it shouldn't be used everywhere. We use it, we are happy. If other admins and users want to use windows let them.
To each their own.
Why not BeOS, then? It seems Linux users ignore BeOS a lot, when in fact Be has great potential as a desktop.
Maybe the WINE people should be making an extra special effort to target specific, needed applications (such as Media Player) and get them working asap.
I tried a build of WINE from last week and while a bunch of stuff did work properly, media player didn't.
Chris "Ng" Jones
cmsj@tenshu.net
www.tenshu.net
I agree--it's better to get stuff working reliably rather than get stuff that works properly on half the machines out there. Such is the case with Real Player. It only works some of the time on my machine, and I know of plenty of other people who have the same problems. It's not going to take off unless it works for everybody.
<tim><
You said:
"Be aware that the quicktime libraries supplied by Apple for Windoze are crap. If you are writing your own to the standard, then this is not a issue."
And what exactly does this have to do with taking what's already linux native and works well and adapting it to Apple's Open Sourced, open-standards compliant, already available stuff?
Then, you toss out this:
"Apple was an innovative company once, but they are WAY out of their league in todays environment. "
Are you even remotely aware that Apple's upcoming OS is Unix-based? Do you have any idea that Apple will be bring Unix to the desktop...this year?
Are you also aware the Quicktime is running on it...now?
And then, you add the Hate...
"The fact that they are moving BACK into a mode of being super-proprietary about their machines tells me that it's a mistake to expect ANY thing they do to end up as a standard.
And if the Linix community is going to DEFINE the streaming standard, they can do a LOT better than quicktime."
Classic. I find IDE drives, PC100 SDRAM, SGVA monitors and USB to be all very proprietary and non-standard, indeed.
As for "The Linux Community" doing better than quicktime as a "streaming standard"...Oh yeah. All indications point in that direction *smirk*
In the long run, it would do Linux users a HELL of a lot better to support what's open then trying to get WINE up and running well enough to use Windows Media Player...
It's not a native solution, and I doubt it would do anyone any good to use something inferior...from MicroSoft, no less.
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
It would appear that the biggest problem is trying to get a corporation to open up their protocols, when they appear to have every interest in not doing it. Perhaps we, the Open Source community, should consider developing and GPL'ing our own standards for video/audio streaming and other protocols, with no interest in maintaining compatibility, but make sure that players are developed for every platform under the sun.
I know, developing a protocol and compression algorithms to rival the current competition wouldn't be even remotely easy. We might actually have to live with something that is somewhat substandard, but hopefully not so much that its unusable, until there is enough support to either pressure the competition to submit, or until we have perfected our formats to the point that they compete on even ground.
Most of our efforts are to cater to Microsoft products and protocols (samba, wine, etc). This buys us some time and helps to give linux a chance to get accepted in corporations since without compatibility with microsoft products, nobody would even give them a chance. But we must strive for a future where linux builds its own standards and microsoft is the one running to maintain compatibility with us, because it would be losing out if it didn't. This is where we will REALLY start to shine, since because of Microsoft's track record for spotting trends and running with them, theres a chance they might fall too far behind and lose significant market share in the process. This won't happen tomorrow, but if we plan right, it could be reality within the next 5 years.
Of course, the first step would be for someone to develop and advanced protocol and be willing to release it with no strings attached rather than sell it to a corporation for millions of $$$. I agree, this will be the hardest step. But it IS an important step, and will have to be taken.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
..for our product...infostations.
Actually, we use Quicktime movies and hacked-up versions on aKtion and Xswallow, but that's a whole other story.
I'm glad someone here saw the point, and merit, of my post.
I think we'd all be better off if we took what we have, and made it work with what everyone else has as well as our own stuff.
And like I said, Sorenson/QDesign is more hype than substance once you get down to working with it everyday like we do here. We've found that in a more than a few situations it does a worse job at the same data rates than the other codecs we have at our disposal.
The tools are out there for Linux...we just gotta use'em.
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
Voice over IP provides an excellent example of a 'new' internet standard H.323 (V2 was only ratified in '98). H.323 provides a standard way of setting up communications and negotiating audio and video codecs for either a striaght voice, or video conference. The H.323 gatekeeper provides a policy server to control this (the real choke point, other than the H.323 stack itself). Both are being worked on by the OpenH323 folks.
wake up and find out that you are the eyes of the world.
What about BeOS? What about *BSD? Solaris? And a multitude of other viable platforms
BEOS & BSD aren't even twinkles in the sky. Microsoft already write some software for solaris.
Oh fer cryin' out loud! Where have you been, anyway? Do you really thing MS buried Netscape because they wanted to promote Explorer for its own sake? Do you seriously believe that MS tried to trash Java with their own, Win-proprietary extensions simply to promote J++? Do you also believe that MS provided POSIX-complient APIs for Ms-WinNT and then promoted nothing but the Ms-Win32 API for a benevolent reason?
Netscape lost cause they couldn't make a browser that could compete, I've previously pointed out what's wrong with your point of J++. J++ could NEVER take over 'java', since it's not even a different language, it just has some keyword extensions - which other people are now adding to their VM implementations because sun is being such an idiot about things.
And why shouldn't Microsoft promote Win32 over Posix?
You're the one who is being stupid. I mean what do you expect microsoft to do? Promote Solaris, invite Mcnealy over for tea and biscuits?
Gee, Microsoft is being a businesss...ooh lets punish them.
IMHO, there are only two solutions:
Each of these has their difficulties.
The free world has lots of brilliant people but...it is unfocused. To create a true interactive, streamming real-time audio/video experience is going to require some major work. Focused billiance.
Linux may manage to start getting to the level of Mac (at its highest) where most companies had to make a verions for it. Linux is getting closer but it still needs some muscle behind it. RH and the rest of the Linux IPO gang could be that muscle but they havn't doen anything yet. Those companies are the key to getting the big coroporations to do the dirty work for us. The same group holds the key to projects like Wine. They fight a battle with a closed stanard. After writing and maintaining device drivers for Win2k ever since it was called NT5, I can tell you that writing to a moving target is TOUGH. Some big money LinuxIPO companies could help these causes
-- soldack
Basically, if I want to write to an app to create a video from a sound file (assume uncompressed) and a series of images (assume uncompressed or patent-free compression), with reasonable compression, is there a well-documented method of doing this that doesn't involve, in any manner, patents?
It wouldn't have to be as good as the latest stuff, but not too bad; I wouldn't mind my file being somewhat bigger than the latest movie trailer, assuming all other factors (sound quality, image size, etc.) equal.
Sorry for not being clear.
"If Microsoft can convince broadcasters to use Windows Media, they'll again control the desktop."
From judge Jackson's Finding of Facts [paraphrased]:
"The suspicion lingers [...] that Microsoft's ambition is a future where most or all of the content available on the Web would be accessible only through its own browsing software."
Resistance is futile.
Embrace, Extend & Extinguish.
My .002 Euro.
Be aware that the quicktime libraries supplied by Apple for Windoze are crap. If you are writing your own to the standard, then this is not a issue.
But on platforms that have threads, the quicktime folks lame out and put their API inside a big critical section.
In other words, if you attempt to use their libraries in a multi-threaded application. You will almost certainly end up in a deadlock.
A little email to the Apple support people got a response. They feel that multi-threaded applications provide no benetfits to multimedia applications. AND they lectured us on some rules of thumb for creating multi-threaded applications.
I almost tossed my cookies from laughing (and crying) too much.
Apple was an innovative company once, but they are WAY out of their league in todays environment.
The fact that they are moving BACK into a mode of being super-proprietary about their machines tells me that it's a mistake to expect ANY thing they do to end up as a standard.
And if the Linix community is going to DEFINE the streaming standard, they can do a LOT better than quicktime.
In the long run, it will be less work AND give better results to host the M$ streaming libraries
on Linix via WINE, etc. Windoze at least has the byte ordering right.
Remember, Embrace and extend can work for us just as well as it work for M$.
Wow that's interesting, so because I use a Office Suite or a Browser I consider to be superior, I am stupid? Wow, thanks a lot bud, once again showing that...
Open source. Closed minds. We are Slashdot.
That comment on the original posting rang a bell.
The author said that he was afraid that RN
will suffer the same 'death' destiny of Netscape
because Microsoft is giving away what Real
Networks is trying to sell.
In my many years using and promoting Linux
(and I have converted several people) I feel
the same about Linux. Whenever one thinks of
something that could generate some cash
(a program to sell) to subsidize one's
free projects (I have several myself) then
someone comes with a free alternative. So _we_
are doing the same and can't blame MS for
being evil because of this behaviour.
For many years, doing free software has been
a passion that I am sure many share. But the
fact is that at some point we all have to
put the bread on the table and that is nearly
impossible with Linux programming unless you
get a contract to do it.
Anyway that's my $0.04 (inflation, another
reason to earn money!). Flames will be
ignored.
I agree with you on everything you have said. I love linux and try to do everything with linux. But as a Network Admin at my company we have to come up with cheap quick solutions to everything. And on the client side I have done the same with WMP. On the Server side I use Windows Media Server for this reason. IT IS FREE. Everything surrounding it is free. The player, the producer (encoder) and the server. Absolutely no costs involved.
We looked into different things when some clients of ours wanted streaming audio and video on their websites. Real costs soooooo much that it isn't worth bothering with. I mean its like 700 something for the producer.... Why bother?
I am not fond of Microsoft, but they do make some great products... maybe not an OS but IE is the best browser out there. I would use it on Linux if they would get their heads out their ass. Anyway. I use what I can get for free and deploy the quickest.
IRNI
I am currently working on reverse engineering the audio component of Micros~1's file format. These files are much like RIFF/WAV files in that they have a header and a data section. These are marked by 16 byte binary strings. The data can be encoded in any of a number of different formats including PCM, GSM 6.10, MP3, and Micros~1's own codec.
I can currently read enough of the headers to play PCM encoded files. Getting GSM 6.10 working would also be easy but I'm much more interested in working on the Micros~1 codec.
Anyone wishing to contact me on this can email me at neo_brave@my-deja.com.
It may be free now, but how long do you think it will stay that way if Real goes out of business?
Got HTML? Want LaTeX? Try html2latex
Not only is the Linux version behind, I usually have great trouble getting it to work at all! But my real rant point was that there is no version at all for Alpha, Sparc, Mips or any platform other an x86! (Same for acrobat reader, viavoice...) This is yet another reason I prefer Open Source software -- so I can compile it on a more exotic platform!
... the windows streaming media protocol
and create our own Linux clients/servers...
but then MS's lawyers could be at our doorstep
the next day for violating their copyright
Multicast will be very important in the near future. Without it, no server or server farm is going to be able to keep up, no matter how good the compression is. Every time sombody trys to webcast something vaguely popular with UDP, the server's network gets swamped instantly, and most people get choppy or no video.
I haven't tried using multicast under any OS yet. I suspect (hope) that *BSD and Linux are well ahead of NT/Windows in that area. Can anyone comment on that?
The Livid-dev mailing list recently spun off a second mailing list to discuss the creation of an "Open DIgital Video" standard or the like. Check the usual websites for more information.
Fuck Slashdot
my company has been working to get our device to suport windows media format. There is working ported code for linux... MS will likely never release it though, since they're afraid of linux (as they so nicely pointed out to us). They wanted to demo our product but only if it didn't use linux.
When pigs fly.
What about BeOS? What about *BSD? Solaris? And a multitude of other viable platforms?
Save the "Microsoft wants to keep it's windows monopoly" replies, cause in this case windows media is what they want to promote...
Oh fer cryin' out loud! Where have you been, anyway? Do you really thing MS buried Netscape because they wanted to promote Explorer for its own sake? Do you seriously believe that MS tried to trash Java with their own, Win-proprietary extensions simply to promote J++? Do you also believe that MS provided POSIX-complient APIs for Ms-WinNT and then promoted nothing but the Ms-Win32 API for a benevolent reason?
Come on. Wake up. Smell the coffee. There is more than sufficient empirical evidence by which a reasonable person might suspect what Microsoft's real goals are. Then there are the publicized internal MS documents that were never supposed to see the light of day and the public testimony.
My Lord, how can one be so mind-numbingly blind?
