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MPEG 4, Windows Media 9 At War
Andy Tai writes "According to this
News.com report, backers of MPEG 4 are protesting Microsoft's licensing fee structure for Windows Media 9, which is up to 50% less than MPEG 4's. They accuse Microsoft of blocking the progress to move to an 'open standard' (MPEG 4), posing unfair competition and threatening consumer choice. Of course, what is really needed is a third choice, a totally Free Software media codec solution that's competitive with both Windows Media and MPEG 4."
It's not often that people become angry because a corporation is selling things cheaply.
Rather than be mad at Microsoft for charging so little, I'd be mad at the MPEG body for charging what they do.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
I might be jumping the gun here, but it seems to me that mp4 will have some sort of DRM scheme. Something tells me mp3 won't be going away soon...
(Despite what the Ogg people seem to think...)
If a competitor offers a comparable product for a lower price than you do, he will sell more. The MPEG 4 people should rather lower their fees instead of complaining how evil MS is for making low prices.
If they're angry that Microsoft is selling WMA9 for 50% less than MPEG-4, imagine how pissed they'd be with a fully Free software solution, selling for 100% less than MPEG-4.
It's like watching Hitler and Stalin Jello(tm)-Wrestle -- who to root for?
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
Isn't Microsoft a member of the MPEG-4 group?
Let the MSFT-flaming commence.
Of course MPEG4 could be:
a) cheaper
b) better
or
c) all of the above.
I don't need another 'open standard' like MPEG2.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I think that Microsoft is trying very hard to create the standard rather then accept a standard. As in the past, Microsoft wants to have ownership of important software and video is the next major software hurdle.
rejected (19) accepted (0)
Is there a psychological term related to getting your stories rejected on slashdot?
I can't believe that MPEG-LA would even consider airing this out publicly.
"You're killing innovation because you charge less than us"
Please... If you were really that worried about adoption of your standard you would either A) Drop your license rate, B) Open your codec completely or C) Make a better product than MS' and the cost is a moot point.
It's hilarious to see people cry foul at Microsoft when their business practices are practically the same.
--The space between my ears was intentionally left blank--
one could expect their volume to go up, especially if they get MPEG 4 onto 3G phones and mobile devices, of which there will eventually be several times as many of than there are PCs in the world.
Let me get this straight... these folks say they're promoting an "Open Standard" that costs twice as much to implement as much as Microsoft's proprietary solution?
Did the definition of "Open" change while I wasn't looking?
How many standards based pieces of software has MS tried to extinguish. In most cases because it didn't fit with their assumption that it might just undercut their monopoly.
"posing unfair competition and threatening consumer choice" - Of course... Don't you think Intel would have said something like that when AMD started selling cheaper CPUs? (Not nessecarily better, just cheaper). And what about Star Office? Cheap or even for free at times. It's just plain ridiculous to start complaining about the opponents' pricing points, instead of pushing your own advantages. But, of course, as far as "consumer choice" is regarded, a free alternative would probably make both of the others go bonkers.
"If you go to the next town, going across a desert is a shorter way." - Pu-Li-Ru-La (Taito)
"Open Standards" and licensing fees do not go together too well. Obviously it it neither open nor standard if there are licensing fees involved.
... Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed...
Give me a break. Microsoft can offer its codec for less. We are living in a capitalistic society. If the MPEG Group wants its baby to survive, they should lower the price too.
I hate it when people are putting the blame always at MS, pulling out the "monopoly" game. Lets face the truth: Can the MPEG Group COMPETE or not price-wise? If not, well, goodbye. Don't blame it on MS or whoever else.
MP3 is the audio codec used in MPEG1. MP3 is short for MPEG1 LAYER 3. It is not MPEG3 (audio/video codec).
I use my computer for writing code, utilizing the Internet (browsing, email, instant messaging), and printing greetings cards. Very rarely you may also catch me gaming a bit, usually just Hearts or Spider Solitaire though.
I don't even attempt to mess around with multimedia on the PC because it's just not intuitive. When I want to watch a movie, I stick a DVD disc into my DVD player and relax on the couch. When I want to listen to music, I stick a CD disc into my 6 disc changer and relax, again, on the couch while reading the newspaper or something.
I don't understand what all this fuss is about. I just choose to avoid the nonsense and anti-piracy police by not using multimedia stuff on the computer. It'll save you tons of money and lots of headaches, that I guarantee.
Most people I feel would find that playing games on console gaming systems rather than computers, and using CDs and DVDs on their TV and home stereo systems rather than the computer, will save them lots of trouble.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
You don't understand what an mp3 is.
mp3 IS NOT MPEG3. It is MPEG1, layer 3.
MPEG4 is not an mp3 replacement.
See this for details.
Since when does open == free?
Most open standards cost nothing right? I mean, that's what I thought TCP/IP, XML, C/C++, and so forth were all about. So what's with calling something that requires a license fee to use an open standard?
If they were really open, at least in the sense that I have come to expect, then MS couldn't possibly undercut them.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
It seems like they're giving the whole idea of "open standards" a bad name. I realize it's more open than windows media, but I don't really think it's that open.
What am I missing? What are the licensing fees for?
get 0wned. irc.w30wnzj00.com
They don't want Microsoft to block progress to an open standard? Then they should get rid of that stupid MPEG-4 licensing fees! It should be free for anyone. The licensing fee issues have blocked the progress of a lot of open source MPEG-4 codecs, like XviD.
People suing Ogg Theora because it's free and open-sourced? Don't laugh -- with all the stupid stuff I've seen people do lately, I'd bet money that's the next big thing.
Honorary Member of Jackie Chan's Kung Fu Process Servers
maybe they'll both drown.
Best Slashdot Co
Have you not followed the entire Monopoly cases? Microsoft undercuts its competitors to the point where the competition simply CANNOT sell any lower because they dont have the BILLIONS in resources to stay in business like Microsoft can, their strategy is to out live the competitor. They (MPEG) will eventually go belly up, like most of Microsofts competitors. This is standard Microsoft Monopolistic tactics. Find market to take over, then release a product far cheaper than competitor with NO INTENTION of making a profit, watch competitor unable to compete with price wars, watch competitor fold shop. Microsoft wins!
A free version is available. And it has great compression rates and excellent sound quality. Ogg Vorbis seems to fit the bill.
That isn't to say that I am the biggest Ogg users, but then again, I am not the biggest MP3 user either. However, I will not buy DRM enabled equipment, more out of principle than anything. I use my CD-R to burn art that I have created and Open Source software for the most part. On the same token, I will tend to shy away from DRM enabled software and formats.
As far as the ownership idea goes. I fully believe in property rights. But I also believe in the benefits of good will. Most everything that I write semi-professionally is released under an "open content" type boilerplate license (for lack of a better term). The Baen Free Library's experiences seem to back up the economic power of this type of good will as well.
As many such issues get ironed out, supporters of MPEG-4 want to ensure that it has room to prove itself in the market.
yes, as I recall, there was a college kid who coded a peer to peer network so that he could swap mp3s with his buddies. he called it Napster. the guy had absolutely no room to prove himself in the market and until the lawsuits rolled out, he was dominating it.
another college kid coded a windows gui for playing mp3s. he called it Win-Amp. he eventually got his product bought by AOL-TW for several million and with virtually no marketing, winamp is one of the most preferred mp3 players out there.
point is, you don't need "room to prove yourself". if your product is superior, the market will MAKE room for it.
The World's Worst Webcomic!
From a free software purists point of view, does it matter who wins? Neither format is an "open" format.... MPEG-4 may be developed by an industry consortium, but as with so-called RAND licencing, unless I misunderstand something their licencing fees make it impossible to implement the code legally in free software. (Is this the case? I'm guessing that MPlayer's mpeg4 support is dubious legally.)
What would be best is that if they make it contentions and messy enough fighting each other that both standards are weakend. That will make Ogg Theora look even that much more attractive to companies and the world at large once it comes out, and hasten the support of Ogg Theora. With some luck, that will become the standard, or at least a standard, that is so widely supported that those of us who care about and pay attention to these things can just use it.
-Rob
They are always free to choose to just use another OS if Microsofts strategies to promote their own products doesn't suit you. The monopoly argument simply doesn't work anymore with Lindows machines on the market, osx running fine and as an example their keynote app being compatible with powerpoint.
Don't like it? Don't use it.
At this point you can get into the market if you are userfriendly and competetive enough.
