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."

Comments

Wow.

[NerveGas]

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

Re:Wow.

[Ninja Master Gara]

Undercutting to gain market control and then skyrocketing prices is the reason anti-trust legislation exists.

Re:Wow.

[jsonic]

Anti-trust legislation exists to keep companies from illegally abusing their market position. In your example, the raising of prices after killing the competition would be the abuse, not the lowering of prices. Lowering prices is the entire point of competition from the point of view of the consumer.

Re:Wow.

[oliverthered]

Wrong,
it's the abuse of a monoply position to unfairly leverage another market.

So if they bundle WMP9 with a monopoly product and then set the licensing at a loss making level then that's unfair, since there leveraging a monopoly product (windows) by intergrating WMP9, and then undercutting the competition on content costs.

Re:Wow.

[Daniel Dvorkin]

In your example, the raising of prices after killing the competition would be the abuse, not the lowering of prices. Lowering prices is the entire point of competition from the point of view of the consumer.

Um ... and how exactly do you suppose "killing the competition" happens? Look, when a company makes a better product and sells it at a better price, that's competition. When a company makes a product (whether or not it's better -- usually not, because monopolies and shitty products always seem to go hand in hand) and sells it at a better price for however long it needs to do so to drive the competition out of business, even if it's taking a loss in doing so, that's abuse.

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.

Re:Wow.

[sharkey]

So if they bundle WMP9 with a monopoly product and then set the licensing at a loss making level then that's unfair,

Hell, they can leave out the bundling. Use the profits from Windows, Office, etc. to make it possible to undercut the competition for WMP2 is dumping in and of itself. The bundling is the kick in the nuts for the enemy who's already cut off at the keeps due to the MS product dumping.

Re:Wow.

[jsonic]

So you're actually arguing that lower prices are bad and higher prices are good. Ok.

To me lowering prices, killing your competition, THEN raising prices is bad. As an example, IE killed Netscape, but Microsoft hasn't started charging for IE yet, have they. If they did start charing, THAT would be an abuse.

Re:Wow.

[oliverthered]

Buy taking Netscape out of the market, many web sites only work correctly with IE and windows(maybe mac).

Also there is no choice, or very little.

If Microsoft price standards bodies out of existence then there will be no non M$ standards (ok gross oversimplification), open standards tend to be free for free use.

Standards bodies should really be not for profit.

Re:Wow.

[ergo98]

Firstly again this is anti-Microsoft revisionist history: Netscape came out with a full featured virtually free browser that virtually no one actually paid for (everyone was a "educational" user), destroying the market for companies like Spyglass. Indeed, when IE first came out you had to buy it in the Plus! pack.

Secondly have you heard of Mozilla? What about Opera? Either are VERY credible competitors to Internet Explorer. Opera even charges money for their browser.

Re:Wow.

[jsonic]

Standards bodies should really be not for profit.

I agree with that. Also, if mpeg4 was a free standard, then Microsoft would be forced to compete on quality alone, and not price.

Re:Wow.

[Angry White Guy]

No, but by the same token, killing netscape, Microsoft stands to profit through IIS server sales, programming technology sales, consulting, etc.

They are creating a dominant environment for all their products by dumping (giving away, selling at a loss) a handful of core components.

Re:Wow.

[Grab]

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.

Also IE. Netscape sucked, IE worked, prices were the same (free). At the time of the big argument over this, I was using Netscape out of principle. About 6 months later, I decided I couldn't stand the pain anymore and switched back to IE. Let's be honest here - Netscape lost bcos they had a worse product.

Grab.

Re:Wow.

[banzai51]

Killing your competition by price alone is not abuse, nor a bad thing. A better product is not relivent and a matter of perception. Many potental customers will say a product is better because it is cheaper.

Re:Wow.