Moderators and /. community: I apologize if this comes across as rude and inflammatory. But I'm sorry: I just can't abide abject stupidity. Or disinformation.
both open standards
What I mean is: Why not develope a streaming format that would be shared between Linux and Be users? If you think Linux is not a strong desktop OS, develope it between both so those Linux users that want to use the format can, and can use their Linux machines as servers for the format. The BeOS is a great OS for such media.
Its all about money. Thats why you don't see realplayer releasing windows and linux players at the same time. Their linux development is on the back burner. The majority of the people who buy realplayer are companies, which still use windows on the desktop. So if 95% of their clients buy windows players, why should they give linux development an equal amount of money?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I dont want to just make this an anit-M$ rant but...
/. readers are on a M$ box right now. You will be using the M$ streamer soon too.
#1 I wonder how many of you
#2 We are all heading down a road to forced M$ worship because no enough people find ways to avoid it.
#3 I have run an M$-free office for a few years. The only M$ product I will buy is either stolen or pirated (That's why I dont use them). If the M$ media streamer becomes the the only standard, then I wont be enjoying streamed media.
#4 Get radical and make a difference. Make the extra effort. And if you're making a difference already... then thanks!!!!
sorry bout the rant.
rm -rf ms/*
> Are you even remotely aware that Apple's upcoming OS is Unix-based?
/. crowd would like to believe then they would be no threat.
.qt files, but you do NOT want to use Apple's SDK.
Yep. But this is not the first time that Apple has promised a pre-emptive, multitasking OS. Remember Copeland? Rememember Pink? At one time Apple promised that OS 9 would be multitasking too. Same promise for 0S 8, Guess what....
OS X will be another disappointment. Don't hold your breath that it will ship this year or next.
Also only PARTS of quicktime are running on it now. The easy parts.
For a brief moment Apple opened up their architecture, but just TRY to buy a Mac from someone other than Apple today. At least M$ only has a monopoly on SOFTWARE. The Mac is 100% closed, hardware AND software. In the long run, that will kill Apple as a company.
You can ALREADY run Linix on a G4 Mac. The fact that Apple has has an OS based on MACH that runs on a G4 means absolutely nothing. That's the EASY part. Where they will fail is making a *nix clone run programs currently designed for earlier Mac OS's.
Call it bashing if you like. But I've been around for since the days of the LISA, I've seen them try and fail to make a modern OS for the last 10 years.
As for quicktime as a standard. I'll agree that quicktime is broadly supported on OS 9, WinX, etc. But I've looked at their their SDK for Windoze, and the code is crap. I havn't seen the *nix SDK, but I'll be willing to bet that it's even worse. If they were going to do a good job on any non-Mac OS, they would have spent their time on 90% of the market.
My point is that ALL modern OS's have things like protected memory, threads. These features are essential to writing good applications. (Read up on BeOS, they have a LOT of good info on why this is true). Apple's quicktime libraries aren't multithreaded. And they can't be fixed without an almost total re-write.
Quicktime, as popular is it may be today. Is a dead end architecturally (sp?). The design is just too old and full of bad assumptions to carry forward.
Within 2 years, Linix will have more market share on the desktop than Apple does. At that point, do you really want to be still carrying Apple's baggage around?
> It's not a native solution, and I doubt it
> would do anyone any good to use something
> inferior...from MicroSoft, no less.
Don't kid yourself. Not everything that M$ does is inferior. If they were TRUELY as incomptent as the
M$'s multimedia architecture is NOT the best possible one (BeOS is better), but it is head and shoulders above quicktime.
Getting Windows Media player running on WINE, gives you breathing space to develope a NATIVE
solution.
Ultimately, you want to be able to play
It's also an RTSP server, so I would guess it is independant of media and players, right?
And you would guess wrong. It works with QuickTime media only because it needs QuickTime hints to figure out timing. And so far I've only managed to get it to work with Apple's own QT RTSP client.
Bottom line, Apple's QTSS is not the final Open Source streaming solution. It may be a good start, though, so thanks to Apple for releasing it!
Dogsbody
I'm amazed at the collective ignorance displayed on this site. People making erroneous statements about things they know nothing about. Statements such as "RealPlayerG2 isn't available for Linux", despite the fact that a simple visit or search of the Real site yields otherwise. How can you folks possibly hope to set a standard, when you can't even get the simplest of facts straight? Real is the de-facto standard for adult interenet sites. It scales well, it doesn't crash, and it comes with technical support. By comparison, even the largest adult sites are *rejecting* Microsoft's solution, even when Microsoft offers it to them for free. There's something to be said about that. Some people have suggested sticking to MPEG as the de-facto format. Once again, how about doing at least the minimum amount of research before adding garbage to the discussion. Compress a video using RealG2 at 220KB/sec, and then compress it using MPEG. It doesn't take a genius to realize that an MPEG, at ten times the size of a 220KB/sec Real file, isn't worth it. Why don't some of you at least have the brains to research before opening your mouths? You're like a bunch of old ladies, gathered up to exchange myths.
Yeah, I was being sarcastic. Sorry, I will try better next time. :-))
Is this what w3 is tring to do with the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) 1.0 Specification Why don't we all use that?
What are you talking about? Quicktime for Linux works great!
send flames > /dev/null
Only 'flamers' flame!
Why the heck shouldn't the best media format win? At this point, it appears Microsoft has it.
If you really want to squish 'em back, then pester Apple to release their media formats as open source.
WMGK Windows Media Player
WMMR Windows Media Player
WSTW RealAudio
WJBR RealAudio
Y100 RealAudio
I sent a letter to WMGK, and will send a similar one to the others that use the Windows Media Player streams.
The letter:
Hopefully, someone can wake these guys up a bit.
-SsC
--
*kerchunk* *beep* "...Operator."
Are you serious?
How did you do it?
~Chris
wow settle down there with the stuff
www.sugarmegs.org
Microsoft offered to pay for the BW needed for sugarmegs if they would change their streaming files from ra to asf. This was a pain for me since I couldn't listen to sugarmegs streams under linux any more. Once microsoft pulled their support, I figured I would do what I could and offered to stream files for sugarmegs at a new pop we've got that had BW to spare -- the only catch -- I'm offering to stream ra files only. My guess is the large shift I saw from ra to asf streaming providers on the net was due to a Microsoft campaign to pay for BW for the most popular streaming sites in exchange for them switching their streaming formats.... like what happened with sugarmegs.
As far as the streaming goes, you don't have to license anything to stream ra content. Just stream it through http, your streaming server is your web server. Go with a apache, and you have unlimited streams (bottleneck will be your bandwidth). The only time you need to buy a real audio server license is for streaming LIVE content, and most of the streaming content out there is not LIVE. You can get a free version of ra server for up to like 60 streams or so (can't remember exactly) if you need to stream live content. All that we really need is a free open source encoder to encode live audio/video to ra formats and pass it off to apache somehow for the serving of live content feeds (for radio stations, or events, etc...).
The ra streaming mirror I've got setup for sugarmegs now is just an old pieced together PPro 200 w/96 Megs and scsi 2 drives running OpenBSD 2.6 / Apache 1.3.9, its saturating a full T1 at peak times serving pre-encoded ra files through http -- top shows ~52 Megs ram free and ~95%idle cpu. I'm very pleased with performance.
I know another admin that streams pre-encoded asf files. It took him 3 nt servers at > $20,000 in hardware to saturate his first T1. He may not have paid for the streaming licenses, but he paid out the ass for the hardware and os to run the free asf streaming server stuff (he did go overkill though, all dual processors, all raid 5, etc...). If he had went ra, he could have spent $2,000 on hardware and got the os and http server software to fit his needs for free, and in my opinion not sacrificed reliablity at all.
If you have a requirement that Linux supports streaming media, why don't you organize a streaming media project instead of writing a letter to slashdot?
-jwb
There's some now; XFree 4.0 will contain more complete support, IIRC. I think there's something about this in the FAQ.
Your link didn't work but I have used QuickTime for linux. I agree that this has some hope. The only problem is that QuickTime seems pretty far behind the pack in getting content providers to use their system. Those that control content or content providers will pick the format. MS will push for their own system. The real question is what will AOL-Time push for. AOL has used MS technology (IE over netscape, even though they own netscape) but the merger may make them strong enough and brave enough to go their own way. Using MS's format puts the provider in MS's hands. They have to rely on MS to provide a high quality (or at least competitive) player and server that can reach the provider's target market. Right now MS has that so no one worries about putting all their eggs in MicroSoft Basket 2000. AOL may not want to use MS just so that they have some more control. They want all the eggs in AOL Everywhere 5. Plus, AOL and MS have cracked heads ever since MS started MSN, through the netscape purchase, and all the way to the Instant Message war.
The ball is in AOL's court and we are all waiting to see if Steve Case can indeed jump and slam dunk his competition.
-- soldack
As would I. And for my Sun Sparc Solaris boxen.
I have purchased many things for my Sparc and Linux boxes. I have no problem with paying a reasonable fee for a good product.
Plus: with that amount of servers around the world, why isn't the Open SOurce community simply developing Server side codecs AND clients for various platforms? If it's free, not that much people will bother downloading an Open SOurce variant or a closed source variant.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Try counting only those programmers who have influence in changing the standards that are used for the OS. If you use this critieria the only Windows programmers you can count are employed by Microsoft. A very large percentage of Linux programmers can be counted under the same criteria though.
I don't see why the people at Nullsoft can't make SHOUTcast into a top-knotch streaming media competitor to these two commercial formats....heck it's almost there as it is. SHOUTcast sound quality blows Real Player and Media Player out of the water, plus Nullsoft has made significant inroads with the Linux/Open Source/BSD community with a de-facto file format--MP3, and support for Linux and BSD servers.
One thing I love about SHOUTcast versus Real Player is that your MP3 player (Winamp, etc.) doesn't shove a bunch of annoying advertising and AOL Instant Messenger into your face.
The new SHOUTcast server released a few weeks ago KICKS ASS! If anyone from Nullsoft is reading this, I think you guys only have 2 additional features to add and you'll be right there with the corporate giants:
1) Add support to Winamp/SHOUTcast for MPEG video
2) Enable SHOUTcast to stream static, prerecorded audio and video files.
Actually xamin plays all my Quicktime 2.5 (Radius Cinepack) movies perfectly.
Later versions of Quicktime frequently use Sorsen video compression, a very small yet CPU intensive codec. Size is the biggest advantage of Cinepack -- a 5 meg Cinepack movie is the same quality as a 500k Sorsen codec. However don't even try to play a Sorsen movie on a slow computer, anything less then a 200/604e Mhz will have trouble with them.
If you don't mind the size of Cinepack movies, xamin plays them well, and even on older hardware (I have seen pratically full screen Cinepack movies play on a 040/25 mhz Macs without problems).
And Quicktime 2.5 != Quicktime 4.0. Quicktime 4.0 has some major improvements over Quicktime 2.5, such as those new codecs, new formats (it plays more AVI MooVs and au, etc.) and has many other new things.
You forget that Microsoft owns some preferred stock in Apple....so they have a vested interest in seeing Apple succeed to some extent.
You are missing the whole point of Linux! If you don't like something, stop complaining and start coding. The reason Linux is a success is because people work on things they think are important. I personally don't care about streaming video, games, supporting the latest 3D cards etc. So why should I code those things? Too many people new to Linux think that Linux should cater to them. It doesn't, it caters to the developers of Linux. This is not elitist because anyone can be a developer. If it happens to be useful to more people, that's an added bonus.
Preach on brotha YoJ!
They are fucking arrogant pricks who must be destroyed.
I'm almost certain that someone else has posted this but, just in case, here it is:
QuickTime client for Linux petition
Hopefully enough interest will generate the kind of discussion at Apple's leadership that Linux needs to get some attention for a streaming client.
-----
Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
udp takes the place of tcp running on ip
See subject. Nuff said
IBM developed the Bamba standard for streaming audio/video and offers a free java client and a free streaming server. Yet it is hardly used and no one cares. Why? Simply because it's not sexy and isn't pushed. Decisions about software and hardware are rarely logical or rational, as much as we like to think we are computer scientists. More often they are made very quickly with limited knowledge and with pure chance the primary factor in success or failure.