-t
from MS. That is one of thier favorit tactics. Cut the cost of their product, even if it means losing money to kill competition.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
I believe all those angry slashdotters commenting that its ok for Microsoft to have lower prices are forgetting a few things:
Microsoft IS A MONOPOLY. They make 80-90% profit on Windows and Office. EVERYTHING ELSE they sell causes them to LOOSE money. But, they make so much money with Windows and Office, that they can offer unfair prices on other things with a minimal loss. This is the unfair part: They are Putting ARBITRARY costs on one product (costs that are too high) then putting out other products at a very low cost to consumers. Although this is good for us, it is VERY bad for competition, because, well, the competition cannot offer their product at a loss without...being...at...a...loss.
Never forget that Microsoft is not playing by the rules of supply and demand...They are playing by the rules of shove-down-throat-of-demand.
If people really want a true Open Source solution for the next generation of video compression codecs, I'm surprised there hasn't been more support among the Linux crowd for Ogg Theora, which is being developed more or less by the same people who developed the Ogg Vorbis compression format for audio.
Of course, what is really needed is a third choice, a totally Free Software media codec solution that's competitive with both Windows Media and MPEG 4.
Isn't that precisly what DivX is?
So you own a computer, a cd player, a dvd player, a console game system [obviously no portable mp3 player]. And you think having all that shit around a house is intuitive? What's so hard about multimedia?
Let me understand this.... Microsoft didn't decide to price fix with the MPEG4 group, which would be an illegal practice, but instead decided to use their marker position to undercut them, which is also probably an illegal practice. This is the complaint?
Hell, they'd give it away for free if they felt like it.
Having said all that, ostensibly, WM9 is superior to MPEG-4 and as such, has it's own advantages aside from price; price is just the icing on the cake to ensure they'll "win".
---
When I grow up, I want to be a kid again.
It is true that MPEG-LA is being ridiculous. I have no sympathy for them and we can all see what 'reasonable and non-discrinatory' type licensing schemes get you.
That being said, keep in mind that what is true today may not be true tomorrow. It may not even be true today. Er...
Anyway:
1. WMP9 may be cheaper _right now_. MS can change that tomorrow. WMP10 may be 2x as much.
2. Just because the CODEC is cheaper doesn't mean its cheaper to implement Windows Media Streaimng over a solution streaming MP4.
3. WMP9 limits (to what degree is debateable) your audience.
4. Both of these technologies are on the path of the Dodo, IMO. Just as Real Technologies has fallen from techno-marvel to techno-garbage, so will these.
The past has shown that a truly open standard usually emerges in these areas, via governmental intervention or not. NTSC for North American television. Whatever guage the current railroad system runs on. An RJ-11 phone jack. Streaming video is just too young to be at that stage yet.
From this article?
I was already under the impression that Apple has already fought this battle with Quicktime 6. *And* QT6 is open standards compliant.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Kraft is protesting Shur-Fine Brand Macaroni and Cheese because it sells for 50% less.
They think MS should be required to sell for more. How the hell does this help consumers? It doesn't. They're simply trying to ride on anti-MS sentiment and maintain the rate which they can fleece the public.
Unless MPEG-4 is significantly better than Windows Media, they should drop their prices and be competitive. Suggesting that the consumers should be forced to pay more for similar service JUST because it's not MS is ridiculous.
If they think their product is so much better that it warrants a higher price do what Kraft does and market the damn thing as such. If it's not, cut the price. That's the way a free economy works, you have a right to charge whatever you want, but don't have the right to mandate what your competitors charge.
I'm confused. If the standard is "open" it means the format of the data and the algorithims used to produce it as disclosed, right? (Among other things...)
But for MPEG-4 someone wishing to write code which is compatiable has to pay money to license the technology for every copy distributed, correct?
What is the good of that? A "closed" system couldn't be legally reversed (DMCA.. grrr...) but any implementor's could license the spec from the owner and then do it.
So what has been gained? The ability to go to jail for writing the application rather than for cracking the format?
Could this be the reason behind the complaint? The co-opting of standards whereby MS license but then sell at a loss, thus pushing out all other licensees?
Cheers,
Ian
Isn't XVID a totally free (opensource) MP4 codec? It performs better than DivX for me...
with the current rate of things happening.
... End Off Topic Rant.
A company sees a law that another company uses to successfully do something, and then tries to apply the same general concept to their own sitaution.
3. Profit.
Like Lexmark Printers.. Most companies (or at least the higherups) want to abuse any, and all rules to gain an advantage, and make more money.
This is somewhat offtopic (read: entirely) but I used to think that politicians were completely screwed up, but at the very least our judges were generally on key.
It doesn't seem that way anymore, if it ever was.
The ISP I worked for back in 1996 lost a case because the judge said, in court, "I have absolutely no idea about anything involving computers, so I award the plantif half of what they are asking."
The licensing agreement that was signed, in actual ink and paper, said the customer was wrong, but the judge awarded half anyway.
How can we hold these people accountable? This is the very backbone of our society, our laws and the way they are enacted.
http://use.perl.org
I'm surprised people even think about OpenDivX today. OpenDivX is dead, for a long time now (more than a year).
In case you didn't know what happened: Project Mayo suddenly closed the CVS, removed the source code and used that source code to create their own, proprietary DivX 4 codec. OpenDivX isn't developed anymore. It's codebase is dead. The latest release (from more than a year ago) is full of bugs.
Oh, and DivX is not OpenDivX in case you didn't know. They are 2 completely different things.
See I can put ONE cd in ANY slot. The CD changer automagically finds and plays the CD. Totally intuitive! *ducks*
I'm afraid MPEG will have to make do on half their expected revenue. (Frankly, I suspect it'll be more than half; by cutting their own prices, they'll gain more customers, and since costs for royalties are pretty much arbitrary, they won't have more in expenses to lay out.)
Microsoft can price their product however they please. When they start causing problems, by restricting the platforms their codec performs on, or restricting the performance on other platforms, or if they wait 'til MPEG is dead and then raise their rates, THEN you can slam them for monopolistic practices.
In the meantime, projects like Ogg will proceed, as will DivX, producing competitors MS may prove hard to beat. So let 'em try to take over the market...
Think about it.
I agree that it's silly in a capitalist society to be complaining that someone's selling something for less than you.
Microsoft has a significant other source of income. They can afford to LOSE money selling their codec licensing, as it will strenghen the hold of their OS on the market.
the mpeg4 people, as far as I know, only do that, and can't really afford to lose money on it.
Look at the xbox. MS lost massive quantities of money on it, and didn't care, because it gave them a foothold into a new market that they wanted to dominate.
Yes, on the surface, it's a stupid and silly request. But when you consider the above, it's bordering on unfair competition.
just my thoughts.
"You worthless post!"
-Shakespeare, 2 Gentlemen of Verona, 1. 1. 147
Ogg Vorbis does audio?
Didn't think so.
Did you read the article? Do you know what you're talking about?
This is like some bass ackwards logic here. After reading it a few times you could read into it as "Welp, ours costs this much, so should yours, if not we cry foul." Thats like Porche saying "Hey wtf!! Ford just put out a sports car for only $20k and ours costs $100k!! Your killing the market and its inovation!" Seems to be the new trend lately though. If your losing either sue on some odd off beat related basis or cry foul cuz the other company is bigger. Instead of making a product BETTER (gasp!) they put up a smoke screen, make people look over there (dont look at our product, look at how much worse/expensive/etc.. there is) and hope and pray that people still buy their product. Inovation is gone. Welcome to the world of smoke and lawyers.
Apple warned them that their rates were too high. They had to fight tooth and nail to get MPEG-LA to drop its rates to their current level, maybe now they'll listen...
Now, I understand that some people have reason to complain about Microsoft's business practices, but come on - why does every loser have to pick up the "MS posing unfair competition and threatening consumer choice"-template every time they see some MS competition.
:-)
Spend half the time you whine on improving your own stuff and you will be fine
Their pricing may be a lot less than MPEG-4, but it's almost identical to the pricing already announced by realnetworks for their proprietary audio and video codecs.
What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and who was screamig about Real's pricing? I can't see a proprietary solution effectively competing with MPEG in the consumer market, so it's probably the only way they can make headway.
Simon Hibbs
1) Drop the license rate.
MS called it "cutting off their air supply" if I recall correctly.
2) Open your codec completely
Then how can you get any license revenue from it?
