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?

Comments

I have a *good* suggestion. Read.

[MrKai]

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

It depends...

[dexev]

The answer is: it depends.

Working against us:

• MS can leverage it's market share in a big way.
• MS has a technological head start, both in browsers and streaming media.
• MS can use patents and trade secrets to lock OSS out of it's markets.

Working for us:

• Linux & OSS have a lot more people working on it that MS does (We're catching up!)
• We can create solutions for *all* OS'es, MS can't.
• We have an entire Norway of teenagers just waiting to reverse engineer Windows media streams :)

What will decide this battle:

• Tech. developments that make Windows Media obsolete (these probably need to be open standards)
• How well (& how quickly) the OSS community brings out cross-platform streaming solutions.
• Development of emulators (WINE, VMWare, etc.)
• Education: if we can convince content providers that they're locking out a significant portion of their user base by going to WM, we can prevent it taking over the streaming market.
• How quickly linux desktops spread. There aren't many people (at least not now) that are going to choose a desktop OS purely based on what streaming media is available. They're more concerned with "usablility" and office apps. If linux can catch up (& move ahead!) here, we can grab desktop market share. That helps us convince content providers to use open standards.

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. :)

Re:Is there a standard?

[Chuck Chunder]

There are several problems with following a Microsoft 'standard'. The main problem with chasing Windows Media Player is that it isn't a single format, but an interface to all sorts of largely proprietary codecs, codecs that can be added to at any time. If you try and access something you don't have a codec for Media Player just pops off to codecs.microsoft.com to get it.

The question that needs to be answered is 'Why are websites choosing Microsoft media streaming products over freely available alternatives?'. If we get the answer to that, perhaps we'll be someway to fixing the problem.

The Standard is never the best Tech...

[szyzyg]

Which is why there are now an awful lot of people streaming mp3 with Icecast and shoutcast.

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 ... that's right - it's Mpeg2 video .... a universally accepted format
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....)

Bloated Pig Interfaces...

[kdcmason]

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?

There is actually a bigger problem...

[Hobbex]

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.

Re:There is actually a bigger problem...

[Shadok8]

I agree that the lack of standards is a problem and slows the growth of the Internet.

You state "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 business?"

It is when there is not a standards war that a monopoly exists. A standards war implies there are at least two available choices, and they are both competing in a vigorous market place.

It seems that your real issue is with commercialization, not monopolization. Commercialization has negative aspects. It likes to lock customers into proprietary solutions - achieving a guaranteed income for a company. In a competitive market place with many companies developing competing proprietary formats, the best tend to gain market share and adoption, the worse tend to fade from usage. There are many exceptions, and it is often unfair. Many times the best technology does not succeed. There are other factors. Whatever technology is most popular usually has some merit. But what better way exists to evolve new technology?

Companies have the budget and the profit motive to develop new technology. Standards committees do not have a large R&D budget or a profit motive. Fortunately many corporations hand over portions of patented intellectual property to become a new standard. Corporations realize that proprietary technology is not well received and that being proprietary tends to limit a technology from being adopted.

The profit motive also causes corporations to adopt open standards over proprietary standards. Proprietary standards are costly and require licensing fees. A good example is Firewire. Apple decided to require licensing fees. Most of the adopters of the technology told Apple they would drop firewire. Apple had to capitulate and drop all licensing fees.

There is a closely knit relationship between proprietary and open standards. Proprietary technology exists first since it is profit driven. The open standards incorporate proprietary technology developed by corporations. The open standards take time to create. Open standards should be acceptable and usable in the broadest scope possible and it should have longevity (often not a concern in proprietaty technologies). Once the open standard is created, the original proprietary solutions can fade from usage. And so the cycle continues.

I think the corporate driven solution is probably the best real world solution. There is room for improvement. The open source community is fantastic and has done some amazing things. Many corporations have been embracing open source to one degree or another. That is great for the Internet and computing world in general. I do not perceive the open source community as driving the development that leads to new standards. Corporations will continue in that role. The open source community is helping those same corporations see more advantages in being open than proprietary and I hope the trend continues.

The Internet tends to prevent true monopolization from occurring. Whenever interoperability is needed, no single company can gain dominance. There are needs for checks and balances. I think the lawyers of the world will take patents to obscene lengths in coming years. I also think it will lead to serious legal reform worldwide. One individual or company should not be able to hamstring or hinder the development of computing in general. Monopolies are another problem. I hate Microsoft because in many areas the Microsoft solution wins - not the best solution. That is true monopoly power. I hope effective remedies are placed against them, but I fear there will be a Republican president, and the case will amount to nothing.

Specifically related to video technology, Microsoft will find it difficult to dominate unless they allow their video technology to become an open standard. It appears that in the near future there will be many more Linux and proprietary OS devices for Internet access. These devices need to support streaming video. I wonder what they will use? What will the Sony Playstation 2 and Nintendo's next generation system use? Windows CE is not going to be Window Everywhere.

Oh well, rant done. This is all IMHO.

Re:There is actually a bigger problem...

[Hobbex]

I'm not against commercialism or monopolies.

