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Native Sorenson Playback Comes to Linux

Pivot writes: "With the release of Xine v0.9.11a, it is now possible to play back Quicktime movies encoded with the Sorenson SVQ1 encoding natively. There are still some minor issues with sound, and still no support for SVQ3 encoding, but overall this is a major achievement. Downloads are at xine.sf.net. I wonder what apple will do about this." Note: you may have to cut and paste that "movies" link into a new tab or browser.

276 comments

  1. bout time! by morgajel · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    maybe now we can get some of you whiners to shut up:)

    --
    Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
    1. Re:bout time! by amccall · · Score: 1
      Except this will last about 5 minutes before the poor Xine developer who wrote it gets slapped with a lawsuit from Sorenson for patent infringement.

      Maybe the /.'ers here can throw some change to a legal defense fun, they're going to need it.

      --
      ------ 24.5% slashdot pure
    2. Re:bout time! by Bilbo · · Score: 1
      moderators: everything I say is supposed to be funny. don't be upset if it's over your head.

      That comment, by itself, is worth a -1: Troll

      --
      Your Servant, B. Baggins
    3. Re:bout time! by morgajel · · Score: 1

      that may be true, but I've had several people compliment me on it.
      it's JUST A SIG. but then again, I guess your probably the target audience for it.
      not sure whether to leave this AC so I don't waste pagespace, or to stay logged in, so I don't appear afraid of repercussions.
      oh well. 50 karma only lasts forever.

      --
      Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
  2. Apple will piss and moan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    and cry sour grapes whilst their own userbase is declining. They sure don't seem very receptive in expanding it in other areas.

  3. For anyone not in the know... by bhsx · · Score: 2, Informative

    You can use crossover plugin from http://www.codeweavers.com which comes with Apple's Quicktime player. Not native, but codeweaver's products kick arse.

    --
    put the what in the where?
    1. Re:For anyone not in the know... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah to bad they commercially support winehq.com you moron.

    2. Re:For anyone not in the know... by sprouty76 · · Score: 1

      IIRC, Crossover only works if you run on an x86 box. On the other hand, this appears to run on whatever you want it to.

      --

      No, I don't want a free iPod

    3. Re:For anyone not in the know... by JWW · · Score: 2

      For non-sorenson encoded quicktime movies I've found that both Xine and MPlayer play them better and do better at scaling than does the crossover plugin.

    4. Re:For anyone not in the know... by demon · · Score: 1

      First off, that only works on x86 Linux systems - these PPC systems I'm running Linux on at the moment can't use that. Also, last I checked, the Crossover Plugin didn't yet (don't know if it's possible) provide support for Xv-accelerated video playback, which Xine can do if you have a board with drivers that support it. It's nice to be able to scale that video up beyond postage-stamp size, and be able to play larger-dimensioned clips smoothly.

      --

      Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
      Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
  4. Licensing? Patents? by JoshuaDFranklin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Licensing? Patents?

    Someone care to explain what the team did about
    these little problems?

    1. Re:Licensing? Patents? by prockcore · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yes please tell.. I have a fully working SVQ3 codec that I reverse engineered sitting on my harddrive (note, only video, the audio is QDM1 which I haven't done yet) I haven't released it due to blatent patent infringement :) but if Sorenson isn't going do to anything about it.. I may release it after all.

    2. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not sure whether the patent is on decoding...most of the heavy lifting seems to be in encoding.

      I want an mplayer port, stat!

    3. Re:Licensing? Patents? by bsartist · · Score: 1

      Just to play it safe, you may want to wait a week or two to see how Sorenson reacts, before you assume that they're not going to do anything.

      --
      Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
    4. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, what about to send your code to taupter@baydenet.com.br ? Here in Brazil that fscking patent law doesn't apply at all. The MPlayer guys don't give a damn too... Send it to them too...

    5. Re:Licensing? Patents? by G-funk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Stuff them, release it AC somewhere, post it here, then by the time somebody starts to "cease and desist" it'll be too late.

      --
      Send lawyers, guns, and money!
    6. Re:Licensing? Patents? by moyix · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Definitely agree with some of the above posters--release it anonymously and securely. This sounds like a job for... Freenet!

    7. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Furry+Ice · · Score: 1

      Too bad he's already given away at least his Slashdot username...it may not be enough to track him down, but it's an obvious place to start.

    8. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      If that guy does send out his code, i will send out my code, which may or may not be different.

    9. Re:Licensing? Patents? by moyix · · Score: 1

      I wonder how many other people on the internet have, at various times, made this same statement? I think law enforcement would have trouble determining exactly which one let the cat out of the bag...

    10. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Give them to some European / other free software hacker where stupid US software patents don't apply. Seriously. You need to get the code out there right away. Somebody else may be able to figure out a way to get around the supposed patented algorithms.

    11. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      sorry to have the incredibly bad form of posting a link to my own post, but i wrote my take on this in the wrong thread. my original post is here.

      -CC

    12. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It doesn't matter if somebody finds out he supposedly did the reverse engineering. There's nothing illegal about that. And you don't get arrested for violating a patent anyways. You get sued--if the other party even feels like suing. If the code is overseas, nobody can be sued. And no software company is going to go sniffing around to see who in the US might be using patented algorithms in their home / business. That would be ludicrous and unprofitable. What are they gonna do?.. say "you owe us $0.25 for each computer that uses this program which includes an algorithm that we have a patent on" Fat chance. The best way to defeat software patents is to ignore them and host any offending software somewhere in the "free world"

    13. Re:Licensing? Patents? by dcsmith77 · · Score: 1

      I searched the patent database, but couldn't find what specifically sorenson filed, all i was able to find was one patent of a vq algorithm which may have applied, does anyone have a list of their patents?

    14. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You should really go read the story about how the feds want ISP's to keep track of every website that you visit. ;^)

    15. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The best thing is to make a modification to the codec, patent your new, improved codec, and release it out into the wild.

    16. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Judging from the above posters, if you don't like a law just ignore it?

      So much for civilization.

    17. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mr. Sorenson works closely with my boss. He doesn't use a computer, apparently -- he is an entrepreneurial mastermind, not a computer programmer. His secretary and those who work for him do the computer stuff that he's involved in. He does not know what the "rest of us" are having to deal with in not having the codec available to us. I don't know if he knows what an operating system is. But that's all hearsay from my boss.

      Just so everybody knows. It's not his fault.

    18. Re:Licensing? Patents? by ryanvm · · Score: 1

      Yes please tell.. I have a fully working SVQ3 codec that I reverse engineered sitting on my harddrive. I haven't released it due to blatent patent infringement.

      Yeah, me too.

    19. Re:Licensing? Patents? by HeUnique · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Here's a snippet from an email which was posted on FFMPEG's mailing list:

      From: Arpi
      To: ffmpeg-devel@lists.sourceforge.net

      Date: Yesterday 23:02:26

      Hi,

      I've just examined xine's fresh working SVQ1 decoder. It's implemented in a ~60k .c file, and uses a 90k .h containing the tables.

      Looking at the source, it looks like SVQ1 is a tricky h263 variant - as gerard also noticed some time ago. They crypted (don't worry, just order
      change and some xor) the first 4 bytes of the header, to hide it's a h263 one. Ah, and they replaced the patented DCT by recursive VQ.
      And, they use YVU9 (chrominance 4x4 subsampled) instead of YV12 (2x2 subsampling).

      So, as you can see, the SVQ1 guy who wrote the native decoder, replaced the sorenson patented stuff with something free..

      --
      Hetz (Heunique)
    20. Re:Licensing? Patents? by 00_NOP · · Score: 2

      Lived in Europe?

    21. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Air-conditioned+cowh · · Score: 1

      1) How about emailing it to a "keeper" in another country where they don't have software patents and let them take the project forward.

      2) Release as source-code only like LAME.

      3) Move out of the USA (if that is where you are) becuase it is the worst place in the world for a non-corporate programmer to live.

    22. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      I think you misread. It's the sorensen guys that dodged a couple of patents.

    23. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Peter+Harris · · Score: 4, Interesting

      1) Bad laws get made.

      2) Laws are hard to remove once they are in place.

      3) The only way to get real discussion on bad laws sometimes is to defy them.

      4) It is not unethical per se to break a law. It's just that laws are generally made to prohibit unethical behaviour.

      If the letter of the law also has the side-effect of prohibiting some ethical behaviour, what do you do? You do what your conscience permits and take responsibility for your own actions.

      By the way, to head off any stupid straw-man arguments like "what if you think it's OK to kill children?", forget it. Stick to the point. If you have a real reason to believe it is OK for big corporations to restrict what ideas humans can think and write and implement in code, let's hear it.

      Personally, I think it would be easier to defy the abuse of patents in this way than to defy the abuse of copyright law. It should be harder to make the case that someone is "stealing" something they wrote *themselves*.

      --

      -- What do you need?
      -- Gnus. Lots of Gnus.
    24. Re:Licensing? Patents? by theCoder · · Score: 2

      I have a fully working SVQ3 codec that I reverse engineered sitting on my harddrive ... I haven't released it due to blatent patent infringement :)

      As I understand it, patents don't just prevent you from distributing competeting products that do the same thing the patented product does, but also prevent you from making and using them yourself. So if I create a Widget and patent it, you can't make or use a widget even for personal use without my approval.

      Of course, I don't have any idea what protects the Sorenson stuff (copyright or patent), but if it is a patent, you may have already infringed just by having your player.

      Then again, IANAL, so it's probably all wrong :)

      --
      "Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
    25. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ooops...too late... I posted my version on the usenet newsfroups last night while wardriving.

      I feel very guilty about it. It was some behemoth software computer company who's satellite offices didn't know anything about network security and had some serious backdoors to the net. I couldn't help myself and uploaded everything on their servers.

    26. Re:Licensing? Patents? by JWW · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The US founding fathers broke a lot of laws, yet their goal was to set up their own country with its own government, not end civilization.

      There comes a point when people need to protest a government that no longer adaquately represents them. One such protest is to disobey laws that are viewed as bad or unjust. If enough people (see aformentioned founding fathers) protest then there can be change.

      I will use decss on my PC because I think the DMCA is a bad law. To that end I also will not pirate any DVD's. My rights should be covered over fair use, but my actions are deemed illegal by the DMCA. I choose not to follow it.

      Oh and to keep this on topic, software patents are bogus and should not be honored either. Copyrights (and copylefts for that matter are valid), but to patent software is stupid.

    27. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I will rape small children, because I think that child abuse laws are bad."

    28. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Moofie · · Score: 2

      "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for a people to advance from that subordination in which they have hitherto remained, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the equal and independent station to which the laws of nature and of nature's god entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the change."

      If you don't recognize that text, go smack your history teachers. Unless, of course, you're not an American, and then you might very well consider the Declaraton of Independence a quite uncivilized document. In that event, I say that you are welcome to your opinion, and you are welcome to try and enforce that opinion on me. Bring friends. Lots of them.

      --
      Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
    29. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This sounds like a job for... Freenet!

      Great, then all 5 people who have gotten Freenet to work succesfully will be able to access it.

    30. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Graff · · Score: 2
      It was some behemoth software computer company who's satellite offices didn't know anything about network security and had some serious backdoors to the net.
      You mean you uploaded your software to Microsoft? Man, they are gonna be pissed when they find out...
    31. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Boatman · · Score: 1

      The whole point of the patent system is to require that a company disclose its methods in exchange for the patent. If you clicked a EULA that said you couldn't reverse-engineer code, and they could somehow prove that that's what you did, then they might be able to claim copyright infringement. But patents are designed to keep things *from* being secret, not to keep them secret.