3) Make a better product
It was widely regarded that the versions of NS were far superior to IE up to 4.0 (and there it's a debate).
The foul is something called dumping. The practice of below cost in an effort to drive competitors out of the market.
Now whether MS was dumping or MPEG-LA was gouging is something to be decided by the courts.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Problem: WMA9? MPG4?
All you really need are a couple of good hackers and crackers, and you've GOT a free codec.
Has MSFT ever undersold competitors and then jacked up prices as we all phear?
. SLASHDOT: Home of the vicious nerd.
Isn't this a form of attaining unfair leverage?
Ok, call me boring, but this sounds just too familiar to me.
First of all, you must be aware of the fact, that MS makes their money with their OS and their Office application. And keep in mind, that the OS is the prerequisite for their Office.
It's easy to see, that everything, that might threat their OS must be removed - at almost any cost. The most plain example was Netscape. You could (can) run Netscape on nearly every platform - there was no real need for Windows, you could choose the OS you liked. That's bad for MS, of course! And you all know, how MS defeated Netscape...
Now it's the same with MPEG4 - you can use ist on your PC, Mac, even on your soon to buy handy ( = mobile), your Settop Box, your PVR, and what else. So if MPEG4 becomes the standard - there would be no need to buy an OS from Redmond for these devices. (And good old competition keeps prices reasonable!)
But on the other hand, if windows media will be the new standard you are tied to Windows, and that's where they are making their money with. And since they make a big fortune with windows, they don't mind to spend a small fortune just to ensure, that the big money keeps coming.
So keep this in mind, if someone offers you something for free - there is almost everytime a catch.
MPEG4 should be free (as in beer) because, at the end of the day, it's only an algorithm. Imagine if the Greeks charged us every time Pythagoras' Theorem was used or quoted.
In the computer age intellectual property is like the Emperor's new clothes. In the nanobot age, tangible property will be the same (you like your neighbour's BMW...fine, just make a quick copy), but I won't go into that now...
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
This is almost amusing.
Capitalism is supposed to encourage competition in pricing.
Long ago a company called Netscape started a practice: they gave away a web browser for free to anyone who downloaded it.
So Microsoft, introducing their own browser, followed the market price already set. Zero.
And people complained and accused them of being nasty (particularly in this forum, but it may not have existed then.
Now people call Microsoft nasty names for helping to lower a price.
Microsoft is not the world's friendliest company, but keep the slanging to when they actually do things that harm others.
Clerk: "Hey, you can't just walk out with that stuff, you have to pay for it!"
ZoneGray: "But your store said 'open' on the front door!"
Let me see if I get this straight. Theres a consortium of companies called MPEG-LA that is currently charging waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much for a video codec. Microsoft releases a cheaper alternative which may destory MPEG-LA's business model. This is a bad thing ? Does anyone remember that browsers didn't use to be free until Internet Explorer came along ? Yes its true, the evil MS destroyed the good Netscape, but in the end we the consumers ended up with free web browsers. How many of you would have preferred that Netscape survived, but you had to _pay_ for a browser? Its just competition. Theres only a few ways this can pan out. MPEG-LA can lower their prices, which will means savings to us. MPEG-LA can make their stuff free, which will mean savings to us Everyone can switch to the MS format, which will mean savings to us. If the MS format turns out to be crap or have spyware or DRM etc. built in - then an alternative _will_ come up.
Is that MPEG-4 is so outdated and pathetic compared to wma9 format. Of course microsoft doesn't want an open file format for media... why is this such a shocker? They're a business... they're in it for the money, not to make the consumer happy. They'll only make the consumer happy when it makes them money.
The idea that mpeg-4 is better than wma9 just because it's free is idiotic. It's clearly a less capable video format. So if we're going to rally behind an open format... let it be a good one (for instance, the OpenOffice.org xml format for documents.)
Of course, what is really needed is a third choice, a totally Free Software media codec solution that's competitive with both Windows Media and MPEG 4
There is.... It's called XVID
Really, losers! How can they bash MicroSoft for hindering the adoptance of their ``open standard'' if they are the ones charging so much for it? How can they even claim it's an open standard if it requires licensing? Pathetic.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
This would be like Shur-Fine Brand Mac and Cheese protesting Kraft for selling for 50% less. The issue would be if Shur-Fine could prove that Kraft's selling price is actually below the cost.
There is a huge difference between arguing about premium priced products versus below-cost products. MPEG-LA would have to prove that MS is actually selling their codec below cost.
BTW, you don't have a right to charge whatever you want in the US. There are anti-gouging and anti-dumping laws that keep things in check.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Well here is a rare one... In this case I gota go with Microsoft. MPEG4 folks are just pissed that their own outrageously priced license is being undercut. If it is going to be a standard, then it should not also be primarily a cash cow... .should I dare say... someone elses Monopoly is being challenged... funny.. when it is MS people cheer. When it is another companies.. well that is different.
I am no Microsoft supporter. I went cold turkey from MS products two years ago and have been running Linux since. But there are times when MS bashing does sound a bit like an old preacher man ranting and raving about the heathens that won't accept their salvation.
I am not a professional video artist of any kind. I have a TV capture device that spits out MPEG 1 video files which I then drop into VirtualDub for editing and converting to AVI. Currently, I use DivX 4.1 and MP3 to cut my favorite half-hour TV programs from almost 400 MB to less than 150 MB.
To maintain maximum freedom and guarantee future viewability (and hopefully not giving up much hard disk space), what codecs SHOULD I be using?
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but MS is trying to market a player packaged with a codec, while MPEG is offering a codec only, right?
If so, isn't MPEG4 better for smaller devices which need special / small software?
How many times does it have to be said???
Microsoft is legally established to be a monopoly. Legislation was created due to the behavior of monopolies of the past in order to keep the market ultimately fair for competition and good for consumers. This legislation is intended to restrict things that a monopoly like Microsoft can do.
The reason these other companies could do what you are talking about is because THEY AREN'T MONOPOLIES LIKE MICROSOFT!
It isn't ridiculous to have these different standards... it's basic economics!! Go gain a cursory understanding of it before you make comments that people are being ridiculous.
That day, we'll forget compression and all this talk. We'll share raw PCM files for music!
What does it cost MPEG-LA in manufacturing, distribution, and maintenance costs? Zero. Why are you making such a boneheaded argument about a company who distributes a codec, which costs them NOTHING, going out of business?
Oh yeah, because they're trying to scapegoat "M$" and you're among those who would continue to criticize MS if tomorrow they started behaving like Mother Teresa. Right.
Anybody remember all the fuss over mpeg-4 licencing and the fact the the licencing model provided per stream fees. Everyone bitched, Apple held up QT6.
Now MPEG-LA is bitching because they were undercut. Though shit, I dread most things Microsoft but if they'll go cheaper (not free) then compete dammit !!! Lower the mpeg4 costs or release some of the codec as open-source, BSD style.
You cant sue MS until they play nice. They will never play nice, deal with it.
*
"Corporate rock still sucks. What are you gonna do about it?"
Here is an entire suite of standards that (apparently) go againsts everything MS. Namely, cross platform interoperbility.
UDDI, WSDL, SOAP, etc.... All of these combined to form the concept of Web Services to promote the idea of cross-platform compatibility. And guess who was one of the three architects of the standards? Microsoft.
Slashdot needs to stop pointing at everything MS does as evil and bad. Also, stop using lame-ass old examples of their evil, ie Netscape & OS/2. The horse has been beaten and it's time to joint the rest of use in the year 2003 and look to the future.
What we have here is two greedy organizations battling it out. If we want to avoid getting dragged into this, we really do need open video standards.
Yes. Are you stupid?
We set the liscensing costs so high that Apple almost didn't include our product and now MS has gone and undersold us waaaah. Screw these tossers!
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Eventually, companies who have signed on and committed themselves to the standard which is losing the most market share will throw it wide open, and give it away, dropping all licencing fees. And the world will be a better place for it. Such was the case with Netscape/Mozilla, Star Office, and some versions of OS/2. They realize that once they have lost the market share, they are not going to make money hand over fist with licencing fees, but have already made a committment to the technology. It also takes some of the wind out of the sails for their market leading rival(s). If I can't make money off this, damned if they will......
This sort of practice in no small way, contributes to the success of open source/freeware in the marketplace.
My rights don't need management.
Isn't this how the capitalist system works?
Someone makes a product that is better or cheaper or both that upsets the existing balance of things. Which forces the existing competitors to become better or faster or both.