[blazerw11]

MS Office. Since Win3.11 days, MS Office has generally been easier to use than other similar apps.
I think that Office is probably still the best. However, have you ever put a non-techie on a new version of Word and listened to them scream at their computer about all the "intelligent" changes it trys to make?
Also, I don't think they can make the help system any worse. When I click on Help, I don't want Excel taking up half the screen and help taking up the other half. That makes both apps unusuable.

Also IE. Netscape sucked, IE worked, prices were the same (free).
For clarification:
1. Netscape was not originally free (as in beer).
2. IE 2 sucked.
3. IE 3 sucked (a bit less).
4. IE 4 was almost as good as Netscape 4 (some would say as good.)

Re:Wow.

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Well, they had to do that because most other client was free - but some people does not seam to remember that the web browsers from the beginning was free...

Mosaic

Re:Wow.

[tshak]

But who said that they were selling WMP9 at a loss?

Re:Wow.

[Ninja Master Gara]

Microsoft's tactics against Netscape went MUCH further than just releasing another, superior browser, onto the market. The core of what MS did that was bad as opposed to Netscape's similar "free" release and success was bundling IE in Windows 95. The Plus! pack release is seldom called into contention, at least partly because IE was godawfully unstable at the time.

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!

Re:Wow.

[DarkZero]

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 problem is that this is all in the eyes of the beholder, so Microsoft really won't have done anything wrong until they kill the competition and then raise the price back up. I, personally, think that IE has been better than Netscape for my needs for a long, long time. When properly configured, it does not hassle me about anything at all, does not try to integrate itself with the company's other products like AOL's Netscape does, and leaves 90% of the screen to the site I'm viewing without causing any usability problems. Plenty of other people replying to your post, however, say that Netscape was and still is better and that Mozilla is far better any other browser on the market. After having run Mozilla and found the same problems with it that I had with Netscape, I don't agree.

Re:Wow.

[b0bby]

For further clarification:
5. IE 5 was way better than Netscape 4.

It's only recently that Mozilla has become good enough to tempt me back.

Re:Wow.

[dusanv]

How did the parent get modded up? A bit of history:

Netscape came out with a full featured virtually free browser that virtually no one actually paid for

The key word here is virutally. News flash: it *wasn't* free for commercial entities. Firms had to buy it. Netscape were making money on it.

Indeed, when IE first came out you had to buy it in the Plus! pack.

You are talking about IE 3.0. I don't know anybody who actually used that piece of crap. IE 4 wasn't a totally different beast and was really given away for *free* (not virtually free). That undercut Netscape together with the fact that MS prohibited OEM from bundling Netscape (and they got sued for that). This is also screwing Moz & Opera.

Re:Wow.

[Anonvmous Coward]

"No, but by the same token, killing netscape, Microsoft stands to profit through IIS server sales..."

You had me up intil this comment. IIS doesn't care which browser you use. All they needed to make IIS popular was for the internet to be a big thing. It didn't matter if IE was in the mix or not.

Re:Wow.

[Milo Fungus]

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.

Re:Wow.

[Ninja Master Gara]

I see what you're saying, but I don't agree. Google's lack of ads was gravy, it's main feature was that it was a better engine giving better results.

It spread largely by word of mouth (and then critical praise in publications), my friends didn't say "It has less ads", but "I find everything I'm looking for faster".

Re:Wow.

[Teknogeek]

>> That undercut Netscape together with the fact that MS prohibited OEM from bundling Netscape

And THAT was the antitrust abuse.

It had nothing to do with undercutting the prices or anything like that. It was keeping the OEMs from bundling Netscape. The price of IE had NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH IT.

Now, if Microsoft starts barring OEMs from distributing the MPEG-4 codec, THEN it'll be abuse. But given how common DivX'd movies are, I don't see that happening any time soon.

Re:Wow.

[ShieldWolf]

I think this would be a better description

1. Netscape was always free, no matter what they claimed - show me someone who paid for it and I'll show you an idiot.
2. IE 2 sucked IMMENSELY
3. IE 3 was slightly better than netscape 3, but it didn't gain too much market share
4. IE 4 was a LOT better than netscape 4 (and in fact this is when most users such as myself switched. It was miles more stable, user friendly, and, embaressingly, standards-compliant)

Don't get me wrong I think MS is the devil, but they spent a BILLION dollars developing IE, and it sure as s**t shows.