Tell that to WCSX (Detroit market). They're actively promoting the MS-Win Media Player. For this reason I rarely listen to the station any more. And even when I do (they're now my last choice): if I hear their MS-Win promotion I change the station. I'll listen to nothing before I'll listen to them after hearing that advert.
And their web site is completely inaccessible without Shockwave (or Ms-Win Media Player?). I've been meaning to nominate them to Web Pages That Suck for some time now. Maybe this weekend :-).
Microsoft, as with all other vendors will be forced to port their products to Linux when Linux's market share grows to the point that it cannot be ignored.
I am an extremely media-oriented user, which is why i also have a Win95 desktop sitting next to my Linux box. I use this for 3D graphics, video and audio work. I would use NT, but NT is an expensive dog. I can't even play my games on NT.
However, I prefer to work on Linux, I prefer to surf the net on Linux, and given the availability of my software, i would ditch Windows permanently without a second thought. Wine now runs one of my most useful compositing tools (Newtek Aura) and with proper hardware OpenGL from SGI and NVidia, 3D app manufacturers will have no reason not to port. I've lost too much work to crashes to have any respect for a Windows OS.
I've been involved with streaming media reasonably heavily (setting up 5 radio stations and doing various live video streams) all using servers running BSD and RealNetworks servers.
There is NO WAY IN HELL i would trust an NT box to keep a bandwidth-heavy application like video streaming up 24 hours a day. Unless MS have *NIX based server software, theres no way i could even consider adopting their streaming software.
But thats purely a reliability issue, and at the end of the day you have to give your customers what they want. This applies to MS as much as anyone else, and the Linux-using customers will need to have their market serviced.
Linux users are seen as fringe by many large companies, but its us Linux users who will drive the next phase of the computing revolution. Linux is the face of a useful UNIX on the desktop, along with MacOS X perhaps, and against that, Windows cannot stand.
One day, Ballmer and Gates will roll out of bed and find their entire company is irrelevant because everybody who develops software has dumped their crappy OS and gone back to UNIX in one form or another.
With Apple's long overdue new OS, it is interesting to note that Microsoft is now the only major OS vendor without a *NIX-like or *NIX-based OS offering.
What does that tell you?
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
How you people so quickly forget bringing about your own demise, and how quickly you defend companies who really aren't even your friend!
/. community would be the first people screaming against this sort of thing!
When Windows Media Player's streaming was first incarnated as Microsoft NetShow, MS worked with Xing to deliver players for damn near every single platform out there including Linux. In fact, I believe it was their second piece of software for Linux after the FrontPage extentions.
Now, we have everybody complaining about how MS is becoming more commonplace and RealPlayer is the only (large-market) solution still available under Linux.
Let me ask you this: have you ever tried to license a Real Media *SERVER* ? The licensing is absolutely ridiculous. Yes, I know they have the basic version but that's no good for any kind of commercial use. WMP's server-side application is included with IIS and has unlimited capacity. Hell, buying NT BackOffice (The entire operating system!) costs you half as much as supporting 100 streams of Real Media.
On top of that, WMP has better quality at the same bandwidth (at least for video). Just watch it or listen to it and it is not really a disputable argument. I'll give RealPlayer a chance too and say that it's more responsive when you want to skip around in a stream and it's way more fault tolerant.
Still, do you realize why you're complaining? You didnt support M$ tech when they tried to support *you*! I hate to have to defend them, but if the Linux/UNIX/Whatever people started driving and thriving in the streaming media market then we wouldnt look so second class to streaming media companies. M$ would probably still have a media player for Linux, and maybe some of their API's and CODECS would have opened up by now.
I am a bit annoyed with the defense of Real on this one. Getting the newest version of RealPlayer has always been delayed months (and close to 1 year on 5.0 and G2 -- they skipped 4.0 altogether), and until the release of at least 5.0 for Linux (which Real's web page makes nearly impossible to obtain) Real was an absolutely useless format if you wanted to do cross-platform video. Coupled with that, RealPlayer is a billion meg download that forces you to replace damn near every piece of multimedia software (at least on W32) -- I've stopped installing it on Windows. It absolutely is the most bloated, slow piece of garbage in the universe, and on top of that it (at least used to) gather up all of my personal info and beam it to RealNetworks!!
Please, stop supporting RealNetwork's trash! I would think that the
~GoRK
You could stream a series of JPEGS (30/second = full motion video... I just saw an Andy Warhol exhibit today that was running at 16 fps, and that was quite tolerable.)
Then you'd need to stream sound. MP3, i belive is covered by patents, but so far they've basically been ignored.... so is MP3 audio good enough for you?
You could do it, but you'd end up using up more bandwidth than the alternatives.
Well, Transmeta is putting a lot of weight on the mobile market, the Internet Appliance market, and if Stinger (Be's IA OS) can get enough ground, BeOS WILL have a pretty wide user base, and content WOULD be made for Stinger.
$ wget -o /dev/stdout http://foo.com/bar.mp3 | amp /dev/stdin
Of course, it only works on Unix.
-Joe
Thank you. I was unaware of that. The last time I checked, it was not available. Also, I see that it's an alpha. I'm downloading it now; I hope it works.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
There is an Open standard for Streaming available for linux...both the specs and the server.
It's called Quicktime.
Don't start on the 'we don't have Soreneson thing either...because you don't need it.
What is needed is an open source *hinter* to avoid having to use Apple software if you don't want to.
Lemme elaborate:
For video, quicktime supports the following codecs, at various speeds/bandwidth:
Animation, BMP, Cinepak, Component Video, DV (NTSC & PAL), Graphics, H.261, H.263, Indeo 5 & 3.2, Indeo Raw, Motion JPEG A & B, Photo Jpeg, PNG Sorenson, TGA, Tiff and Video.
Now, out of that list, I know that either the source to these is available, or binary codecs for Xanim.
Sorenson, btw, is not the greatest codec for streaming in all cases. In fact, the final output is sometimes larger than Indeo 5.
Quicktime streams also support the following audio codecs:
IMA 4:1, 24bit Integer, 32 Bit Float & Integer,64 bit Float, ALaw 2:1, IMA 4:1, MACE 3:1 & 6:1, Meta Sound, Meta Voice, QDesign2, Qualcomm PureVoice and muLaw 2:1
Again, Linux support is there.
BTW, in case you didn't know, the audio eats up more Bandwith that the videostream...but I digress.
The Quicktime library needed for acutally reading tracks properly has been ported to linux an BSD already:; the source is available as well.
The Quicktime streaming sever has a tremendous advantage over all of the other competing technology here that a lot of folks (here and elsewhere) seem to miss:
There is no charge for streaming. You can serve as much as you want, as long as you want, to as many clients as you wish, for no charge.
MS doesn't (and won't) offer this and Real certainly will not as that is where their revenue stream lies.
Also of note: QTSS/DSS use open standard protocols for streaming...no funny stuff. RTP/RTSP over UDP and via HTTP. It also uses standard Session Description Files. It supports relaying as well.
What I suggest is that folks that are looking for a solution not recreate the wheel.
The combination of Indeo5 and IMA4:1 works *quite* well for streaming, assuming the peson putting the stream together knows what they are doing and is supported by Linux. The server is there as well.
What's missing is streaming support for a player, and a non-apple Hinter for encapsulating the stream.
Sorenson and QDesign is more hype than help...trust me on this. It really doesn't help 56kps modem connections (what does?) and for ISDN/Dual ISDN and better connections, the differnce between that combo and a Linux supported one becomes less of a big deal.
Where I work, we've spent a lot of time looking at this, as we build a Linux-based product that relies on Multimedia, and honestly, nothing out there is better than Quicktime.
The pieces are in place for streaming on Linux...they just need to be fitted together.
An Aside:
Believe it or not folks, Apple is more your friend than your enemy.
Why/how can I say this? Simple.
For anyone industrious enough to dive in, Apple is giving Unix-oriented coders a huge earning opportunity, as they will effectively be the first company in the World of History to bring Unix to the Desktop.
Read that again. Let me help. They will be the first company in the World of History to bring Unix to the Desktop.
What's worse, is they will be bringing to to what most of you seem to consider the most (ahem) stupid computer users on the planet.
Now that's a feat.
Anyway, like I said, the stuff is out there for supported cross platform streaming video...
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
raphinou said, "Realplayer is available to Linux users." No, it's not. RealPlayer 5 is available, but nothing will play on it. It's obsolete. Neither G2 nor 7 is out for Linux, nor does Real give any hints that they will be later. Besides that, it segfaults every time I try to run it on my computer.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
I've been using icecast for well over a year and it truly rocks. It uses a tiny amount of resources. L3enc produces excellent sound in a 24kbps stream especially if it's pre-encoded (as opposed to realtime encoding.)
I haven't tried connecting with WMP to my icecast server, however Netscape 4.7 comes with WinAmp, which allows users to connect to icecast streams without needing to install any additional software.
What might be considerred a disadvantage is that icecast uses TCP connections instead of UDP packets. If a TCP packet is dropped the music stops until the packet is re-sent and received. This causes the audio to stop (assuming it's not re-sent before the buffer runs out.) Realaudio inserts static when a UDP packet is not recieved but continues pretty much in realtime.
I said "might be considerred a disadvantage", but in practice it never has been a problem for me. I've remained connected for days with XMMS->icecast with no problems. My server is ~1000 miles and many hops away so there are plenty of opportunities for lost packets. It recovers quite well (using a 12k buffer--about 5 seconds worth of buffering--the standard for XMMS and WinAmp.)
So we've got a great solution already for streaming audio. That leaves streaming video. Other than bandwidth usage, it shouldn't require much more than an video codec to play it. I haven't really followed the XMMS project too closely but I think there is a reason it's called the X MultiMedia System and not the X Audio System. In other words I bet video will be part of XMMS before too long and it will do it well.
numb
Yeah, WMP is made by Microsoft, not available for linux, and closed-source. But I don't think we should all be pushing Real as much as we are. It's expensive, it's closed-source, and it's controlled by one company. What we really want is an open-source solution. Maybe Apple, which is pushing open-sourceness, will give us something. I know Real has that market share, but eventually we want free, open-source streaming.
You fucking lamer. What speed modem are you using? A fucking 14.4?
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Go away ass... You've just made yourself out to be an even worse bigot than any BeOS or BSD or Linux user could ever hope to be.... Let people choose for themselves. If they like what they're doing, let them do it.
You probably use Linux? Why? Isn't Solairis, *BSD, or Unixware good enough for you? Why would you even want to learn to use a new unix, help develop it, etc...? Because that's what you want to do, that's why.
Let BeOS users do what they want. Let Mac users do what they want. Let Windows users do what they want. And let Linux users do what they want.
The entire reason the world is where it is is because people weren't entirely satisified withtheir lives. They went out and explored alternatives. Not many were supported. Some were killed. Some failed. But they tried. That's the point. Don't follow the tail that wags you, usse your brain and try being original.
You know, I knew this DOJ thing was going to start a bad trend. At what point did we become weak little powerless consumers? Do we really need to call on the government every time WE (consumers) are offered an bad product?
Look, many in the industry has had it with shoddy products coming out of Microsoft, they wanted something more stable, faster, and gennerally better. Lo and behold, linux arrived, and it has gained market share beyond what anyone predicted years ago. Not only that, but BSD is getting noticed more as well. BeOS has even become popular in various groups.
Now I ask you, how did the DOJ help all this happen? It didn't. The DOJ has done nothing yet, but we see that superior software is chipping away at the Microsoft beast. I would personally prefer to let the market decide (as it is doing) what is the best software for it to use.
Finkployd
You call MS Media Player PROGRESS?? It's a step backward! Linux had this 5 years ago! MS can kiss my hairy ass.
I swear, BeOS bigots are even worse than FreeBSD bigots...
Here's something you should know: your little toy is not useful for any purpose. There is no reason whatsoever to actually install BeOS on any machine anywhere. That's what the OS lacks. It has a GUI, and it has some apps, and it has a lot of threads (useless but sounds good to wannabes) and all it lacks is a SINGLE reason to actually USE it for anything.
It's dead. Give it up, and go to some other OS that might mean something later (like the Hurd).
Unless Microsoft can convince everyone that Windows media format is somehow better than mp3, ra etc there shouldn't be a problem.