The jello of course.
"...we dont care about the economics; we just want to be able to hack great stuff."
Microsoft's spokesman:
;-)
"Lowering and removing licensing barriers is not only great for the consumer electronics and software industries, but also offers consumers the benefits of better quality video at smaller file sizes," said Michael Aldridge, lead product manager for Windows Digital Media division at Microsoft.
I don't think I have anything to add to this except a smiley.
Who is RTFM and when will he help me with Unix?
As I understand it, Microsoft's CODECs are heavily based on MPEG4. Aren't they voilating the patents already at this point?
As for MPEG-LA and the rest of the "standards comittee." There should be absolutely no charge for "standards" that are issued by a "standard comittee," unless that "standard comittee" actually provides something (software, hardware, etc.). Otherwise, the whole thing is a thinly veiled process to come up with ideas and then profit from someone else's actual work.
At the point where you label it "standard" and push everyone to adopt it for "compatibility," you should lose the right to charge for the idea.
Xesdeeni
Doh. If you want to use the Xvid codec to make anything that requires a licence, you still have to pay the MPEG consortium for a licence. Open standard does not mean patent-free standard.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
But having to say "gnu/mpeg" all the time would be annoying as hell....
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Isn't it the version of history that they were found to be guilty of.
So what would be a fair price? This does seem to be a little suspicious -- the very low price -- but how much is something like that worth? For that matter, how much is any piece of software worth. I never understood those people who were trying to get money back from MSFT for overpricing Office. I mean, how can you even determine what the price is for something like that? Isn't it whatever the market can bear?
-- Hobbits suck!
All I'm going to say is.....Divx....it's your friend.
Of course, what is really needed is a third choice, a totally Free Software media codec solution that's competitive with both Windows Media and MPEG 4 Pure sh!t, free software to do everything under the sun is NOT needed.
There is a lot to be said about what the "users" like and what corps push. Granted, often they are one in the same but not always.
/. is full of OSS and GPL guys, I myself am one too. Bottom line is users want something that works and is easy for them to install. They don't care if the format is open or not. However, what we could help do is help educate them on the reasons for using open standards and OSS. Users also see price tags. So using a GPLd open standard that is free for everyone to use will, in the end, make the users happy.
.GIF files. Unisoft may have made millions in licenses and fees, but they also helped to push to .PNG format. I for one don't use any .GIFs at all. Moved my MP3s to OGG etc. Just one person, but I also have a large "user" base that I infulence.
I realize that
Just like the issues with
Funny thing is that the backers of MPEG4 are saying that this will block the acceptance of an _open_ standard. Just how open is MPEG4?
If they really want MPEG4 to be the defacto open standard, then why are they charging for licensing at all in the first place? Since they are charging for it, well, sucks to be them but they'll just have to suck it up and compete.
No Comment.
Wow, brilliant. I bet no one ever thought of it that way before.
from the article: "RealNetworks offers comparable pricing to that of Microsoft's with its Helix DNA Audio and Video."
So I am not quite sure that they are only complaining with Microsoft and not with Real?
So this just shows that Microsoft is competing with another product? Or MPEG-LA is just charging too much? Or is this just with DRM?
Live your life each day as if it was your last.
Division by zero is not a well defined mathematic operation.
If you try to do it your code will be well within it's rights to throw exceptions right left and center and then comitting harakiri...
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
These a-holes should stop extorting money for standards and start selling products.
hmmm what ever happend to gif..........
...is for the RIAA and MPAA to jump in, on opposite sides of this pissing match, and the head of every slashdotter on the planet will explode from the confusion.
the package it was in "Windows Plus!" included I.E. [the internet had not entered the domestic]. The plus pack was the same price as the Windows95 pach it sat alongside.
Netscape was shareware then I think. But it was butt ugly and couldn't wait to ditch it alongside 3rd party dialers that were equally stunted. The small computer shops round the world were getting wired and Microsoft was the only brand name people recognised.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I repeat -- FULLY document -- how to encode / decode / transport, everything. With this kind of documentation, you can bring up an MPEG file with a freakin' hex editor and figure out where the headers / frames / slices are, and if you're particularly keen on it, the data in them. As part of a project working with Windows Media, we are _continually_ distressed by it's "black box" nature, and MS does not give out WM protocol licenses to just anyone (we tried, and tried, and failed). We send stuff in, WMVCORE or whatever does some magic, and hopefully stuff comes out the other end. If it doesn't, we can make a few somewhat educated guesses, but in the end we always need to pay $$$, call MS, and have them tell us that "Yes, that's a bug with the WMFSDK, sorry, you'll have to hack around it."
I'll take something fully documented (even if it's not open-source and even if I need to pay for the specs) over something only partially documented, delivered with binaries that do magic, any day.
Regards,
John
Falling You - beautiful
Windows Media and MPEG-4 are video formats, and nothing more. Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly on encoded content (yet) -- yes, Windows Media Player comes preinstalled on all Windows installations, but that relates only to playback. Content can be encoded on any number of platforms, using any number of video formats -- the people who create the content are the ones who ultimately decided in what format(s) they will use.
So yes, this might be a standard Microsoft tactic -- undercut the competition by using their profits from Windows and Office to offset development and administrative costs related to Windows Media. But I hardly feel sorry for MPEG-4 -- MP3 became the de facto musical standard without making a profit, because they were willing to forego the initial profits to achieve market saturation. The MPEG-4 consortium can do the same -- but they want their money up-front, and that's a perfect way to fight a battle against Microsoft and lose.
If MPEG-4 wants to win, they'll have to lower their price, plain and simple. If they can keep their prices and feature sets in line with Microsoft's, I suspect that vendors would still side with them, as there seems to be a general (and not undeserved) mistrust of MS's business tactics and licensing practices. Plus, MPEG-4 isn't tied to any one platform, whereas we all know Microsoft's goal is to become THE zaibatsu of the 21st century. So they have a definite advantage there........... but I guess we'll see whether their greed or business sense prevails, won't we?
If MS has followed a monoply model, what is the price of IE today?
The Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 EULA requires a valid Windows license, which costs $100 (home edition) or $150 (professional), assuming that OEM prices are half retail prices.
"But IE is $0 on Mac OS, Solaris OE, and HP-UX!" IE version 6 doesn't run on Mac OS, Solaris OE, or HP-UX.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Here's a quick history lesson: Netscape: King among browsers for any operating system. Then Microsoft comes out with a good browser that is free. Netscape is forced to make their $30 product a $0 product to "compete" despite the fact they do not profit from OS sales. Netscape is eaten by a company that can afford a $0 product, but development is stagnant for years because there is no profit model. Microsoft wins the browser war. It takes five years for a new version of Netscape and it was made by people working for free. The free software community better start working on a video codec now, because unless something prevents history from repeating itself, MPEG isn't looking so good about now. Here's the final kicker: if Free Software doesn't incorporate DRM into their product, content producers won't use it. There's some irony for you.
XeoMage
So is there anything stopping the Community from hacking out a free implementation of the codec under say the GPL, which would prevent having to mess with the license fees at all?
Ben
These Mpeg4 people are whiners, in my opinion. And I think it is funny that Mpeg4 is considered an "open" standard; any technology encumbered by patents is hardly open.
Anger meets MPEG-4 licensing scheme
Companies fear costly MPEG-4 licenses
Apple backs MPEG-4 despite fee dispute
MPEG LA claim that Microsoft is blocking progress? As my dear old grandmother used to say, bitch please.
Open means the mechanism is documented so that competing companies can build solutions which are still interoperable with one another.
It has absolutely nothing to do with the cost. Although an Open Standard which is free of licensing charges will likely be more widely adopted.
You're confused on purpose... the Open Source people misuse the word Open. They did so purposefully, to distort the issues.
MPEG4 offers things like hotspots, 3D and other stuff that makes it looks like Flash.
Which means you'd have to use an authoring tool that looks like an SWF authoring tool. Current technology can't practically discern 3D vectors from the pixel stream of a digital video source. For this reason, most MPEG-4 encoders just use MPEG-4 Simple Video (or was it Advanced Simple Video?).
Will I retire or break 10K?
Microsoft is one of the companies that helped making the MPEG-4 standard. Indeed, they are one of the patent holders of the video part (http://www.mpegla.com/mpeg4v/m4v_patentlist.html) . So, they make mony either way.