      --
      --Just the place for a snark!
    32. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, for what player did you write it? Maybe you could include it into ffmpeg ffmpeg.sourceforge.net . There are already lots of codec like wmv1, msmpeg4 v1, v2, v3 , divx... and noone complained about it

    33. Re:Licensing? Patents? by hey! · · Score: 2

      Doesn't help unless he's in Brazil himself, and never plans to visit the US.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    34. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      You missed the point. Just laws and injust laws here. Apples and oranges.

      It is immoral to abuse a child.

      It is immoral to "steal" a DVD.

      It is immoral to edit a copyrighted Sorenson MOV and pass it off as your own.

      It is not immoral to watch a DVD you paid for.

      It is not immoral to watch a publically available Sorenson MOV.

    35. Re:Licensing? Patents? by bsane · · Score: 2, Funny

      You shouldn't be posting such subversive thoughts unless you want the FBI to monitor you...

    36. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have never heard someone so proudly proclaim they have never received a blowjob.

    37. Re:Licensing? Patents? by DraKKon · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Typical... You have the "I get my OS for free, so I must have everything else for free" attitude.. This is soo typical of the majority of the /duh crowd... let me guess.. you;ve downloaded all your music through gnapster (when napster was active)..

      --
      "It's not like your minds are as open as the source you love..." - Me to the majority of Slashdot.
    38. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Bugblatter · · Score: 1

      I don't regard the Declaration of Independance as uncivilized. Its the dressing up as Indians and dumping some guy's tea into the harbour that was uncivilized!

      Anyway, it looks like the Xine coders carefully avoided any Patent or Copyright infringements so the result is legal, even your side of the pond.

      --

      --
      I can't see you, therefore you can't see me.

    39. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Paladin128 · · Score: 2

      You are incorrect. A Patent does *not* give the owner exclusive manufacture/production rights over patented works. What a patent *does* give the owner is the ability to stop others from *distributing* products covered under the patent.

      For example, Company A patents making widgets green. Company B needs a green widget for internal use. Company B may manufacture a green widget for internal use.

      Where patent problems come in is if Company B decides to make many green widgets and sell them. It is then Company A's job to react. Company A can do nothing to company B if it wants to. It can even do nothing for 10 years of the life of the patent, and then charge company B for infringement, waiting for green to be the standard color of widgets, and then decide to charge every manufacturer of green widgets. This is basically what Unisys did with the LZW algorithm. They officially didn't care about GIF's until they became one of the two standard graphics formats.

      --
      Lex orandi, lex credendi.
    40. Re:Licensing? Patents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like :
      Microsoft
      Nixon
      Reagan
      Bush
      Clinton
      Bush Jr.
      Enron
      Chevron
      Nestle
      IBM (old)
      Gingrich
      etc....

    41. Re:Licensing? Patents? by G-funk · · Score: 2

      No, most of my music is ripped from my extensive collection of cds. I don't believe everything should be free, but I don't believe that when mpeg is available free (well close enough) we should have to pay for a lesser quality closed codec because of "You scratch my back and i'll scrath yours" licensing agreements between media companies.

      --
      Send lawyers, guns, and money!
  5. Linux is catchings up... by papasui · · Score: 2, Insightful

    but articles like this really do point out the weakest points of it. If your strong into multimedia (graphic design, sound mixing, 3D modeling, etc). You're still better off in most cases to be using a Win/Mac machine with a much more mature and complete software solutions. This isn't a knock against linux or other *nix's just points out what the weakest links are.

    1. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Roadmaster · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This has absolutely nothing to do with Linux. The reason why "You're still better off in most cases to be using a Win/Mac machine" for multimedia, is the fact that application developers DONT WANT to target Linux. It's certainly not Linux's fault that, since Apple refuses to either port Quicktime to Linux or provide info so somebody else can implement compatibility, we have to go around hacking stuff like this.

      Lack of (certain niche) applications certainly hurts Linux, but it's NOT the Linux community's fault. And I guess if the companies don't want to target their products for us Linux users, then too bad for them, it's lost business for them, not for me.

    2. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Phroggy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This isn't a knock against linux or other *nix's just points out what the weakest links are.

      And a working Sorenson codec available for Linux is a good step toward closing some of those gaps.

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    3. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The reasons companies don't port stuff to Linux are:
      1. Desktop Linux is still a tiny market.
      2. Linux distros are extremely fragmented, meaning tech support is a fucking nightmare.
      3. Linux users are too smelly and poor to pay for stuff.
      too bad for them, it's lost business for them

      Refer to point 3.

    4. Re:Linux is catchings up... by 1010011010 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      application developers DONT WANT to target Linux

      That's a problem, but the crappy sound support (OSS, Alsa will be better), non-existant color management (X says: what's that?), poor font support (-including-a-strange-30-year-old-craptacular-nami ng-convention),
      "window managers" making window placement a quirky and non-standard thing, etc. -- are all much more serious problems.

      I like Linux, it runs on my home computers 24/7. But, as Linus recently noted, "all the interesting stuff is on the desktop" -- it's where the most work is needed at the current time.

      How many things in X will we need to fix?
      * font support

      * color management

      * alpha blending support

      * usable configuration (Think Mac, Windows, even BeOS)

      * changing resolutions on the fly

      * vnc (or other RFB) server support, so I can view my desktop -- the one shown on the monitor -- from another computer.

      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    5. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Garion911 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Umm.. Changing resolutions on the fly: Crtl-Alt-NumPadMinus/Crtl-Alt-NumPadPlus

      VNC: DOn't they already have a VNC client/server for X? If not, why not just use X itself? (Doah!)

      --
      Slashdot is like Playboy: I read it for the articles
    6. Re:Linux is catchings up... by chabotc · · Score: 1

      >> How many things in X will we need to fix?

      >> font support
      Already prety damn decent, if you use freetype 2.1.1, and the bytecode intepreter. For better-then-windows-type-support, please try out the (beta) Xft2 stuff people are working on, its extremely impressive

      >> color management
      Donno about this one

      >> alpha blending support
      Keith (the one who does the Xft and AA work) has also included this in his set of X updates, alpha support is included

      >> usable configuration (Think Mac, Windows, ven BeOS)
      Actualy redhat, mandrake, etc are comming a long way with this. (admitedly not there, but closing in)

      >> changing resolutions on the fly
      Configure your X for multiple resolutions, and switch between them with ctrl-alt +/-

      >> vnc (or other RFB) server support, so I can view my desktop -- the one shown on the monitor from another computer
      VNC was made by AT&T, had has clients & servers for almost every platform, including linux

      Most of the stuff you mention is pure FUD, or outdated.. (so outdated that you should be comparing linux to windows95 then)

      Please research a bit more before trying to spread more FUD

    7. Re:Linux is catchings up... by 1010011010 · · Score: 3, Offtopic

      ctrl-alt[+-] changes the size of the viewport, not the resolution of the display -- it's still whatever x whatever, but you can see only a small window of it at a time. To actually change the resolution, you need to reconfigure and then restart X.

      The Unix VNC server is actually a modified version of Xfree86 3.x, using a memory framebuffer instead of video hardware.

      However, it would be nice to have a version of VNC that plugged into Xfree 4.x and exported the existing display. X has hooks for this, so it should be possible w/o modifying X or producing a special version of it (like with the current Xvnc server). This would allow the viewing of the current desktop from another machine. Yes, X is a networked display, and can display apps running on another machine. But that's not the same as what VNC does for a Windows machine (for instance), or what VNC exporting an existing X session would do.

      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    8. Re:Linux is catchings up... by ShawnD · · Score: 2, Informative
      >>> changing resolutions on the fly

      >Configure your X for multiple resolutions, and switch between them with ctrl-alt +/-

      But when you change resolutions in Windows you actually change the resolution of the desktop, not just the monitor. XFree86 just scrolls the large image which can be very annoying. The desktop must be atleast as large as the highest resolution mode defined.

      Also Windows and MacOS can change colour depth on the fly. X can't (Even eXceed on Windows complains when you change colour depth).

      >>> vnc (or other RFB) server support, so I can view my desktop -- the one shown on the monitor from another computer

      >VNC was made by AT&T, had has clients & servers for almost every platform, including linux

      The Unix VNC server does not mirror the current display. It provides a seperate remote display. On Windows VNC lets you use the current display which can be very usefull. I wish the Unix VNC server could provde this feature.

    9. Re:Linux is catchings up... by 1010011010 · · Score: 3, Informative


      >> font support
      Already prety damn decent, if you use freetype 2.1.1


      Yes, some display support has improved. How about printing? How about font installation? How about obtaining font metrics and outlines from the font system -- oh, wait, you have to ask X for the path and then read the font file yourself, that's right, duh.


      >> alpha blending support
      Keith has also included this in his set of X updates, alpha support is included


      Where? Link? I'd love to see it. All I've seen to this point is his "twm" demo, which was slow and limited (according to Keith).


      >> usable configuration (Think Mac, Windows, ven BeOS)
      Actualy redhat, mandrake, etc are comming a long way with this. (admitedly not there, but closing in)


      This must be one of those invisible features. How do you install a driver, change the refresh rate, color depth, resolution, etc. without editing /etc/X11/XF86Config-4? Why does X require a specific definition of each suitable resolution? can't it query the current monitor like Macs and Winders do (DPMS)?


      >> changing resolutions on the fly
      Configure your X for multiple resolutions, and switch between them with ctrl-alt +/-

      This does not change the resolution of the display, only the size of the viewport.


      >> vnc (or other RFB) server support, so I can view my desktop -- the one shown on the monitor from another computer
      VNC was made by AT&T, had has clients & servers for almost every platform, including linux


      I'll refer you to my other post about this... see below.


      Most of the stuff you mention is pure FUD, or outdated.. (so outdated that you should be comparing linux to windows95 then)
      Please research a bit more before trying to spread more FUD


      It's not FUD, and you're actually the one who's mostly wrong, not me. Plus, you're a little touchy, aren't you? I mean, X isn't a sacrament or anything, and I'm not even suggesting that it has to be replaced.

      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    10. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The other AC made the point better, but check the sales figures for commercial apps like WordPerfect or Quake III on Linux. The totals were of the 10^3 magnitude -- far too small to even cover porting costs, much less make any money.

      Also, Apple's real customers with QuickTime aren't people watching StarWars trailers -- they are people like Adobe that build video applications on QuickTime technology for their customers. Until the video editing market is demanding Linux support from their vendors (which will be approx never), Apple has no interest in seeing QuickTime on Linux.

    11. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Tomble · · Score: 1
      non-existant color management (X says: what's that?)
      I'm fairly sure I read somewhere that much (all??) of the colour management algorithms and such things are heavily protected by patents. Of course, I know next-to-nothing about colour management, so it's quite possible I misunderstood something wherever it was that I read it, but the apparently knowledgable people discussing the issue seemed to have been saying that it made it more or less impossible.

      Possibly someone who knows more about this will appear and give us an answer. Anyone?

      Oh, and I do at least agree about the way X names fonts. OTOH, I'm sure it makes sense server-side, and I don't know whether it would be so hard for programs to have a font selection thing that let you choose them similar to the way Windows does it and then translates the selections into X's standard font naming format. It could be made into a widget, or mebbe a library with a widget built on top of it. Something like that.

      --
      Be careful! New moon tonight.
    12. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
      >> usable configuration (Think Mac, Windows, ven BeOS)
      Actualy redhat, mandrake, etc are comming a long way with this. (admitedly not there, but closing in)

      RedHat, ...Mandrake?
      Unless the XFree86 team is doing it, it's a non-standard band-aid "solution".