Re:Wow.

[spongman]

are you suggesting that it's impossible to get a proxy server that doesn't use NTLM?

Re:Wow.

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I think you aren't reading what I wrote very carefully. I asked about three conditions:

1) making a better product
2) selling it at a better (i.e., lower) price
3) making a profit by selling (1) at (2)

I'm not sure any of your examples, or any of the others I've seen, meet all of these conditions at once.

Re:Wow.

[Yankovic]

sorry, but this is not dumping according to the FTC or the DOJ or any standard economic theory. Many businesses do this kind of profit shifting. If you drive anything but a Ford Explorer (or SUV), it's likely the division that you purchased from loses money. The only divisions of car companies that make money are light trucks (incl. SUVs) and financing. The rest are sold at a loss.

Re:Wow.

[geekee]

Wrong. This article deals with selling codecs for non-windows systems. There is no bundling involved.

Re:Wow.

[tfoss]

The only divisions of car companies that make money are light trucks (incl. SUVs) and financing. The rest are sold at a loss.

Oh come on, that seems a big exaggerated. Any data to back this up?

Are you really suggesting that Honda takes a hit on every Accord & Civic it sells only to made up by profit from the Passport? Did car companies not make a profit prior to 10 years ago? If this were true, it would make no sense for a car company to be a car company, it should just be a finance company.

-Ted

Re:Wow.

[Rakarra]

1. Netscape was always free, no matter what they claimed - show me someone who paid for it and I'll show you an idiot.

Netscape was free to students, but that was about it. I know people who don't pay for the shareware they use often, but I wouldn't think they're idiots if they did so. I paid for the few shareware apps I use because it's the right thing to do.

Re:Wow.

[Angry White Guy]

No, but IIS supports extra features which apache does not. Does .Net ring a bell?

There is going to be a giant consolidation of technologies, which will only work on the MS platform.

Re:Wow.

[gpinzone]

As far as standards go, yeah. IE5 blows them both away. However, the IE4 way of doing things was a HELL of a lot closer to the standard than Netscape's implementation was in 4.x. It kind of a bummer that IE 5.x deprecated the old IE 4.x code rather than eliminate it entirely. Lots of websites would work just fine in Mozilla with just a little bit of rework.

Re:Wow.

[tfoss]

Well, according to this, very few manufacturers actually pay these CAFE fines (Fiat, VW, Porsche, BMW, Lotus), certainly not Honda or Toyota.

I don't doubt that certain behemoth makers dump small/alt power cars for this reason, I still am not convinced Honda, Toyota, Nissan, much less *all* manufacturers operate at a loss on the majority of their fleets. That still doesn't pass the smell test.

-Ted

Re:Wow.

[Grab]

Sure - our company changed over from WP in the mid-90s as well, so "I feel your pain". ;-) Thing is though, WP was a *superb* program for power users but it had a massive learning curve. Your typical person wanting to just type up their resume or write a letter was just left in the cold. MS Word got the interface sorted so you could pick it up really easily.

That's typically the problem - unless the interface is easy to use, you're going to get blown away by other programs. To be honest, that's why I think MS's choices for XP are so odd - at a time when other OSes like Linux have finally got reasonably user-friendly front ends developed, MS have decided to produce some bizarre Tellytubbies interface. The XP backend is rock-solid, but the default front-end is just lousy. You'd think they'd learnt some lessons from how they themselves stomped over other programs a few years back.

Grab.

Re:Wow.

[deanj]

The point is, Microsoft is using their monopoly power to "branch" into new markets. They're doing the equivalent of what the Japanese were doing to the RAM market, all those years ago. Dump a product at low cost (in Japan's case, lower than it cost to make), drive your competition out of business, and then start charging what you want.