Of course many people beleive WMP9 video is superior to MPEG-4. Microsoft continued development a couple of years past the MPEG group.
From the site:
MPEG4IP: Open Source, Open Standards, Open Streaming MPEG4IP provides an end-to-end system to explore MPEG-4 multimedia. The package includes many existing open source packages and the "glue" to integrate them together. This is a tool for streaming video and audio that is standards-oriented and free from proprietary protocols and extensions. Provided are an MPEG-4 AAC audio encoder, an MP3 encoder, two MPEG-4 video encoders, an MP4 file creator and hinter, an IETF standards-based streaming server, and an MPEG-4 player that can both stream and playback from local file. Our development is focused on the Linux platform, and has been ported to Windows, Solaris, FreeBSD, BSD/OS and Mac OS X, but it should be relatively straight-forward to use on other platforms. Many of the included packages are multi-platform already. This code is not intended for end users, and does not contain executables. Please read all the legal information to determine if it is suitable for you.
http://mpeg4ip.sourceforge.net/index.php
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.
Even if we count end users, the customer base is still fixed in size and most every user of the web will want one or another of these things installed.
Or both. Which is the real problem in some way. As long as there are multiple standards, its likely that end users are going to want to play files in all the standards. In which case the short term result will be that the end user will be forced to get one of each. Even if a single player can handle all the file types the MS and MPEG fees with both need to be paid on the player. Not exactly cheaper for the consumer.
The other side of this is that MS does have enough cash to support their standard as long as they want to and its not clear to me that MPEG does. So, its easy to say that MPEG will have do do on half their revenue - but there is no reason that MS could not then cut their price again. MS could even say something like "We'll charge no licensing fees for the next three years." Can MPEG do on zero income?
Oh, this wouldn't be a problem if MS was a niche player in the middle but since they're at the top of the food chain it surely makes a big difference:
Abide to our standards or forever rust in pieces! What! You guys already have a standard?! Well, since we are bigger than you one on one, you'll still crawl in the mud!
Peder
I don't get this.
They are made because MS is selling their license for a closed product at a low price.
While they sell an "Open Standard" which is closed (by patents) for a high price.
Seems like they're both selling effectively closed solutions for money, they're just pissed MS is cheaper.
You haven't studies business very much have you? It happens literally billions a times a day all over the planet. It's commonly known (or so I thought) that most fast food places make zero or actually make a loss on their food products, but make giant profits on their soft drink sales. I haven't seen an independent burger stand in many, many years.
Also, I hope you don't patronize Wal-Mart, Best Buy, etc. Every single one of those companies do the same thing.
Microsoft's Macintosh products exhibit the same behavior as well, indeed magnified by the fact that there aren't many major players left for us macintosh users to patronize. (Although OS X is helping bring new developers into the fold...)
I mean, Microsoft has a $500 office suite, or you if you need just Word it's $380. No discounts, (there are upgrade versions, but of course, that option isn't available if you don't have a previous version of Office for the Mac.)
Yes, Office v.X is high quality software, but it's overpried by about 50%, seemingly because there are no viable alternatives that are as feature rich AND as polished as Office v.X. (OpenOffice is a beautiful dream, one that I certainly embrace, but it's not finished yet.)
The MPEG4 standard is patent-encumbered. It is licensed RAND (Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory). This means they'll give a license to just about anyone willing to pay for it, at published rates.
It it "open" because anyone can get a copy of the standard (though some standards organizations charge you a nice fee to buy an official copy of the standard).
But implementing it is non-free, because of the patents.
Now we understand why people object to software patents, yes?
This is the difference between proprietary standards, open standards, and free and open standards.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
if your product is superior, the market will MAKE room for it
Unless there's a monopoly with $40 billion in the bank challanging you or the porn industry's backing one of your competitors (one of the rumers why VHS beat Beta).
Peder
Uh? I dunno, an awful lot of standards do cost money to look at. "Standard" implies "something that everyone [should] follow because it was agreed on" ... and it sure is a lot closer to the dictionary definition of 'standard' than "something that's free" :)
Or are you implying that H.261 and H.263 aren't standards for video telecommunication? How about PCI? (Which I guess technically you don't have to pay for if you can search the Internet nowadays.) I think you'd find a lot of people would disagree with you. It's unfortunate that these standards aren't monetarily free. But that doesn't mean people don't follow them.
I think developing media codecs from scratch is a little more involved and time consuming than rewritting a tetris clone copied out of "How to program computer games" book.
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
ok, as a gut reaction, id want to say MPEG4 should be free...
but the majority of the comments here seem to come from people who must not know how businesses run.
Some people, a lot in fact, actually get PAID to write code. Yes, they make some money so they can eat and buy mt. dew. Now, the companies who pay these programmers obviusly need to generate some revenue.. you see where this is going?
OK, now that the econ lesson is over, lets move to the licensing - is it not fair to ask that people who will make a profit off of your product, then in turn give you a small amount of the proceeds for you developing that product? I know this goes against everything you all beleive is so right.. but in the end... the people who developed it might like to continue toeat. (i know this is a gross oversimplification, but hey)
No on to microsoft: what do you do when you micorsoft and a superior technology comes around that you dont own?
1. Buy it
-or, if thats not an option-
2. Drive it in to the ground
MS doesnt sell stuff cheap for no reason - they sell it cheap to drive out competition. All the time, everytime. Look back at history, this is NOT different at all.
Yes, im sure the mpegla understands the benifits of releasin it for free, but if MS can charrge... why cant the for a superior product?
And dont be fooled, think in broader terms - mpeg4 has a planned ubiquity that could make it just as important to the next video revolution (ie. vidio phones etc) as the original quicktime was to desktop video.
and keep in mind - as god as any open source project is... making it robust enough to service the needs of both the content creators and viewrs, as well as be in enough distribution to command that it be used in the first place are of utmost importance. You ask the average consumer if they know what *insert oss codec project here* is and youl get crickets. Its not to say tey dont meet some of the above criteria, just not all.
A puny amount of people use quicktime compared to windows media. But, it passes because its in high distribution, and... almost ALL video you see on TV, film, etc, has passed thru quicktime.
rant off, im losin track and caffiene beckons!
"Stuff... In my home!? NEVER!" - Zim on Invader Zim
"I want the toilet seat!" - Little Dog on Two Stupid Dogs
However, even though IE came bundled, for the longest time, I would still go out and install Netscape. I think the real reason IE was so popular, because in the end, IT IS A BETTER browser. Seriously, when I used Netscape Communicator, that thing was such a piece of crap, and I don't know how many times Netscape would crash, and eat up my resources.
Besides, to the average Joe, if IE didn't come bundled, how are they supposed to go and download Netscape? You expect them to know how to use FTP? Or do you expect them to go and "buy" the Netscape CD? What an inconvenience.
Besides, this whole notion of bundling is rediculous if you ask me. You don't hear people bitching that BMW's came bundled with an Alpine 6 disc CD changer and matching head unit? Dammit, I want a McIntosh head unit, so I should have the option to delete the stereo/CD Changer, but you cant. What if I don't want Leather/Leatherette interior? What if I want velvet? I should be able to delete the standard apolstery(sp?). Heck, I'm going to install ricaro seats, so I want the seats deleted as well. Hell, I'm going to put in a custom Dinan engine, so I want the engine deleted too. And I have an SMG tranny on shipment, so I want the tranny deleted too.... It doesn't work that way folks, get over it. Besides, its not like anybody is complaining about Minesweeper or Notepad. I'm sure there are other companies that make "similar" software. Hell, what about Winsock? Remember when multiple vendors made TCP/IP stacks for windows?
A lot of standards cost nothing to implement or look at. Not all do. A lot of telecommunications standards (err ... in the sense of telephony and such, not networking) cost money to look at, but then you can implement them without liscensing (assuming you're patent-free). (For example, you'd have to pay the ITU money to find out how to encode mu-law audio, if you couldn't find that info on the web. I bet it's been easy to do that for years though.)
And yes, that means you do have to go purchase a copy of the ANSI C standard to look at it, if you don't know someone who already has a copy. Point out to me where ANSI has a section on their page that says "standards available for free download". There might be such a thing, but you'll find the button that says "Standards store" much sooner. Just because there are free implementations of the standard does not imply that the standard itself costs no money to look at! It doesn't cost to implement, though. This is better (IMO) than the situation with MPEG, where the details are free but it costs money to implement, if you want to sell it.