+ +N++o?K?w---O-M-(+)VPS+()PE+(++)Y+(++)PG Pt5X-R+!tvb+(++)DI++!DGe>++h!(*)r@--y+(**)
The question then becomes:
Does Windows Media offer anything to the provider that the other (especially the already hugely popular mp3) formats don't?
------BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GCS d+(!)s+:a--C++(++++)UL++(++++)$P>+++L+++>+++++!EW
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
End dual-measurement, let's finish going metric!
http://gometric.us
How do you want Linux to succeed on the desktop if there aren't any streaming players for it?
:)
How do you want streaming media to succeed on the desktop if there aren't any streaming players for Linux?
I almost never use streaming media; the only streaming-type-thing I've listened to was Slashdot radio. Guess what client I used: "mpg123 http://whatever"
Yes, I know this is offtopic, sort of, but it serves to explain that, maybe, we don't need the ASF format after all.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I couldn't agree more. Too often people forget that a corporation's sole purpose is to make money for the stockholders. Nothing else! It doesn't exist to advance computer technology, cater to those who don't like it, or anything else. Microsoft is very good at making money, and hence is a very good corporation. Just because you don't like it or its products really doesn't mean shit.
.asf files (besides that crappy NetShow) I'd be happy.
Personally, I choose to use the best product I can find (within financial limits). I don't give a shit if its made by Microsoft, Saddam Hussein, Iran, or The Devil.
Windows Media Player is a very nice product. Now if I could only find something to download
I have a copy of it if anyone wants it :)
It's quite useless with today's versions of asf.
Just something I dug out of the deep bowels of the Internet.
~Chris
Wow that Natalie Portman underground porno is awsome!
Lars -
i'm amazed by all these people in here saying "we need a protocol with a REAL RFC". There IS an RFC!!
rtsp, the Real Time Streaming Protocol, which incidentally is used by quicktime, rfc 2326, available at:
ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2326.txt
to the poster who asked when someone was going to release an rfc.. would it have been _that_ difficult to go to www.rfc-editor.org and search for "streaming protocol" before you posted? sheesh.
As for how this development will happen, who knows. As far as I'm concerned, it's a myth that open source development is particularly fast. Most things take a few years longer to appear in open source form than their commercial predecessors. That doesn't bother me. And traditionally, proprietary protocols that end up predominating the market become public one way or another anyway. The major concern is patent protection, but that's only a temporary block.
Of course, Microsoft does try to dominate media delivery: their on-line reading efforts and Windows Media are examples. We do need to be vigilant, but I don't think their strategy will work out in the long run.
Why people want streaming media other than MP3 and MPEG-2, however, is still beyond me. I don't think there is a lot of interesting content out there. For the most interesting content available only in WMF and Real, like news, reading the article is faster than watching a video.
The answer is: it depends.
Working against us:
Working for us:
What will decide this battle:
Summary: streaming media is an *extremely* young technology. Of the 10% or so of the population with net access, probably only 5% (the DSL/Cable/University crowd) or so of those can even use streaming media effectively. (Most people can't deal with static images very well.) We have some time before streaming media becomes the 'killer app'. Even if we don't win on streaming media, we're the 'small, nimble competitor'. Microsoft is the 'large, entrenched industry leader'. Call it manifest destiny, if you like. We're bound to win one of these days. :)
The company I work for wants to get into video/audio streaming REALLY bad so we're wresling with these issues right now.
The way we see it there's (Ice|Shout)Cast, Quicktime, Real and MS.
Problem is the unfortunate reality is that MS will probably be the one. Why? Lowest Common Demoninator of users.
Real sucks, their clients are buggy. Quicktime Isn't There Yet, and (my personal favority) (Ice|Shout)Cast would require reeducating too many support staff and users on how it works.
MS is easy (and I hate that).
Someone said: "but there are no clients available for non Mac and Windows"... Uh so? Stats on our site (a mainstream newspaper site) show Mac users at a whopping 15% and "non Mac and Windows" accounts for less that 3%.
The ugly reality is that MS is cheap, easy, avaiable to those clients that matter. I hate it as much as you do but there it is.
Check http://www.fefe.de/rtp/ for a realtime MP3 encoding and multicast streaming solution for Linux. It's based on LAME, and open standards such as RTP. We're working on video. Relax, everything will be good.
I think for Realplayer, it's the server end you have to pay for, to actually /do/ the streaming etc. But ICVWBW. I'm all for getting some sort of cross-platform standard, and it strikes me that that's the way it should be - at least for the moment - the ISPs or whoever who want to stream the media and therefore attract people to their sites/services should/could pay for that, but to all users of the net some form of player should/could be free.
I'm going to risk (some) karma here, and say you're wrong about Wine.
"The Win32 API is a moving target."
Sure. Each time they release it, though, it does not change. How much "spontaneous evolution" does Win98 do once installed?
"Microsoft will attempt to break WINE compatibility with every new release of Windows."
People have started to realise there's no reason to upgrade. Why use Office 2k, when Office 97 works fine? Why get Windows "Millennium" when Win98 works fine? And once thet break the Win32 API again, they have a whole slew of apps that no longer work.
Here's what Wine should do -- allow you to run different Win32 APIs in emulation. Want to run Win 3.1 apps? Use the Win16 emulation layer. Gaming, and general apps? The Win98 with DirectX 6.1 or 7.0 emulation layer would likely be fine -- as long that they don't mix Win16 code in.. But the tricky thunking could be setup with the two emulation layers cooperating. Win NT 4.0? Heck, it'd be easier than Win98 as NT assumes the Win16 stuff will be emulated in its own VDM. Emulating the NT 4.0 API for apps that need NT, the Win98 API for normal apps, and the Win16 API for Win3.1 apps would work fine.
Yet they still continue to make a huge, combined Win32 API emulator that must act differently depending on a huge list of variables. That's why they have failed.
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Well it lacks a Netscape plugin and that is a critical omission. Many (perhaps most) of the streaming Real Audio internet radio stations/music sites (e.g. Web Radio) use horrendous JavaScript player autodetection and embed the link to the stream in a way that requires use of the plugin. I have Real Audio G2 for Linux set up. I click on a link to Real Audio content and it works... But when I go to many of those Internet radio stations I get empty windows or windows saying I need Real Audio and no sound whatsoever.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I don't understand why we can just use streaming mpegs. I was happy when 2600 started broadcasting "Off The Hook" using streaming mp3s (because even though there is a realplayer for Linux the G2 is still in alpha and seg faults if you look at it the wrong way). Mpegs make sense to me.
If we want streaming MPEG rather than MS's format, there needs to be a very easy way to do it. If content creators can download one program that lets them encode audio and video and people know about it then people will use it. If people have to download software, then find an encoder to go with (most CD rippers for example) then far fewer peole are going to encode to that format.
Is there a package that will give content creators a simple, free, streightforward way to create media on open standards?
--Ben
The current state of streaming media seems to be a joke. I have found some radio programs I would like to listen to, but the "high speed" feeds are for 28.8 modems and stream at 16kbps. The quality is horrid. Its a shame, considering I have ADSL. I want a 128kbps feed for audio, until then I think it is just a novelty and to painful to listen to. I wonder if the broadcasting industry will legally prevent high quality streaming media.
:)
This remains sadly true for the majority of commerical audio sources on the net. But you have heard of shoutcast and icecast? Both sites have a directory service listing mp3 streams, an number of which are 128kbps or greater. That offers excellent quality, better than fm radio, if I can compare apples and oranges.
I live in an area with poor broadcast radio coverage, so this has been an invaluable service for me in finding new music. And it's really nice not to have to listen to commercials.
*And* it has a snazzy UI that actually works, *and* it's also free. IMO, MacOS and BeOS are the only real alternatives to MS Windows.
Better than MS where *no one* knows the first thing about writing code. Win2k is written entirely in Visual Basic by their marketeers and lawyers!
I hate pissing matches...but I'm bored so...let's play :)
Your spew:
"Yep. But this is not the first time that Apple has promised a pre-emptive, multitasking OS. Remember Copeland? Rememember Pink? At one time Apple promised that OS 9 would be multitasking too. Same promise for 0S 8, Guess what.... OS X will be another disappointment. Don't hold your breath that it will ship this year or next.
Also only PARTS of quicktime are running on it now. The easy parts. "
Now, from the really for-real world...
10 will ship this year. The past is irrelevant.
As for Quicktime...and the "easy parts"...
One of those "easy parts" appears to be the Sorenson & QDesign Codecs that folks here are whining about...Hmmm...
You then enlightened us with this gem...
"For a brief moment Apple opened up their architecture, but just TRY to buy a Mac from someone other than Apple today. At least M$ only has a monopoly on SOFTWARE. The Mac is 100% closed, hardware AND software. In the long run, that will kill Apple as a company.
You can ALREADY run Linix on a G4 Mac. The fact that Apple has has an OS based on MACH that runs on a G4 means absolutely nothing. That's the EASY part. Where they will fail is making a *nix clone run programs currently designed for earlier Mac OS's."
News Flash
100% closed, eh? Please visit http://publicsource.apple.com and get back to me. Can't be 100% closed now can it? Perhaps, 70%-80% would be more accurate.
I am well aware that Linix (heh) runs on Apple hardware...which is exactly why I had my company buy me a Wallstreet G3 (as opposed to the creaky Dell's they were handing out).
But what's this? It also is running MacOS, MacOS X Server, and something else I can't discuss here from Apple as well.
And oddly enough, I seem to be able to run that older Mac Software under MacOS X. You know, the Mach/BSD-based thing...
Fancy That?
And the kicker...
"I havn't seen the *nix SDK, but I'll be willing to bet that it's even worse. If they were going to do a good job on any non-Mac OS, they would have spent their time on 90% of the market. "
My final word on this:
No...you HAVEN'T seen it, have you? You have NO IDEA what you are talking about, DO you?
*sigh* Dealing with folks like you makes it real hard to stay off the ad hominems, but I swear...
Why didn't you *start* your posts with "I don't know what I'm talking about" and save us all a bit of time here? I get so tired of argueing with "Linux" (especially since I'm one of them) people about "Macks/Maks/Max/Macs/Apple" (as I'm one of those, too) since the gap just isn't as great and wide as folks in these parts like to believe...
Ah well. We'll see.
Have a nice day, nonetheless...
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
Which is why there are now an awful lot of people streaming mp3 with Icecast and shoutcast.
;-)
... that's right - it's Mpeg2 video .... a universally accepted format
If you're interested in audio then there's one very persuasive argument to *not* got for Windows Media. A case of market penetration. Real Will argue that they have the largest potential listener base out there - after all their clients are available for an awful lot of platforms. Windows Media if of course only available for Windows and Mac.... no unix clients.
But... Icecast offers even more... because Icecast is as open as possible we can boast a wider potential audience than either WMP or Real.
So if you're going for audio then why bother with Real or WMP....
Well there is the bandwidth argument.... but at the rate badwidth is now increasing that's only going to be important for a couple of years - mp3 is more then Good enough to be usuable at modem speeds and excellent at DSL speeds. Why bother developing proprietory codecs?
OK... we're still working on Live Video, - but we can do static video in many formats (we can even stream windows media video files via icecast
Perhpas people should look back at the technologies which have made the wired world what it is.... all the bits that make up a streaming technology. Lets go right to the place where traditional media is still holding out against the internet.
Digital TV in europe has been one of the most successful hardware launches
ever, people talk about DVD being an example of a great hardware launch but
this is eclipsed by Digital TV, either satellite or terrestrial.
Now.... I should maybe ask everyone who is promoting Microsoft's media server
as being the technology of the future to tell me which video codec is being
used
which has implementations available for any platform.
What about proprietory streaming technologies which have been launched in the
past... after all this is a streaming media list.
What's the most popular audio format available on the internet, do people go
searching for Real Audio? Asf? Wma? All of these formats have hyp machines
telling us that they are the next generation - in fact they;ve been telling us
this for a while. And yet in the past few years it's been Mpeg Layer 3 that's
taken off - the VHS of audio formats. It may not be patent free, but it's free
enough that every platform has players and encoders...
What about the actual method of delivery?