I'm against commercial monopolies. Or rather, since you are 100% right that monoplies just don't happen on the Internet, I'm against the idea stuck in every PHB's head up to the truly evil ones(tm) like Case, Bezos, Jobs, McNealy, and Gates, that appropiating and monopolizing peoples lives is a good idea. I'm against the fact that streaming video, internet phone, instant messaging, and a lot of other things could be as native to the Internet as the web is today if every single Internet company (from the most titanic Microsoft to the most dimminutive Napster) didn't live under the notion that they have to control, rather than support, their protocols.

And this is not me asking companies to do a lot of work and then give away the result either. There are viable standards for streaming media in the mpeg family of codecs, but MS, Apple, and Real Networks are working continually _against_ them. And any half talented programmer could create an IM standard if any of the portals wanted to support it rather than bicker amongst eachother.

I'm still looking for the next mail, or the next web, or even the next irc, but I'm seeing nothing. Just a bunch of corporate idiots showing off about their "excellent patented proprietary solutions".

So I'll end my rant with a plea to the young innovators reading Slashdot: if you do come up with the next great Internet invention, do yourself a favour and make it free. Marc Andersen is no longer working with Netscape, the inventors of ICQ are drones to AOL, and Metcalf was forced out of 3Com many many years ago. But Linus still heads the kernel, and Tim Berners Lee is in charge of W3C. They may not be millionaires, but they aren't starving, and at least they are still doing what they love, and working with the babies of their brilliance. Choose as you will.

-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.

Several different issues exist here

[Shadok8]

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.

Re:Is there a standard?

[nullity]

The issue is that there is not a garunteed open standard. Projects that rely on reverse-engineering proprietary protocols are not reliable. Eventually the company (which is "competing" for control of the standard) will either find a way to completely stifle such activities or will give up and release it as a standard. My experience is that the former is far more common. And the latter rarely results in truly un-biased standards (if ever - note java).

By way of example... I believe that the WINE project is the key project to Linux on the desktop (of equal import with desktop environs, I suppose). But the WINE project is only a step. I don't forsee a day when people will run Windows applications and Linux applications side by side w/o thought as to the original target platform.

Why?

The Win32 API is a moving target. Microsoft will attempt to break WINE compatibility with every new release of Windows. History shows this is true! "DOS isn't done 'til Lotus doesn't run" sound familiar? Now imagine what they could do to a competing API... Just change a couple specs - presto.

Now I'll admit that Free Software adapts, evolves, whatever with incredible speed compared with its commercial kindred - but look how long it took to "get into" things like DVDs. And the final solution was based on a simple stupidity committed by the DVD consortium. Companies will always fight to retain command of their protocols.

Compare this with a more "open" protocol like HTML or HTTP. Coorperations like Netscape and Microsoft have attempted to hijack these protocols at various points (particularly html), and have somtimes succeeded - at least partially. But other companies and Free Software were not sufficiently disadvantaged to be uncompetitive. Netscape never owned HTML. Microsoft still doesn't (though both still have enourmous power).

This drive to dominate protocols is natural behavior for a company. Why? Protocols are valuable entities. 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. Free Software often stands as a bulwark against such behavior because it brings such information into the light. I don't think I can honestly condemn companies for trying - that's capitalism. Still, unless we throw our weight as consumers, programmers, and users against such things they will inevitably occur.

This brings us back to a set of Operating Systems many of us hold dear; those beautiful free Unixen. Unix, for all its infighting (or perhaps because of), thrives on standards. Think X, HTTP, FTP, Telnet, vt100 (not a real standard, but effectively is now), etc. Things like SMB (samba) were hacked in only because a company lost control of a protocol. Don't expect Microsoft to make another mistake like that. *nix will almost always benefit from a truly open protocol.

Often the best protocols come when a company subjects immediate gain, and chooses a long term view. In spite of their onerous community license, Sun (for example) has done this in numerous instances. SGI hopefully will with the donation of a journaled filesystem. IBM has by simply porting numerous products to Linux w/o much hope for immediate profits (Voice Dictation API anyone?).

Will some benificant company do the same for streaming media?

Unlikely. The problem is that not many companies have expertise in this area. And those that do are either engaged in a fight to survive (Real), blind to the needs of a large market segment (Apple), or hostile to *nix (Microsoft).

At the moment I would say that Apple is the strongest contender. They've released much of the source to their back-end server. Now they need to complete the loop and release a client. Apple could stand to lose the control and hence profit in the short term (very broad assets / liquid assets) in return for a strong hand in a far larger pot. But they've made the wrong choice repeatedly. I wouldn't be betting on Apple with regards to open protocols (but I'll keep hoping!).

So what does this leave? I honestly don't know. I have great confidence in the Free Software community, that we will overcome hurdles before they become insurmountable. We have - again and again.

But it is less painful when we are supporting a standard!

What forces came together to create MPEG? Could they be unleased again? How many Open Source programmers have the skills or knowledge to take a stab at video codecs?

Open Protocols happen because people make them happen.

--nullity--

I am nothing.

Stay Focused

[quakeaddict]

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.

Why I install WMP for our users

[weave]

I install WMP for my users. Why? Because it's illegal for me to install Real Player.

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...)