If MPEG4 really wants to be an open standard, they should charge $1.00 for the encoder and NOTHING for the decoder (or at least a percentage royalty).
WHY? Because no encoder is worth anything as an open standard if its output can't be viewed by everyone. The best way to make a standard viewable by everyone is to encourage free software decoders.
Otherwise, you end up with players that work in Windows, and maybe Mac only. As a whole, content producers are willing to pay and consumers aren't. MPEG4 can make it's money from consumer devices like PVRs, camcorders and production software.
In which format would LOTR: TT look the best and still be small so we can download it.
So, it's a quarter more to use a standard than to use some MS-proprietary crap. I know people looking at the bottom line see this as a big deal, but c'mon!
Ultimately, companies building software for playing or editing this stuff are going to want BOTH, because that's what the consumer will want. Ultimately, M$ will just make half as much as the MPG4 licensee will, which is probably ok since the M$ codecs will probably be scrapped in a year or two.
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
They don't live in a vacuum, and they too can be undercut. It's all about the economics, and Microsoft is being a hell of a lot more nimble than they are. If they want their standard adopted, drop the freakin' price!
There was originally a draft for MPEG3. It was supposed to cover HD streams, until it was realized that MPEG2 would still manage to handle it. However, there is currently a commitee working on MPEG7. Only reason I know all this, is a while back, we got involved with the spec guys for DRM stuff, so we hired a guy that participated in the committee.
A post earlier seemd to suggest that Microsoft should be congratulated on charging a lower price and that the MPEG 4 people should be ashamed for charging such a higher price.
Here's a quick lesson in economics: Microsoft has the ability to charge the price they choose because the economies of scale for WMP 9 allow them to do so. The MPEG 4 group does not have the same luxury. If both companies charged a similar price, competition in the marketplace plays the role of lowering the price over time.
The exploitation of economies of scale is what allows a monopoly to maintain a stranglehold - Microsoft should certainly NOT be given an "atta-boy" for engaging in monopolistic behavior!
Clearly Microsoft values the MPEG4 effort. And yet they also offer their own standard which claims to be 15-50% better than MPEG-4.
I think Microsoft doesn't think the products will be in competetion with each other, hence it can price WMV down. I think they want to focus on WMV for streaming media, games, home PC applications, etc. (high-volume stuff) MPEG-4 seems to be more suitable for commercial applications, embedded devices, etc. and Microsoft wants to ensure that it is suitable for use on/with their software too. Those developers who buy MPEG4 wouldn't consider WMV anyway, because they probably aren't targeting desktop PCs. Hence the price difference may not mean that much. They get the added benefit that WMV may be eventually accepted for use in more consumer electronics because it offers some advantages over MPEG4. Additionally, the pricing difference would not be so extreme had not Apple bitched and moaned because they weren't going to be making enough per seat.
On the other hand, maybe Microsoft was taking a gamble investing in MPEG4, so that everyone would think they were all behind it, when meanwhile they were using the same technology they donated to come up with something better they could use to kill what they already knew a lot about (and the limitations of). Everyone else tied up in MPEG4 wouldn't be able to respond when WMV is released and costs less.
Oh that's deliciously evil. But speculation...
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
How is it that Sun demanded that microsoft cannot continue work on Java, because they were polluting it. So microsoft says fine.... When their license expired for its 1.1.3 JVM they CHOSE NOT TO RENEW IT, thus there is no JVM in Windows XP. Sow Sun goes bezerk, and demands Microsoft bundles Sun's 1.4 JVM with the OS?!!
So now Microsoft is in it up to its neck, because it bundled the OS with its own browser, but its ok to bundle it with somebody else's JVM? What kind of crap is this? What an insult to injury for MS.
So in the end, basically MS is being forced to license something from another company. There's a good business model. You should either be allowed to bundle what you want, or not bundle anything at all, it shouldn't work like this.
Not exactly. Actually Not at all. Microsoft is the only one that can make a WM9 encoder or decoder. This equals Closed. In the mpeg-4 domain, I can play back DivX mpeg-4 with envivio, or Phillips with the cisco decoder and all around the block here. In some cases it might take a small amount of tinkering to the file, but not the video stream. This is because mpeg-4 is an open standard. This is the difference between open and closed. iVast competes with divx competes with whomever else has their own encoders or decoders that operate inside the standards. What makes them open is that they can play each others video streams. Microsoft could be engaging in unfair business practices or whatever, but there really won't be anything that they will be prosecuted on until they tell a manufacturer that they won't license WM9 for their device if DivX is on there as well. That is they evil bit on anti trust that the browser war was about.
I have a valid Win98 license from early 1999 - it came with a PC.
I downloaded IE6 in 2002.
For free.
Just because they don't make it for any other OSes doesn't change the fact that it's free to download.
It's only available for Windows and it requires you to own Windows legally to use it. That doesn't change the price, either.
I know you hate Microsoft, but please. Get over it.
If i recall, the QuickTime 6 holdout was because of their "unreasonable" license fees for MPEG-4 (which is based on apple tech). It would appear M$ agreed, and released their version at the price that Apple wanted. Kinda ironic, eh?
today is spelling optional day.
Is there anything that Microsoft will ever do that will please this community at large ? This is a first, where people complain because some commercial entity has released a competitive product to MPEG 4 at a lower price. What if Microsoft priced their MWA license higher that the MPEG4 dudes? Will that be OK ? I bet people would have complained that Microsoft is charging too much and can do so because of their internet and browser dominance for multi media content.
Bottom line is whatever Microsoft attempts to do, the slashdot community will always have something negative to say. Why bother posting any article about them if it's always the same biased one sided view where Microsoft is evil.
And what about Netscape, huh ? Netscape was run by a bunch of really smart engineers, engineers who did not know unfortunately how to run an already successful business to the next level.
Resistance is futile.
you forgot MR. Bush JR...
...but Microsoft is going to win this battle. Sure, I would love to use an open standard like MP4. But Microsoft just makes it too easy for these reasons. 1) Codecs are good. WM9 gives great compression and great quality. We saw this when WMA started to do what MP3's could in half the space. 2) The tools rock. I have been converting DVD's to VCD's for a while. The tools are a pain in the ass. Recently I have been wanting to build a media box to host movies. WM9 Encoder reads in VOB's directly. Hidden feature, beyond that, with the codecs it can keep the 5.1 Dolby and does a great job with the video. I am starting to script it, and soon I will have a nice solution were I pop in a disc, double click an icon, and it rips and compresses, adds to my library and will be available for viewing. Can't get much easier.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Maybe a debate with idiots. OK, that's a little over the top (and trollish), but Netscape 4.0 was nowhere near as good as IE 4.0. Both were fairly equally unstable, although as I recall IE was actually slightly more stable than Netscape 4.0. However, IE 4 added many things that made their browser far superior to Netscape 4 - and many of these things are now standards.
I believe that there was a working DOM in IE 3, but it wasn't until 4 that the DOM became really fleshed out and usable, and that it could be changed dynamically client-side after the page loaded. No Netscape browser allowed changing of the DOM after the page had loaded until Mozilla. Likewise, IE4 had a fairly complete implementation of CSS 1, whereas Netscape 4 had a mind-numbingly bad implementation. (Namely, IE 4 would usually ignore things it didn't implement, while Netscape would half-implement things and behave truely strangely in certain cases. I have pages that work fine in IE 4 and Lynx, but not in Netscape 4 due to half-implemented CSS bits.)
IE 4 was a superior product. In this case, Microsoft won with the superior free product - don't forget that Netscape was also using their browser as a "loss-leader" for their server products, which are generally regarded to suck. (Just like Microsoft's server products, but...)
Microsoft continued to improve their browser. Netscape offered patch-after-patch that offered very little actual improvements other than not crashing in the same ways. Some patches actually made the browser worse, like the removing of "try {} catch {}" from JS in 4.97. (Or was it 4.98? I don't remember - just that all of a sudden all my pages stopped working in Netscape due to a single try {} catch {} block. I hate having to try and write pages that work on both NS4 and anything else...)
I personally think that Microsoft won the browser wars in a perfectly fair manner. The "browser wars" really weren't a good indication of where Microsoft was abusing their monopoly. Things like forcing companies to only offer PCs with their OS and using their office suite monopoly to control Apple are better and more clear-cut examples of abuse of monopoly. Even if Microsoft intended to abuse their monopoly to "win" the browser wars, they managed to win fair and square in spite of themselves. Netscape really dropped the ball in the end, allowing Microsoft to overtake them.