And that, my friend, IS illegal.

Basic economics

[tempfile]

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.

Re:Basic economics

[gunnk]

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.

Re:Basic economics

[banzai51]

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.

Why does Microsoft have over $40 BILLION in cash reserves? Because contrary to Slashdot opinion, Microsoft doesn't do much of anything that isn't profitable. You can bet your ass that they are making money on this scheme as is.

Re:Basic economics

[Kanasta]

Basic economics

monopolists have restrictions placed on their actions which normal companies do not

for example, tying products together, product dumping...

If they're pissed at MS...

[jpmorgan]

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.

Re:If they're pissed at MS...

[jpmorgan]

Mencoder is not a codec. It uses other codecs.

Re:If they're pissed at MS...

[MtViewGuy]

Oh, you mean the Ogg Theora project, done more or less by the same people who developed the Ogg Vorbis codec for audio compression?

Re:If they're pissed at MS...

[jpmorgan]

Uh, no. x - (100% * x) = 0.

Pot, meet kettle.

[Hayzeus]

It's like watching Hitler and Stalin Jello(tm)-Wrestle -- who to root for?

Re:Pot, meet kettle.

[Rogerborg]

The Jello(tm).

Gawd, more whining from an also-ran

[stratjakt]

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.

Re:Gawd, more whining from an also-ran

[thelexx]

"if Microsoft wasn't around as this big tough huge competition, things wouldn't progress nearly as much"

Yeah, like all the progress from the startups that never started due to VC's refusing to fund a business that even _might_ compete with MS.

Re:Gawd, more whining from an also-ran

[Cyno]

Most of the desktop features are common sense. But then there was that person that innovated the first crap. Do you think they sat down or did it takes years of fierce competition to revise the method towards our modern restroom technology?

I think somewhere along the way the toilet would have been invented without all the R&D of some huge corporation.

Re:Gawd, more whining from an also-ran

[Cyno]

How about all the startups that had technology and innovative industry leaders that gets bought out by the larger corp that only uses it for its patents, PCs and lays off the expensive people who know how it all works. How about the individual innovator that has a great idea but can't get the funding to start a business? Capitalism only hurts us. We spend a good 20% of our life managing money. Just managing money. That doesn't include all the problems we run into because we don't have enough of it to begin with. I wasn't born with a bank account, were you? But I was born with a brain that is capable of innovation if I'm not constantly being discouraged from being diverse and creative, and if money does not become a barrier preventing me from learning or producing.

When I want to innovate on computers I need computers, which means I need money to innovate in a capitalist society. Hell you even need money to survive, even though it is one of your rights.

Microsoft and Standards

[tyrani]

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.

Re:Microsoft and Standards

[miTTio]

I disagree. Ultimately choices are good for competition, and a better product will result. Sure, Microsoft would like their product to become a standard, and their licensing structure is set to get wider acceptance--it is up to the consumer. Do you want WM9 support?

Yes?

Great, buy a WM9 enabled product.

No?

That's fine too.

Re:Microsoft and Standards

[dpilot]

One of the things Microsoft does best is to create the easy path.

You may not know where that path leads...
If you can lift your head and figure out the direction, you may not like it...

But the next step is always easiest the Microsoft Way.

Who's to blame when you get to their destination, not yours?
I guess the same goes for business decisions driven by quarterly reports.

Calling the Kettle Black

[BigumD]

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.

Re:Calling the Kettle Black

[jtregear]

"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.

Let me get this straight....

[ZoneGray]

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?

Re:Let me get this straight....

[stratjakt]

They define "open" as "We will sell it to anyone"

They define "proprietary" as "Microsoft will sell it to anyone".

Pure PR move. They count on the geek community viewing Microsoft as evil, vile monsters, and themselves as a committee of care bears.

Re:Let me get this straight....

[benwaggoner]

No.

MPEG-4 is open because all implementation details are public. You can get a copy of the standard, and build your encoder, decoder, server, etcetera based on it. No NDA's to sign or anything. You have to pay license fees in some cases if you distribute commerical products, but writing the software is something anyone can do.

