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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."
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.
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
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.
It *is* basic economics except in the case where a monopoly is involved. If Microsoft is using their monopoly revenue stream to allow them to sell their products at levels below which they can profit from those sales in order to create another monopoly in another arena, then Microsoft's competitors DO have a legitimate gripe.
On the other hand, if Microsoft is actually licensing at levels that are profitable for Microsoft, then their competitors need to shut up and get their acts together.
Life is short: void the warranty.
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...
It's all based on the same mathematical principles when all is said and done.
They could be developed in complete isolation and still come up with close-to-identical algorithms.
Both parties are claiming ownership of a few mathematical gyrations based on decades, if not centuries old math.
I'd like to see cats like Descartes, Newton and Pythagoras rise from the grave and start suing all of these guys for prior arts.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
This isn't just about the codec. It's the standard. XviD implements MPEG-4. However, to use XviD, you still have to pay licensing fees to MPEG4-LA. That's why XviD calls itself an "educational project" so the developers don't have to pay the licensing fees. But the users of the codec still have to pay for a license.
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.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
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
Agreed, but I know what my dad would say to that (he works in the UK digital tv industry and is on several digital tv standards boards):
Him: "Son, things like MPEG aren't simple, and take a lot of smart people a lot of time to create. They should be rewarded for their efforts"
Me: "But how can something be an open standard if you have to pay for it?"
Him: "Who says open standards have to be free to implement? It's documented and vendor neutral, that makes it open in my eyes"
Me: "What about GPLd decoders though! Everyone will just end up using Ogg instead."
Him: "What about them? It's easy for people to recreate technologies once the expensive research has been done, Vorbis is based on similar ideas to MP3 for instance. Creating them in the first place takes money though, who's going to do that if all the codecs have to be free of charge?"
At that point I usually shut up, because I don't have a good answer. Looking at the way Ogg is developed I have tremendous respect for those guys, but they are working out their metaphorical basements. See how Tarkin (the research codec) lies abandoned? How would the people who worked on MPEG4 make money without licensing fees? Anybody? I'm sure there must be answers.
Heh, perhaps we can chat about this on irc over the weekend foo :)
While I agree with you in principle, in practice it doesn't hold wrt M$. Why? Because M$ IS a court-recognized illegal monopoly violating just about every anti-trust law in existence then and now. Monopolists get to live by different regulations than others, particularly convicted monopolists. The problem here is that MPEG-4 really cannot compete. M$ has such a huge cash reserve and cash flow that even if MPEG-4 matches M$ price on WMP, M$ can still go lower, even to 0 cost for as long as it takes to kill MPEG-4.
While MPEG-4 should drop its price as Apple suggests, M$ cannot be left to run as they wish because of their proven illegal activities. They WILL go to 0 pricing if anyone tries to compete (MPEG-4) on price. M$ can afford it for a lot longer than any (even better) innovators or software producers.
That isn't the market in action as it is supposed to work and is envisioned by la-la land capitalism apologists, that is abuse of monopoly position and leveraging monopoly in one area to gain monopoly in another. Illegal.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
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.)
The licensing terms aren't that bad, and getting better for newer versions. For example, the forthcoming AVC MPEG-4 codec will be free to implement in all no-cost software. Even now, you get a pass on the first 50,000 distributed players. MPEG-4 is less difficult do deal with than MP3 licensing, and there are certainly lots of stuff in the Free Software community that can author and play back MP3 files!
Free to implement in no-cost software is better than per-seat licenses.... It does mean that Linux users (for example) can get something that will work. Still, that kind of limitation prevents a true open source implementation.
Re: all the free software things that author and play back MP3 files, my understanding is that they are all black sheep-- not really legal given the current MP3 licencing requirements. Which practically may not be that big a deal, but it is a worry out there.
Your point about the MPEG-4 standards being published is good, though. It's more open-- or at least far less closed-- than WM9, I would fully agree with that. It's just not completely an open standard :)
As for Ogg Theora: vaporware, yes, but I predict we'll see it "for real" in 2003. (Come make fun of me if my prediction is wrong.) As for the technical quality, I don't know enough to comment intelligently. How does the efficiency really compare to MPEG-4? What are the efficiency drawbacks? (I.e. is it a speed thing, a size thing, etc.?) How does the quality compare? (Although that latter one, from watching some of the early Vorbis/MP3 debates, is necessarily subjective. I know from my point of view Ogg Vorbis is great and it's what I use for encoding audio.)
-Rob
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.
Sooooo...Microsoft should be forced to continue to charge a high price for its product in order to benefit consumers?
GF
Lots of petrified grits
Mozilla viable, well not where I work.
.net authentication too, which will break lots of competitors products.
Goto bugzila and lookup NTLM (or windows authentication), it doesn't work in mozilla, so I can get through the Proxy server.
Microsoft is introducing
The real irony is that MSFT is a part of MPEG-LA patent holders and as such they pushed hard for higher liscensing costs for MPEG4.
Having helped win the battle to make it expensive they undercut it by 50%
The beast indeed
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...
I doubt the MPEG-LA will ever drop licensing entirely. It's possible, but unlikely.
That then raises the question - how is QuickTime open again? Yes yes, I know the container format is documented (although documenting something does not make it open obviously) but whenever people say "Apple should open QuickTime", the Mac apologists always say "QuickTime is open, it's just the codecs, and when everybody uses MPEG4 you won't have anything to complain about".
So, what will Apple do now? It's getting easier to setup MPlayer to use the QuickTime codecs via Wine, but it's still ugly. When will all those trailors be encoded in a format that can be easily played on the platform from which it borrow so much? They say like want digital video for everyone, why don't they fund the Theora team?
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.
