DVD Player Chipsets To Support Windows Media Files

An Anonymous Coward writes: "According to this article in EETimes, Microsoft previewed its next generation Windows Media technology, and said that chipset makers that account for 90% of home DVD players will be including the technology in their upcoming chipsets. I hope the various courts looking into Microsoft's monopoly examine this closely, there is a lot of potential for Microsoft to extend its monopoly here. The next logical step would be for them to pay movie studios to produce Windows Media format movies that are available before or cost less than regular DVD format, that is, if they are made available in regular DVD format at all! This would also be a neat way for studios to force us all to upgrade our existing DVD players use the now-cracked CSS." Ton van der Liet points out this article on ZDNet, writing: "Microsoft touts the advantages of Windows Media, such as longer playback. Wasn't MPEG-4 supposed to do this? And aren't the newest Windows Media codecs based on a draft of the MPEG-4 standard?"

Comments

Re:DVD is Dying

[sluggie]

Nice, looks like another comment written in TrollMaster2000...

Re:I'm pleased...

[Refrag]

At least one audio track on a DVD must be Dolby Digital or PCM audio. Any other audio codec is optional. That is why most DTS DVDs have Dolby Digital on them, and if they don't they have to have PCM.

As for Quicktime, MPEG4 is based off of it. So, when the next generation DVD players that use MPEG4 come out, they will.

Jesus...make up your minds

[harlows_monkeys]

Let's see...when there are things that aren't compatible with Microsoft (e.g., Staroffice), people complain that Microsoft is a monopoly and keeps third parties from being compatible.

Now, when there is going to be a thing compatible with Microsoft (DVD players), people complain that the Microsoft monopoly is being extended!

Make up your minds.