    13. Re:Linux is catchings up... by NotoriousQ · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Here is what you are looking for
      x0rfbserver

      --
      badness 10000
    14. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      3. Linux users are too smelly and poor to pay for stuff.

      Gee, maybe someone should let cadence know about that .

    15. Re:Linux is catchings up... by victwenty · · Score: 1
      * vnc (or other RFB) server support, so I can view my desktop -- the one shown on the monitor -- from another computer.

      This has already been done, it's called x0rfbserver and it's linked to under the contrib section of the official VNC page.

      From the page:

      Description: x0rfbserver is a software application that is able to export an X desktop to another machine. It exports the framebuffer of the X server to one or more clients using strong compression and injects keyboard and mouse inputs from the clients into the server. The protocol used is the well documented RFB 3.3 protocol, so x0rfbserver should be compatible with every client speaking that protocol too, e.g. it should work together with the vnc viewers of AT&T. x0rfbserver provides a complete remote control of the desktop on the computer it is running on.
    16. Re:Linux is catchings up... by civilizedINTENSITY · · Score: 2

      "Configure your X for multiple resolutions, and switch between them with ctrl-alt +/-

      This does not change the resolution of the display, only the size of the viewport."

      Ah...yes, it does. It does both, depending on what you've set for your allowed states. It moves from state to state.

    17. Re:Linux is catchings up... by thule · · Score: 1

      >>> font support
      >>Already prety damn decent, if you use freetype 2.1.1

      >Yes, some display support has improved. How about printing? How about font installation? How about obtaining font metrics and outlines from the font system -- oh, wait, you have to ask X for the path and then read the font file yourself, that's right, duh.

      Keith Packard seems to be working on some of this also. It seems to me that the Xft and Freetype are the official libraries to support this stuff.

      >>> alpha blending support
      >>Keith has also included this in his set of X updates, alpha support is included

      >Where? Link? I'd love to see it. All I've seen to this point is his "twm" demo, which was slow and limited (according to Keith).

      Actually Xrender is supported now, thus alpha blending. I thought KDE 3.0 uses this now.

      >>> usable configuration (Think Mac, Windows, ven BeOS)
      >>Actualy redhat, mandrake, etc are comming a long way with this. (admitedly not there, but closing in)

      >This must be one of those invisible features. How do you install a driver, change the refresh rate, color depth, resolution, etc. without editing /etc/X11/XF86Config-4? Why does X require a specific definition of each suitable resolution? can't it query the current monitor like Macs and Winders do (DPMS)?

      True, this is a bad spot. BUT XFree DOES support DPMS. XFree can also receive monitor setting via (DDR is it??). I've seen it do it! Very slick, you don't even know it's doing it unless you read the XFree log file.

      >>> changing resolutions on the fly
      >>Configure your X for multiple resolutions, and switch between them with ctrl-alt +/-

      >This does not change the resolution of the display, only the size of the viewport.

      This is not supported yet, but Keith Packard's web site mentions he is working on this. Both for rotation and resizing. Very nice.

      >>> vnc (or other RFB) server support, so I can >>view my desktop -- the one shown on the monitor from another computer
      >VNC was made by AT&T, had has clients & servers for almost every platform, including linux

      I kinda like not having to redraw my entire desktop just to run an app, but i guess that's a personal preference.

    18. Re:Linux is catchings up... by 1010011010 · · Score: 2

      Please explain.

      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    19. Re:Linux is catchings up... by NeoOokami · · Score: 0

      It has everything to do with linux. Linux may just be the os kernel, but the fact that people can't do everything they want to in linux that they can in Windows/Mac is exactly what will keep them from using Linux. So even though it may not be the fault of the Linux/Open Source community, it's definetly their problem.

    20. Re:Linux is catchings up... by 1010011010 · · Score: 2

      Actually Xrender is supported now, thus alpha blending. I thought KDE 3.0 uses this now.

      XRender is only for fonts. The translucent menus in KDE are a hack.

      I hope Keith achieves all the good stuff he wants to, because it'll really improve X. And I hope he does it quickly. :)

      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    21. Re:Linux is catchings up... by groomed · · Score: 0

      Well, maybe, probably. Though for sound mixing there are a few decent programs there (at least I've done my part) and for graphics there are also a number of good (i.e. very workable) tools. 3D modeling, I am not aware of there being anything even remotely close to Windows/Mac packages, so that would be a real gap.

      I think you are right with your point about maturity and completeness. On the other hand I simply don't agree with the necessity to have everything in one program, or for the need to have that program to be usable by absolutely every idiot. If you are capable enough to do great graphics on a computer then likely you can also learn how to edit a textfile. And this saves developers a lot of time writing wack code for preference dialogs and other "rubbish".

    22. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >> This does not change the resolution of the display, only the size of the viewport."
      > Ah...yes, it does. It does both, depending on what you've set for your allowed states. It moves from state to state.

      ?? I agree, please explain; I've been on Linux for the last 14 months and I've never seen the ability to do this. What setting in XFConfig-4 (or wherever) enables both changes at once?..

    23. Re:Linux is catchings up... by dpol · · Score: 1

      vnc (or other RFB) server support, so I can view my desktop -- the one shown on the monitor -- from another computer.

      I don't quite understand this last point - a friend of mine routinely logs into his Linux system from our department's Sun Ray terminals. He's not simply forwarding X11 through SSH, he interacts with his desktop the same way as he would had he been sitting at the computer. I believe that this is achieved using XDMCP (X Display Manager Control Protocol). This seems to work well for my friend.

      --
      -- David Polberger Computer Science major, University of Lund, Sweden
    24. Re:Linux is catchings up... by marxmarv · · Score: 2
      can't it query the current monitor like Macs and Winders do (DPMS)?
      Why, yes, it can. X requires a list of useful resolutions, yes, but it can ask the monitor for the ModeLine info and negotiate a mode compatible with the card and the monitor automatically. Most automated X setup programs put the "usual" resolutions in the XF86Config for you and X selects the best available when it starts.

      I only ever change my resolution -- ahem, viewport size -- to watch too-small pr0n videos, anyway.

      -jhp

      --
      /. -- the Free Republic of technology.
    25. Re:Linux is catchings up... by The+Mayor · · Score: 2, Troll

      OK. I've configued my X server for multiple resolutions. I hit ctrl-alt-+ and I get a different resolution. Not a larger or smaller viewport at the same resolution. A different resolution. I can switch between 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, and 1600x1200. At all resolutions I see the entire viewport (i.e. no scrolling). This implies that I am actually getting different resolutions, not different viewports at the same resolution.

      Also, I think you've overlooked one VNC project named x0rfbserver. This runs an rfb server (the VNC protocol) on display 0 of your X server. Therefore it shares the current desktop over VNC (just like VNC on Windows and the Mac). This project has been around for years (I stumbled across it probably 5 years ago or thereabouts).

      --
      --Be human.
    26. Re:Linux is catchings up... by benwaggoner · · Score: 2

      The lack of the middleware media layer that applications rely on is certainly a substantial issue with doing a lot of authoring on Linux. QuickTime is a great example of this, and DirectShow does similar but more limited things under Windows.

      While QuickTime is mainly discussed as a compression technology, it is important in a lot of other ways in the authoring industry. Many major video applications use QuickTime as an API for video capture, editing, compositing, etcetera. Avid, Media 100, After Effects, Premiere, CineStream, Cleaner, Squeeze, HipFlics, and many others all use QuickTime. Probably 80% of everything you see on TV was a QuickTime file at at least one point in the authoring processs. And QuickTime's depth is hugely underestimated for those who look at it merely as a player technology.

      One great example of QuickTime is the reference movie. This is a movie that is made up of references to media in other files, potentially with transforms attached to it. Think of it like a frameserver, but with all the information needed to serve living in a media file itself, without any requirement for another application.

      Describing Apple's attitude as "refuses to port" is erroneous. Apple's response to a number of UNIX vendors over the years has been "We're happy to port QuickTime to UNIX, but you'll have to pay for it." It'd be at least $20M for Apple to do, and probably many times that. And then there is the ongoing testing. Apple does regression

      There is a huge amount of low-level things that QuickTime relies on, like low latency access to sound cards, Y'CrCb native blitting to video cards, etcetera. Even if they did port it, it would probably only work on distributions it specifically targeted which had the stuff in the kernel it needed. And there is a TON of machine-specific optimization in there - this isn't a GCC and Go kind of thing.

    27. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      Post your config file.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    28. Re:Linux is catchings up... by nathanh · · Score: 3, Informative
      Why does X require a specific definition of each suitable resolution? can't it query the current monitor like Macs and Winders do (DPMS)?

      DDC. Yes, XFree86 supports DDC level 1 and level 2. Look in XFree86.0.log and you'll see XFree86 talking to your monitor, discovering refresh rates and supported resolutions, then populating your modelines with what it found. It's all automatic and has been for at least a year.

    29. Re:Linux is catchings up... by mhenley · · Score: 1

      I dont know about graphic design and sound mixing but WTF on 3D modeling? Check the news... you have Maya, Houdini and I recall seeing Softimage for linux. Disney, PDI, Weta, ILM, Pixar, Digital Domain are all using linux for at least some of their work (check out the cover of Linux Journal). It is starting to look like a mass migration to me.

    30. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Progoth · · Score: 3, Interesting

      and here's a much better one, as long as you're running KDE. passwords work, has an optional confirmation box, and even supports Tight encoding!

    31. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's a different display to the one he would see if he sat down at the actual computer.

      In other words, VNC lets you reconnect to a display (i.e. desktop) that already exists; the standard X protocol only allows you to create a new display, rather than view an existing one.

    32. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Redline · · Score: 2, Informative

      XRender is only for fonts. The translucent menus in KDE are a hack.


      Not true. I suggest you check the Developers Guide to XRENDER before making false statements. Even a perfunctory glance at the screenshots on the page show alpha blended geometries other than fonts.

      And I am quite sure for KDE 3.0.1 KDE->Control Center->Look and Feel->Style->Effects->Menu Translucency Type has an option for "XRender Blend". XRender, not just for fonts anymore.

    33. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Even eXceed on Windows complains when you change colour depth"

      It's because X11 is maldesigned in such a way that the applications need to be aware of the screen color-depth (instead of providing automatic dithering or resource substitution, which is what Mac and Win do).

    34. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Panaflex · · Score: 2

      Actually, the trapezoid renderer is coming along. Soon, we should have a full-blown rendering system.

      Yes, alpha blending and all.

      Pan

      --
      I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
    35. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They use linux mostly for their render farms. It's not what their artists use.

    36. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      XRender is only for fonts. The translucent menus in KDE are a hack.

      It depends if your video card's support for Xrender, check the control center under "look & feel" -> "style" -> "effects". The "Menu Transulucncy type" drop down list has "Xrender Blend" if your card and driver support it. "Software blend" is the hack for older cards or drivers"

    37. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      mod NorotiousQ up, X0rfbserver.

    38. Re:Linux is catchings up... by kwalker · · Score: 1

      Yes, some display support has improved. How about printing? How about font installation? How about obtaining font metrics and outlines from the font system -- oh, wait, you have to ask X for the path and then read the font file yourself, that's right, duh.

      How about xfs? Ever used it? Really sweet program, support TrueType, even on old programs that don't otherwise know about them. As for installing fonts, that process consists of copying the file into the right folder and re-starting xfs. Hell, you can even run one xfs server that handles multiple X servers.

      This must be one of those invisible features. How do you install a driver, change the refresh rate, color depth, resolution, etc. without editing /etc/X11/XF86Config-4? Why does X require a specific definition of each suitable resolution? can't it query the current monitor like Macs and Winders do (DPMS)?