Now with Mozilla, we might see a new browser war. Since 0.9.6, I've switched back to Mozilla from IE (when on Windows, at least) - it works in almost all cases. Personally I think the IE vs Netscape thing is a very weak argument against Microsoft, especially when there are so many other things they've done that are much more clearcut abuses.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
m$ has very good licensing deals for their codec, one m$ flunky commented he expected that by next year most DVD players will be able to play WM9 content.
open standards my ass
open standards should be Free
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
might be found in the transcripts of the internal MPEG-LAs meetings to determine MPEG4 licsensing fees.
Why?
Not only is Microsoft undercutting MPEG-LA, but it is also a licensor of MPEG4 patent portfolio; they get paid for each MPEG4 encoder/decoder that ships!
So here is Microsoft playing both sides of the dispute; if they were lobbying for higher MPEG4 fees, they should fall into the depths of antitrust hell. If they lobbied for lower fees, well, they get to say, "I told you so"
I thought Microsofts products were supposed to be to expensive?
from the license article
"By adding a license for the audio and video compression software, or codecs, of Windows Media 9, Microsoft is extending the technology beyond its Windows operating system, where the software is available for free. Microsoft hopes that cell phone makers or Web publishers running Linux operating systems, for example, will be more willing to license Microsoft's proprietary media technology, since they will no longer be required to also adopt the Windows operating system."
It seems that what is happening is that MS got a license to provide Media Player (along with the WMA format) on any platform (that includes Linux) so that more (non-windows) users can use the WMA and AVI (or whatever their new video format is) format on their system.
I'm gonna go out on a slashdot limb here and say - thats NOT A BAD THING. Sorry but I have both MP3's and WMA's and OGG's and I can't tell the difference with my speakers (not the best, but better than most) and as far as well as MOVs, AVI's, MPG, etc... all play just as well on my monitor.
Whatever the case - MS allowing even those die-hard Linux or Mac users to play WMA's or whatever with media player IS choice and doesn't seem to me that they are doing anything that deserves a slashdot beeting.
Also the article linked on the slashdot story really only covers the fee issue, but ALL codec companies charge for their codecs - either from shareware or outright purchases. Of course most of these are warezable and most people won't buy it as well as the fact that most of the software requiring these codecs will include the codec for free (ie: vcd movies usually include some type of codec software on the cd as well as DVD's do this too)
Sorry this is a bunk story and isn't worth depating IMHO
Ave Molech Setting
a few questions regarding this subject:
1) can an open standard be effectively developed that media companies will use, when, in all likelihood, the palladium crap that media companies desire will be a pure WinIntel monstrosity. this may be a dumb question as my knowledge of developing codecs and their applications is lacking. I do know that one huge neccessary component of a standard is adoption. (not saying we should give up and let MS dictate media apps but the question is how to address those issues)
2) Following on to the previous question, is there an IEEE or W3C (at least in relation to streaming media web content or somesuch) place in developing a competitive open standard, even perhaps just modifying and adopting one thats already been developed by the OS community? In other words, once a good solution is developed, which backers would be the most beneficial to adoption (assuming MS will try and kill it any way possible)?.. or maybe Apple? IBM? Sun?
3) Does anyone have an idea of the demographics or industry breakdown and uses for the existing codecs (i.e. addressable target audience). And, if so, which communities may be being underserved or have outstanding needs? (schools or edu's, hollywood, pr0n, advertising, news, entertainment, marketing and sales groups, etc.) Can that be the initial niche for adoption (hollywood for movie trailers or demos, edu sector for instructional material, etc.)?
Ah well. Sorry if these are dumb questions but I would like to see an open standard for this even though I have little-to-no use for the existing formats (dont do much multimedia stuff)..
It is illegal for Microsoft to engage in predatory pricing like this. Even if MPEG4 is a proprietary standard mascarading as an open standard, Microsoft is yet again breaking the law.
Nobody's claiming MPEG4 is free, either -- open, yes, but not free. Open means it's well documented and a reference implemenation is usually available, to anyone, for a published price. MPEG4 was created by the MPEG consortium - a group of companies that realize they can get a better end product if they pool their resources. Guess what! Research costs money! You wanna see your neat new codec? Sure, fine, but you gotta pay. They took the time and put up the money to develop and document it, why should they give it away for free? Microsoft, on the other hand, doesn't believe in sharing. If they can sell licenses of WMV9 (an implementation) for half the cost of MPEG4 (a standard) licenses, MPEG will quickly cease to exist. Once MPEG is out of the way, MS can charge whatever they like to companies for the use of their products/codecs, whereas MPEG charges reasonably and non-discriminately (RAND licensing). And unlike MPEG, MS will eventually never make their implementation available to anyone else, no matter how much money they have.
Making better products has absolutely nothing to do with gaining marketshare. Never has.
Otherwise, 90% of the market would be using Apples, dating all the way back to the DOS days.
But I like your first two options.
--Richard
Has Microsoft ever, in its entire history, made a better product than the competition, sold it for a better price, and made a profit doing so? I'm not trolling; I'm genuinely curious to know if this has ever happened.
yes and no--
What Microsoft has generally done through the DOS and Windows market has been to commoditize the hardware market and have a large volume, low cost model (compare the cost of a PC with Windows to a Mac). This has not really resulted in a better product, but it has really resulted in a better price. This in turn has helped to lead to:
1) the near ubiquity of personal computing and
2) tremendous profits for Microsoft.
Unfortunately they have also been extremely anti-competitive towards competitors, such as Digital Research (which did produce a better product-- DR-DOS), and quasi-competitors such as Netscape (whose ubiquity was threatening Microsft's control on the OS). I suspect that this latest spat with MPEG-4 vs WMA9 is the same sort of pattern.
The fundamental problem for Microsoft though is that unlike the telephone companies, there isn't a large physical infrastructure that they control, and unlike the power companies and LATA-based telecoms, there is no natural division of any infrastructure that they can control, so this monopoly is not natural. Controlling formats is how they try to make this up.
There are two problems which make the Microsoft monopoly impossible to maintian in my opinion. The first is Moor's Law, which is resulting in longer lifespans for computers as the computers are now powerful enough to meet business needs for a longer period of time. This results in fewer sales of Microsoft OS's because the upgrade cycle is lengthened. Why do you think they are pushing subscription licensing?
The other is a more subtle problem. The growth of the internet has made it more possible to effectively collaberate on large software development projects between companies, and with developers across the world. This has made developments like OpenOffice, GNOME, KDE, and Linux possible, and it is in part due to the ubiquity of personal computing which has been one of the hallmarks of Microsoft's success. Open Source software has a lower cost model than Microsoft, and is able hence to win at Microsoft's own game. I am sure that a video codec is probably in the works to compete with WMA and MPEG-4. In the end, I am confident that, except for niche markets, that open source software (and similar systems) will eventually take over most markets.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
It is a sad day indeed when one must pay more for 'Open' standards' software than for Microsoft-made one.
How can such 'Open' community allow itself to charge MORE than M$? At the very least it's not very business-like. Think: Would we still have HTML if W3C started charging fees for it's usage, and MS came up with something free (or at least cheaper...)?
-- Sig down
I have a valid Win98 license from early 1999 - it came with a PC. I downloaded IE6 in 2002.
Thus, you paid for the license to run IE 6 in early 1999 as part of the price of the PC. Because Microsoft, the copyright owner of Windows 98 and IE 6 software, phrases the IE 6 license as a "supplement[]" to the Windows 98 license, that's how I must view it. I see IE 6 not as a product but rather as a free update to an existing product. Thus, comparing the prices of IE 6 (an update to a component of a product) and Mozilla (a standalone-licensed product) begins to resemble comparing apples and oranges.
I'm not trying to go out of my way to hate Microsoft but rather stating my armchair interpretation of the contract you agreed to in early 1999 when you first turned on your computer and clicked through the EULA.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Fortunately, the DMCA only applies to the United States. US laws are not yet enforceable all over the world. So, the system could be reverse-engineered elsewhere if the laws of other sovereign powers allow for it.
From XviD.org:
What is XviD?
XviD is an ISO MPEG-4 compliant video codec. It's no product, it's an open source project which is developed and maintained by lots of people from all over the world. (emphasis mine)
I don't know the details about the MPEG4 patents and licensing terms, but it does not seem that XviD is a "a third choice, a totally Free Software media codec solution" , but rather an open source (but still probably patent violating) implementation of the MPEG4 standard.
