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RealNetworks Licenses MS Windows Media Codec
fReNeTiK writes, "RealNetworks have announced their licensing of the Microsoft Windows Media streaming format. That brings the number of codecs supported by RealPlayer to 9. CNet story here, Heise News (German) here. This, of course raises an important question: Realplayer being available under Linux, will the next version include the new codec, bringing WMF streaming to Linux and Unix in general?" Based on how slowly RealPlayer has ported their clients to Linux and Unix in the past, it may be a while until we find out. I would personally prefer an open source media player if the codec patent issues can be handled, but sometimes (sigh) you just have to make do with hand-me-downs because they're all you're going to get for a while.
Well, maybe if they've hugely improved the user interface, stability, and performance since the last version, they can gain market share under windows. But nobody I know of with windows prefers RealPlayer to Windows Media Player.
Are the specifications available for using the RealPlayer shared objects? Probably the best thing RealPlayer could do (presuming they don't want to release source for their protocol) is release the shared objects and documentation on how to use them, and let the community make grealplayer and krealplayer. This would save them having to keep up the whole interface side of the application, they'd just need to release the codecs.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
How do you think they got the money to licence the codec? Redhat...has deep pockets at the moment...
I would expect that the next major release of RealPlayer will have it, unless the Windoze Streaming Codec is so wonky that it will take a major re-write of RealPlayer to incorperate it. Then it will be two revisions.
I have to admit, i am real impressed with the Realplayer 7 I just started using under Linux. We should all be thanking them for their support!!!!
To re-cap...Windows Streaming Codec will be in the next one, unless it is really hard to code, then it will be in the release after the next.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Seriously. If I must support, encourage and use a proprietary media format, it's going to be Quicktime, 100%. Quicktime is absurdly broader and more advanced than this, offers sprites and SMPTE transition effects and panoramas and Star Wars trailers, and all WMP offers is the chance to hand all control of media over to MS who will never give it back. At least Apple plainly doesn't have enough clout to crush and stifle all innovation in the damn industry- they have to compete by actually competing, and when they don't do it well they suffer. MS neither needs to or wants to compete in the capitalist sense people constantly worship them for. I really will suffer just about any loss or hardship to simply deny them further support. Screw video streaming if this is what it's going to be. God knows I'll never see it either on my Mac or the Linux partitions. I am the enemy to them and my role is to be stomped into submission by getting as many media outlets as possible to boycott me. Works both ways.
Just like the Frauhofer patents have prevented the distribution of MP3 encoding software? OK, so I know the situation is slightly different for MP3, but it's incredibly difficult to prevent the spread of software whose time has come, legal or not...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
In Windows, the kernel is controlled by Microsoft, a company sympathetic to the IP lords' interests. It is conceivable that, if requested, they could add an API call to guarantee that output is not redirected, or return a false value if not possible. Players could then call this and refuse to work if integrity cannot be guaranteed.
Of course, this is impossible under Linux, as an Evil Pirate could just rewrite the function to say that everything's OK no matter what.
Then there is reverse engineering. Under Linux it's easier to debug binaries; under Windows it's possible to make binaries impossible to reverse engineer without an ICE debugger (which are expensive and, a few court cases from now, may require locksmith-type licenses to possess under the DMCA, but that's another story).
Its about time that there is some WMF support under UNIX. There are just too many sites that only support WMF nowadays that have content that I want to view. Next we'll have to get the 3D Jokeman to be in some non-windows format!
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Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
The problem with open codecs is (at least in the eyes of content providers) copy protection.
Copy protection for audio will die for the same reason it died for software: it's not the best thing for the consumer. In the end, what's best is what survives - the simple and irresistable logic of evolution. However, this silliness about copy protection could go on for quite a long time before it finally dies, leaving us with the free, open codecs we actually want.
We can speed the process up. Just by insisting that all the players we use include, among other things, at least one free codec. Can you say streaming MP3?? Ask for it. Insist on it. Write emails. Get the software (xmms etc. etc.) Don't go to sites that don't have it. We know we can make a difference, and we will.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
I belive the problem lies in complexity of these and the knowledge to develop them
Or i'm missing something?
Short term solution could be that one of the companies releases their format to the public, we grab it, polish it where necessary, and develop all kind of players & stuff for it
I wish it would be different...
I'm a little wary of this one. Let's see if M$ has added some kind of contract agreement barring RealNetworks from producing a Linux Version. It might not be a bad thing if Linux were to have support for the M$ protocol but I would feel much safer with an Open protocol also. I just can not put a lot of trust in M$. I've watched them squeeze too many markets in the last ~25 years. This could come down to RealNetworks dropping it's own protocol in favor of M$'s protocol.