      Well, looking at my XF86Config-4 file, I notice a distinct lack of modelines, and further, checking XF86Config.0.Log, I see several lines containing DPMS probes of my monitor. In fact, ever since I installed XFree86 4.0 back over a year ago, I haven't had to deal with any of that.

      This does not change the resolution of the display, only the size of the viewport.

      You're right, and I prefer it this way. I get sick of moving icons around when I change resolutions, but sometimes I just want that video window to take up more of my 19" monitor.

      Blah. That's my troll feeding for this month.

      --
      Improvise, adapt, and overcome.
    39. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Mithrandir · · Score: 1

      Unless the XFree86 team is doing it, it's a non-standard band-aid "solution"

      Why should a team which is devoted purely to graphics rendering pipelines be at all concerned about installing drivers or configuring applications? X is platform independent. Just because I install a driver for my x86 Linux box where the client application resides, does not mean that it will work for the Solaris/SPARC machine that I am viewing the application on.

      If the XFree team got involved in writing configuration utilities I would be most disturbed. XFree doesn't even both deal with writing "simple" applications like terminal screens (thing XTerm), so why should they be writing much higher-level, system-specific applications like desktop configuration managers?

      --
      Life is complete only for brief intervals in between toys or projects -- John Dalton
    40. Re:Linux is catchings up... by The+Mayor · · Score: 3, Informative
      The Unix VNC server does not mirror the current display. It provides a seperate remote display. On Windows VNC lets you use the current display which can be very usefull. I wish the Unix VNC server could provde this feature.


      Try x0rfbserver This does what you want. It's been around for years and years.

      VNC's approach of setting up a separate display is a design feature, designed to take advantage of X's natural ability to support more than one output display. You can also start the regular old AT&T VNC server such that it also starts X in the same session, giving you the same effect as x0rfbserver. This has been there since day one with VNC.

      I only wish the Windows and Mac versions of VNC let you start a session that *didn't* control the current display. This is a failure of the design of the windowing systems under Windows and MacOS. Please don't attribute your lack of knowledge of VNC as a failure in the design of the X Window System or the Unix version of VNC.

      --
      --Be human.
    41. Re:Linux is catchings up... by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 1
      How many things in X will we need to fix?


      Looking for this? I personally think X (or at least XFree86) is outdated at the core. This has been solved by adding numerous extensions, but that doesn't really solve the problem. Can an application programmer count on the presence or functionality of extensions on any system? What we need is a new design, based on the experiences with X.


      I like network-transparency (it's a huge win in some situations), but X uses far too much bandwidth. What about a widget-based approach like PicoGUI? Add window overlapping and implement smoothed fonts on server-side, then write a rootless X-server for it, and I think many people might have a shot at running it on their desktops.


      --
      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
    42. Re:Linux is catchings up... by spitzak · · Score: 3, Interesting
      What I don't understand is why real "changing resolution on the fly" is not added to XFree86. It should be easy, they already do the hard part which is to change the hardware so the memory is drawn on the screen differently.

      The only other thing X keeps track of is the size of the root window. I propose that the server send a ConfigureNotify event to whoever is listening to the root window (probably the window manager) indicating the new size. The window manager can then respond to this by moving and resizing windows (using whatever rules it wants) to get the resized display. Of course the window managers will need to be rewritten but I expect this would happen very quickly.

      The only other thing is the screen size macros on the Display object. It would also help if xlib was changed so requesting the screen size either did a round trip or a signal was added to indicate that the local copies need to be updated. However I don't think this is vital and it can be ignored as most applications don't use the screen size for anything except to figure out the resolution.

    43. Re:Linux is catchings up... by spitzak · · Score: 2
      True but there are ways to fix color.

      My recomendation is that XFree86 be changed so the "old" interface claims there is exactly one 24-bit truecolor visual. It will claim this no matter what the memory on the screen is. If you have set it to 8-bit mode then the server does dithering to a color cube. All X programs can handle this nowadays. There would also be a "new" interface that lets a program peek at the actual memory layout and contents of the colormap on 8-bit displays.

      The main speed requirement is for image buffers. I would also support a fixed set of image buffer types no matter what the display really uses: 1,2,4,8,16 bit monochrome, 8 and 16 bit versions of rgb and rgba, and a 16-bit format that matches the 5-6-5 format used by many XFree86 displays. All programs can assumme they have exactly this set of image formats and can continue using the current X interface.

    44. Re:Linux is catchings up... by jejones · · Score: 2

      X...can ask the monitor for the ModeLine info and negotiate a mode compatible with the card and the monitor automatically.

      OK...that's cool, and perhaps things such as the RH installation X configuration churns out the ModeLine info just for completeness's sake or to simplify the code that writes the configuration file, but...given that that's the case, and that I will presumably never bother with a monitor that doesn't do DDC again, what's the least I can get away with putting in the configuration file to minimize changes when I do change monitors?

    45. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Warped-Reality · · Score: 1

      no, no, no, you have it backwards

      It changes the resolution of the display [640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, etc] but doesn't change the size of the desktop [it could still be a 1600x1200 desktop] on a 640x480 res display

      --
      This is not the greatest sig in the world, no. This is just a tribute.
    46. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > check the sales figures for commercial apps
      > like WordPerfect or Quake III on Linux
      >
      Agreed. But context is important. Btw., WorPerfect was *not* a port. It was the Windows version running in Wine. The whole thing was rather nicely packaged, but as usual with Corel, they never stick it out. The main mistake was not to offer a free (at least for personal use) download copy of WordPerfect 9 (and sell the whole suite for $). At that time all other offerings were meager aside from perhaps Applixware.
      Quake III was great, but a year ahead of it's time on Linux. 3D accelleration was a pain in the ass to set up and no distro at that time supported it out of the box. Hell, it took me 2 weekends and I was willing to do it!
      Now much has changed to the better. Most essential is, that most such software now can simply be put into the CD-ROM drive and installed without much fuss. Not two years ago!

    47. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maya is available for linux, i think, and with the number of studioes (diz-nee the latest.. great to get an evil empire on board..) cutting over to linux for both desktop and server apps it should be an area we can expect to see greater development in soon. Oh, pov-ray is also available for linux and various modelling packages, though the ones i've played with so far (and it really is just play, i'm an interested dabler, i don't earn my living doing 3d stuff) are a bit on the basic side.

    48. Re:Linux is catchings up... by zenyu · · Score: 2

      This must be one of those invisible features. How do you install a driver, change the refresh rate, color depth, resolution, etc. without editing /etc/X11/XF86Config-4? Why does X require a specific definition of each suitable resolution? can't it query the current monitor like Macs and Winders do (DPMS)?


      You really need to update your linux installs. XFree86 4.0 uses DPMS, no more modelines needed. You can still use them if you have an older monitor of course. XFree86 is up to 4.2 already... Also if you use Mandrake you can run drakxconf to configure your X server. It's also somewhere in their Control Panel equivalent. I prefer the XF86Config-4 editing myself, you can do things like create your own modelines, configure different pointing devices so the Wacom stylus only works in drawing programs, you know the things you can't do in MS Windows.


      Configure your X for multiple resolutions, and switch between them with ctrl-alt +/-


      This does not change the resolution of the display, only the size of the viewport.

      No it has always changed the resolution, if you're monitor can only do 1024x768 and you ask it to do 1280x1024 then it will just change the viewport, but this is something you have to specify by editing the XF86Config-4 yourself, the GUI configurations won't let you set a viewport larger than what your monitor supports.

      Maybe you've upgraded the Xserver and always kept your old XF86Config? You should try just using the default, it seems your machines are massively misconfigured. Try switching to Mandrake where you want a desktop linux, it will even import your MS Windows fonts if you have it installed. (Through drakfont, but you probably just want to get used to drakconf which launches all the different configurators you'll want.)

      I might agree that Linux isn't a Desktop OS, but Mandrake is much easier to use than MS Windows, it's just no Mac. And as far as configuration it has both beat handily. The only real weakness you've enumerated is the color management, that is still up to individual applications. Though it seems that applications that need it, like Gimp, can figure out the parameters they need. Why don't you write this and submit it as a patch to X11? The hardest part is probably finding the docs on reading the monitor spec files from Windows and converting them into some a more readable format.

    49. Re:Linux is catchings up... by scynn · · Score: 1

      Sooooo, why is ILM using Linux for 3D rendering? Are all their tools proprietary? Has no one released any non proprietary tools? I just don't get it. I'm not a big multimedia hound, so maybe someone can explain this to me.

    50. Re:Linux is catchings up... by scynn · · Score: 1

      What are the artists using? Macs? NT machines? SGI machines? What? The article in Linux Journal about the Star Wars Episode II production shows the use of Linux in the creation of the product. At least that's what I got out of it. I'm sure the rendering is done by the Linux machines as well, but the GUI tools looked like artists' tools as well.

    51. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Printing does NOT have anything to do with X. Postscript works fine (and btw, it's also used on Macs).

      When I upgraded to XFree 4.0, I didn't have to touch XF86Config. The setup program even started up in 1280x1024, after querying the monitor of it's capabilities. Yes, you can do everything in XF86Config, but YOU DON'T HAVE TO. You can also setup your windows display through regedit, but noone claims that windows is hard to use because of that.

      (and btw, when I installed windows at home, it would do no more than 640x480, until I bootet linux to download drivers for the display (and network card)). In linux, everything just worked.

    52. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      changing resolutions on the fly

      Configure the resolutions you wanna use then hit CTRL-ALT-numpadPlus and CTRL-ALT-numpadMinus to scroll through them.

      Font, color and alpha blending... just install KDE (or Gnome).

      Do some research. Linux won't give you stuff with your other finger in your nose and the other up your ass. You have to put your hands to the keyboard and make it happen. If this is too difficult, your only option is to fork money for Windows.

      Thank you.

    53. Re:Linux is catchings up... by prgammans · · Score: 1

      * changing resolutions on the fly

      I must say i find being able to change the size of the viewport is extremely usfull. Why do you need to change the resolution, what advantage does it give over just having a large display and ajusting the viewport size?

      What would be more usfull is the ability to change colour depth on the fly.

    54. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are the troll my friend. Most of the points the guy made were at least semi-legitimate, and you're Linux apologist style denying of them doesn't make them go away.

      Until you and others like you realise that denying things are wrong won't make them go away, the Linux desktop is going nowhere fast.

    55. Re:Linux is catchings up... by lpontiac · · Score: 1
      I only wish the Windows and Mac versions of VNC let you start a session that *didn't* control the current display. This is a failure of the design of the windowing systems under Windows and MacOS.

      No, it's a design goal of the Windows gui system, end result being that you go spend $$$$$ on Terminal Server.

    56. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Tepic++ · · Score: 1

      I don't know whether it would be so hard for programs to have a font selection thing that let you choose them similar to the way Windows does it and then translates the selections into X's standard font naming format. It could be made into a widget, or mebbe a library with a widget built on top of it. Something like that.

      Gnome 2 does this.

      (Never used KDE, so I don't know about that.)

    57. Re:Linux is catchings up... by 0x0d0a · · Score: 2

      font support

      The existing stuff is powerful. You may not like the UI, but the foundation is not bad.

      color management

      Fair enough

      Alpha blending support

      This is in already

      Usable configuration

      There are plenty easy-to-use front ends for this. Try installing a random distro...Mandrake or RH.