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
If your competitors cannot match your price, then tough cookies, let 'em die. Again, name one instance where MS raised prices AFTER the competition went away. Everyone wants to bring up Netscape so here we go: If MS has followed a monoply model, what is the price of IE today? Oh, it is still free. No monopoly abuse there. Ok, "they killed Netscape, there's less choice now!" Oh, so you can't get a Netscape browser today? Wait, you can! So Netscape is still around, along with IE, and both can be had for a download and no $. How again is the public at large worse off?
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.
"Please..." is right! Let's not forget who these poor downtrodden MPEG-4 Visual patent holders are (i.e. the corporations who set the MPEG-4 license fees):
Canon, Inc.
Curitel Communications, Inc.
France Télécom, société anonyme
Fujitsu Limited
GE Technology Development, Inc.
General Instrument Corporation
Hitachi, Ltd.
KDDI Corporation
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
Microsoft Corporation
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
Oki Electric Industry Co.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
SANYO Electric Co., Ltd.
Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha
Sony Corporation
Telenor Communication II AS
Toshiba Corporation
Victor Company of Japan, Ltd.
So in addition to "Please...", I would add "Cry me a river."
It's interesting that one of the patent holders is none other than Microsoft Corporation, but the largest number of MPEG-4 Visual patents are held by Sony Corporation.
From their website...
"XviD is an ISO MPEG-4 compliant video codec. "
MPEG4 is a framework for video codecs - not an algorithm in its own right.
With MPEG4 video codecs (COmpression/DECompression algorithms) are handled "plugin" style, much like the plugins to WinAmp or XMMS.
Using XviD would still require you to use the MPEG4 video framework, and thus you are still choosing between WM or MPEG4!
-Ben
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
But who said that they were selling WMP9 at a loss?
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Netscape's rise was more like Google's, where it rose to "power" by being more and more favoured by web surfers; it's major competition was also free. We used Internet in a Box which came with Spry Mosaic, but DOWNLOADED Netscape on top of that because it was better.
My god man, Netscape 2.0 had BACKGROUNDS! The web was no longer gray!
---
When I grow up, I want to be a kid again.
Netscape was originally Free As In Beer. It wasn't until v 1.2 that they started their winkwink nudgenudge shareware policy.
I would argue that IE3 was superior to Netscape 3. It certainly used less memory and was significantly more stable -- it just had problems with certain Netscapisms.
IE4 was shitloads better than NS4. It contained a nearly full W3C DOM implementation, while Netscape was doing proprietary bullshit like document.layers. It was also significantly faster.
It took several revs for the V4 browsers to stabilize, but even there IE4.01SP1 was very stable and Netscape never fixed their shit until 4.7-something.
Now show me how to get a product adopted when your competitor is pushing a loss leader financed by $40 billion in cash reserves and MS Office.
Make a better product. Oracle costs way more than MS SQL Server, but people still use it. People (or, more specifically, companies) will pay more for a better product. Rather than whine about MS undercutting them, they should be trying to explain why their codec is better. If my DVD player costs an extra 25 cents to make but I know I'm getting a superior product, I'll spend it. Hell, I'll even eat that extra 25 cents per unit to keep my player priced with the competition who used the cheaper, inferior codec. The MPEG consortium has large corporations as members. I'm sure none of them are going out of business because they're selling fewer 50 cent licenses.
do not read this line twice.
We're not talking about price competition.
/. post. You are to be commended.
Yes we are. Every aspect of competition in the marketplace is reducible to price. Whether a company adds features to a product or slashes its price, the effect is price competition.
I understnad your point to be that MS is (maybe) cutting its price below its cost of production in the short term with the goal of maximizing market share in the future with the ultimate goal of generating greater profits thereby.
I just don't agree with you that this is a risk in this case. There are too many potential competitors for MS to pull off something like this, and, honestly, the technological issues are not insurmountable for a small OSS project to eat Microsoft's lunch if licensing costs are unreasonable.
I never said I want to stop any customers from buying anything. My concern is when one company (not just Microsoft mind you) breaks the law to drive out competitors.
You cannot have one without the other. If you want to stop MS from lowering prices, you are, at the margins, stopping some consumers from buying a product that they might otherwise have bought. Just because your intention may be one which is a "good" one doesn't mean that there will not be other "bad" consequences which are less obvious.
As to your ending riposte:
Show me a specific case where AOL/Time Warner or Sony has been found to be selling items below cost to drive out competitors. (Sony doesn't even sell the PS2 below cost anymore.) Heck, the main complaint about AOL is that they're MORE expensive than everyone else.
I was referring to companies with the wherewithal and motive to compete with MS on the media encoder/decoder issue if MS lets their product become stagnant.
BTW, you used "riposte" in a
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
Original question: 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.
Your answer: MS Office. Since Win3.11 days, MS Office has generally been easier to use than other similar apps. It's usually been fairly expensive too. But it has a *massive* market share, and the revenue from the Office suite is basically subsidising everything else in MS - operating systems make a small profit, Office makes an enormous profit, and everything else MS makes is actually making significant losses. And Office had to establish this position over the dead bodies of many other well-entrenched packages.
What you say is true, but it doesn't answer the question. Some of the well-entrenched packages (ie: WordPerfect) were superior to Word in the opinion of end users. WP had full functionality by about version 5. The later releases were mainly GUI enhancements (not entirely, but in general). I used to work in IT for the LDS Church, which used WP back in the mid 90's. While I worked there WP was phased out in favor of Word. Many of our users were irate about this, especially when Word would put an indent in the same place no matter what you did (or some similar stupid behavior). In WP you could just reveal the codes and easily see the problem. Not in Word. You could make an argument that Word is superior to WP, but it wouldn't fly so well with a lot of people.
Not a flame, just a nitpick.
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?
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.