Neil Cherry - Linux Smart Homes For Dummies
Linux represents a very big threat to Microsoft.. Why would they allow important software like this to be ported to Linux, if they can stop it ? It is very much possible that the licensing terms specify that the WMF format shouldn't be made available to Linux.
True, but wasn't it the case, at least in the past, that versions of RealPlayer Plus had a ``VCR'' feature where you could record and replay live Real streams? I could be wrong; I never actually bought RealPlayer Plus :-)
Yes, but only if the stream provider allows it. Otherwise the record function is turned off. Its kinda a weak security, but for a closed source solution, it works.
"If MS allows a Linux port of its technology, it could face content companies withdrawing licenses to release their content in its format, in favour of more restricted players."
:)
Well, diddums to that..
More to the point, if it requires running as root, or closed-source binary kernel modules, it won't be running here, and possibly in quite a few other places too...
~Tim
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Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
Sorry to hear that. I submitted it and it got on the front page in no time. On the other hand, this is my first submission that gets posted, and you're spoiling my fun... Go away! ;)
/me taking screenshots of the frontpage
I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds
The "if you can hear it, you can rip it" maxim applies equally to video: If you can see it, you can rip it.
There are open source implementations of standard CODECs such as H.263 (at least one version of vic) and H.261 (openh323.org) which are fine for dial-up and DSL/cable speed streaming video respectively. MPEG-4 is also a good standard low bandwidth CODEC, although I don't know of any open source implementation. At higher bandwidths, MPEG-2 (source from berkley) is available.
I know that some of these such as H.263 and MPEG-2 have patent issues, but the unchallenged existence of these widespread implementations means that they are at least safe to use.
As for an open source streaming video protocol/framework, the MBone stuff or H.323 again make more sense than starting from scratch.
Good point. But even if the contract looks squeaky clean, history suggests that it is a Bad Thing when Microsoft can control or strongly influence a protocol. An open protocol would seem be the proper answer. Anyone know if there is any activity out there working toward this?
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About 1.5 years ago, there actually was a beta Windows Media Player released for Linux. There was a web site (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/mediaplayer/down load/unix.htm) which is now defunct. I probably even have the beta somewhere, but it didn't work very well. The page always said "come back here soon to see future releases of Windows Media Player for Linux".
---gralem
The copy of netshow linked here is capable of playing MPEG4v1 (but not MPEG4v2/v3), H263, and Duck Truemotion 2 video streams, raw, MPEG layer3, ADPCM and I think it also has support for some vivo audio codecs.. But, I am sure about MPEG4v1. If there were a way to get this binary to utilise codecs from mplayer2/win32 such as WMA or MPEG4v2, at least, we would be on our way.
* Netshow for Linux
I don't think the file is actually gzipped, but, it has the extension. Recommend attempting gunzip but just renaming if it fails. Off to find another hack to get mplayer2 to work..
You'll get no argument from me on this; hence the word ``legal'' as a qualifier in my original statement. The RSA patent says you can't use non-RSA libraries in the US (at least until September 20, I'm having a party that day, btw) but that hasn't stopped quite a bit of SSL software from being distributed illegally in the US...
True, but wasn't it the case, at least in the past, that versions of RealPlayer Plus had a ``VCR'' feature where you could record and replay live Real streams? I could be wrong; I never actually bought RealPlayer Plus :-)
Yeah, it would be compromised, but given the patents on codecs, you'd never be able to distribute the software legally. I hate to say it, but it's pretty damned effective protection.
At least that's what they've been telling us at recent trade shows and in conversations we've had with them. They said we can expect, at the very least, a UNIX version about the same time that a Mac version of the most recent player is released (I think player 6? only runs on Windows, not Mac--can't remember for sure).
I have seen other solutions, however. At the CES show in Vegas, I saw a Cirrus Maverick chip on a board with another small chip that handled the Windows Media decoding. Cirrus released the chip for Windows, but a 3rd party vendor modified it for LINUX. One way around the LINUX problem I guess.
Nonetheless, I'm still going to support both formats in my Linuxradio.
I don't really care too much about Windows Media format. What I'd like to see is a version of Apple Quicktime 4 for Linux.
:- Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair
That'd be far more useful.
PEBKAC
If indeed RealNetworks does include WMF support in Realplayer for Linux, it will be valuable for convenience, since Real and Quicktime both have much better streaming codecs.