      Changing resolutions on the fly

      You can change resolutions even more easily than in Windows, via ctl-alt-kp+ and ctl-alt-kp-. Also, apps in DGA mode can change resolution and (IIRC) color depth, though only for the DGA mode. The color depth thing isn't really an issue any more -- no one runs in anything but 24/32 bit color.

      vnc server support

      If not already done, this is really easy to do -- you can dump an X desktop image easily, and feeding it into VNC isn't rocket science.

    58. Re:Linux is catchings up... by 0x0d0a · · Score: 1

      Why would you ever want to decrease the resolution of your monitor?

    59. Re:Linux is catchings up... by alan_dershowitz · · Score: 0
      Thank you for your post. I got modded down to 0 in the windependence day article for suggesting that until we have a fully functional (not with brand-new updates within the last two weeks, as the previous post seems to suggest) desktop, most users aren't going to exercise their "indpendence" from Windows.

      I've been waiting to switch completely to Linux, but many of the problems you listed (and others) run right up against things graphic artists (web AND print, thank you) do on a daily basis. Also to the previous poster you were responding to: It can't just be possible to do something, it has to be easy. If a GUI is complicated to use, it's a failure.

      Thank you.

    60. Re:Linux is catchings up... by 0x0d0a · · Score: 2

      can't it query the current monitor like Macs and Winders do (DPMS)

      DPMS is related to power saving, not querying.

      There is support for this...see matrox-i2c.

      Frankly, given that I can run at a higher reresh rate by ignoring what my monitor says I should run at, I'm pretty happy with things as they are.

    61. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Tepic++ · · Score: 1

      So do you think http://gstreamer.net/ is working in the right direction to do the equivalent of QuickTime?

    62. Re:Linux is catchings up... by 1010011010 · · Score: 2

      The last time I tried x0rfbserver, it kept the CPU pegged.

      I have no idea how to start "the regular old AT&T VNC server" so that it exports the existing :0 display. Reading the --help output didn't help.

      How do you do it?

      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    63. Re:Linux is catchings up... by 1010011010 · · Score: 2

      crtl-alt-[+-] leaves me with a scrolling viewport. How do you do it? What's the magic incantation in your config file?

      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    64. Re:Linux is catchings up... by 1010011010 · · Score: 2
      No it has always changed the resolution, if you're monitor can only do 1024x768 and you ask it to do 1280x1024 then it will just change the viewport, but this is something you have to specify by editing the XF86Config-4 yourself, the GUI configurations won't let you set a viewport larger than what your monitor supports.

      Until someone demonstrates how to configure X so that actually changes resolution, and doesn't just pan around a fixed-sized framebuffer with a varying-size viewport, I won't believe it's possible.

      Maybe you've upgraded the Xserver and always kept your old XF86Config? You should try just using the default, it seems your machines are massively misconfigured.

      It's funny how people on /., like you, typically assume that oher people are morons, noobies, or moron-noobies.

      I'm running redhat 7.2 with Xfree86 4.2

      $ rpm -q XFree86
      XFree86-4.2.0-6.62

      Here's my (largely system-generated) config file: ... okay, never mind, the fucking lameness filter, which is really lame, won't let me post it without really screwing up the format.


      Lameness filter encountered.
      Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition. Comment aborted.


      So, perhaps you could enlighten us all one some web page somewhere as to how X should be properly configured by brainy experts such as yourself.
      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    65. Re:Linux is catchings up... by 1010011010 · · Score: 2

      via ctl-alt-kp+ and ctl-alt-kp-
      changes the viewport, not the size of the desktop.

      no one runs in anything but 24/32 bit color
      Not true.

      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    66. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Junta · · Score: 2

      Strictly speaking, this isn't true trasnlucency.
      It's still a translucency hack, but Xrender provides hardware support for the mathematical operations. The relevant piece of the desktop image is picked out and then some mechanism, rather it be software or Xrender accelerated, blends the static desktop image with the image to be overlayed with the weights assigned and generates a new static image based on the results. This is an improvement over the background-only translucency of the various terminals, and works for about 97% of the people who like it (as eyecandy), but it doesn't actually let you monitor dynamic content beneath the tranlucent section. Try opening a translucent menu over a scrolling page or animated gif or something and you'll see what I mean. I guess even with practical applications, the content being monitored is usually static, but we can't just proclaim, "look, true translucency, we can quit now this looks fine."

      All this said, between XRender, Xft2, XVideo, DRI, and Xmovie extensions, really good things can be done on the desktop level with X, while keeping the networking core that is so useful so often...

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    67. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      >> alpha blending support
      Keith has also included this in his set of X updates, alpha support is included

      Where? Link? I'd love to see it. All I've seen to this point is his "twm" demo, which was slow and limited (according to Keith).


      Proper support in the X way of things for translucent windows ect are in the making, the XRENDER extension provided a sort of 'fake antialiasing', KDE uses this in their menus for example. (Some themes support this and it's in KDE3) I believe Keith Packard is working on a new system that would do this properly, don't know more about it however.

      And if you ask me, translucent windows is a total waste of time. I mean do people actually use them? With MS Windows (or Apple OSX, anyone know if it has virtual workspaces?) they might come in handy because of the one workspace limitation when you don't have multiple monitors, but most X11 window managers support multiple workspaces.


      >> changing resolutions on the fly
      Configure your X for multiple resolutions, and switch between them with ctrl-alt +/-

      This does not change the resolution of the display, only the size of the viewport.


      Very true, but this also has a new extension in the works, it's called RANDR (The X Resize and Rotate Extension), it's not implemented that I know of yet in XFree86, but it is in TinyX (or something like that).

    68. Re:Linux is catchings up... by 1010011010 · · Score: 2

      Okay, yeah --how about this:

      It should be possible to change the size of the desktop of a running X server programmatically, without editing the config file and restarting X (and all of your apps).

      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    69. Re:Linux is catchings up... by 1010011010 · · Score: 2

      On the Mac and Windows, display and printing are associated. This allows applications to draw to a different display context to produce print output. On Unix, each application has to figure out how to write its own postscript code.

      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    70. Re:Linux is catchings up... by 1010011010 · · Score: 1

      Looking for this [cosmoe.com]?

      Frankly, no.

      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    71. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do some research. Linux won't give you stuff with your other finger in your nose and the other up your ass. You have to put your hands to the keyboard and make it happen. If this is too difficult, your only option is to fork money for Windows.


      So, when are you moving out of your parents' house and making some human friends?
    72. Re:Linux is catchings up... by 1010011010 · · Score: 2

      Schweet! Will it accept RGBA "shape" masks?

      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    73. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The version on that page is a bit old and buggy. The latest one can be found here.

    74. Re:Linux is catchings up... by The+Mayor · · Score: 2

      Well, I was incorrect. What you do is actually start 2 X servers, and start all your clients in VNC's X server. Or you can run syncviewer (this is the one I was remembering...runs an SVGA version of VNC). Or you can use x0rfb. In any case, there are many ways to do what you desire.

      --
      --Be human.
    75. Re:Linux is catchings up... by zenyu · · Score: 2


      It's funny how people on /., like you, typically assume that oher people are morons, noobies, or moron-noobies.


      man XF86Config

      Seriously do a Google search, this is a discussion site, the details of your particular configuration don't go here. I had a similar problem once in '95 with a slackware install, I don't remember what the problem was, but this was before DPMS. The solution is probably simpler now. I don't run RedHat 7.2 my suggestions probably would miss something or seem rude because you already have part of it right.

    76. Re:Linux is catchings up... by dlapine · · Score: 1
      I have an mpeg movie recorded at 352x240. I have a 19" monitor set at 1600x1200. I'd like to watch the movie at a resolution closer to the original recording so that I don't get massive artifacts from stretching the mpeg display.

      I run wine and an ugly dos program that likes 320x200. If I don't resize the screen, the dos apps is about 1" across and unusable.

      Grandma comes over and I'd like to let her browse the internet for a while by herself. Much easier to drop down to 640x480 temporarily than trying to resize all the icons just for her. (Yes, Grandma is smart enough to use a GUI, if she can see it.)

      --
      The Internet has no garbage collection
    77. Re:Linux is catchings up... by GoRK · · Score: 2

      Until your monitor blows up

    78. Re:Linux is catchings up... by Kafteinn · · Score: 1

      vnc (or other RFB) server support, so I can view my desktop -- the one shown on the monitor -- from another computer.

      Have you looked into krfb or x0rfbserver.
      krfb did the job for me and I'm quite happy with it.
      Who comes up with these names.. how exactly do you pronounce x0rfbserver or gkrellm or krfb for that matter.
      I suppose it's better than the Windows naming schemes: "ScreenMonitoringServer Pro Special Fun Edition XP 3000" or something like that..
      Hmm.. well.. the point is VNC works in linux.

      --
      Hitler's in the fridge.
    79. Re:Linux is catchings up... by 0x0d0a · · Score: 2

      And a widget-based approach would have *less* extensions?

    80. Re:Linux is catchings up... by 0x0d0a · · Score: 2

      He said the resolution, not the desktop size, which is exactly what I told him how to change. Changing the desktop size is a fairly useless operation -- once you have the one you want (presumably the highest your monitor can handle) why would you ever change it? The reason people change the desktop size at all in Windows is because you *must* do so to change your resolution, which you want to do to play games, which X does fine, or because different people use the computer and some have a hard time seeing text (which should be fixed by increasing font size, not decreasing resolution), which isn't an issue on the account-based UNIX environments.

      And I have a very difficult time believing that you're running in a lower bit depth than 24 or 32. The last computer I used in lower-than-32 bit mode at all in anything other than games was my Power Mac 6100/60, which is now something like ten years old. The last big game I can think of that ran in 8 bit mode is the now elderly Starcraft.

    81. Re:Linux is catchings up... by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 1
      And a widget-based approach would have *less* extensions?

      A widget-based approach is more for saving bandwidth (and standardizing look 'n' feel by avoiding having a myriad of widget-libraries). And yes, it can work without extensions, too. Not having extensions is not the same as not being extensible. For example, we could add a standard way to add custom widgets.


      Of course we also need to provide lower-level graphics access for things that need it (read: games). If we incorporate all the stuff that modern GUIs provide (alpha blending, direct graphics access, etc.) right from the start, we would be able to avoid the nightmare that X is in right now. Of course, claiming that we can build in everything we need right now would be senseless. Eventually, we would need extensions, or a new protocol. But redesigning the system is the only way to get on par with other GUIs like MicroSoft's. Now there are those that think being on par with others is not important, but if Linux is to really convert those MS-junkies (I'm not saying it needs to), we need to be able to run games in higher framerates than what XFree86 is currently capable of (on the low end, I mean, because with hardware OpenGL in place it all doesn't matter how Bad or Wrong the GUI is).

      --
      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
    82. Re:Linux is catchings up... by be-fan · · Score: 2

      If you're a web developer trying to see how your pages look at different resolutions? If you're an app developer trying to see if your app works at 640x480? Geez, you X people are such neanderthals. I've been running Linux as my main desktop for a while now, but sometimes I still miss stuff like having 8 different viewports with 8 different resolutions and color depths like I did in BeOS. Hmm. Maybe the lack of on-the-fly resize is why the new GTK+/KDE widgets take up far too much desktop space on anything less than the 2048x1536 21" screens I'm sure all the KDE artist-types have...