This isn't true with Windows Media 9. While some details are avalable, not all are, and some are under restrictive licenses.

Re:Let me get this straight....

[ZoneGray]

Great. So you can look for free, but if you want to play, you have to pay.

Seems I've heard that pitch elsewhere.

Re:Let me get this straight....

[sapped]

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?

The implementation cost has nothing to do with the selling price if you can afford to take a temporary loss. By taking a loss now, you can gain future market share at which time you can recover your money at your leisure.

Re:Let me get this straight....

[HiThere]

Well MS are evil, vile monsters. And they haven't yet done anything to me, except pervert the definition of Open.

Of course, that may be because I've never bought anything from them.

And this is surprising because?

[Epeeist]

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.

Um. Yeah right.

[MetalHead666]

"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.

Re:Um. Yeah right.

[derch]

You have it flipped around. This isn't like Intel complaining that AMD is 50% cheaper. It's more like AMD (the "little guy") complaining that Intel (the "800lbs gorilla") is selling a competing project at half the price. Even better, it's a regional chain coffee shop complaining that Wal-Mart was installing coffee shops in all their stores and selling at 50% the going rate.

Microsoft has a monopoly. This move can be seen by some people as an abuse of monopoly position.

And consumers aren't going to care about what license costs what. The per license rate is very small. They don't care if their $1000 camcorder uses the 50 cent MPEG-4 or the 25 cent WMA9 codec. They care that their camcorder can put it's content on their computer to edit, that their computer can put the edited movie on a DVD, and their DVD reads the movie. I think THAT's the problem many people are having.

With MPEG-4, the codec is controlled by a group of companies with different interests. WMA9 is controlled by one, a convicted monopoly. And if that one company undercuts the MPEG-LA, they could wind up controlling the codec used on camcorders, computers, home entertainment systems, mobile phones, etc...

Re:Um. Yeah right.

[isorox]

AMD was a much smaller company challanging Intel's dominence. Sun was a newcomer (in terms of office applications) but yes, IMO is guilty of predatory pricing of staroffice.

It's hard to say you are selling a good for a loss with software, with near-zero marginal cost.

However lok at the airlines (which doe have a marginal cost). The big boys (British Airways, American Airlines etc) flew trans atlantic flights at a high price. Laker airlines came in, and undercut the big companies in the same way Easyjet and South West Airlines undercut the big companies. The big companies had massive reserves, and combined (like a cartel) to lower their prices below Laker's airline. Laker didnt have massive reserves of capital, and could afford to run at a loss for 3 years. Instead he went bust. (In adition BA and co. used their large number of flights [and hence landings] to make sure Laker Airlines didnt get any slots at the airports [they said "dont give laker the slots or we'll pull out]).

Sure enough, after going bust, the big companies (acting as a cartel), put their prices back up.

Illegal? Maybe not. Immoral? Yes.

Re:Um. Yeah right.

[dvdeug]

it's a regional chain coffee shop complaining that Wal-Mart was installing coffee shops

So a cartel made up of Sony, Toshiba, GE, Samsung, Sharp and Microsoft (among others) is equivelent to a regional chain coffee shop? They build half of the camcorders and other hardware, so Microsoft certainly doesn't have a monopoly on the hardware side of the equation. This is the big guys fighting out.

Open Standard

[woogieoogieboogie]

"Open Standards" and licensing fees do not go together too well. Obviously it it neither open nor standard if there are licensing fees involved.

MP3 != MPEG3

[spanky1]

MP3 is the audio codec used in MPEG1. MP3 is short for MPEG1 LAYER 3. It is not MPEG3 (audio/video codec).

Just do what I do

[Amsterdam Vallon]

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.

Re:Just do what I do

[stratjakt]

The DVD player you have now uses MPEG2, and a liscensing fee has been payed for each unit produced.

The DVD player of the future will run: ?