On the issue of open-source, even if Real doesn't release the code for their player or codecs, the fact that they are running on Linux/glibc may provide a unique oportunity for reverse engineering of the compression scheme. I don't have much experience in this area, but as I understand it, intercepting and logging the calls made to the kernel and the C libraries may allow wizard programmers to figure out what actually goes on when we watch streaming videos. A GPL'ed clone wouldn't be far off then.
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I have read that licensing the use of the WMF SDK is free. M$ wants to spread its Windows proprietary audio format as far and wide as it can ("resistance is futile").
WMF pales in comparison to MPEG2
Not true. This all depends on bandwidth. MPEG2 is much less effective than WMF (MPEG4), as well as Real's codec, but when you see MPEG2, it is usually given lots and lots of bits. Side by side at the same bitrate, MPEG4 would be significantly better.
Below I am talking about video only. I will leave audio comparisons to others.
I have seen side-by-side comparisons between the codecs from Real, M$, and Apple QT, at exactly the same bitrates / conditions.
IMHO, M$'s MPEG4 and Real's video codecs are very close in video quality. Real encodes some 30% faster (single stream / not taking disk i/o into account), decode speed about the same. In general, if you see differences in video quality between these two, it is most likely caused by how the video was encoded, i.e. resolution, frame rate, differences in bitrate, or network conditions. For example, if the user does not change default encoder settings, M$ allocates 37 kbps for video when encoding for 56K modem, while Real uses 34 kbps.
In my opinion, Apple's QT streaming codec is nowhere near Real and M$ (Flame protective suit ON). Its compression efficiency is visibly worse, and the encoder is very slow. QT videos sometimes look pretty good, but this can be achieved by using a higher bitrate, and then pre-buffering enough to make it look like it is streaming, while it is in fact more like downloading.
the problem with fractal encodeing is that you have to compare every portion of the image to every other portion of the image to try and get max compression, this takes tons of time. it might be better to use wavelet compression like they are doing in jpeg2000. there is a project to make an open source codec for wavelets here
A GPL'd program can link to propriatery libraries. For instance, the Linux Kernel can link to propriatery VMware modules, or xanim can link to quicktime codecs.
Or, as a better example, you can compile GPL'd software on a Solaris machine, which has a propriatery libc.
The Application would not necessarily be a RealPlayer application, it would probably be a general-purpose media application, able to link with lots of different codecs (mpeg, realplayer, avi, etc), both propriatery and not.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
They seem to make some effort to suppor Linux, so why don't we do a slashdot interview with someone who has some authority and ask them. Here are my questions:
1. How far does Real's commitment to Linux go?
2. Is there any hope that Real will be the ones to provide use with the codec's that are currently unavailable?
3. How can the Linux community help real get the media play out of beta on our platform?
4. What incentives can we provide to make the effort worth while?
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
A program called X-FileGet lets you save rm streams,its on this page.
http://www.aeternus.tmfweb.nl/WTold/Floor2.html
From Roblimo: ...sometimes (sigh) you just have to make do with hand-me-downs because they're all you're going to get for a while.
What kind of advocacy is THAT? Up until now the Slashdot group has been illicitly hypocritical (Amazon links and Amazon boycotts, Windows problems are bugs to laugh at while Linux problems are 'problems to be solved', information is free but buy Katz's information for $19.95) but coming right out saying the above?? "Well, we here at Slashdot love advocating free this and Open Source that, deriding all attempts at software companies to close source this or patent that...but when it comes to a comfort such as listening to streaming audio: "Well, what can you do...I guess we have to support RealAudio because we just HAVE to listen to live radio feeds! We like everything free, but listening to WLNX 96.1FM is more important?"
Nice to see the conviction, guys...
I have to admit that my paranoia kicked in on this one as well. Let's face it, it can only help free /.+n.x/ to support WMF, especially considering that quite a bit of the content out there is now WMF-only (sigh). Knowing that M$'s drive is to get more clients out there, since that's really their moneymaker (their push for servers is primarily to let them leverage more clients), I'd be surprised if they'd sit passively by while a WMF player was created for Linux. Very surprised.
Perhaps the best way to reveal the problem with security via obscurity is to use the multi-monitor feature in Windows, design what is essentially a "null" monitor/card driver that looks like a second video out, and use it to capture any and all content that is video driven (perhaps with a a "null" sound driver).