Remember 5 or six years ago, Microsoft was launching windows 95, and at the
same time decided that they needed an 'online' serivce, something like AOL or
Compuserve. Everyone else at the time was talking about the Internet as being
the future, but MS wanted to have the Microsoft Network. A closed system
available to the users of Windows, using it's own networks, its own protocols
- after all - the internet was based on 25 year old technology - why would
users upgrading to windows 95 want to use something so outdated? We all know
that microsoft got the whole network thing waaaaay wrong.
5 years on... what's teh standard medium for the exchange of computer data? Is
it's AOL's network? Compuserve? Or MSN.... nope, nope, nope.... It's the
internet - if you don't speak TCP/IP then you're not in the party. Plus
there's all the protocols and formats which form the backbone of internet
content - HTTP, FTP, NNTP, HTML, JPEG, GIF.
I could continue to cite other computer technologies which have gone the same
way - the IBM PC - technologicall inferior to other systems at the time - but
it was easy to copy and so the clone industry was born and created the
standard PC that can run Windows95/98/NT, Linux, Beos, Gnu HURD and several
varieties of BSD.
The technologies which are successful and end up winning are all either open
technologies, or technologies which are open enough that anyone can get in.
And the same will likely be true in the next few years as bandwidth continues
to rise and streaming media applications *really* get going.
(So - if anyone wants to help me write a live video encoder/streamer for iceast we'll have a complete package....)
would stop isolating Microsoft and Microsoft supporters/developers/partners maybe Microsoft would seriously consider writing software for Linux like they do for MacOS.
I remember downloading a version of windows media (can't remember what it was called then, DirectMovie or something) for Linux _written_ by Microsoft, it must of been one of their first Linux projects, and it was free.
I don't see any reason why Microsoft wouldn't write IE or Media player for free for Linux (Linux isn't seriously going to threaten Windows on the desktop for a while - just like MacOS). Except for that fact that every childish linux geek wannabe keeps cracking jokes about microsoft, using halarious dollar signs when writing MS or Microsoft, and making stupid jokes about BSOD when Windows/MS isn't even involved.
Then there's blaming Microsoft for things that weren't there fault (eg. Ebay) and then saying "oh well, it was Sun and Oracle after all, they're good, Microsoft is evil, so that's ok".
I really do get sick of this. I read slashdot to keep up with geek news and trivia, not to hear constant Microsoft bashing. If that would stop, I bet Microsoft would be more willing to write more apps for Linux.
Save the "Microsoft wants to keep it's windows monopoly" replies, cause in this case windows media is what they want to promote...and keep in mind, they did write a media player for linux only a year or so ago.
The trouble here is that tech. developments come from hardcore reaserch into signal analysis. OSS imho (please give counterexamples!) most often suceeds in making widely understood technology stable and full of features.
Even if we have the Norwegians on our side, MS is pushing its money into research to stay ahead. If you check our Microsoft Research, specifically the internet media section (http://research.microsoft.com/research/china/imed ia/) you'll see what they're up to.
MP3 codecs rely as far as i know on Fourier analysis and, while encoding hard to do well, there are a few open source MPG decoder implementation.
The next version of the MPEG codecs, much like the new JPG2000, is going to be relying on wavelet technology. MPEG-4 uses things like 'shape-adaptive wavelet transforms and scalable shape coding'. Now this stuff is outside the realm of comprehension of a self net-taught hacker like myself (for now! i got me some books to read!), and i suspect it will be a while before this latest research gets implemented in OSS.
Which brings another interesting question: how is the opensource community going to lead in scientific research? Perhaps some notion of open knowledge community, where the knowledge is published, documented and organized for most efficient absorbtion into the neural tissue of the crowds of OSS coders that make this all possible.
meanwhile i'll be getting friendly with Dr.Daubechies and her orthogonal bases.
flip -out.
"how big is the porn business"
In objective terms? I couldn't begin to tell you for sure. You can find an article here. An estimate is that in 1999 the industry pulled almost 245 million dollars to the large sites. That will grow to almost 400 million in 2001.
That number is way low IMHO. It only counts the really large sites, not the thousands of smaller sites (including ours).
"do u have to file 10k and all that?"
We file all the normal paperwork, pay taxes and so on.
"why dont u ipo?"
Some have. But the majority of the sites are either too small to IPO or they are making a lot of money as private firms and the owners have no desire to lose control.
"how much do the workers make?"
Depends on what you mean by "worker". I know some models who runt heir own sites who make 3-4K a day, I know some models who are only worth $200 a photo shoot.
Ken
--> Fight tyranny and repression.... read
Let's petition Microsoft to port their media player to linux!
If Real maintains the larger installed base, media companies will continue publishing to the Real format, even if they also publish to the MS format. As long as MS supports one or two platforms, they are stuck in a fancy second place. Some media may be exclusively in their format, but most will cover both formats. It is useful to cover MS's format because its player is widely available with its OS, and this does provide a "catch-all" for viewers. But if they fail to reach the Linux platform, for example, their audience will be smaller, and media publishers know this (and sometimes this alone). If India, for example, adopts Linux, as another Slashdot article discusses, Real will have a very large advantage and MS would probably be forced to provide a Linux player. I hope the days of One Platform determining the standard are done.
This type of market domination killed the browser market, as it raised the barrier to entry so high that competition was impossible. Now MS is threatening domination of the streaming market as well. With the recent explosion of broadband access, streaming media is going to become increasingly pervasive. Allowing any one company to dominate the field would be a disaster.
I can't help but wonder what would happen to MS Media Technologies if the whole division split off and became their own corporate entity. Instinct tells me that it would be in the best interests of this new corporation to offer media products and technologies across all platforms. There might be some bias to remain tied to Windows (after all, the programmers in the group probably know Windows best, and like developing for it.) However, their market share could only grow by moving on to more diverse platforms; thus, I believe that eventually we would see compatible products on all platforms. This would in turn create pressure for Apple to embrace a truly cross-platform solution, further improving the quality of product available to the consumer.
It seems as if the only barrier to this happening is the fact that the media group is still a part of Microsoft. If the group were separated, the technology would be free to grow, as the incentive/limitation to work only on Windows would be lessened, if not altogether removed.
THIS is why the DOJ needs to act.
OK,surely, streaming media is a problem for linux.It seems that open source cannot do anything here, because this is science we need mathematicians to do this job
As long as we also support these standard codecs and (especially) protocols and data formats - RTP/RTCP, RTSP, SDP/SAP, etc. etc. - we'll find that QuickTime will be mostly compatible.
well, the MS player is coming up on a new revision on win platform, and so is the MS player for mac platform, and... they are in prebeta of a first linux MS player, yes, true, buggy but alive, in all its closedsource glory...
MS can't compete with REAL with non-geeks until they have the same platform coverage, the first question from non-geek audio/video exec is "does it play on a mac?"... it is a PR game which REAL execs play hardball (cuz they learned hardball when they were MS execs, haw)
ballmer knows this
(they also know linux users would stay away from closedsource shite, but again non-geek execs don't get that)
I personally use windows media player because it's small, un-obtrusive, and more flexible than the others. Apple's quicktime 4 player is a great example of bad design, and real-player is quite simply a bloated, ugly, advertisement ridden, difficult to use pig. Of course, Windows Media player can (and does) support Quicktime, MP3, etc... (but not RealNetworks, at least on my setup). It doesn't really matter what player people are using, as long as the player supports different media drivers. I think it is useful to avoid players that aren't extensible (only support 1 format). If people only use easily extensible players, the most successful streaming format will hopefully be the best one. I am also somewhat biased agains Real Networks - their codecs look and sound awful, their player is ugly and obtrusive. What less could you want?
why not use a modified version of MPEG-2 for streaming with Linux. MPEG is good because surrent video cards have hardware support for the format and more of those card vendors are opening specs on their cards. Not only that but the compression is great, it would beat the pants off .rm and .asf movies for streaming purposes. It could be coupled with a streaming server and software encoder available in any flavour you wanted. Such a project would convince big name websites to produce their content in the format so everyone could watch it. Remember, the content people are in it for the eyeballs, not the codecs.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
The player will be integrated with Windows. (It's all paid for by the M$ tax)
John
John_Chalisque
Yes I remember this...
The Reson that MS ported netshow to linux was because they were trying to sell the Microsoft media server to people who were using Real. And somebody at MS was advertising it along the lines of it having "A larger audience than Real Player"
I think one of the people they said this to was clever enough to point out that there were real clients available for Solaris, Linux and a number of other platforms...
So of course MS threw together a client for just long enough to promote the server - then it quietly disappeared...
---
I'm not a real anonymous coward, I just play one on TV.
But it would pay to step back and think about what you are supporting when you are working on streaming video. To me, streaming video allows the same people who have run television to carry that tradition of poor programming to the 'net. Do we really want to do this?
Streaming video on Linux will take computers that might otherwise be used for creating new tools or solving real problems and turn them into TVs. Isn't that really a terrible waste? Should it be aided by your efforts?
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
There are reasons to use the Beos. Lots.
For me, its the speed and responsiveness of the system, its the little nifty features and its the "ooooh cool"-effect when somebody watches what it can do.
Linux can't even play mp3s perfectly when there's some load.
What with streaming audio and transaction services what future has Linux got anyway ?
I have a friend who works for a company called WebGlide which just singed a contract with RealNetworks for about $10 million. WebGlide has a tech that is similar to VRML or Quicktimes 3D walk through environment. They have a few articles describing the deal and the tech on their website.
One article, "RealNetworks to Use Technology By WebGlide to Send 3-D Images ," from the Wall Street Journal says the following:
RealNetworks is known for software used to play music and video clips on the Web. The Seattle company said it will integrate the WebGlide technology with its RealSystem G2 software to create a new product, code-named Utopia, that will be ready in the first half of next year.
Woopty Doo Basil, what does it all mean?!
Assuming the previous paragraph occurs, Microsoft should release for Linux Internet Explorer 7.0 and Windows, oops, Linux Media Player 8.2. Of course these would be closed source binary downloads, but thats ok because an appropriate component technology (ActiveX, Java JINI/JavaBeans, DOM, Etc.) would allow them to be still fully exploited by content developers.
IE and WMP/LMP are the client side components that complement MicroSoft's Internet Information Server and the Windows Media Server. Together these four programs are capable of serving and displaying just about any kind of information today. MicroSoft currently has in operation a terrabyte database serving space-to-ground satellite photos using IIS. With IIS handling all the nasty details of processing that much information, WMS fills the role of streaming selected small portions of a huge database to the client side WMP/LMP.
MicroSoft has invested an enormous amount of effort into creating the infrastructure necessary to operate such large scale structures of information. In addition to IIS and WMS there exists Windows 2000. These three products comprise the strength of MicroSoft's tactical position in the future server market. IIS and WMS would most likely not be ported to the Linux OS to preserve the investment already made into Windows 2000. In a dominant server position, revenue is no longer derived from client side applications - IE and WMP/LMP are distributed free of charge to encourage lock-in to IE/WMP/LMP/IIS/WMS storage formats. Revenue is instead derived from contractual creation, servicing, and extension of very large collections of information. Thus the revenue breakdown shifts over from a very large number of small payments (individuals purchasing Windows 95/98) to fewer number of large payments (corporate/governmental initiatives). The net difference between the two revenue values is unknown at this point, however the obvious investment made by MicroSoft to this date would seem to imply that MicroSoft expects the two values to be comparable or in favour of the corp./gov. revenue.
MicroSoft is not a simple enough corporation to assume that the above mentioned strategy should be their singular purpose. The extreme given above would require more than a GUI standard be implemented within the Linux OS. Supporting applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, and small to mid-range databases would also have to be commercially or freely available as well for MicroSoft to retreat into becoming a server-centric corporation. MicroSoft is hedging it's bets by developing consumer versions of Windows 2000. Entertainment software will most likely decide the fate of the consumer Windows 2000, Linux does have good enough support for entertainment, and with the recent Open Source of OpenGL, competition does hold the promise of remaining even in the forseeable future.
Well, does any of this hold water? Please cast your distributed vote by replying to this post.
53,000,000 people spammed every time they did a mailing run.
You betcha we want them dead.
How about we all go support free stuff like free-expression.org, which is supposed to create a compatible but *free* streaming media server and player?
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Bravo. /me wishes he had modpoints.
