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CD/DVD Manufacturers To Support Windows Media
Anonymous Coward writes "Seattle P-I story on MS's latest move towards having their finger in every slice of the content pie. Oh, goody. 'Microsoft Corp. plans to announce today that four DVD makers will incorporate its Windows Media Audio technology into their players, enabling consumers to play CDs and DVDs they compiled using that technology. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, DVD makers Toshiba, Panasonic, Apex Digital Inc. and Shinco, a Chinese manufacturer, will announce plans to support Windows Media Format in some or all of their models this year, said Michael Aldridge, lead product manager for Microsoft's Windows digital media division.'" We've mentioned this before, but there are a few more details now.
Why is MS so bad for thinking of this first? Why didn't Real or Apple think about this? Maybe that's why MS is so successful. Because they have good business people that can think up of new ways to grow the business.
Stop trying to get crap formats to play on DVD!!! Damnit, DVD is for clear crisp quality picture. I will NOT have this technology ruined by idiots who seem to believe it's better to have grainy shitty picture and audio on their television... "OOOooooh, but it's on the television, not the computer monitor... Neeeeeato...." GO TO HELL AND LEAVE MY DVD PLAYER ALONE!
I wan't divx.....
If it was hard to write it should be hard to read.
There are gigs and gigs of both pirate and legitimate divx3 and 4 videos out there to be had on IRC, Usenet, FT, and Gnutella.
The only ones who use WMV are corporate entities who don't have anything good to encode anyway...
*sigh*
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
I think that having more formats is a good thing.
Not that I'm an MS fan. "Let the markets decide."
...that this is not a great deal worse than we were before. DVDs have always been the most annoying, closed media around, and theses companies are really trying to prevent any 'unlicensed' players from being able to play these discs.
Okay.. Long term theory here..
Microsoft/media companies get hardware manufacturers to implement wma into most/all dvd/cd player hardware.
Wma is plainly readable on cdrom drives.
Combine this with encrypted redbook tracks and wma media players, and viola...
A set of audio/data cd's that can be played on portable machines, played on dvd/cd players, played on your computer, but can't be ripped into an "open" format..
And yeah i know the encryption would be broken.. But all in all it sounds like a straightforward controlling strategy.. The media corps get the control they want, and microsoft gets a bigger share of a new market..
Nice they grouped up all the DVD players that have this bug in them. Now I know what not to get.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
Once the DRM stuff is cracked (Microsoft encryption -- how hard can it be), we can play the DVD anywhere.
Rio Volt (a portable CD/CDR/MP3 player) already supports Windows Media format.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for slashdot.sig (129323052 bytes).
How long until they're adding windows media video support? Since MPEG-2 encrypted with CSS has ben defeated, moving to Microsoft's content control mechanisms sounds like something the MPAA would be for. This would have the fun bonus of giving Microsoft a monopoly on DVD software, and making DVD playing on Linux (excluding the current illegal hacks, which aren't a nice way to experiance the media you payed for; no menus to access lots of the content) even more of a pipe dream.
I have a DVD player with progressive out.
I have no need to replace my DVD player with a new one.
DVD standard is MPEG2. Period. The standard is MPEG 2, and it is set in stone.
The problem that I may have is that all of the "extra" features may be in the windoes format. Argh.
I refuse to buy anything with this crap in it. Damnit, why can't people understand that I don't want Microsoft pervasive into my entire life. They want to be a part of everything... i.e. a little kid with their hands in everything, and they don't like anyone else to play. Well, fine, I won;t buy it. And furthurmore, CmrTaco, you should realize that you put money in those 40 billion dollar coffers when you bought that xbox.
Shame on you.
Blah Blah Blah.
As long as MS hasn't forced these companies into exclusionary contracts (Which would be a bad choice to make given their current anti-trust case), I can't see anything wrong with this initially. Unfortunately, this also ties in well with RIAAs plans to copy protect every CD. Since many DVD players appear to have problems with these, the new CDs can't play on them. However, I remember reading that MS was talking with the labels into licensing WMP such that every copy protected CD would include a second CD with the album as WMP files.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
DiVX (the stupidly-named hax0rd AVI codec, not the ill-fated DVD rental dealy) is shit and only for pirates. Why the fuck would anyone want it?
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Yes we all do. So why don't you write a decoder for the PS2, and a tool for writing the decoder and the data to a cd/dvd-disk. I would use it! Couldn't be that much overhead.
Why is MS in every particle of the sand? It always does something to remain the best. Always trying to burm its competitors. Maybe that's why MS is so successful. Now, why couldn't Real/others could do something similar ???
Computer Help
If only I could code :P
-motardo
This story was posted on /. before... http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/12/135723 2&mode=thread
We need the corporation to, on a one-to-one basis, support a proprietary format for an open format.
asf *and* ogg (I know the latter is audio-specific... are there Free video formats ?), for example.
This way it will still be possible to give the public to choose between Free Art or blockbusters.
Until then then we could call this a kind of monopoly as we are only given the choice to upgrade hardware that'll at the end not belong to us anymore (this is IMHO the final consequence of such digital dictatorship as this is the only way to forbid hackers to even look at these devices' internals).
Trolling using another account since 2005.
[Shop] : "Yes sir, how can I help you?"
[cust] : "I can't play Terminator IV on my DVD Player!"
[Shop] : "Ah, do you have MSDRM v3.22 installed?"
[cust] : "Erm, in ENGLISH?!?!"
[Shop] : "If you go home, bring in your DVD player, and then leave it here for a week, we'll load the update that you need to play the DVD..."
[cust] : "Erm, OK then. But why does it need an update?"
[Shop] : "Some stupid kids broke the code or something like that..."
[cust] : "Oh dear. Well, thanks. I'll bring in my player later..."