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    83. Re:Linux is catchings up... by be-fan · · Score: 2

      Too bad it doesn't work properly. For a long time, I ran my monitor at 1152x864 @ 85Hz. XFree 4.x ran 1152x864 at 75Hz instead, which drove me insane (flickering). I ended up booting into BeOS, manually setting 1152x864 @ 85Hz, and copying the modelines over to XF86Config. When I moved up to 1280x1024, I panicked because I had deleted BeOS from my system. As I expected, the default 'nv' driver only wanted to run at 75Hz. Luckily, NVIDIA's driver booted up in the correct 85Hz mode.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    84. Re:Linux is catchings up... by SurfsUp · · Score: 2

      But, as Linus recently noted, "all the interesting stuff is on the desktop"

      At Als he said "all the interesting stuff will be happening in user space from now on", almost exactly what Alan Cox said 8 months earlier at lca. However you only have to look at the current roster for 2.5 to know they were both talking out their asses.

      User space is getting interesting all right, but kernel development hasn't slowed down a bit.

      --
      Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
    85. Re:Linux is catchings up... by nathanh · · Score: 2

      The DDC module in XFree86 probably was working properly. What needs work is the database of modelines. If you send those modelines you copied from BeOS to the XFree86 maintainers then they can put them into the next release.

    86. Re:Linux is catchings up... by 1010011010 · · Score: 2
      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
  6. The ripple effect on other Free systems by freebsd+guy · · Score: 2, Funny
    Although the majority of experienced UNIX gurus run Linux on their desktops, a surprising number of us (myself included) prefer the Berkeley-inspired eccentricities of BSD. The good news here is that FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD all have Linux compatibility kernel modules that have all been verified to work with the new Linux release of the Sorenson codec. As a graphics designer, Apple's anti-freedom, closed-source licensing policy on QuickTime was the only reason why I have had to keep a Windows machine around until now, but this development will make it possible for me to de-Microsoft my office and install Gentoo on my spare machine. Bravo for the Xine team!

    freebsd guy

    1. Re:The ripple effect on other Free systems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      s a graphics designer, Apple's anti-freedom, closed-source licensing policy on QuickTime was the only reason why I have had to keep a Windows machine around until now

      1) You call yourself a graphic designer, but you didn't know that Quicktime runs on Macs?

      2) Using this is illegal as it violates the Sorensen license. Though of course everything is free and license agreements don't mean anything, right?

    2. Re:The ripple effect on other Free systems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And he would waste his precious money on slow, overpriced Apple hardware because.....?

    3. Re:The ripple effect on other Free systems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, I hate to sound like Apple propaganda, but the point is valid. Would you pay more for a Mercedes than a Civic? In any case, if he's looking for an alternative to Microsoft and hasn't considered Apple, he's a real dumbass

    4. Re:The ripple effect on other Free systems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The freebsd guy writes: "Although the majority of experienced UNIX gurus run Linux on their desktops...".


      I want to see his statistics. I seriously doubt this. I would believe a lot of Guru Wannabees use a Linux desktop, but experienced UNIX gurus? What's the "experience" yardstick?

    5. Re:The ripple effect on other Free systems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And you don't know that Apple provides a version for Windows?

      Crawl back to your hole, troll...

    6. Re:The ripple effect on other Free systems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, 'experience' is judged based on whether you run Linux on your desktop, obviously... ;)

    7. Re:The ripple effect on other Free systems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Macs are about as close to a Mercedes as a wagon is.

    8. Re:The ripple effect on other Free systems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't seem to know that the SQV1 implementation in Xine uses non-patented methods (More work, slightly different results).

      LAME (technically) infringes more patents than this codec.

    9. Re:The ripple effect on other Free systems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd like to see a statistic on how many *nix gurus started on Linux and moved to *BSD and vice-versa. I still use Linux (in fact it is on every computer I have except one) but more and more I am loving FreeBSD.

    10. Re:The ripple effect on other Free systems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (I believe Mercedes makes at least one wagon)

      non sequitur
      Pronunciation: 'nän-'se-kw&-t&r also -"tur
      Function: noun
      Etymology: Latin, it does not follow
      Date: 1540
      1 : an inference that does not follow from the premises; specifically : a fallacy resulting from a simple conversion of a universal affirmative proposition or from the transposition of a condition and its consequent
      2 : a statement (as a response) that does not follow logically from anything previously said

    11. Re:The ripple effect on other Free systems by reverius · · Score: 1

      Considering you spent half that comment praising BSD and telling us that it is capable of running the new Sorenson codec with its Linux compatibility layer... why do you plan on installing Gentoo (Linux) on that spare machine?

      I think you've got some 'splainin' to do!

  7. Does it really matter? by Turbyne · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Apple will keep on rolling out Quicktime, A/V people will keep buying Apple products, and as for the media player wars, how many people actually paid ~$30 for the "Pro" versions? The real money's in the content creation tools, e.g. the video editor, streaming server, etc. Apple makes some decent money from this department, so I don't see how throwing another player into a market saturated by freebies is going to change anything.

    And DivX is based on MPEG-4, which is supported in Quicktime 6.

    --
    ~A'Ëq'i4d)^'$ÊSÈòB
    1. Re:Does it really matter? by Verizon+Guy · · Score: 0

      Uhh, how many people do you know that have a Quicktime streaming server? 99.9999995% of the world is using either Microsoft's Windows Media Services on NT(free as in beer) or Real's Realserver (~$1000+) on Linux. Considering a copy of NT/2000 is about the same as a copy of RealServer, you're shelling $1000 either way.

      You're better off stuffing a wad of cash in a coffee can, dousing it with gasoline, and setting fire to the stash, and pissing on the ashes than giving Apple money for a QT streaming server that 14 users will use.

      --

      Aw, fuck it. Let's go bowling. - The Big Lebowski

    2. Re:Does it really matter? by Pathwalker · · Score: 4, Informative

      Apple's QT streaming server is free and open source, and runs well on both Linux and FreeBSD.
      You can download a precompiled version from here and the source code from here or by checking it out of their public CVS server.

    3. Re:Does it really matter? by wray · · Score: 1

      Just so people don't think that this means anything... THIS IS JUST A SERVER! What xine has done is a player (a client) There is nothing like this for linux yet except codeweavers crossover plugin. Which is not free, but a fine product.

      --
      Guess what? I got a fever! And the only prescription.. is more cowbell!
    4. Re:Does it really matter? by Verizon+Guy · · Score: 1

      So is IceCast. Point is you have a whole lot QT customers than you do WinMedia or Real customers.

      --

      Aw, fuck it. Let's go bowling. - The Big Lebowski

    5. Re:Does it really matter? by Turbyne · · Score: 0

      I should have put it more clearly: Server = Server hardware

      --
      ~A'Ëq'i4d)^'$ÊSÈòB
    6. Re:Does it really matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Um, i think you got shown up pretty well you retard.

      >Point is you have a whole lot

      No, your point was that you're better off setting fire to cash, than forking out for a server, which you didn't realise was no-cost you retard.

    7. Re:Does it really matter? by pjrc · · Score: 3, Informative
      how many people do you know that have a Quicktime streaming server? .... Windows Media Services on NT(free as in beer) or Real's Realserver (~$1000+) on Linux. Considering a copy of NT/2000 is about the same as a copy of RealServer, you're shelling $1000 either way.

      As nearly as I can tell, you need to also lay out a similar wad of cash for an encoder to produce "hinted" quicktime video that's usable with Apple's free streaming server.

      If someone knows of a free or cheap way to encoder or convert video to include "hinting" for use with Apple's open-source streaming server, please speak up!

    8. Re:Does it really matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      DivX, although somehow an MPEG-4 derivient, isn't playable "out-of-the-box" using QT 6.

    9. Re:Does it really matter? by pjrc · · Score: 2
      In case anyone is reading this thread, I recently learned of the MPEG4IP Project, which is a Free (LPGL, MPL, other licenses) streaming encoder for Linux and other unix systems. Parts of the project are ported to windows also. It encodes using MPEG4, not Sorenson.

      I've yet to try it, but I'm planning to install and test in a couple weeks when I borrow a friend's camera. It sounds like the project is a little rough around the edges and problems are still being worked out, but from the message board it looks like some non-developers have used it successfully.

      According to the site, MPEG4IP can capture and broadcast live MPEG4/AAC streams, that can be viewed with its own (very basic) player and also with Apple's (beta) QuickTime 6. Apparantly RealOne can also view the streams using a plugin from Envivio.

      If anyone with mod points is reading this, my original message (at +3) is wrong... this MPEG4IP program does (or will soon do) exactly what I was asking about. Please mod that message down and this one up, so anyone else looking for a completely free way to stream live video might find this.

  8. Re:Oh f*cking boy! by Vengie · · Score: 1

    Correct; however, this does have some implications. Many an open source app has been ported to Windows (froth Ethereal) and this could lead to the first competition to apple's QuickTime Pro. (Is anyone else sick of "upgrade now?") Regardless, this actually might _HELP_ apple more than hurt it; Its better to be talked about -- (there's no such thing as "bad" publicity) and quite frankly, with MS's newest push for WMA/AVI with XP & WMP, a little controversy over Quicktime might do apple good. (With apologies to Eminem, open source zealotry, the creators of ethereal, and anyone else I may have offended) No Source Was Harmed In the Writing Of This Post

    --
    When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
  9. Re:who cares by or_smth · · Score: 1

    Unfortunatly [for obvious reasons] Linux Geeks need porn. Generally porn sites don't want codec backed by no one they have ever heard of. Apple is a good backing.

    Until porn sites shift to DivX, this is very useful :).

  10. What's up with this awful skin? by Clue4All · · Score: 2

    After being a long-time Mplayer advocate, I decided to give Xine a try today when I saw this news. Everything works well, and it even sees my dxr3 support, but what's up with this awful skin that looks like the front of a DVD deck? It's completely unusable. The site claims it's skinnable, so where are the other skins?. They're not listed for seperate download anywhere, any ideas?

    --

    Is your browser retarded?
    1. Re:What's up with this awful skin? by Papineau · · Score: 2, Informative

      Must not have searched very well... In the left column, under Downloads... What do you see? That's right! A link for downloading skins!

    2. Re:What's up with this awful skin? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks, the link wasn't there an hour ago, oh well.

    3. Re:What's up with this awful skin? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hehe..

      'cloudy' is better, not quite so big.

    4. Re:What's up with this awful skin? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes it was, you liar. People like you annoy me - you never want to admit you might have been wrong, you just make excuses.

    5. Re:What's up with this awful skin? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, it definitely wasn't there when the version was released this afternoon, and no mention was made of removing the existing skins from Xine. The confusion was understandable.

    6. Re:What's up with this awful skin? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try sinek (http://sinek.sourceforge.net/). Alternative frontend to xine.

    7. Re:What's up with this awful skin? by bozoman42 · · Score: 1

      I so hate xine's UI. I detest it. Why can't we have a nice program that does all the formats and has a clean UI like VideoLAN or even aviplay. sinek is a nice start, but xine is/was horribly, horribly unstable.

    8. Re:What's up with this awful skin? by GoRK · · Score: 2

      You can also try sinek, a GTK frontend for xine. Xine is actually two pieces -- xinelib - the player and xine-ui, the weird xine skinnable UI.

    9. Re:What's up with this awful skin? by 0x0d0a · · Score: 2

      Why is it that almost every media player under the Sun has to have a stupid bitmap skin? Does anyone actually *like* these things? You used to never see them until the "multimedia revolution" when CD-ROMs were introduced. Every piece of software started having bitmap elements, and it took years for consumer dissatisfaction to beat that back down into the woodwork. Now the relatively new media player environments are doing the same stupid thing.

  11. Irascible Malcontents. by Gizzmonic · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    The Sorenson codec has been the source of so many complaints on Slashdot.

    Windows/Mac people say that Linux won't be a key player on the desktop until it can play movies encoded with Sorenson.

    Linux people complain that Apple (or Sorenson) is denying Linux's credibility by withholding Quicktime Player...bad form from a company who's new OS was mostly poached from the opensource FreeBSD

    Well, now that someone has provided the Sorenson codec through emulation, people will realize that it doesn't make much of a fucking difference either way, does it? I guess that means some people will have to find something better to whine about...

    --
    (-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
    1. Re:Irascible Malcontents. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The core is BSD.

      Aqua is pure Apple.

      Mac OS X is nothing without Aqua.

    2. Re:Irascible Malcontents. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe not nothing, but a whole lot less.

    3. Re:Irascible Malcontents. by renoX · · Score: 2

      > Well, now that someone has provided the Sorenson
      > codec through emulation, people will realize
      > that it doesn't make much of a fucking
      > difference either way, does it? I guess that
      > means some people will have to find something
      > better to whine about...

      The thing is: playing Quicktime movie alone doesn't make much a difference, but improving Linux's credibility on the desktop is a set of these "little" step:
      - playing "Quicktime" movies: partially done
      - interoperating with Microsoft Office: OpenOffice (even if the compatibility needs improvements)
      ...

      I think that improving X or getting rid of X would be a major point to improve Linux's presence on the desktop, and also lots of polishing..

    4. Re:Irascible Malcontents. by ActiveSX · · Score: 1

      now that someone has provided the Sorenson codec through emulation

      As far as I could tell it's a re-implementation, not emulation.

    5. Re:Irascible Malcontents. by Afrosheen · · Score: 2

      "I think that improving X or getting rid of X would be a major point to improve Linux's presence on the desktop, and also lots of polishing"

      What would it be replaced by, Y? or Z? Maybe Y while it's alpha then Z when it's beta (I'd say probably 75% of open source stuff is permanently beta). Just think of it: ZFree86 .304-1 coming in June of 2005. Yay.

  12. Saving the videos : how can I do it? by bicatu · · Score: 1

    Nowadays most of the videos (trailers) in quicktime you find asks you to choose bandwidth(size) and opens a small quicktime where you click to play and it starts downloading.

    How can I download direclty so I can play back later ?

    1. Re:Saving the videos : how can I do it? by kubrick · · Score: 3, Informative
      --
      deus does not exist but if he does
  13. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  14. Re:who cares by Alex+Thorpe · · Score: 2, Informative

    Funny, those I've seen seem to mainly use WMP format, which rarely gives me any sound under MacOS X. On the other hand, no sound is often a good thing on such sites!

    DivX on the Mac is also problematic. With third party utilities, I also get video with no sound.

    --
    "Common Sense Ain't" -Unknown
  15. This is NOT clean-room implemented by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you read the thread you will see that the author looked at Apple's QT binaries for codebooks to decode some of the encodings. I'm sure there are EULAs that prohibit this. This patch is going to have a lot of legal problems. That's a shame because it is a big boost for QT and thus for Apple, but that's the way it is. I grabbed a copy of it so that when they get an injunction from Apple I'll still be able to post it somewhere in the Free World (ie, not in the US).

    1. Re:This is NOT clean-room implemented by roca · · Score: 2

      In civilized countries reverse engineering for the purposes of achieving interoperability (which this clearly is) is explicitly legal no matter what the EULA says. So it depends on where this was done and what local laws say.

    2. Re:This is NOT clean-room implemented by f.money · · Score: 1

      Thought on how to circumvent an EULA:
      You have two users, Alice and Dogbert. Dogbert wants to make a codec, but needs to look at Quicktime binaries to do this (this is prohibited by the EULA). So Alice installs Quicktime and agrees to the terms. At a later time, Dogbert comes by and checks the binaries.
      Dogbert's fine - he never agreed to anything. Is Alice under the gun here? She, herself, didn't break the EULA, and the one's I've read only specify you, the end user, not "or anyone else".
      Jon

    3. Re:This is NOT clean-room implemented by blakestah · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This logic is all confused. You all assume this relates to copyright infringement. It doesn't.

      Patent protection is valid against reverse engineering. Clean room implementations are irrelevant. What needs to be shown is that the functionality is accomplished without using any of the methods in the patent. This is true whether the person making the decoder knew of the methods or not. This is 'working around' a patent.

      Clean-room reverse engineering is useful for making work-alikes of copyrighted methods. In those cases, copyright protects specific expression, and not methods. So, using a different specific expression to accomplish the same methods is fine. The same algorithms can be used.

  16. Re:who cares by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Quicktime 6 will be the ONLY major media player that has fully builti-in and supported DivX abilities.

  17. please contact me by jbridge21 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Please contact me at your earliest convenience at jeffrey AT firehead DOT org. I run the site listed in my .sig and am used to dealing with all sorts of legal BS. I would very much like to see this code out there, and could definitely help with a proper release of it.

  18. Re:who cares by LiENUS · · Score: 3, Insightful

    saying divx is better than quicktime is like saying msie is better than the gimp
    they dont compare
    qt is a container
    you could say qt sucks avi is better
    or sorensen sucks divx is better
    but not qt sucks divx is better.

  19. Cross-platform? by drdink · · Score: 1

    I'm still waiting for the codec to be available and usable with MPlayer so I can use it on FreeBSD and other platforms. Is this doable with this?

    --
    Beware, Nugget is watching... See?
    1. Re:Cross-platform? by siggi · · Score: 1

      I'm sure the mplayer guys will adapt the decoder to their needs, though it will take some time.

      Meanwhile, you can just run xine on FreeBSD (hey, it even runs on IRIX!)

      I wonder if mplayer (a "Movie Player for LINUX", according to their homepage) really runs on other architectures, as it even failed to compile on linux/powerpc for me...

    2. Re:Cross-platform? by Geekboy(Wizard) · · Score: 2

      mplayer compiles and runs on OpenBSD/macppc, just fine and dandy. [/usr/ports/x11/mplayer] Download pre5, and try again.

  20. DivX leads them all in compression and quality... by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 1

    ...and plays great in MPlayer.

    --
    Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
  21. Re:who cares by Afrosheen · · Score: 3, Informative

    Uhmm, I don't know about your experience but I've never, ever found pr0n in Quicktime format. It's always Real (crappy), mpeg or some bastard AVI format. In the olden tymes it was ViVo or Real..but never Quicktime.

    The only good this does is let linux users watch quicktime trailers (after they download no doubt).

  22. MPEG 4 on Linux by HalimCMe · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What about MPEG-4 on Linux? I haven't really looked for it, but I was just wondering how well, if at all, it is supported, since the new QuickTime 6 preview supports it.

    MPEG-4 is really sweet stuff. Just as a test today, a friend and I encoded an entire full-length movie that was captured via FireWire DV and encoded it into a 653MB MP4 file using QuickTime 6 on OS X. I was amazed at the quality. It blew away MPEG-1/VCD, DivX, and even Sorenson in video quality, and the audio quality was quite good too, all while fitting on a single 700 MB CD-R.

    I would love to see DVD players support MP4 playback from burned CD-R's. The quality is actually good enough that you can sit back and watch a movie distributed on a single CD and just enjoy it without being annoyed by poor quality video and audio.

    MP4 will really revolutionize video... if the licensing issues don't kill it before it gets off the ground, but that is another story :)

    1. Re:MPEG 4 on Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You realize DivX is an improved implementation of MPEG4, right?

    2. Re:MPEG 4 on Linux by siggi · · Score: 1

      A tremendous amount of MPEG4 variants has been in use for quite some time now (MS MPEG4, [Open]DivX, 3ivX, ...), and they all have been supported by mplayer as well as xine. Literally for years now...

    3. Re:MPEG 4 on Linux by Air-conditioned+cowh · · Score: 1

      Cisco are running a project on Sourceforge.

      http://mpeg4ip.sourceforge.net/

      It works great but can only available as source code for patent reasons. There is a live streamer (live streamers are rare compared to recording streamers) and a client that will compile in Linux and Windows. It can use Darwin as the server for unicast streams.

      The project is quite active (IMHO) but take-up of MPEG4 has cooled somewhat since the braindead streaming tax was announced. However, Quicktime 8 preview is available and now there is an MPEG4 client everyone can now download, why not just encode and stream for outside the US or something?

    4. Re:MPEG 4 on Linux by 42forty-two42 · · Score: 1

      Supported by mpolayer and libavcodec.

  23. YAXSP (Re:Linux is catchings up...) by po8 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Oh man. Yet another "X sucks" troll. I have no idea why I waste my time with these, but here goes... (and in HTML, no less :-)

    • Font support: Been out for a year. See Xft. Easier to use now with Xft2 and fontconfig.
    • Color management: Been in Xlib for 15 freaking years. See XCMS in the documentation. Application developers never use it, because users never cal their monitors on PC hardware. But it works fine.
    • Alpha blending support: Documentation on the Render extension has been out for a year. Implementation got done two weeks ago. Will be mainstream in a couple of months.
    • Usable configuration: Working on it. "XFree86 -configure" is a step in the right direction. This is probably the most valid complaint on the list, but note that PC graphics and input hardware is notoriously hard to configure, even with Windows.
    • Changing resolutions on the fly: part of the ResizeAndRotate extension. A working implementation of this part is done. Will be released shortly, when the rest of R&R is stable. Note that the ability to change resolutions on the fly has been around for as long as XFree86 via <ctrl><alt><keypad-+>, although the viewport property and the fact that existing apps don't rescale has made it less useful for some needs. It is fairly useful for accessability, though.
    • VNC (or other RFB) server support: This wants to be done via client-side replication, not by bitmap-copying, which is wrong on so many levels. This work is starting now: I would guess about a year to completion. In the meantime, there are plenty of solutions for replicating the server side to another X display: do a web search if you are serious about this.

    I could really stand folks spending 15 minutes doing research before writing these critiques. OTOH, I guess I was successfully trolled, so what do I know?

    1. Re:YAXSP (Re:Linux is catchings up...) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      You've just agreed that colour management, alpha blending support, usable configuration, changing resolutions on the fly and VNC (or other RFB) server support are all either not done, not mainstream or not used. I'd say the original poster was right.

    2. Re:YAXSP (Re:Linux is catchings up...) by Alan+Shutko · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Font support: NOT fixed yet.

      Does Xft give me access to ligatures and kerning pairs? Does it give me access to outlines for my drawing app? Does it give me access to full fonts I can embed in my PS/PDF output?

      There are a bunch more features that would be nice, but the mere ability to do AA fonts on screen does not equal real font support.

    3. Re:YAXSP (Re:Linux is catchings up...) by 1010011010 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So what you're saying is that, at the moment, there is no alpha support, usable configuration, resolution and color depth changing, or VNC support, and that there is also no color management support in X applications -- is the XCMS broken? Why don't people use it? Color management gets used on Macs. Why not X, if it's been supported for 15 years?

      SO your post comes down to, "We can use freetype to render truetype fonts." Yeah, okay, what about the -ugly-and-wierd-font-descriptors-it-uses?

      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    4. Re:YAXSP (Re:Linux is catchings up...) by cthulhubob · · Score: 2, Informative

      > Yeah, okay, what about the -ugly-and-wierd-font-descriptors-it-uses?

      What about them? Users usually don't see these, programmers do.

      The only reason you'd need to look at them (that I can think of offhand anyway) is if you're *trying* to find out what foundry made your font. ("Damn it, I want adobe times, not BSR times!") And in that case, I can't think of an equivalent way to find the same information under MacOS or Windows, so X's solution is clearly better.

      --

      In post-9/11 America, the CIA interrogates YOU!
    5. Re:YAXSP (Re:Linux is catchings up...) by roca · · Score: 2

      > Does Xft give me access to ligatures and
      > kerning pairs?

