Sun, Philips Push MPEG-4 Up Steep Hill

Kellym writes: "Sun Microsystems and Philips Digital Networks are putting their chips on MPEG-4 in the battle to determine the streaming media standard of the future. The companies have agreed to expand their year-long relationship to promote and develop MPEG-4 technology for broadband and wireless markets. The companies have partnered on marketing and have agreed to share technologies. In the most recent deal, Philips licensed Sun's StorEdge Media Central server technology. Philips said it will include the technology in a WebCine Server MPEG-4 system it is developing to run on Sun's Solaris Operating Environment and Sun Cobalt servers."

Comments

Release hardware codecs with full linux support.

[ikekrull]

Then watch us build your 'high-speed distributed video serving network' in our spare time at no cost to you, while MS, Apple, Real and AOL fuck around for years trying to court 'industry players' and 'content copyright holders'.

If the whole 'Napster' thing proved anything it's that there are a shitload of people out there desparate for content they don't get supplied through 'mainstream media', but nobody wants to pay the same people who have been screwing them down at the record store for years.

The Linux community is crying out for decent video tools, and none of the other players except maybe Real seem particularly interested in providing them.

To beat M$ in this area, Sun and Philips are going to need some serious help, and the only place they're likely to find it these days is with the Open-Source/Free Software community.

We have more clout with M$ than the US Justice department does, anyway.

Here's an existing MPEG-4 decoder chip...

[AtariDatacenter]

It is from Sigma Designs. They make PC cards, too, but none yet with this particular chip. And, oh, yes, they support Linux. Read the specs, though.