----------
On a separate point, I found this point from the article interesting (no sides, just interesting):
"Microsoft's licensing fees are for the use of technology and don't necessarily cover an indemnification (i.e. patent rights), while MPEG LA's license covers patent rights and comes without technology."
- Microsoft is selling a product without the underlying patent rights
- MPEG LA is selling patent rights without a product.
Tell that video compression engineer to get out of the cult!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
For what it's worth, WMV9 has been a far better video codec in my experience. Much smaller filesizes, slightly worse image quality and lower CPU usage.
So here are the things that come to mind...
MS contributed to the consortium, all the while working on a "better" format. Said format will undercut the consortium's licensing fee.
If you think of Microsoft's actions as a human entity, they are essentially trying to prevent anyone anywhere of doing to them what they have done to others in the past.
Microsoft gets IBM to license an OS. (n/a - but for the record - Buy the OS off of someone else for cheap, make a few minor adjustments.) License DOS. Profit.
Everything appears to be an attempt to prevent this from happening to them.
A product (insert WordPerfect, Lotus123, Quicken, Netscape, ad infinitum) created by a third party cannot be allowed to take away their revenue. Mimic the competition, use proprietary formats, bundle through (monopolistically forced compliant) OEM distributors or with the OS so users never need to buy a competitors product, yet everyone needs to have theirs in order to view the proprietary file formats. If it is possible to make a profit, charge for the product. No sense in giving it away for free if the competition has been laid to waste.
Hell, they even work with the competition via fraudulent partnership to obtain proprietary information or prototypes to reverse-engineer in order to provide the same product or at least a crappy knock-off (a la the Macintosh with windows, Sendo - even defaulting on the phone OS function and delivery date to cause Sendo's failure and obtain all IP rights, etc., etc.).
Maybe it's the caffeine. Whatever, take it with a grain of salt.
-SA1
Comment removed based on user account deletion
why? simple just because he desires a third totally free as in FSF codec
I hope this will change the MPEG group's mind on licensing. What that group really should be after is defining an open standard which everyone (especially OS) can implement for free. Profits should come from selling the products made according to this standard, not by patent fees.
As for the costs of making the standard, it makes sense for the largest and most interested companies to work on it and put their own ideas in any way. Ancillary license profits might just lead to the non-adoption and general failure of all their work.
This is just a case of MS beeing better at an evil game of evil players, not MS vs. Saint MPEG.
Jürgen Strobel
Apple and the movie studios are using Sorrenson 3 for their trailers. Can someone explain this for me?
Shouldn't they be using MPEG-4 in an effort transition people into the new format?
Dear World,
I've probably posted this before. Microsoft is a cash cow, and this allows them to burn hundreds of millions of dollars while attempting move to the top spot of yet another market. Although, IMHO, this is wrong, it should be legal. This is and should be a free market.
Collectively, Microsoft's commercial competitors probably have the same capability. If the industry really wants to have a fair chance against Microsoft in a free market, then they need to move to a new game plan. They need to band together against the bully and fight outside the court room.
The big kids like SUN, IBM, NOVELL, HP, etc need to contribute to a cash fund so that the little cash-strapped guys can also weather the storm. The group will have to forego profit and perhaps individual gain until Microsoft submits.
Will this ever happen? No, each company is too damn greedy to work together. Each company really wants the market for itself. Each company would rather have the governments of the world shut down Microsoft and hand over everything to it.
Consumers, both big and small, don't have to buy anything. In the US we still have the option to say no thanks!
Later,
-Slashdot Junky
.
Landfill Mining Co.
Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
Strengths
Weaknesses Cost: Apple held out -
Threats : MS
Opportunities: fast adoption by the masses
Boys,
you quibbled too long, and set a high entry price.
With DVD and hard disk prices falling so much, that 'edge' you had is worth less, and MS can invent something 95% as good and charge nix.
go on - stick to that price model and die. MS took a whacking on Xboxes because they knew only market share counts
Damn Slashdot hippies like me!
Enough with the stupid anti-microsoft threads!
Bring on some intelligent anti-microsoft threads!:D
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
The hottest CODEC technology coming out is called H.26l, which is a collaborative real-time technology like H.261, H.262 and MPEG-2. MPEG-4 is a streaming technology, which means it really is not meant for interactive VTC-like communications. Streaming technologies typically add more latency to gain efficiency and collaborative CODEC technologies emphasize timing constraints over efficiency for both encoding and decoding in real-time.
The last time streaming CODEC and collaborative CODEC technologies merged the technology was called MPEG-2. Satellite TV transmissions; cable TV, DVD, camcorders are all now based on MPEG-2 technology. The next time streaming and collaborative CODEC technologies merge it will be called H.26l. This is essentially a next generation hybrid of H.262 and MPEG-4.
I hope the Open Source development crowd won't loose sight of this fact while the current MPEG-4 media fog is quite thick. Because next generation IETF Session Initiated Protocol (RFC 3261) VoIP technologies will require truly open standards to make next generation IP telephony interoperable and thus immensely successful around the World. Streaming video technologies will be passé compared to collaborative video technologies.
Strong Open Source collaborative tools will allow Open Source developers to be incredibly efficient. The real issue is how much longer closed source developers will have access to better collaborative tools than Open Source developers. It is time for something more than free H.261 collaborative CODECs for the UNIXes.
Okay readers, here's the deal: the Battle for MPEG-4 is THE BATTLE. MPEG-4 file format is Quicktime. Quicktime has full featured interactivity via it's own interactive capabilities, a la Livestage Pro. More importantly, Quicktime can import FLASH. Flash effectively means quick, scalable graphics with an interface to load MOVIES, AUDIO, HTML, and database hooks. Quicktime can also embed flash with quicktime embedded in the FLASH. A Japanese company is embedding Quicktime in their smart phone hard ware. Macromedia is rumored to be bought out by MICROSOFT. Are you starting to see what this means? There have been TWO big wars in the computer/convergence war. The first has been the way to get the data to a house or consumer. That war is effectively over. Whether it's broadband or wireless, or DSL is irrelevent. There is significant penetration and it will only increase. So that is the war of the "pipe" I call it. The second war is how to interact over that one pipe. This has been the OS/browser war. With an embedded file format(MPEG-4) with DRM and interactivity the format war can be over. Remember, MS previous goal, which they were slapped on the wrist for was to make the browser the OS, and Vice versa. Actually not a bad concept. MPEG-4 effectively sets the stage for this and MS knows it. Pay attention to Macromedia and see what happens.
Mac the Sword
The part that really shows Bill Gates for the unethical slime he is: Microsoft is PART of MPEG-LA. Yes it's true. They had a voice in setting the price for MPEG-LA. I'll bet they could hardly contain their chuckles as they helped keep the price high knowing what they'd do in response with their own product format. So they could easily have manipulated the prices for MPEG-4 knowing what they would do in a competitive response. MPEG-LA could not refuse Microsft membership--that would have been anti-competitive. Microsoft msut be destroyed or they will destroy computing as we know it.
EVERYONE (and I mean **everyone** in this discussion so far) seems completely unware of the critical fact that Microsoft itself is one of the companies in the MPEG-LA. As such, they share the responsibility for the licencing fees for MPEG-4. One can imagine that they didn't argue with the licencing fee being so high since. That's because they are playing both sides of the issue and have their own media software (Windows Media Player) which they naturally favor. So they went along with (and surely had a part in steering) a scenario where MPEG-4 is effectively sabotaged and Windows Media Player has a price advantage (not to mention a built-in user base of Windows users). This obviously is quite good for Microsoft, although quite dishonest/disingenuous to say the least. To add insult to injury, Microsoft (as part of the MPEG-LA) will still get royalties off of MPEG-4. Microsoft finds itself in a win-win situation due to the rather blantant conflict of interest. This isn't the first (or the last time) Microsoft has done this. But the real kicker this time is that Microsoft can excuse itself by saying that if it didn't participate in the MPEG-LA, it would be accused of being anticompetitive! And the reality is that by participating (but not in good faith), Microsoft is being as anticompetitive as it ever has been. Damn they're shrewd!
I could swear I remember reading that M$ was on the MPEG-LA committee. If that's true, then M$ is partially responsible for the high price of MPEG4 licenses and there is enough suspicion to warrant a price-fixing/anti-competitive investigation.