Put the drivers under the GPL, and ask the content providers to open up their streaming codecs now that people can arbitrarily save them easily.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
The question is will the codec be ported to Linux? Windows Media is touted as a copyright-enforcement technology as well as a format. Many proprietors of copyright-enforcing closed formats refuse to release software decoders for platforms with open-source kernels, as it is possible to modify the kernel to capture audio to a file (in a way that the player cannot reasonably defend against). For example, Liquid Audio does not support Linux, and neither do any software DVD decoders (well, any aboveground ones). If MS allows a Linux port of its technology, it could face content companies withdrawing licenses to release their content in its format, in favour of more restricted players. Remember, these companies are paranoid and scared, and not exactly the most trusting of the Net. (I believe Universal, for one, has its own format under development, and Sony is doing something with ATRAC and its own copyright-enforcement mechanisms; and that alone is almost half the music market.)
Look at for instance http://www.maz-sound.com/ - there are fake Windows audio drivers available that capture to .WAV files.
The Ogg project is as much about research as it is about coding - it looks like they're combing through existing signal processing research to come up with something that's patent-free.
With the ultra-bare-bones example encoder, I've encoded some songs - it sounds quite nice, at least as good as MP3, maybe a little better to my ears. Currently it only seems to do VBR streams, but I assume that will change in the future - the goal is to allow specifying fixed or variable rates, with floors and ceilings for VBR.
It'll be interesting to see if they make a video codec...
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If I read the articles correctly, this is only
the streaming AUDIO format (WMA), not MS's streaming video format.
Quote from CNet article:
Microsoft said today that RealNetworks and several other major Internet companies, including Yahoo, have agreed to license its Windows Media audio format.
They never mention the video format.
I suspect it could be quite some time before we see an open source player for Windows Media Format, if one appears at all. The CNet story doesn't say so, but I think we can assume that Real (and the other 70 companies) have paid Microsoft, and probably quite handsomly, for the license.
Even if one of the major distributions, Red Hat, SuSE, etc were to license it, you can bet the terms of the license would not permit the opening of the codec. What we could possibly see would be an open source player using plugins for various codecs (this would make it very expandable without the need to recompile a new version for new codecs of course) where the WMF plugin had to be closed source.
Course it could still be free for download and all that malarky, which is definately better than nothing.
WMF seems to unfortunately becoming a very popular standard amongst streaming media services, this does rather seem to strengthen Microsoft's grip (not monopolistic yet, but you know that's where they're planning to head) on the streaming media area. The more players support WMF, the more suppliers will serve their streams as WMF, and M$ control the standard.
Of course, WMF pales in comparison to MPEG2 (and newer versions). As broadband in the home becomes more of a reality, and the hardware to provide decent decoding for MPEG more accesible (most new video cards include hardware decoding, and even if they don't, something like the Creative Dxr* cards are not very expensive) the relatively open standard of MPEG could make a good showing, especially in the open source arena.
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Listening for the sound of the coming rain...
By free, I assume you mean open. The problem with open codecs is (at least in the eyes of content providers) copy protection. They see an inability to save streamed RealAudio/ReadVideo, and are happy because their copyrighted works aren't being distributed around the net. An open codec would allow anyone to save the streamed data to a file for later use. In actual fact, the current closed codecs only provide security through obscurity anyway, and will eventually be compromised.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
By allowing Real to support the Windows Media formatt, they are opening up a wider base of clients to use their formats.. and therefore a wider base of clients to use their Windows Media Stream servers. These stream servers are only available for Windows.. and it wouldn't be a big shock for future versions to target W2K as its preferred platform.
This push helps to establish MS in data centers and server farms where it may not have had a presence.. and to expand the presence where it was previously located. They don't care a thing about RealPlayer and MediaPlayer per se.. if you can own the servers, you get a big boost in owning the clients as well.
Every time we get on a movie or music topic people whine about "when will X port Y" and "how come software Z keeps crashing in Linux but not on Windows", etc.
The slightly more clueful say "we need free software that can handle these codecs, that'll solve ALL our problems".
That solves nothing: What about free codecs? Is there anyone working on this? The advantage would be not only freedom, but then we'd also have a standard (or more likely, several standards). If I was halfway qualified I'd work on this myself, unfortunately this post represents the edges of my knowledge.
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I haven't read the whole thing yet, but the first paragraph is intriguing:
Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) proclaimed on Tuesday that long-time rival RealNetworks Inc. (Nasdaq: RNWK) -- plus a handful of other vendors, including Yahoo!, Sonic Foundry, AOL Winamp and Lycos Sonique -- had agreed to license Microsoft's Windows Media format technology.
So it's not just about RealNetworks. This looks like a big victory for this format, and MS.
Does anybody know if WMF has SDMI support? I think it is, or at least there are a couple of copyright enforcement mechanisms in there. I have the vague feeling that the RIAA must be very pleased by this...
I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds