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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.
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
Why bother, when there's already MPEG?
The real problem is getting The Mainstream to use standards like MPEG instead of the proprietary formats.
I don't think that many "content providers" are particularly interested in whether or not they output their content in an open format. And those that are interested, are probably against it, since they equate security-through-obscurity with copy protection.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
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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Linux MAPI Server!
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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...
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