That's more what this is about. Not to mention TiVo-like devices, videophones, blah blah.

This is about more than little porn movies on the desktop.

Re:Just do what I do

[FooBarWidget]

"I don't even attempt to mess around with multimedia on the PC because it's just not intuitive."

*gasp*! No way! Multimedia in Microsoft(r) Windows(tm) XP is not intuitive? But it can't be, all the Slashdotters always tell me how great and consistent and userfriendly Windows XP is! The multimedia integration in Windows first-class, Slashdotters told me so!
*screems*

Re:Just do what I do

[The Evil Couch]

well, there's always the convience of being able to do EVERYTHING at the computer. if I want to watch a DVD, I'll toss that in my DVD drive. if I want to listen to some music, I'll pick a few thousand songs and throw them in winamp (yes, they're all legal copies:p) my best friend is pretty much the same way, except he plays his gamecube games using a wave-bird IR controller and the video in for his PC. not to mention the overwhelmingly large amount of stuff that we can do on computers that can only be done on a computer.

it's really a matter of personal opinion. if you view your box as a tool and your other electrionics as fun, then you'll naturally gravitate to your other electronics. however, I tend to view my computer as fun and something that I just so happen to be able to get work done on. so I'd rather be on a computer.

Re:Just do what I do

[nizo]

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.

The only problem with this is I would have to listen to the 5 crappy songs to hear the one decent song on each CD (bought way before you could easily preview a CD before buying). I would much rather burn all my CDs to the trusty ol' harddrive and pick the play list *I* want to hear, in the order I want to hear it in, without songs I don't want to hear. Not to mention now I don't have to hunt down 6 (or more) specific CDs to hear the music I want to hear.

Re:Just do what I do

[benwaggoner]

Computer playback is a relatively minor aspect of MPEG-4. MPEG-4 projects are in progress on integrating playback in everything from replacing the GSM codecs for audio transmission in cell phones, to HD DVD with red laser, to replacing MPEG-2 in set top boxes, to replacing Flash for interactive presentations.

MPEG-4 is really meant to replace MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, not QuickTime, Real, and Windows Media. Of course, given those open standards (with HIGHER licensing fees) are responsible for probably 98% of all digital video watched worldwide, that's the real game. MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 are used in VideoCD, DVD, digital cable, etcetera.

Windows Media 9 is incredibly good for computer-based authoring and playback, but is a Win32 only system right now. MPEG-4 already works on all kinds of devices.

Re:Just do what I do

[Angry White Guy]

This is exactly what MS is trying to do, but don't think of the home user. They stand to reap a fortune in profits from forcing all of these companies to use MS products to create the media which you wathc. Give away the codec, sure. Now pay for your OS, pay for your encoding software, pay licenses for your editing software. Want to run a linux cluster to do shrek 3, too bad, can't encode it properly. Use the MS clustering option for $149 per machine....

You see where this is going, don't you?

Re:Just do what I do

[isorox]

QuickTime, Real, and Windows Media. Of course, given those open standards (with HIGHER licensing fees) are responsible for probably 98% of all digital video watched worldwide

I dont agree with 98%. It's certainly high (quicktime for all those movie trailers, real for streaming etc), but divX has a big share in the "shadier" side of online video

Re:Just do what I do

[Angry White Guy]

I am not mad at MS for making huge profits. I am mad at them for making huge profits at the expense of ethics and furious that they are making huge profits with no regard nor reproach of the law. This is evident in all business and all government, and my opinion is that this can only hurt the consumer at the end.

Re:Just do what I do

[benwaggoner]

I meant that MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 are 98%, and that QuickTime, Windows Media, and RealMedia at best share 2%.

MP3 is not MPEG3

[missing000]

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.

No.

[spanky1]

Since when does open == free?

Re:No.

[Sloppy]

"Open" isn't the word that implies free; "standard" is. If I need someone's permission to implement something, then that something is not a standard.

Re:mp3 not going away...

[infront314]

Yeah, and who needs video output anyway?

Come on...

[jvmatthe]

They accuse Microsoft of blocking the progress to move to an 'open standard' (MPEG 4), posing unfair competition and threatening consumer choice.

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.

Re:Come on...

[olethrosdc]

This is usually because some of the participants hold patents on some of the standard's components. For example if you look at any ITU-T standard (which are downloadable for a modest price) they always have a warning that there may be enforceable patents that would have to be licensed in order for someone to implement this standard in an actual device.

Re:Come on...

[sheldon]

Most open standards cost nothing right?

No.

Compact Disc is an open standard.
DVD is an open standard.
J2EE is an open standard.

and so on and so forth. Open only means it's well documented such that anybody can implement it in such a way that it is interoperable with others.

I'm extremely confused

[eyez]

Exactly how is it an open standard if you have to pay licensing fees to use it, and assumedly write code to create it?

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?

Re:I'm extremely confused

[Koos Baster]

Before Open Source Software became a mainstream notion (say 1990), "Open" as in "Open Standards" used to imply that a company supplied descent documentation with it's API. That's about as open as SUN's OpenLook.

MPEG is "open" in that the standard was developed by a consortium of companies and other institutions. Therefore, it is propriety, patented, copyrighted and whatever... but these rights are not owned by a single company that's reluctant to reveal the ins and outs of its "standard". MPEG is open in that it openly discussed MPEG4's features before it hit the market.

So, although MPEG indeed extorts consumers for using their stuff just like any company, a consortium is a much healthier construction viewed from other company's perspectieves. And therefore ultimately (due to competition) also to customers.

So yes. It is confusing. (And I agree with the majority of posts that only a fully open standard, like Ogg Theora will settle this matter.)

--
The good thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Re:I'm extremely confused

[platypus]

You haven't read much of the article, have you?
You should do it, it helps in these discussion, although it is not required, this is /. afterall.

I'll help you, right there, the second paragraph, on the top, we read:

In a first-ever move for Microsoft, it set pricing this week for licensing of its audio and video compression technology, or codecs, for use on non-Windows operating systems. The company says it will charge 10 cents per decoder, 20 cents per encoder, and 25 cents for both.

Progress to move to an open standard

[FooBarWidget]

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.

Re:Progress to move to an open standard

[IamTheRealMike]

It should be free for anyone.

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 :)

Re:Progress to move to an open standard

[liquidsin]

Why does everything have to be about money? Ever written code for fun? Ever do it in your spare time? Do we always have to place a monetary value on our time? Does everything always have to be "well, *I* created this and people like it, so I obviously deserve money for it?"

Re:Progress to move to an open standard

[platypus]

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.


I'll help you. The answer is science. This old fashioned thing they do on universities. There are these people called scientists, who gave and many still give a flying shit about "patent license fees". Without them, all these "lots of smart people" working on compression schemes would still live in a cage and go in the woods to berry for their daily food.

The idea that mp3 was so original that ogg wouldn't exist without it is blatantly wrong. At best, it showed that there is a market for that which motivated the creator, but nothing more.
All the foundations were well known long before mp3 emerged.

Re:Progress to move to an open standard

[Sloppy]

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?

My argument against this position...

It's fine for a codec to be non-free, just don't then expect everyone to use it. When you set out to create a standard, it's because you want everyone to adopt it because this is somehow advantageous to you. Perhaps you want to be able to sell music and have everyone be able to play it. Perhaps you want to sell screws that work with a screwdriver that everyone has. You want to create or grow a market.

Sacrificing the cost of the research and effectively giving your work to the public domain, is the price that you pay, in exchange for getting something else that you want. If you don't want to pay, you don't have to, but then don't expect to receive the benefits of the large market size that accompanies the existence of a standard.

I think it is a fair quid-pro-quo arrangement, and that both sides are getting consideration.