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
I don't want to start a flame war but you have got to be kidding me. BeOS maybe becuase from a design stand point it is a wonderful thing. The MacOS? It's old, bloated and from a design stand point it is a piece of shit. Hell they didn't even get multi tasking right for a long time and I remember when quake couldn't be ported at first becuase it didn't have threads. I will argue for Linux as an alturnative becuase I think you meant the user friendliness of Be and Mac. While there is a little ways to go, I look at GNOME and KDE and I have to think that useability issues will pass now that more companies and individuals are working on these things. Plus look at how much Linux has caught up already in terms of ease of use. Before you had to know your way around just to get a system installed. Now a Red Hat, Caldera, Debian, Mandrake, or whatever distribution you prefer, has a nice installation that requires only a minumum knowlege of your hardware to get it up and running. Well that is enough of my advocacy.
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
At the risk of being a heretic, I would like to say that this is a symptom of a much larger problem than whether Linux users can play some streaming media or not. Basically, the whole key to the freedom and success of the Internet has been that the protocols, which date back to the pre-billion-dollar-dot-com-marketcap days, have been open and standardized. It is very concerning that this is not the case for many of the protocols that will be important on the Internet of tomorrow.
Streaming media may or may not be a big deal (on the one hand Real Networks and Microsoft are both evil as sin, on the other, how long until we can just stream with the semi-open mpeg standard instead?) but there are certainly other protocols that are. Is there any standard for Voice over IP? Are these open? Or just look at instant messaging. Flash. Secure communications.
Sooner or later the services that make up the Internet today are going to fade into obscurity and be replaced by whatever comes next. However, it seems that ever since commercial interest came to the Internet, they have not been able to agree on one single standard. Is the future of the Internet going to be one perpetual standards war because everyone believes that a monopoly is the only way to do bussiness?
I believe very firmly that this has already hurt the Internet and it's developement. Why has there not been a single new standard service since the WWW? Why has the last ten years seen the least developement of new innovations on the Internet although more money has been spent on it then every before?
Of course, as always our hope lies in that the Open Source revolution can convince companies that terms like "proprietary" and "patented" are everything but marketing catch phrases, and that fostering freedom is the only way to be successful on the Internet. But as long as Steve Case is looked up to as the archetype Internet executive, I wouldn't hold my breath.
-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
Open systems and the open Internet don't have anything to fear from commercial products, in my opinion, but only from commercially imposed lock-ins of various types, like patent restrictions and trade secrets.
The most dangerous thing that's been happening in recent years is probably the development of proprietary "standards" which are then imposed on the world by the power of cartel. We've seen lots of examples of this highlighted here right from the earliest days of Slashdot, but of course it's been happening forever. The difference is that before there wasn't really a single world for most people, whereas now there is, and it's a world that's held together by open communication and open information. Tie it up in the red tape of proprietary restrictions and we've got problems.
Some might call for enforcement to ensure that world-adopted standards are never proprietary, but that is easier said than done. The main problem is that the world's most obvious enforcers (governments) are in the hands and pockets of the big corporations that are of course creating the standards to their own advantage. I doubt if the IETF, EFF and others could get themselves onto the relevant forums even if they wanted to. In any event, they wouldn't be welcome even if the show weren't effectively invite-only, because corporations focus on control and profits, not openness.
Where does this leave us? Probably in a perpetual war against oppression by the corporate machine, but that isn't as bad as it sounds. Remember that they need us since we're the source of their profits, so there is a limit to how nasty they can be without losing money. To put it in other terms (control theory?), their success is dampened by negative feedback, whereas the growth and chaotic direction of the Internet is very much in the exponential grip of positive feedback as everyone builds on the work of everyone else. It'll be a bumpy ride, but I reckon we'll come out on top.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Okay, slightly ignorant in the comments, making points by completely misreading what I was saying. I know it's hard to the companies to port to Linux, and it doesn't really matter for the reasoning behind my comments. And if you have used Office 2000, you'll realize how much it is aimed at the stupid. They hide parts of the menus so that the dumber users won't get lost with all the selections.
The problem with the current streaming media standards, as I see it, is that they are purely binary standards.
Has anyone made any moves toward an open streaming media markup language (SMML) and browser/player? If it were based on XML and had markup for specs like required codecs, binary media format, etc., it would be possible to create SM using the HTML/browser model that has already proved so successful on the web.
Microsoft et al. would be left in the dust if they stuck with a proprietary binary standard to compete with this model.
Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
William Shakespeare
I have done a little bit of reading about video standards and codecs. It seems there are several issues here.
1.) Windows media is centered around the ASF file format. The documents I have read at Microsoft's web site give lip service to ASF being a new, open standard. There certainly seems to be an oppurtunity to pressure Microsoft, and see just how open they are willing to be. Maybe they would be willing to hand over the specs and not sue the daylights out of the open source/Linux community (hold on... gotta stop laughing). Personally I don't like ASF. It embeds a GUID into all ASF files. The GUID contains the MAC address and other information about the PC creating the files. Maybe open source tools would give back privacy.
2.) Codecs. Even if Microsoft allowed open development of the ASF format, that really solves very little. ASF is just a wrapper. The appropriate codecs will need to be available in order to play any given ASF file. The most popular video codec seems to be the three versions of Microsoft's MPEG 4 codec. According to Microsoft the codec is based on the proposed MPEG 4 standard. That could be bad news. That sounds like MS Speak for "proprietary". It may be difficult, costly or impossible to make a legal codec. Such a codec would threaten MS dominance.
3.) Workstation apps and streaming media server apps are needed to support the ASF/ASX pseudo standard. I don't know what exists in the Linux world, but it may have to be updated to support windows media. Workstations require the codec to view streams. Does a streaming server app need to actually have the codec to transmit the data, or is understanding the ASF format sufficient?
MP3 seems to be a seperate issue. Real and MS have the streaming video/audio market locked up for now. I think MS could take over, and it is forward planning on there part. It seems that nothing exists to threaten MP3, the cat is out of the bag on that one. Perhaps something similar would happen if a high performance, open source, free MPEG4 codec existed.
The current state of streaming media seems to be a joke. I have found some radio programs I would like to listen to, but the "high speed" feeds are for 28.8 modems and stream at 16kbps. The quality is horrid. Its a shame, considering I have ADSL. I want a 128kbps feed for audio, until then I think it is just a novelty and to painful to listen to. I wonder if the broadcasting industry will legally prevent high quality streaming media.
I am a streaming media professional, and here is the scoop. Windows Media Technology (WMT) is an excellent streaming platform. Microsoft has spent a lot of money and time to develop the software and to promote it.
Real Networks, who have tried to keep the Linux side of the RealServer and RealPlayer going, do not have funds from selling an OS to support them like Microsoft does. As a result, their server costs money. I've paid out a lot of money for their server to be able to serve Linux users. They also need to have advertising money driven by the "player portal." It sucks, but that's the way it is.
On the codec side, it is my opinion that there is no video codec that can compete with Real or WMT at the 20kbps department. That's usually 5-6 kbps audio, 14-15 kbps video. This is your typical 28.8kbps connection, and many people with 56k modems still need to use this data speed because of oversold ISPs and such.
Personally I don't see the server as a difficult piece of software to write...it just moves data. The encoder and player are the tough parts.
I am calling on the IPOed Linux companies to look seriously into ensuring that there is a low bitrate video system for Linux. Much like Microsoft, they are the people with the bucks to make this happen.
Imagine an open-source low-bitrate video system. Videoconferencing could be combined with broadcast capability to provide incredibly interactive new mechanisms of global communication. The possibilities are endless if the Linux community has access to the codecs.
If patent free codecs can't be created, they could be licensed by the big companies supporting Linux.
but realnetworks are a bunch of nasty bastards, too. remember, they got busted for breaching generally accepted privacy rules a few months back, by collecing customer information after the fact?
if you don't remember, look it up. it was big.
but don't ask me what to do about it, i'm not a streaming video kinda guy myself. too busy doing other things. like hackin and listening to mp3s.
besides, i find that streaming video/audio is more-often-than-not a pain-in-the-rear, and/or choc-full of ad-verts. heh-heh-heh.
and isn't that what our giant hard drives are supposed to be for? high speed internet connections are made for DOWNLOADING, not streaming. why stream once when you can hold on for ever?
the previous was my $0.02, but remember it's not worth as much because:
"..Constructive critizism is always welcome however."
Let's do this the Right Way... Open Source right from the beginning. The OSSMAPI can serve as a reference API... we invite you to help us define data structures and the programming interface.
Wouldn't it be nice to just #include "ossmapi.h" and be able to stream a mp3 or mpeg file from your little application without having to worry about streaming works or what client your "partner" is using?
Please take a look and mail us your ideas!
Open Source Streaming Media API (OSSMAPI)
Windows can barely run mIRC.
It's a dirty shame for Windows users
(for whatever reason they run Windows)
that they seem to have mIRC as the best
overall IRC client for the platform.
mIRC is big and buggy. And while much of
the UI is nice (it does make some sense in
the Windows environment), a replacement that
did most of what mIRC does (ctrl-k colors can
and SHOULD be scrapped with all due speed!)
would be a welcome thing in the Windows world.
vIRC and pIRCh don't quite seem to have whatever
mIRC has, and there is an odd problem that the
non-Windows world doesn't have - people still
using older hardware and 16 bit (yes) versions
of Windows. Why? It's what they have, what they
know - and getting them that far was hard enough.
So what does Windows need?
Possible answers:
1. Replacement, scrapping.
Not a serious option for a LOT of folks.
2. For IRC, a slimmer better written IRC client
available (and _supported_ ) in 32 AND 16 bit
versions.
yeah, though the throughput at RPI was better pre-firewall, and pre-freshmen with laptops (hey, I've graduated and am off far away now...). They finally put in some new switches around campus so the local mp3/mpegvid traffic wouldn't slow everything down quite so much... Helped some though. Oh well... the other side was usually the limiting factor, though...
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Tried to use plugger as a plugin and define realplay in there. It should work (never tried it though). George
Does anybody know a good (non-streaming) open video format (that allows for integrated audio and closed captioning perhaps), preferably well-documented?
Do you want a file format, a codec, or both? QuickTime is a flexible, well-documented file format. H.263 and the various flavors of MPEG are well-documented codecs (of course, you still have the patent problems).
I've found from experience that you don't need to understand an agorithm in order to implement it in software. As long as the researchers explain clearly what needs to be done to, say, decode a media stream in a given format, you should be able to implement it without necessarily knowing the theory behind it.
It would be nice to have a bill to protect our rights. The Internet User Rights.
We have a right to know what our Computer is downloading from the Internet. We have a natural right to know all Net standards.
Andrew
The answer: BeOS....
We can't make linux "The Media OS". There is too much missing.
Once again BeOS kicks Linux's butt..
You should be able to generate live QuickTime streams using the Java Media Framework.
Which is good. Microsoft is a big, powerful company that we can have confidence in because they have lots of programmers and the company isn't going to die.
However, upon reviewing the agreement I still stand by my previous rant. It might be free in cost, but not in obligation. All the agreement allows me to do is to offer Real for download from one of our own servers. I still must not install it on behalf of the user because I'd be violating their section 1c saying I can't disable the user from seeing the EULA when they first INSTALL Real.
I also must report to them quarterly how many of my users downloaded the real player. Yack...
how big is the porn business do u have to file 10k and all that? why dont u ipo? how much do the workers make?
there is not some magically gifted segment of the population who can create codecs... anyone out there can do alot of studying and figure it out. all it takes is some elbow grease and some self confidence. unfortunately alot of people lack self confidence and feel like they dont know enough or have 'skills' so they never try. but i think anyone should go for it ... lets say you take a stab and fail... at least maybe later on you can make some small patches to some other persons streaming 'media' project... and if u have 50,000 people who make small patches and fix bugs pretty soon you have something good.
This isn't listed on their download page, but is mirrored on ftp sites worldwide.
Real Player Download Form
The rpm version filename is G2player-6.0-0.99092901.i386.rpm which can easily be found through FTP Search
---
Silence is consent.
Now I wonder if I'll hear what the 'response' is to this is...
On a side note.. why in Sam Hell is
--
*kerchunk* *beep* "...Operator."
Hey Guys, I'm creating LinuxMusic.com/net/org. Basically, our idea is to create the Internet Radio stations of the future using streaming technology. If anyone is interested in helping out, drop me a line at matt@saharadesign.com Thanks
I have a very fast cable connection at home, and I have a very fast T3 line at work. Streaming Media doesn't work so well at either place. Its frustrating, tedious and annoying. I haven't clicked on a media clip in at least 6 months. I cant even imagine how bad it is for folks using analog modems.
The bigger issue is, IMHO, the issue of focus. To beat Microsoft, IMHO, don't get into a war over features. They can churn out features faster than anyone. Look at the software we have as a result. What Linux should be concerning itself with is superior stability with less features...initially. Tackle the features that actually have to get done later, after a need has been established, relying on your reputation as superior software craftpeople. Nobody has ever beat Microsoft going toe to to on features. Its a a distraction at best.
I'm still working on a clever footer.
The situation of streaming media on linux is actually even worse than the questioner describes it. Microsoft still largely pretends linux doesn't exist and real player is available "free for non commercial use". So what, neither are open source, so I see no reason to use them on linux.
What we need is a Free Software player and the server to match. So somebody either needs to write these to deal with (either of or both) the existing MS/real formats, or we need a new project written from scratch. This would mean developing a file format, a player and server tools superior to ms/real offerings.
As you can see, unless the open source community does something pretty quick, the future for streaming media on Free Software systems won't be rosy,
But where is the free production platform? Does Quicktime have a free tool to generate the live streams?
For live streaming, you can use Sorenson's Broadcaster with or without Darwin Streaming Server (you can use the server to reflect a multicast so folks can access streams over the internet). The product page is at http://www.s-vision.com/produ cts/SorensonBroadcaster/.
To set up movies, music files, etc. on your server, you can use Apple's $30 QuickTime Pro (a reg# upgrade to the free download). This will allow you to export media into hinted format for streaming.
-Dave
they seldom focus on facts. Nice try and you are correct re. the nature of the quote. The fact that he flies stormflacks flag speaks poorly for his grasp of reality....
you're right
... NEVER succeeds long
an organization of arrogant fucks
According to the Sun guys at LinuxWorld in NY, their JMF 2.0 is being reworked right now for Linux. Now I don't know if they just said that to me 'cause they were at the Linux show but they also said it would happen soon. We can only hope. [:]
If Microsoft controls video and audio streaming, then a broadband like player is not too far away.
Web Browser + Media Player = Future all-in-one Broadband Browser/Player
Exactly. A desktop OS needs to do some basic things, Linux is clearly lacking in most (if not all)
Why keep trying to push it as a desktop OS? Do you guys understand how many angry returns of Linux software stores get?
You're going to kill Linux if you keep trying to push it onto your novice friends and family.
First, at least in regards to streaming media, we must realize that there are no standards for it, unlike something like HTML, and thus we'll have to follow what the current trend is (and that is going the way of Windows Media). While some would probably agrue that Mpeg is the real standard, how many popular web sites use it?
Next, a group of programs need to get together with some commercial entity with a good interest in Linux (RedHat, Corel, Sun, etc..). The commercial interest is necessary, as I doubt that Microsoft would want to work with just a set of Linux programmers.
With that in mind, this collective group should approach the company that holds the defacto standard in question, and ask if they can have the APIs to the library that handled the translation of the streaming media to audio and visual elements. I suspect parts of the library itself are trade secrets or patented or something along those lines, and may include encryption and other details. Don't ask for the source to this library, just the APIs.
Then comes the tougher part. While the APIs can be easily used to make the client wrapper (and the GPL'd part), you'd also have to convience the company to recompile their library into the appropriate OS format. Now, take streaming media; if it's done properly by Microsoft (haha), the GUI code will be nowhere within the library, and the library should be nearly cross-platform, relying only on TCP/IP and data decryption algorythms. If this is not the case, then the commercial company should offer to go into a non-disclosure agreement, and work on making a cross-platform version of it available; the library would still be closed source, of course. (This is another reason why as just programmers, we can't do this alone).
FInally, once the library and the GUI wrapper is finished, you have a program that parts of can be released under the GPL, while the library is distributed as a binary and can only be redistrubted as a library.
The key thing is getting some commercial company into it. Money speaks louder than words in this case, although the above transactions should require no money to be spent. It has to be made clear to the company with the controlling standard that doing this would result in a wider acceptance of their standard, which means more money for them in the end (in the case of Windows Media, more WM users; in the case of DVDs, more DVDs bought, etc). In addition, any 'secret' parts of the library would be easier to get if there was another company with an interest in it, as opposed to a 'random group of hackers'.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
for use in non-commercial stuff. For more than 25 streams, they have a few options; you can buy a 40-stream server for $600, or a 100-stream server for several thousand dollars.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
It's not just simply streaming media wars that we're fighting here people. Why do you think people run programs like Wine and VMWare? Microsoft has the dominant share of Office suites, browser market, close to it in streaming media. And they're tremendously impacting users that would ordinarily go to Linux by not offering _any_ of their products for Linux. Not saying that that's tremendously important as for usefulness, but there are a lot of stupid people that like the "easy to use" (low functionality) products that Microsoft produces, and until Linux users can convince them otherwise, like create a viable alternative for MS Windows (StarOffice is almost there), make a new streaming codec and distribute it to all OSes, or make a better browser than Netscape (which is going to die anyway, and Mozilla can't handle JavaScript for it's life). I don't like the philosophy that the Windows programs have to be ported to Linux, I think it would be great if there was a truly great advancement started on the Linux platform, and it would help to further Linux a lot. Got off track a little, but I liked all of those comments, so I'll leave them/
Peace in,
Neil
And I don't quite agree with the C4A troller, because, we are going to get as bad a reputation as them. I would rather keep it ethical and above board, even if it made a life bit tougher.
And as you said, I would rather download a mp3 than listen to screaching sounds on ra. For movies, I would download the mp* first, and then watch it, 'cause whatever they say, we don't have enough bandwidth to watch streaming movies.
If you are running MS Windows you've got it all: mp3, real audio, quicktime, MS media, etc. As soon as you move away from windows you get less choice.
That's why MS Media won't gain much popularity because who'd want to provide streams for only part of the potential audience? A succesfull standard (propietary or not) needs to have a free client that is available on most platforms. Especially since small webdevices (without MS software) are becoming increasingly popular, non availability of MS Media on those platforms will work against MS.
Both quicktime and realaudio & video are already available on other platforms. If you want to provide streaming audio/video for non windows users, you'll have to go with either of those.
Jilles
Yeah, QT 1.2 , not the 4.0 spec with VR and latest codecs and cool gui, ie all the pro features....
in 1997 Apple had QT2.5 running on an SGI iRIX box 100%, working, how hard would it be to move that unix based QT2.5 from IRIX to LINUX??? NONE, apple has already ported it to unix but the fuckers just cant be bothered to release it fully.
APPLE SUCKS!
I don't use MS products any more, but I did before I discovered Linux. I build my own computers with the components I want, so they tend to be stable; Windows did not crash _that_ much, and MSOffice was OK to use. I tried IE4 a few times, but I didn't like the look/feel as much as NS. Generally, these products on Win98 are acceptable.
However, the equivalents on MacOS are rot. I have not tried IE on Solaris, so I will not judge that. Truthfully, I don't really want MS to write apps for Linux, because they will have all of the same things wrong with them as these apps under Windows. Most notably, the heavy useage of proprietary formats which are almost always changed with the next version, (Win2K is supposedly different). Plus, they are closed source, and therefore something I really don't want on my system, as I strongly believe in the security and functionality benefits of Open Source. And their apps on Linux will almost certainly not perform as well as those on Windows (not an MS-only thing--is OpenSSH as good on other platforms as it is on OpenBSD?)
It would be all well and good for them to release Office or whatever for Linux, but I probably would continue to use AbiWord: a light, fast, open-source app that suits my needs.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
Real Player 7 was just released but G2 is still not officalilly out for linux/unix. RealNetworks has seemed to drop Linux support. RealPlayer 5 is OK but there is better stuff out there. I find this action by Real kinda stupid because is real is having a hard time competing with Microsoft on its envrioment it should support Linux more so it can obtain a starting foot in an other computer market that is fast growing. Corel is dooing it with Word Perfect, Borlands dooing it. These were once the most popular products in the industry until Microsoft brounght them down to almost unheard of. Until they started creating products for Linux and now there are becoming well known again. (hey even Amaga had a fiew minutes of fame when they brought up the idea of linux when they droped it they disapeared again)
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Accidentally, we're three Computer Science students working on what we think will be an intuitive and flexiable Streaming Media API. In fact, it's the final project in our education.
We know codecs are evolving. The codecs are not really the issue, the programming interface to the codecs is. What we need to do is to establish an Open Source alternative to the Win32 Streaming Media API. Our project is still in the planning period but we've already decided to work with the Open Source community.
Check out my URL or search for streaming on SourceForge if you want to help out with the API design or have other ideas for the future of streaming media! Think C++/Java classes, well-defined objects and so on.
What scares me is we may not have any streaming player at all soon. I have been waiting for the G2 version of the realplayer for linux for over a year now, and they just released the next version of the player Realplayer 7. Which puts linux 2 versions behind Mac and Windows versions. G2 has been around for a long while. I really hope Real is still commited to the linux platform.
In case anyone from Real is reading; I *would* pay for a linux real player. ^_^
-Paul
"I'm nobody suspicious... That makes me sound even more suspicious, doesn't it?" - Spike (Cowboy Bebop)
Who cares if it's not officially "done"? It works! Use it! Did everyone wait until 1.0 to use mutt? Is no one downloading Mozilla Milestones? Really, this IS a desktop environment we're talking about here.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
Sun IS evil, at least as evil as MS. I don't doubt for a second that the picture would be much the same if Sun had taken over the desktop market (I have no idea _how_ that could have happened...this is purely hypothetical). I think that MS has better business sense, but I don't like to use either one.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
Searching for MBONE only turned up 3 hits on freshmeat, but http://www-mice.cs.ucl.ac.uk/multim edia/software is a site that has updated versions of some of the tools I used in 1994. It looks like a lot of them are covered by the Berkeley license, but there are some precompiled linux binaries.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Are there any published algorithms that would enable us to write low-bandwidth video streaming with acceptable quality? What about universities, are there any research projects out there with usuable results?
CNN is having a poll, vote for favorite streaming media system ( MS, Real, QuickTime, Other ). When I looked QT and Real were in the lead. Speak your mind at http://cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/01/28/stream.sh ootout.idg/index.html
Start Running Better Polls
Hi. My name is Jeff Robinson, and I run BigCheese.com, soon to be the Internet's first and only cheese-oriented vertical portal (currently in development).
:)
This reminds me of a situation in the dairy industry about two years ago. One company's dairy farms provided the bulk of the milk used by several small cheese manufacturers. They had just decided that they wanted to go into the cheese-making business themselves, and price the smaller cheese manufacturers out of the market.
They had a very indirect method in mind, though. The smaller manufacturers made most of their money through being included in other food products such as Domino's Pizza and Hot Pockets. This food corporation had multi-year contracts to provide its clients with the ingredients they needed at a very competitive price, and threatened to back out if they wouldn't also buy their cheese from the larger corporation. The really insidious part was that the food company's cheese melted at a slightly different point than their smaller competitors', and so all their clients would have had to go through an expensive process of retooling parts of their plants and retraining employees, but after they were done, it would be equally hard to go back.
Some of the smaller farmers talked about finding a way to copy their recipe, or finding a way to get Domino's, et al., to use any sort of cheese with their ovens. What actually happened, though, was that the cost of retooling and retraining proved to be greater than that of switching food suppliers, and the food supplier had generated such bad faith with this power play, that most of their clients ended up switching, and that company now has revenues a third of what they were before this all happened.
So I don't think the situation's quite as blood-curdling as it looks - open standards are usually the best whey to go.
Jeff Robinson
President & CEO, BigCheese.com
Please don't start a new flame war, streaming media is in fact an area that developers on both platforms can work together to define an Open Source standard.
In our project (see URL) we want to implement streaming media using the Media Kit, but with a very good API design it should be easy to implement the ideas and interface on Linux as well. Therefore I invite people to work with us.
Yes, that's right. Their license agreement specifically states that redistribution is not permitted, only end users are permitted to download and install their player. There is nothing on their web site stating of a way this restriction can be removed either.