Much time passes...
[cust] : "Here you go, please do that update thingy..."
[Shop] : "Sure thing. That'll be £49.99 please..."
[cust] : (loud and repetitive expletives)
Apple or Real could have had the idea to support they're media withen DVD players. But MicroSoft just happened to come up with the idea first. MS just have better bussiness people in general. And is it that big of a deal that MS incorporated they're technology insted of Real or Apple?? And the only differnce is, DVD players will be running Window's Media which I find to be a highly reliable player! So, why is everyone worrying about MS??
DivX;) and MPEG4 support would be much more useful. As long as they have that, who would care if they also supported MS formats? My MP3 player supports Windows Media as well; that doesn't mean any of it will ever find its way into my equipment.
More importantly, do any DVD manufacturers plan to have flashable/upgradable machines (stick in a CD-R with a file called FLASHUPG.PAT and autoupgrade)? How about an "open" DVD player? You can alway have a ROM version of the software to fall back on for user errors...
Media formats are evolving too fast for the existing equipment to keep up; it locks consumers and media manufacturers into old technology.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
Microsoft has launched its latest version of Windows, Windows XP (eXtra Proprietary). Tightening its stranglehold on all industries that use computers, Microsoft's XP features are certain to further degrade customer choice, cost/performance and, in some cases, even civil liberties.
One of the most controversial new eXtra Proprietary technologies is Windows Media. In a twist that no framer of the U.S. Constitution could have imagined, Microsoft is using patents to prevent software interoperability with its eXtra Proprietary technologies. Of course, Windows Media has to compete with the immensely popular MP3 format, but Windows XP limits the quality of MP3 encoding and decoding. By intentionally degrading the quality of all competing technologies, and by allowing only Microsoft-approved uses of its own technologies, Windows Media has the potential to create yet another monopoly for Microsoft -- a monopoly that extends from software to content. Such a monopoly would change our entertainment economy from one of unlimited content at limited cost, to one of limited content with unlimited costs.
Let's get out of this vicious trap the way we got in: by controlling what we do with our money. If you are already running Microsoft's products, do the sensible thing and BOYCOTT THE MONOPOLIST. Let Microsoft's latest products sit in warehouses until Microsoft comes to their senses and removes all the eXtra Proprietary technologies they've been engineering over the past several years. Wait until Microsoft offers a level playing field to other operating systems, applications and network service providers.
For those of you who cannot stand still, join a LUG (Linux Users Group) and maybe upgrade to Linux. Aside from saving a bundle on licensing fees (there are none), you'll get unprecedented freedom and control. With thousands of Red Hat Certified Engineers, and millions of Linux enthusiasts, any configuration running on any hardware can be supported at a fair price (determined by a free market of competing vendors) for as long as you want. Suddenly, hardware and software upgrades will be your choice, not a choice dictated to you. Suddenly, money you spend will be on things that you value, not things you are forced to pay for. Suddenly, you will begin to see the engine of growth that Moore's law enables come back to life, and the dividends it pays will be ones you can put in your bank account, not the bank account of a convicted monopolist.
Custer's Revenge: The greatest video
Royalties from Microsoft's DVD licensing deals are "pretty small" compared with the impact the arrangements could have on sales of Microsoft's Windows operating system, Aldridge said.
I doubt this will mean an increase in cost of DVD players. Even though media player format is lame as other's have noted in the past and present, I don't really care since I am not an audiophile. Most people don't have $2K headphones or $10K electrostatic speakers. The old argument about sound quality for average joe is useless. Heck none of my audio equipment costs more than 60 bucks tops.
If it means I can play DVD audio files on multiple devices, than it's all good to me.
Toshiba, Panasonic, Apex Digital Inc. and Shinco make crappy dvd players. Dont buy any of them, get a pioneer instead. (apex jokingly stands for "Anime Products EXcluded")
And as long as vcd is still supported we should have no issues. mpeg-1 will still play, so whats the big deal? eventually wma will be cracked and there will be wma->mpeg and you can burn vcds (and eventually dvds) to your little hearts desire.
no movie producer in their right mind would release video on disk in this format, it isolates too much of the market. Anything i download can be converted.
yawn. this doesnt change anything for me. these arnt the droids your looking for, move along.
no
This is exactly what MS is up too. They have said a number of times that they want control of all media. What is funny is that so many of the hardware and content companies are simply going to go along. These companies are most likely getting it freely while their competitors will have to pay. And in the future they will pay iff content arrives in this fashon.
So, we have DeCSS. Whos up for writing a DeWMA?
Liberty in your lifetime
As I see it, this means extra hardware in the DVD players is required. Probably some form of generic CPU, one fast enough to decode the video. The MPEG2 chip for DVD usually gives you VCD/SVCD/etc for free and MP3 decoding on the side. But WMA/WMV are different beasts that don't use the same schemes, right? (Correct me if I'm wrong..)
So, assuming they put in some form of generic processor for decoding Windows Media formats, what's to stop them (or some other person) from putting in support for all sorts of media formats using that self same processor? Last time I checked my DVD player it didn't have any chips in there fast enough to decode DivX, maybe Microsoft is helping to change that for me.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
get your head out of your ass and read the fucking article... people like you ought to be smacked the shit out of... get a clue and read the article again till you understand it.. moron
This was already discussed here. The article was first run in early December http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/12/135723 2&mode=thread
Actually, The developers at OGG Vorbis are working on an open video format called "Tarkin" which is based on wavelets, rather than MDCT which is what MPEG-4 and other video codecs are based on.
Fialar
That's even more true now that Ogg Vorbis RC3 is of higher quality than wma and mp3 and mpc, and others, at 128kbit *and* 64kbit.
Yes folks, RC3 is vastly improved over RC2. Give it a try!!
... until they put "Active Scripting" in DVD players and set-top boxes and make them as exploitable as Outlook?
So, like some DVD players can play MP3 CD's, some will be able to play WMA CD's. Not be able to show CD's and DVD's with WMV's on them. Big deal.
I have had good luck with my Panasonic A-310. I got it in August of '98 and it's been a champ.
My buddy has a Toshiba he got in December of '98 and he has had good luck too.
The Panasonic SuperDrive in my G4 Tower has been really good too.
Have any sources on info? I'll be getting a new DVD player this summer.
I basically agree that it's ok for device manufacturers to support WMP format, as long as they continue to support other formats. However, these companies would not have added WMP unless there was an incentive to do so. My guess is that Microsoft has disclosed something to them indicating that consumer demand for WMP support will increase.
The big question is: what information did MS disclose?
That's all the article talked about. They aren't talking about video. So this is nothing new, except for the fact it's on a DVD player, not a MP3 portable.
...that this is going to eventually turn DVD players into another WinModem-ish hardware problem.
I'm too disgusted to go on a rant.... sigh.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
Sigh, Quicktime is fully open (not the source, but it is fully standardized). You can build your own version. In fact, a few open source projects are under way. This only leaves sorenson as a barrier for Linux, which:
1. Is not owned by Apple.
2. Doesn't have to be used. Blame the content-providers for not using an alternative (or the open-source community for not providing a free codec that is a good alternative).
No way you can blame Apple that the content-providers are using a proprietary, closed codec when Quicktime is an open architecture that can easily accomodate new codecs. Why don't you provide and ask content-provider to use a good cross-platform alternative (perhaps Divx 4). This will solve the entire problem.
The Drowned and the Saved - Primo Levi
So what are we to do, as a community, about the Powers That Be blocking us from content using technological measures? Will someone reverse-engineer the Sorensen codec or write a WMF player for linux? M$ and Apple will rabidly oppose this, and its author would likely be the next Dimitry Skylarov. DVD was just the tip of the iceberg. Heck, it's even taken 2-3 years to get a reasonable HTML viewer, while M$ and Netscrape embraced and extended the standard over and over.
But from the OSS side of the fence, we don't have the muscle, and aren't organized enough to push our codecs into the forefront. Who, exactly, will negotiate the exclusive contract getting movie trailers in DivX? Or books on tape in Ogg Vorbis?
It seems the solution isn't creating standards and codified specifications either. We can beat our drum over and over about "standards", but often, standards don't negotiate contracts for themselves. Standards don't magically get chosen by media execs just because they're better. Formats get chosen because there's a nosy M$ sales guy with a bad tie in the dumb exec's office every day for a month. Which OSS philanthropist wants that job?
Are we doomed forever to have all the power, but none of the content?
--Bob
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
I know you'll never believe this coming from an anti-DMCA type like me, but I kinda like these news. The reason is this: I think that the RIAA/MPAA/whatever are preparing themselves for a VERY harsh wake-up when they find out that Microsoft cares zero-nilch-nada-nothing about their interests. Microsoft's aim is market dominance and experience shows that it can be obtained much more readily by massive availability of stuff and not massive control. I predict that (obviously) the WMP formats will be cracked (didn't it already happen?) and Microsoft will very gladly look the other way while tons of pirated stuff get exchanged in WMP format only playable on Windows or Microsoft-licensed players. They'll invest 5% of the huge profits they make in PR towards the aforementioned RIMPAA, who will actually learn that Microsoft are the very best in security/content protection and whatever other solution will be worse.
Global result: for the price of a windows license and some gigs of disk the users get unlimited access to (pirated) content. Users are happy. Microsoft is happy. RIAA/MPAA are screwed.
It'll be fun to watch.....
You Should Not Be Here
~Philly
I don't really _hate_ to say it, but isn't this a bit of "too little, too late"? Everyone who's at least marginally interested has a DVD player already, and I'm not really seeing the huge need by consumers for another DVD player. My parents have one, my friends all have one, my inlaws got one last year, etc, etc. I can't imagine that, by the time these things are available, that it'll be more than a niche thing.
That being said, give it 10 years. Microsoft might be able to 0wn it, but considering that it's Apex that's looking into it, I think it's more of a "geek enabler" thing than anything else.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
I've got a Panasonic DVD player that plays MP3's? So, now I can get one that plays WMA too? Big whoop. Do I ever use the MP3 capability? No. Would I ever burn a windows media thingy to disk to watch it on TV in really shitty quality? No.
This is nothing. What is much bigger is next year when M$ comes out with their supercalifragilistic-Xbox-alidocious homestation. At that point, I figure I need two components. One receiver. One UltimateTV/DirecTV/DVD/Xbox/CD-player/PC.
Oh, yeah and my Playstation 2 for Grand Theft Auto III.
Likewise, I expect that there will be very few WMA or WMF DVDs. And if there are, we'll just refuse to buy them... or buy them and return them to demonstrate our dissatisfaction more clearly. Much like the copy-protected CDs.
Really, there's a large installed base of standard DVD players, and very little incentive to get a WM* compatible one. I expect there will be very few such disks.
Judebert
We're out of dynamite. What we need is a plan!
For geek dads: Contraction Timer
I can be technically reverse engineered; ...
but Microsoft has patents on the technology.
So, unless you have an army of lawyers
Seattle P-I story on MS's latest move towards having their finger in every slice of the content pie.
The way the slashdot community fights with Microsoft is funny, and has quite a pattern. D'o whatever it takes' is generally the big picture. It isn't about crappy software lately, because the government saw some monopoly qualities, that's what slashdot looks into heavily. The truth is, most people that use linux exclusively hasn't even tried Win2K, which has yet to crash or bluescreen on me. Netscape on linux, and mozilla on linux crashes more than anything on win2k for me. But I'm talking to closed minds here.
Its going to be funny when the monopoly talks die down and people start attacking MS's quality to find its stronger than the last time they used it, so their arguements are moot. Sure, XP has bugs (all new OS's do. Try and tell me that Linux 1.0 didn't crash or have bugs.), and X-Box has its share, but it is the first console released under MS's name. But by the time the monopoly craze goes away, I think you'll be surprised at where MS will be.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
What's so hard about disassembling it
and figuring it out.
is for my dvd player to throw up a blue screen of death right as pamela lee is drop her trousers
Ugh! VCR... ;-)
Some of my friends are still shocked to find that I don't own a VCR.
"Hey, I'll bring over that movie and...damnit! You don't have a VCR! What's your problem?!?"
Thankfully, I didn't buy any movies until I got a DVD player, and Tivo/UltimateTV has really eliminated the need for any VCR as far as I'm concerned.
Geek propaganda engine Slashdot posts it's 3,651st duplicate story. Come on guys, it's a new year... isn't there anything new to talk about yet?
Why is it that every CD/DVD player that supports *.mp3 or *.ogg is celebrated because but every player that will now support *.wmf is flamed. Let's face it, there is demand for *.wmf support, so why would manufacturers not support it.
Why not have players that support many different formats. How about a convercence box that will play divx, dvd, mp3, quicktime, ogg, and wmf.
Microsoft forgets one thing. Virtually every home in America already has a DVD, and those homes aren't going to replace their DVD with a new DVD tommorrow. It took a long time to convince people to stop using their VHS player and replace it with DVD.
Unless they do something like buy out Blockbuster, and only stock Windows Media DVD's, there's no way they'll convince the consumers to upgrade..
Last time I was at Blockbuster, they were more than happy to rent new releases on VHS still.. My BetaMax player is kinda lonely lately though.
The most they can hope for is to get into every manufacturer's pocket, and get themselves standardized for 10+ years in the future. Hopefully enough major manufactures will resist being assimilated.
JWSmythe
Please read the comment carefully before replying. I am not talking about quicktime here. I am talking about apple in general.
You are as dumb as you sound. Noone wants your uninformed fucking opinion, dumbass.
Please atleast DONT post anonymously if you want to rant someone! That shows that either you are too chichened to come out in the open, or just love your karma more than a healthy discussion. Either way, you lose your right to speak against someone else, when you are comitting the same crime that you are accusing them of.
Don't Panic
So 2 years from now when every DVD player out there has MS support and all the DVD rental places have been "convinced" by MS to only rent MS format DVD's, I'll be stuck with getting the Blue Screen of Death every time I try and enjoy a good movie by the fire... ugh
~ now you know
so what. good for the people that like the format, not bad for anyone.....expanding the capabilities of a DVD player to be able to play the most audio formats that it can is a good thing for the end user and the company making the DVD player. this does not make it easier for MS to expand its share in digital music since the makers of the DVD players are not exclusive in their support over CDs and MP3s.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
We are now presented with the ominous possibility (make that probability) that Microsoft will begin cutting deals with media distribution entities and content owners to publish new content in a format that will _only_ work in WMA-enabled hardware players (formerly known as "DVD players"). And, of course, on hardware running Windows XP. Your annoyance in being unable to play Quicktime movie trailers on your Linux system will pale in comparison...
Sometimes I have to stop myself. While the fact that M$ has managed to twist the arms of hardware manufactures to spend money on inferior "standards" that won't work tomorow, and the implications of this are ominous, the reality today is not so bad. Do I really need the kinds of canned crap the RIAA puts out? I have not bought a non local CD in years. Do I really need a computer to look at crappy movies? On the rare occasion a movie is worth seeing, I go watch it in a theater.
The implications are the things to worry about, not the content. Worry about your ability to publish in a format that you can share with others. Isn't it more important to share pictures of your wedding with your friends and family than it is to show "Shreck"? How about your ability to publish ordinary papers? Worry about your ability to share published works in a public library. Do we really want to hoard information that way, so that it's pay per play or nothing? Isn't it more important that children and adults can research questions they have at a public library than it is for you to be able to read the latest pulp fiction? It is important to realize that the "content" control we see being born here is comming from the bassest of publishers, and stop the practice before it becomes universal practice. We must also work to make sure we can continue to publish on the internet.
Exercise your own power and refuse to publish in inferior, non free formats. Creating the financial incentive for hardware makers to respect your interests is just as easy as that. People who buy these new players are going to get burnt when WMA changes two years from now. The makers of those devices are going to get a big black eye from it. Don't you think that part of the tech slowdown comes from user uncertianty created by nothing M$ working right? It hurts to screw up. Meanwhile, my png, ogg mpegs and what not will work the same.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
This is a non-issue. I didn't use WMA before, and I won't use it after it's available in new DVD players. Now, once .ogg hits full release, it would be really cool to see it playable in DVD and CD players. Something with upgradable codecs (maybe running embedded Linux ;) would be even better.
Considering how poorly most DVD players support MP3 CDs, maybe this will be a good thing. We all know how militant Microsoft is about support their feature set fully. I've never seen a DVD player that supports long file names, let alone ID3 tags. Perhaps when Microsoft forces hardware manufacturers to support the WMA format fully, they'll finally write the microcode to display full song information.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
They have divx trailers in English, Spanish, French and German.
Yea, you can talk about the "gigs and gigs" of DiVX out there...heck, you could even move on and talk about the terabytes upon terabytes upon terabytes of MP3s as well.
It doesn't matter. $$ wins. TKO. Go to jail. Fatality.
"Open standards" mean nothing to businesses.
--Geek walks into Sony's board room.
CEO: "What should we support with our CD player?"
Geek: "MP3."
CEO: "Why?"
Geek: "Because everyone uses it."
CEO: "So it's not ours to control?"
Geek: --Laughs and snorts
CEO: "Leave and never come back."
--Bill Gates walks into Sony's board room.
CEO: "What should we support with our CD player?"
Bill: "WMA."
CEO: "Why?"
Bill: "It's hard to pirate. You save $$."
CEO: "Also?"
Bill: "New technology. People have it, you play it. You get $$."
CEO: "And?"
Bill: --Dumps shitload of money on boardroom table.
CEO: "Okay then."
Corporations won't be able to control DiVX. Corporations won't be able to control MP3. But they can control WMA, since WMA is owned by one of their fellow corporations. It doesn't matter how widely it's used. What matters is how much $$ is to be made.
I didn't bother to read all of the messages here but it looks like a lot of knee jerking going on...
Microsoft is still trying to compete with mp3. mp3 is ubiquitous, from freely available rippers to file sharing networks to portable players to home audio equipment to car stereos, you can now obtain, burn and listen to mp3s anywhere. Why should Joe Schmoe use WMA instead of mp3 when WMA is not supported on the home/car/portable players?
Availability is the biggest immediate hurdle WMA faces if Microsoft is to get the labels on board to use their format. Then we can see if the masses take to jumping through expected DRM hoops.
i prefer my philips products which do AAC, a far better format. i'm sure if you wrote philips CE and Audio enough you could get them to support free codecs like ogg vorbins too.
The reason I use Linux instead of Win2k is productivity. I can get more done faster with Linux than I can in Windows. Win2k runs deathly slow on my 700 MHz laptop with 128MB RAM and a 12 GB laptop hard drive. This is a fairly typical configuration for a machine that is around a year old. I absolutely hate booting into win2k because of how long it takes to start up. It takes no less than six minutes, possibly longer to get to my desktop where I can actually do some work. With Slackware, it takes all of about thirty seconds from the time I hit the power button until I am checking my e-mail. I don't like the bloated overhead. I do not enjoy the soothing noise as my hard drive churns and Windows uses 150MB of memory before I have done ANYTHING productive. Opening Internet Explorer or "My Computer" takes no less than 23 seconds the first time of the day. After using Slackware regularly for many many months now, I can definitely tell how much slower Win2k is all around and how much less responsive it is to everything I try to do, usually involving development of web pages and basic tasks like e-mail and web browsing. Couple that with a strong sense of being limited in what I can do and I just am no longer a happy windows user. Started out with DOS back in the day and have seen the full progression of Windows and its general trend towards more and more mainstream users, A.K.A. AOL'ers.
And as for Mozilla crashing, I haven't seen Mozilla crash in a LONG time. The pages render near flawlessly these days too.
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
Big problem. Put these components together:
. Music Industry releasing CDs with Copy Protection for older CD players
. MS promoting WMA as alternative for non-error-tolerant CD readers
. Consumer electronics industry wants to churn DVD players through obsolescence
All of a sudden the music industry tells Joe Public that a 2 CD set, with copy protected CD and WMA "is better than a single CD". And MS catapult their technology into embeded devices without even trying.
So we end up deliberately breaking a standard format with the solution being the use of a proprietary one, with lots of corporations making lots of money out of consumers in the process. Never heard of that happening before, have you?
Dunstan
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
I'm excited about this capability. I'm an artist who likes to make his own animation/video, and I like the idea of burning a CD (read: not DVD) with content I can play on the TV. Is this such a silly idea? I don't think so.
Me personally, I'd love the idea of shipping my demo reel to a potentially new employer on a disc that will play in their DVD and allow them to have a better look at my content. Right now, most employers demand that it is on VHS. Why? From what Ive heard, its because they don't want to muck with downloading codecs etc. I'm sure they'd be happy to play back a DVD if I sent it to them, but right now authoring a DVD is astronomical. If this technology were available and STANDARD today, wooo that'd be a lot easier for me. More impressive too.
I have a coworker that's shooting videos of his newborn son with a DV video camera. He would LOVE the capability of making discs with this footage he can send to family/friends.
Some people would like to make archives of their video tapes to disc and never worry about having those cassettes degrade.
What this capability could potentially allow you to do is use a format that has a freely available encoder, burn it to a CD instead of a DVD (CD's are cheap), and play it back in a DVD player. If that's how it plays out, I'm going to be extremely happy.
So it's Microsoft. Big deal? At least they can get the ball rolling on something like this. I'm willing to bet that once MS gets their stuff in, it will be a lot faster for other codecs like DivX to get in there too. Face it, if this doesn't happen, you can bet that DivX will never happen either.
"Derp de derp."
I do not think MS is a monopoly as of right now. Really. You have a choice: you can use linux to run your apps. You can use StarOffice to open word docs. You can play your CDs. But in the future, when all DVD, CDs and video games REQUIRE a MS OS (with incorporated DRM), whether it is computer based or homestation based, will that be a monopoly? When I can still USE linux, but no content is available to me? I do not really blame MS for their terible business practices. They really only have one strategy: make money. They have never been punished, so how are they supposed to learn? It is somewhat our responsibility to get on the legal process bandwagon and try to let our government know that we cannot accept this.
Where's my Ogg?!? Its open and free, why doesn't any dvd/cd/hardware company support it?
There's a big difference between saying Linux on every desktop and Red Hat on every desktop.
So M$ has convinced hardware makers to spend extra money supporting an inferior media format for auidio. The inferior media format has provisions for inferior video too, hmmm. Do you think it will take that long for M$ to push that too if they have not already?
Gee Bill, that's almost as bad as that book you wrote about the road ahead.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
The problem is that, once enough DVD manufacturers have picked up on this (and I believe enough already have), then others will quickly follow suit. Eventually, when the market is saturated with WMF DVD players, People will have a choice between MPEG2 or WMF formats when they burn off a disk, and of course people will more and more use WMF, because congress will ban regular MPEG2 DVDs because they don't have any DRM. Then there will be no other choice.
Proprietary, closed media formats hurt everybody except for stock owners. People only pay because they want to use the technology, not because it is for the greater good, and to get back at evil pirates and hackers.
Maybe you want divx support, retardo. All I want is hard liquor and cheap whores.
AVI = WMA XOR seineewrofsi(-:XViD
Do I win an arrest warrant?
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
"This would have the fun bonus of giving Microsoft a monopoly on DVD software"
The entertainment industry is NOT going to give control of media formats to Microsoft. The entertainment industry rightfully fears Microsoft and is very careful to control MS influence. Remember, MS is fighting SSSCA and similar proposals. Besides, the entertainment industry already has a monopoly on DVD software (the format). IF the industry wanted this, why would MS go to the hardware manufacturers?
"This would have the fun bonus of giving Microsoft a monopoly on DVD software, and making DVD playing on Linux (excluding the current illegal hacks, which aren't a nice way to experiance the media you payed for; no menus to access lots of the content) even more of a pipe dream."
Please. All this does is add WMV and WMA support to DVD players. It is actually a brilliant move on MS' part because it allows consumers to create "DVD quality" audio and video on CD. Rather than require consumers to buy expensive DVD burners, MS allows normal CD burners to create this content. This makes MS look good in the eyes of the consumers by decreasing their costs, while hiding the fact that pro level gear software for A/V creation is absent from MS software.
If such a system is picked up by consumers, MS may be able to bargain for other industries to adopt WMA/WMV, but the entertainment industry is not going to change DVD formats. They've wasted a lot of time already and DVDs are finally starting to take off. No, it'll likely be streaming media, corporate promos and the like that will be switching to MS formats.
Ironically, given the consumer focus, most content will likely be warez and porn.
All your content are belong to us.
We get signal!
--
launch all sigs
The more manufacturers use Windows Media Audio, the more content providers, like record labels, will use it, and the more consumers will want it This typical MS textbook procedure. First make sure the industry supports your software. Then hope that the consumer will support your software too. Shouldn't this be the other way around? Work from consumer demand?
SO is this the 'embrace' or 'extend' phase.. Then on to 'crush'.....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Two years ago Creative added a free firmware update on NomadWorld.com that allowed WMA playback. Now it comes standard (has for a while).
Two words for you: vcd, svcd. :-o And guess what, you can use it...today!
The new Apple iMac boasts iDVD.
"Yeah, but will its tapes play in my VCR?" - probably not, but its DVDs will play in your DVD player!
I'm a 2000 man.
"I'm an artist who likes to make his own animation/video..."
As an artist I applaud that goal. However the results may end up looking something like this:
I hear the Macs have been quite good at AV content development for quite a few years; standards aside.
www.dedserius.com
VB != VisualBasic
Becuase 1/2 the people or more on Slashdot DON't RUN WINDOWS. Simple question. Simple answer.
As for one. I don't run Windows either. I have no use for it.
I hope you mean .WMA or .WMV, because .WMF is a vector image graphics format!
You could get a new iMac which has iDVD and the requisite hardware needed to burn discs that will play on nearly all consumer DVD players.
Sony has a portable cd/mp3 player. So while open standards mean nothing to businesses, being able to push units that capitalize on these standards does. And for what it's worth, MP3 isn't the most open standard out there. Although everyone here already knows that.
You've won my business for a new DVD player!
not sure if someone else has posted this already, but: I wonder how long until the movies are in MS Media format in their entirety? I'm sure MS Sells this to the movie people types as "If you go with out closed source format, we guarantee that people will not be able to pirate your films."
Goodbye dvd on linux (perhaps).
Thanks for the suggestions, guys. :) I need to look into SVCD because that's a new term to me. Learn something new every day, eh?
.WMA file, but I got a notification that I'm not licensed to play it back. Was that what you were trying to show me, or was it a quality issue? Either way I think you make a good point. MS knows what I play every time I play it. (altho Im not sure how they'd get that info on a DVD w/no net connection)
:) Thanks guys.
VB, I tried to play your
Oh yes, the Macs have been quite tempting lately. I've been eyeballing the Mac laptop that comes with a DVD burner/Authoring software, heck I'd buy one right now if I had the money. Maybe in 6 months.
I was just hoping to stay with PC. If I buy a Mac right now, it'd be almost strictly to do the DVD authoring. Is that such a big deal? Well, sort of. I have reasons to stick with Windows, for example alot of my Lightwave plugins are for Intel only. I'm pretty sure Newtek will let me switch to the Mac version of LW for a reasonable price, but as I said the plugins I use may not work. So its not like I'd be able to replace my PC with the Mac. That makes it a lot harder to justify the $1,500 - $2,000 price point. For a lot less than that I could get a DVD burner I suppose, but that's still a $500 purchase at least.
Anywho, the SVCD option may be what I'm looking for, at least until I can just make a full fledge DVD Burner.
I really wish Lightwave was ported to Linux, then I wouldn't be concerned which platform I used...
"Derp de derp."
WHY NO QUICKTIME SUPPORT
why would japanese companies who usually follow TQM pollute their products with american made crap?
"Why didn't Real or Apple think about this?"
Apple invented the file format at the core of MPEG-4, and got it accepted as a standard. I'd say they were thinking about how to get their technology inside everyone's DVD player.
In fact, reading between the lines of Microsoft's press release, I'd speculate that what MS is really saying is, "Most future DVD players will support MPEG-4. Windows Media Player supports MPEG-4. Therefore, most future DVD players will support Windows Media format."
So, if you contact Apple, they will say "Don't talk to us, we don't own it, talk to Sorenson."
And if you talk to Sorenson, they will say "We'd LOVE to license it to you, really we would, but we cannot without Apple's approval, go talk to them".
I've heard it claimed (and you can mark this down as rumor-times-hearsay in your credibility rating) that one reason Sorensen won't license to anyone but Apple is because they're a small developer and they just plain don't feel like supporting other platforms.
ErMaC, at AX '01, passed out copies of his music video reel on SVCD CD-Rs. While I totally respect the man for going for quality, I can't play the disc at all since the family DVD player can't read CD-Rs, and my computer has no DVD-ROM drive. I managed to watch it only via a friend with a DVD drive, and even then, it could only read about half of the videos).
I really don't think most companies are set up to read the more exotic formats yet; my demo reel is still on plain ol' VHS, with some music videos included on a mini CD-R. Better to get them seen first, then worrying about quality.
--
The article, as I initially saw it, just said Windows Media. I missed the Audio bit.
In any case, this doesn't change my assertion. An MPEG decoder chip that will play MP3's will NOT play WMA's. Therefore some other form of processor is needed to decode and play them.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
For the record,
I use Linux exclusively, at work and at home.
I have used w2k in the past and gone from windows to Linux and back several times. I have been using Linux exclusively for about a year now.
I found w2k to be plenty stable. Like all windows varients, this stability seems to evaporate at some mystical point when you install one too many applications. Even nt4 is stable if you only ever install 1 piece of software on it.
I have found Linux to be easier to upgrade, more configurable, easier to administer remotely, and to have all of the software I need to do my job, Java software developer.
I use mozilla as my main browser, since 0.95 it has been as stable as the windows browsers I have used.
I use Ximian evolution for mail, works great, syncs to my palm.
I use StarOffice if I need to look at a complex word document, otherwise AbiWord works fine and is quicker to start.
I use Gnumeric for spreadsheets, and have yet to find an excel file that wouldn't render properly.
I use xmms for audio, and gnutella and grip (with bladeenc).
I watch divx on my tv, via my NVidia card's tv-out, using mplayer.
I create web graphics with the Gimp and use CorelDraw 9 for the vectors, though I am thinking on switching.
I use dia for my UML modeling, network diagrams, etc.
MrProject is coming along nicely for timelines and Gantt charts.
When I want a game, I play Quake 3, or Heroes 3, or Kohan.
Some people claim that OSS is not a usable substitute for MS whatever, but I disagree. OSS as a desktop is possible.
If you think you might be able to use OSS now, you should try. It might not always be this possible. In 5 years, MS might have such a hold on the market that it will become impossible to use anything else in a business setting. In which case you will have missed an opportunity to use an OS with a totally differnent design. Alternatively, Linux might gain market share on the desktop and then your skills will be sought after.
It wouldn't make a difference if Microsoft released perfect software on perfect hardware - monopolies and megacorporations are bad for economy, freedom and democracy, and have to be fought in any way possible, especially with the terribly flawed political and judicial system of the US. (and most other countries)
1. To all the people who are complaining that WMA is a proprietary format: So is DVD.
2. To the people who say no consumer would want this: go to a store and look at how many portable devices there are now that play MP3 and/or WMA files. As a consumer, I'd be quite pleased if the CDs I burn for my RioVolt would play in my home CD or DVD player. WMA is a better format than MP3, in both quality and space taken. Of course consumers will want it.
3. To the people pointing out that WMA supports rights management: duh!
...that was a reference to the easter-egged Apex DVD players that display "You Should Not Be Here" (in all CAPS, stupid lameness filter!) on the bottom of the secret option screen that lets you pick your region, disable Macrovision, etc.
I never heard about the IE4 beta thing, but that's amusing as well.
~Philly
And I trust Microsoft so little as to believe that the less I have to do with them, the freer and happier I end up being.
However, I also believe in choice because freedom without choice is not really freedom. And so if one chooses (blindly, IMO) to go with Micro$oft, then so be it. I, on the other hand, will always look to open and Free (as in FREEDOM and LIBERTY) alternatives first.
So, if you contact Apple, they will say "Don't talk to us, we don't own it, talk to Sorenson."
And if you talk to Sorenson, they will say "We'd LOVE to license it to you, really we would, but we cannot without Apple's approval, go talk to them".
So why not arrange a three-way conference call among the three legal departments? On most telephone exchanges, it's as easy as click, dial, click, discuss terms.
That is, unless Sorenson is right, and (as rumored) Microsoft is StrongARMing Apple with terms such as "if you release QuickTime for Linux, we discontinue Office for Mac."
Will I retire or break 10K?
It's not replacing DVD-quality video
That's what they want you to think.
it's adding support for an additional format to existing players ... you've already got a DVD player, so what do you have to worry about?
Now watch the DVD-Video standard be end-of-lifed in favor of Wintendo Media, with no more new discs in the format. The studios will like this because MPEG-4 lets them fit twice the video onto each DVD at the same (subjective) quality so that they can advertise more "special features." In addition, the 128-bit elliptic curve crypto used in Wintendo Media is a couple zillion times harder to brute-force than the nominally 40-bit but effectively 28-bit homemade CSS cryptosystem. (It's about 28-bit with a plaintext attack on the known format of an MPEG-2 bitstream.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
The US is not the world.
In the US libdvdCSS they might be illegal hacks, in France and New Zealand the CSS itself is illegal, and in the rest of the world they're both quite fine.
In NZ, it's not the CSS but the region coding that constitutes a restraint of trade.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Downloadable music is no further away than their learning curve.
It's also no further away than emusic.com (who does not employ me).
Will I retire or break 10K?