      Not sure, but I think so.

      > Does it give me access to outlines for my
      > drawing app?

      Yes.

      > Does it give me access to full fonts I can
      > embed in my PS/PDF output?

      Yes.

      Xft gives the client full access to Truetype font data via Freetype 2. With that, you can do pretty much whatever you want.

    6. Re:YAXSP (Re:Linux is catchings up...) by 1010011010 · · Score: 2

      And how do I query the X server for outlines, metrics, ligatures, etc?

      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    7. Re:YAXSP (Re:Linux is catchings up...) by evilviper · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Resolution changing has been in X for as long as I've used X, and what the hell is the big deal? Even if it wasn't, it takes a grand total of 2 seconds to restart X.

      Configuration is, manual, but works just fine as far as Im concerned. X can't just guess on everything... Use RedHat or some other boxed solution if you want a program to easilly configure X.

      There IS VNC support... It's been around for quite some time. Why don't you quit your bitching and whining and actually look for it yourself! IT will take a minute or two of your own time. That means it will save you time, and everyone else's time replying to you... But then you wouldn't get the chance to whine about it to an unsympathetic anyonymous crowd.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    8. Re:YAXSP (Re:Linux is catchings up...) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, are you a loser.

  24. low-level stuff... by BrokenHalo · · Score: 1
    There is a huge amount of low-level things that QuickTime relies on, like low latency access to sound cards...

    I've no quarrel with that, but surely they must have worked out generalised routines in order to come up with the Windoze ports of Quicktime, in which case one might be justified in arguing that the work is already half done.

    I, for one, would probably not object too strenuously to shelling out a nominal few dollars for a decently-working Quicktime viewer for Linux just for the convenience of being able to view those occasional movie files.

  25. There are lots of front ends besides xine-ui by siggi · · Score: 1
    xine is a library that is used by quite a few player frontends. You might want to give sinek, or gnome-xine which is available on xine's download page, or even the KDE frontend ("kxine"), which is available via xine's CVS.

    I have also been told that the KDE project is integrating xine as their standard video player component...

    1. Re:There are lots of front ends besides xine-ui by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      kxine - how very fucking original. The KDE project is totally without creativity... no wonder it's just a warmed over version of Windows.

  26. Not really Apples problem by Lord+Kenja · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well it seems a lot of people has some missunderstanding regarding Sorensen and Apple. So let's get it right: Apple don't own Sorensen what Apple owns is the exclusive right to distribute Sorensen for use in video playback (wich is why they complained when it was going to be used in Flash also. They have to enforce contracts like these or they will be invalid).

    This isn't redistribution however. As far as I understand it's a standard QT for Windows that's running under Linux (that's what Wine does. Makes windows apps run under Linux - right?). So it don't change anything. On the other hand someone posted that they have reverse engineered some of the binaries from QT. Depending on if it's Apples binaries or Sorensens one of the two might not like that (Sorensen most of all perhaps. Since they have an interrest in protecting their technology).

    1. Re:Not really Apples problem by 0x0d0a · · Score: 2

      They have to enforce contracts like these or they will be invalid

      No. The enforce-or-lose rule *only* applies to trademarks. Not patents, licensing agreements, copyrights, etc.

  27. Real by daserver · · Score: 1

    Since mplayer got Real support the only really missing link was the sorensen quicktime codecs. Now that Xine has done sorensen and it's gpl 'ed it should just be a matter of time before mplayer has support for it too. Isn't Free Software wonderful?

  28. Re:who cares by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your first statement is incorrect (as is your last one).

  29. Not your average couch potato by citizenkeller · · Score: 4, Funny
    I have a fully working SVQ3 codec that I reverse engineered sitting on my harddrive

    Man, that must have been uncomfortable!

    --
    -- Serge K. Keller
  30. Re:who cares by Dilbert_ · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hehe, best argument I heard yet. It is well known that all computer progress comes from porn: why else would people need more bandwith, better monitors and larger harddrives? To store Word documents? I thought so ;-)

    --
    superblog.org: all your favourite blogs on o
  31. Yes, it matters a LOT by pjrc · · Score: 2
    Apple's QT streaming server is free and open source

    Yeah, so what? Apache's open source, but you still need a browser (decoder) and authoring tools (encoder). All the server does is send the data to users over the net. If you can't have a browsers, you can't even see the content, and without at least a text editor and image manipulation program you can't create any content.

    In fact, when you encode video for streaming, you need to include a thing Apple calls "hinting". Normal MPEG4 and other streams do not have this. The hinting is an additional track that specifies to the server where the packet boundries out to be so that lost packets won't corrupt lots of upcoming video. The point is that most of the streaming magic happens at the encoder where the "hinting" makes most of the decisions about how to stream the video... the server does parse the data and read the hinting, but all the "real work" is precomputed by the proprietary encoder.

  32. Help-a-Newbie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Kinda OT but:

    How do I open videos from Xine's GUI? I already tried the help files.

    1. Re:Help-a-Newbie by JCholewa · · Score: 1

      > How do I open videos from Xine's GUI?
      > I already tried the help files.

      I'm about thirty miles away from my part-time linux box, and I have crappy memory skills, but....

      I believe that you click the "playlist" button, which is on the left side of the control window. A window pops up, and down the right side it should say things like "DVD" and "VCD" and, most importantly, "file". Click on "file", and yet another window appears. This window basically is a file opening dialog, except that it sucks. You can't actually type in filenames and paths. You have to navigate through by double-clicking or triple-clicking (sometimes the double-clicking simply refuses to work!) directory names and soforth. But it should eventually work.

      Of course, that's the Mandrake 8.2 version. I don't know if the new version is refined from this.

      -JC

  33. Native is evil by heroine · · Score: 4, Funny

    Is it really politically correct to write native software for Linux anymore? Isn't the main focus of Linux now an emulation platform for Win32?

    1. Re:Native is evil by CrazyDuke · · Score: 1

      Some of this is because some of us are trying to get windows users over to linux. You can't do that if you say, "Yeah, it doesn't blue screen, but its a pain in the ass and you can't do half the shit you can in windows without being a professional computer nerd."

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
  34. Freenet by Fapestniegd · · Score: 1

    Post it on freenet and put the key in the newsgroups to get it rolling... Share the wealth.

  35. Apple is planning to leave Sorenson anyways by frankie · · Score: 3, Interesting
    It seems pretty likely that Apple is planning to end their exclusive Sorenson license soon, and switch to using MPEG-4:

    Apple developed its own ISO-compliant MPEG-4 video codec to provide the highest quality results across a wide spectrum of data rates - from narrowband to broadband and beyond. This revolutionary codec offers compression times and video quality that rival those of the best proprietary codecs available, yet it provides true interoperability with other MPEG-4 players and devices.


    That would be huge good news for consumers everywhere (assuming MPEG-LA gives up on the per-minute fee).
  36. It's about damn time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Two Megadeths in a row. It's about time you started posting some cool songs.

  37. the truth hurts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    nuff zed.

  38. Apple won't care by pyite69 · · Score: 1


    I doubt they will really care about this. They
    didn't actively stop any Linux activity; they
    are just not allowed to actively support it,
    thanks to their investment from Microsoft and
    the guarantee of Office & IE for Mac.

    The ability to play on more platforms makes
    Sorenson MORE useful, not less, and they're
    getting it for free.

    1. Re:Apple won't care by Drizzt+Do'Urden · · Score: 0

      You're wrong..

      They won't care because Sorenson is not their technology.. it's Sorenson's..

      Apple is moving to MPG4 (with is 'A Good Thing(TM)')

  39. Re:who cares by benwaggoner · · Score: 2

    Windows Media Player on both MacOS X and PocketPC lacks the ACELP.net speech codec. Microsoft licenses it from a third party, who hasn't ported it to those.

    To make a WMV file that works on those platforms, it needs to be encoded with the Windows Media Audio codec, which is available in all versions of the player.

  40. MPEG-4 codec will even the playing field by AIXadmin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The whole purpose of MPEG-4 is that it takes the player out of the game. All that matters is that you can decode/encode MPEG-4. In a year or two, Sorenson should be irrelevant, and XINE will just need MPEG-4 support.
    That being said, doesn't MPEG-4 have some pretty herendous licensing restrictions of its own?
    Slashdotter's, none the less, should be campaigning for sites to support MPEG-4 . If they want Linux, and *BSD to become fully supported across streaming sites.

    1. Re:MPEG-4 codec will even the playing field by akb · · Score: 2

      How can you say users should campaign for mpeg4 and ask about the licensing restrictions in the same post? I read what you wrote as "I have no idea what I'm talking about, but do this anyway."

      The licensing terms specify a fee per stream, that is, for every user that connects the operator pays a fee. That's completely absurd. Only a few large players will be able to participate, small streaming shops won't.

      But don't take me word for it, read for yourself.

  41. In IE cache!!! by g8oz · · Score: 1

    IE instructions: Allow the movie to play. Open up your temporary internet files folder and sort by size. One of the big ones will be the QT movie.

    It works for the Apple.com movie trailers at least.

  42. Xine Beef by i_am_nitrogen · · Score: 1

    The thing that really bothers me about Xine is when it scales a DVD down (i.e. 720x480->640x480), it just shifts the 16x16 MPEG-2 blocks, rather than doing a real video scale. This severely distorts the motion of any movie, causes text to look rippled, and faces to look like they went through a meat grinder... Apparently Xine doesn't use Xv to do scaling. Plus, when playing videos with the surround40 alsa driver on my SB Live 5.1, the sound is delayed by half a second or more, and no option is presented to adjust the sound/video sync offset, as there was with OSS. What gives?

    The thing I DO like about Xine, however, is that it seems to run much more smoothly than mplayer when given the same DVD to play on the same computer at the same resolution, through the same hardware devices using the same API's (Xv, OSS).

    1. Re:Xine Beef by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try pressing 'a' to change aspect ratio of your movie. xine _DO_ use the XV scaling, provided that your hw support it.

  43. Re:who cares by Alex+Thorpe · · Score: 1

    Fine, let's tell all those people to stop using ACELP.net, then!

    Not that I use WMP more than I have to anyway, though it's better than Real, who hasn't even bothered releasing a native player for MacOS X. The Classic version is usable, but still ranks among the ugliest and most cluttered interfaces I've ever seen.

    --
    "Common Sense Ain't" -Unknown
  44. Safer to wait... by Sorenson+Media · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In relation to the topic being discussed, I personally would recommend waiting until Apple and Sorenson Media resolve the legal formalities and questions surrounding Sorenson Video and the exclusivity license agreement in question. If all goes as planned we should know the outcome within the next 60-90 days. That said, we don't view broad adoption and support of our video codecs as a bad thing providing we can do so in a legal manner. We have been interested in supporting Linux for some time now but due to the nature of our contract with Apple, we haven't been able to pursue this effort before now. The exclusivity agreement with Apple expired last April '02 so our options for supporting this effort are a little more open now (pending resolution of certain legal formalities). Companies or individuals interested in licensing any of our codecs (Sorenson Video 3.1 Pro, Sorenson MPEG-4 Pro, Sorenson Spark Pro) for integration into their products should contact either myself or Matt Copal matt@sorenson.com (Business Development Sorenson Media). Moving forward you will see announcements made by us later this year that will not only greatly benefit QuickTime 6, but also the Linux community as a well. Stay tuned! Ammen Harper Sorenson Media Director Product Management aharper@sorenson.com

    1. Re:Safer to wait... by CoolHnd30 · · Score: 1

      someone mod this up ! Actually something informative, and it comes 2 days late :(