Somehow they got it in their mind that corporate business users are permitted to freely download and install apps on their managed PCs. Plus, as a college, we have to keep lab PCs orderly by locking down permissions so students can install stuff on the computers either.
(Yes, they all run NT, not Linux).
I wrote to Real and complained and they told me to send my request to client_redistribution@real.com but they never respond to my e-mails. (My latest attempt to contact them was the middle of January 2000)
So -- flock() 'em. I installed WMP along with IE, which is permitted (license wise) if done via the IEAK.
Free is useless to me if I am forbidden by license to freely copy the software onto the client machines I maintain. If Real thinks all users manage their own PCs, they are horribly out of touch with reality.
You may hate Microsoft, but at least they understand the business environment. Real can shrivel up and die for all I care.
BTW, did we all forget already Real's huge intentional privacy violation regarding their players sending player listening info back to Real?
I don't mean to get off on a rant here, but Microsoft bashing is getting old. Yeah, I love Linux. Where I control the decisions (my home network of 6 machines), I have everything run by Linux clients and servers and use UNIX on servers at work to run everything from Apache to Samba. But the desktop corporate world still revolves around Microsoft and I can make no sane business case to have students to use anything other than that.
If you read my post history, you can see me ranting about the often horrible cruft Microsoft shovels out too. But in this case, WMP beats Real in the Windows world and beyond that, there are no other viable alternatives (Quicktime install methods and redistribution crap deserves a separate rant...)
"Why keep trying to push it as a desktop OS? Do you guys understand how many angry returns of Linux software stores get?"
Well, I don't know "how many angry returns" they get, if I did I expect I'd understand... so how many?
I agree with most what you say, but there's a difference between standards for network transfer and video compression.
MSN and their proprietary protocols was offering absolutely no advantages, it was done just for strategic reasons.
OTOH, there are huge differences from a performance point of view with video codecs. You must regard CPU power necessary to decode, memory requirements and most important, what bitrate does your codec require to deliver a certain quality (with lossy codecs you obviously can reach any grade of compression, so it's more useful to compare quality of two codecs at the same bitrate). MS is doing pretty well here (I think they're using MPEG-4 for low bitrates), and it'll be hard to come up with a free and patent-free decoder that delivers the same quality.
There already is a set of standards!
l e /.
Check out the homepage of the AVT working group of the IETF at http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/avt-charter.htm
and also check out the set of tools (video conferencing, audio etc.) already available on
http://www-mice.cs.ucl.ac.uk/multimedia/softwar
We already do have streaming video and audio on UNIX.
(1) They already have an established base on the Mac and Wintel machines
(2) Many movies are only available in Quicktime format, especially with Apple-controlled codecs.
Who knows? Maybe they think these two are enough; they may very well be. But I think supporting Linux would really push them over the edge.
In the meantime, I hate streaming video. I'd rather download the whole thing and watch decent quality than a blurred half-driver's-license-sized window.
I think Linux needs commercial support for video, if for no other reason than many of the good video compression codecs are proprietary.
Does anybody know a good (non-streaming) open video format (that allows for integrated audio and closed captioning perhaps), preferably well-documented?
I read that the base JPEG2K specs were supposed to be open (to a certain degree). Could that be used to make a good quality video, a la Motion-JPEG style? I don't mean streaming, just say 30min on a 650M CD at 640x480, 30fps (or 60fps interlaced).
Sorry for my uneducated opinion; my knowledge of multimedia specifications is limited almost purely to baseline TIFFs, so I could be a real dumbass here.
WARNING: SEMI-SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
:) Freeform College Radio!!
The online radio stations at both UMBC and College park have different flavors of bandwidth to suit your high-speed desires. Really, you only need a P-90 to serve 25 streams of 16k audio, so if you're using a decent machine for email, you can be nice to the high-end users and stream something good from that one. WMBC (UMBC) broadcasts at 80k stereo, which sounds about FM quality (and also at 24k MP3). WMUC (College Park) broadcasts at 40k, IIRC.
Check out WMBC via my "URL" link; we resume broadcasting on Feb. 14th (when everyone is back in school). I'm not sure of the College Park link, but do try to find them; they have great shows, too
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
I agree completely. Linux can never conquer the desktop unless some MAJOR changes are made ... /w
You make it sound as if making a Windows product available for Linux is a matter of taking a tarball of the source over to a Linux box and running make. Well, it isn't. The technical reason there's no Office for Linux suite is that it simply can't be done without either stabilizing the Win32 API long enough to develop a good compatiblity library or ending up with two completely separate code bases for the same product. Neither is desirable for Microsoft because the former would stifle their God-given right to (Ahem!) innovate and the latter would simply be a big mess.
Microsoft likes to brag about the low average age of its software staff (the figure I heard was around 25). That explains why their products are of low technical quality: they're being built by people without the experience to know better. Before you reach for the flamethrower, I'm not saying that younger people aren't any good at doing software, because there are plenty that are. I'm saying that a horde of inexperienced people developing software without the leadership of people who've been there, done that and got the tee shirt is a bad thing. Rick Downes did an interesting analysis of Microsoft's RegClean app in the RISKS-FORUM digests Volume 35 and Volume 37. The long and the short of it is that he found tons of unnecessary left-overs in the program that go a long way to prove that someone smart at Microsoft built an app template and people are boilerplating apps from it without taking the time to understand what they were doing.
Lest anyone think this scores more points for the open source movement, it happens on this side of the fence, too. The difference is that others have the opportunity to find these problems and correct them.
Funny you should mention that:
"Music.com endorses Windows Media, disses MP3"
http://www.theregister.co.uk/
I remember using MBONE tools to do video and audio in the office and over the internet with my SGI Indy in 1994. I compiled them from source I pulled down from some university site. Why isn't this stuff being used? Is multicast too much of a headache or not as responsive? If it uses less bandwidth than the proprietary streaming protocols, I'd rather use that.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Get a StreamBOX VCR and RECORD your streams to the HD to play back like files.
STREAMBOX.COM, or find a copy in deja.com
its kickass, now you can copy all "non downloadable streams"
Thanks for helping me to see the light..
It's the fault of the employees attitudes, as well.
Hmm, when i first read the orig question it sounded like complete FUD and flamebait.
bash# lynx http://www.slashdot.org >>/dev/geek
BUT the core question is a valid one...
The REAL Problem: We need a universal streaming data protocol. Audio/Video/Stocks/Weather (anything) Obv there would have to be content based compression, audio compresses diferently than video or a stream of weather data.
The REAL Solution: Do it the old fassioned way, the proven way. START A RFC.. or build on existing ones.
The only reason the internet has become so popular is because the basic underlying protocols are OPEN and well described/understood. In fact one can extend this thread of thinking to say: The only protocols we have problems with are the ones that are not well described or OPEN. http/ftp/telnet/gopher/nntp/smtp all very well understood and open protocols... REALplayer and MS _Very_ closed...
----------------------------------------------
Matt on IRC, Nick: Tuttle
----------------------------------------------
bash# lynx http://www.slashdot.org >>/dev/geek
Matt on IRC
It really means that we'd be fools to depend on proprietary interests to supply us with access to digital media.
Read Arne Flones' latest article on LinuxToday.
Proprietary protocols, software, and technology are a trap. RealNetworks is not our friend. Open protocols and free software are our only friends.
Why is it illegal to do "dumping" of manufactured goods, but not of computer programs?
Look to this page on SourceForge for a group that are trying to define a new streaming format for the BeOS and the upcoming Stinger. Perhaps an arrangement for both Be and Linux to share the format can be worked out.
"we don't care"
Jeez, that sucks. BeOS has a journaling 64bit file system, which Linux users are waiting for, still. It also has quite a few inroads to the Internet Appliance market, which will make it not only the "Media OS", but the "Media Viewing OS", as well.
I think only good things can come of a collaboration between Linux and Be developers. Afterall, it's already been pointed out that Linux is unsuitable for the common user. How can it develope such a user base if it can't used by most people?
Be it Art Bell (for some laughs) or 80s music, streaming Audio IS a big thing!
/.
Streaming audio will soon become (and is becoming) streaming video. (tho even with DSL 1.5 Mb it still sucks, it's just a matter of time)
Anybody who doesn't see that has their heads in the sand. (or up their arse)
If you haven't already, submit your vote to support Quicktime on Linux, via the earlier article on
-Ben
Perhaps a sign of hope?
This smacks of a double standard to me by slashdot readers (similar to the how slashdotters agree with the sale of the linux.net sale but railed against the seriousdomains.com auction) For a a forum that is constantly complaining about government intrusion into our lives, slashdotters seem to see nothing wrong with using the government as a personal attack dog when the mood suits them.
The reason the DOJ got involved in the browser wars is because MSFT used their position as the maker of Windows(tm) to force OEMs to preload Internet Explorer and charged higher licensing fees to those that disagreed until they toed the line. I have not seen or heard of any OEM being forced not to preload Real Player by MSFT and thus I cannot see how the browser wars are a good precedent for involving the DOJ. The giving away of IE is also different from the distribution of Windows(tm) Media player for free because besides the fact that they gave away IE to undercut Netscape, it can be argued rightly that in the industry today it is regular practice to give away content viewers to gather eyeballs so as to charge an arm and a leg for content creators/server software. This seems to be the business model of Real and Apple...should we launch a class action lawsuit against them for giving away software and thus stopping me from charging for my Carnage Player, I hope the answer is no.
Secondly involving the government in every little tiff in the software industry can only be a bad thing. The animosity of Sun reached distasteful levels during the MS-DOJ case and several statements made by Scott McNealy during the case are clearly products of envy. It would be sad indeed if the software industry is reduced to calling on the government for help every time a market leader emerges like angry school children paying the school bully to beat up the smartest kids in class.
I also dislike the premptive strike nature of the above post as displayed by this line.. With the recent explosion of broadband access, streaming media is going to become increasingly pervasive. Allowing any one company to dominate the field would be a disaster. This seems to indicate that it is OK for the DOJ to punish MSFT for having better technology technology than the rest of the current industry. Streaming media support is NOT an issue to anyone I have ever spoken to about a computer purchase and I am very sure that the current industry landscape will change before it ever does. Asking for an attack on MSFT now by the DOJ is premature and is only justifiable by twisted anti-MSFt logic. Why not ask the DOJ to sue Winamp or ICQ (wow just realized AOL owns both of them) since once computers become cheap enough and high bandwith is ubiquitous they are set to dominate their fields also?
Finally the entire above post smacks of an intense feeling of sour grapes and misconceptions. It seems that the poster is implying that Windows Media is so good that MSFT should be forced to share... (I'd rather they shared IE first, because I'm tired of Netscape's bugginess) but does not realize this has never been a reason for the DOJ to get involved in an issue. MSFT is allowed to develop cool software for Windows after all Windows is their principal product and they should make it as attractive as possible by writing cool apps for it. What is illegal is forcing people to use their product or else. Instead of bitching to the DOJ about issues that do not concern them maybe the richer Linux community (VA, Andover, Redhat) can fund research into open codecs or work on free (as in beer and speech) media players, servers and file formats. Instead of bitching to the government maybe the answer lies within us as a community.
1)You wrote that, ``Unless an organization, without commercial interest (like the W3) is willing to be heavy handed, there's a tendency for a profit hungry entity to capture the market... I don't think I can honestly condemn companies for trying - that's capitalism. ''
Is this not a glaring flaw in the pure capitalist system? If you won't blame the company, then only the system is to blame....
2) Streaming media isn't that useful to the 98% of us chugging along with a modem. For the T3-connected university world, its something to care about, but for the average joe? I'd be inclined to say that this isn't an issue at all. Too much bandwith, crappy audio quality.
DK as EG streaming for Linux and BSD
I watching streaming pornos right now!
I think Linux should stay underground, and stop trying to be accepted by being like everyonce else! Being mainstream sucks... it will just bring corruption, lies, greed and bullshit. Linux will simply be better if it is underground. Once linux becomes mainstream and exploited (as everything new and underground eventually does), I'll switch to a BSD.
It's a nice little server, easy configuration, seems to work quite well. It's also an RTSP server, so I would guess it is independant of media and players, right?
Everyone go try it out: http://www.apple.com/publicsource