The key players IMHO.
Sony, Pioneer, Kenwood. These are the crem de la crem of Home Audio gear (well, the stuff that doesn't require a 5 digit loan before the decimal) and their names weren't listed.
Just the lower end stuff was. Apex, Panasonic, Toshiba.
I can't imagine the MPAA and RIAA wanting Microsoft to get into their camp. Unless they're thinking they'll help secure up so people can copy it.
They must not have looked at the Windows XP copy protection scheme.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Are there more than 1000 people worldwide who care about the Ogg Vorbis format?
I'd bet there are at least that many on the developers' mailing list, let alone users who have downloaded oggdrop. [/me goes to vorbis.com to pick up oggdrop RC3]
as long as the authors insist on retaining that stupid name for it
How is .wma any less stupid than .ogg? At least the latter is less clumsy to pronounce.
MP3Pro
The free encoder runs at only 64 kbps (nearly equivalent to 112 kbps MP3, fine for flash-based portables but not for anything that uses a disc), the better encoder is $7.50 per unit straight to RCA in addition to the OEM and retail markup, the decoder is $1.25 per unit ("I can't play this in Winamp?"), and all encoders cut out at 15 kHz and have trouble with wideband signals such as cymbals and distorted guitars.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Plus, until most music albums are on DVD audio at the highest sampling rate
Buy any music video collection, and the audio track will be at the highest sampling rate that you can even hear. The human hearing system can't hear more than 20 kHz due to the low-pass action of inner ear fluid, and the Nyquist-Shannon sampling rate theorem states that 48 kHz sampling can reconstruct a 0-24 kHz signal perfectly. Your ear also can't hear more than 20 bits, as 20 bit linear PCM has a 120 dB dynamic range, and if you calibrate a 105 dB SPL range as is done in THX setups (i.e. reproduce a -30 dB reference sound at 75 dB SPL), 20 bits will more than cover everything. Dolby Digital is a 384 kbps lossy encoding of 5.1 channel 48 kHz 24 bit audio.
For music, which is typically mastered at -12 to -6 dB reference, you only need 16 bits. CD Digital Audio is a 1.4 Mbps lossless encoding of 2 channel 44.1 kHz 16 bit audio. CD-quality MP3 is a nominally 192 kbps (see r3mix.net) lossy encoding of 2 channel 44.1 kHz 16 bit audio.
We do not especially need a new standard for DVD Audio. The DVD-Video standard (Dolby Digital audio track) with a blank video track, or with a music video (either conventionally produced or created with audio visualization software), works just fine.
Or are you shopping for music for your dog?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Doesnt matter where you buy your hardware, you can put whatever software you want on it. Its up to you.
OK, so tell me which national computer store chain I can walk into and buy a computer without paying Microsoft for software that I will never use.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Make that "The Big Deal" and put it on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.
It's a huge deal being forced on the public by greedy corporations increasingly influenced by a singularly evil person.
The Big, Bad Wolf -- currently under indictment for eating Grandma and awaiting sentencing, after having bought off the judge -- goes out and decides to have a little snack:
...and that, boys and girls, is why we only use free (speech and beer...don't bogart that C compiler, dude!) software here at the Secret Underground Bunker beneath beautiful downtown Redmond, WA
* World's Largest Software Co. re-engineers the entire software industry overnight to meet their needs, fending off the motley band of Scumbag Thieves ("The Big, Bad Pirate is taking coins from my purse and those user-type people want to rob us blind in the meantime.") -- all to protect *their* Intellectual Property.
* Next, World's Largest Software Co. extends this to include trumpeting the soon-to-arrive savior of (Corporate) IP-owners everywhere: Digital Rights Management. Yet, said Co. still includes a CDR-burning app to make it "fun & easy for the kids to burn their bubble-gum pop tunes on those crazy CD things!"
* Now, World's Largest Software Co. wants to put out it's own (closed-source) audio format out there, since it has become blatently obvious that the only people who have a use for MP3's are those Slimy Brigands we mentioned earlier. So once the right-thinking, God-fearing, nothing-to-hide Public converts all their audio to WMA, they'll be free to use it on any M$-approved playback device (especially since any such properly licensed device would include a royalty fee for each and every one off the assembly line -- can you say "reoccuring revenue stream" boys & girls?)
* Finally, World's Largest Software Co., having applied its "powers of friendly persausion" and killed off all but the most renegade Open Source formats, suddenly looks around, scratches its collective head and says "Hmmm, we seem to be the only *real* game in town. Guess this means we win."
So, you wind up renting the OS from the guys who've locked down all your apps and files into their proprietary formats (with cement poured over it all in the form of DRM) which gets extended to other devices that are locked into agreements requiring their usage. Kind of like applying Agent Orange to the flora and fauna of the Intellectual Jungle.
Little something to think about the next time someone asks you why you're bothering to use a "fringe" system like BSD/Linux/etc.
Much like slime mold, M$ seems to be determined to creep into every last nook & cranny of any thing which has a microprocessor, with chutzba to spare. A frightening proposition should the future hold true cybernetic implants. ("This Inst-A-News update, projected directly into your visual cortex, brought to you by Microsoft: We own your ass anyway.")
RevDrKingstrum
"You can have my guns and my free OS when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers!"
I think the guys at Panasonic decided to use Windows Media format because RealPlayer's format uses Sony's ATRAC coding for sound...
I saw at least thre diferent units that supported Windows Media on Sunday, while in the Tokyo - well, Makuhari - Costco.
"Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead." A. Huxley
Well, it doesn't matter how large the key is, or how advanced the algorithm is.
Not if the chips containing the algorithm and the key in silicon are tamper-resistant, committing Capcom Suicide if anybody attempts to hack them.
Will I retire or break 10K?