"Content providers" all the way from gonzo pornographers to Disney, have access to an amazingly powerful tool, The Internet, that could be used for incredibly vast selfish gain for themselves. They can reach far more people than they ever could before, and distribute their stuff far more cheaper than paying DVD-pressers and truckers. But there's a catch that is keeping them from being able to rake in all this money: There's no good standard for video.

It is to their selfish advantage to shovel money into Xiph's faces (or MPEG's faces if they revise their license issues). Or they can sit around waiting for Xiph to solve the problem in their spare time for their own reasons, but then they don't get the sales money between now and then.

Re:Progress to move to an open standard

[platypus]

Yes, I painted them very idealistic, you're right.
But I still concede that the argument "if it doesn't make a company money, it won't be invented" is complete bullshit. Btw., universities (much to my anger) also try to cash in on patents or 3rd party funded research which leads to patents for companies, and there's more than one case of researchers trying to make money outside universities, with knowledge they wouldn't have acquired without being employed in universities in the first place.

Re:Progress to move to an open standard

[Catiline]

How would the people who worked on MPEG4 make money without licensing fees?

Easy. If the companies that composed the MPEG consortium were hardware vendors -- much like those for USB or wireless networking -- then the codecs could be developed (with a mind to selling things such as digital video cameras based off the standard rather than the standard) at "no cost".

Re:Progress to move to an open standard

[King of the World]

My answer to your dad is that it's a question of business models.

If it stopped at the creation of the MPEG standard he would be right, they wouldn't get anything back from doing it free and open. But I think it's safe to say that MPEG has created an entire industry. The people who created MPEG are known, and the prestige will affect their career. The business model that would allow them to make money would be that they would have the first implementation, and they could compete with others in their understanding of the standard to create the best implementation.Doc Searls did a presentation on 'Infrastructure' which I think is relevent here.

What next?

[The Gline]

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.

The jello...

[wiredog]

maybe they'll both drown.

They cannot survive selling lower!

[Viewsonic]

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!

Re:They cannot survive selling lower!

[FooBarWidget]

But MPEG-LA is an organization with lots of members. Don't all members together have enough money to survive this?

Re:They cannot survive selling lower!

[guacamolefoo]

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

Re:They cannot survive selling lower!

[guacamolefoo]

It would definitely be a better situation that you could choose between 2+ players [evolutionary pressure on each product] and pay $25 for the quality product you want than to have only one free player available that is master of the market and not evolving.

I agree with you, except that MS will not be able to bank on being the only player in this market. There are OSS projects in the works as we speak that would be in a position to challenge MS hegemony in the future. In addition, companies like AOL, Sony, etc., would not sit still for a shitty, stagnant media delivery software.

For the low, low cost of a couple dozen engineers/programmers, they could break the lock on an MS product if the MS product were to become stagnant. I just don't see that this is a real risk in this case. Media delivery isn't an office suite or an OS. It's just not that complex, and it will be subject to the disruptive changes that can occur in technology to an extent that more massive projects may not be.

GF.

Re:They cannot survive selling lower!

[banzai51]

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?

Re:They cannot survive selling lower!

[JohnFluxx]

What money do they need?

Or have they incurred a high amount of debt that they hoped to get back from selling the technology?

Re:They cannot survive selling lower!

[hkmwbz]

MSIE is not free. It is an important part of an expensive operating system.

Re:They cannot survive selling lower!

[guacamolefoo]

But the balance has shifted. No one else, and not even any other conglomerate of computer companies, has the money to piss away to develop online video like Microsoft does.

Time Warner/AOL, Sony, the movie studios, etc., will not let Microsoft abuse them, and they have very, very deep pockets. Also, the open source community is mobilized on this issue, and open source encoders/decoders and codecs are on the horizon. It's hard to beat smart zealots (in a good sense -- highly motivated and dedicated to the cause) fighting for a cause that they love.

Antitrust laws were invented because an oil company put up competitive gas stations near other gas stations, priced them out of business, and then jacked up prices. The parallels here are very real.

This is just wrong. It is the classic example that is given, but factually, it is wrong. First of all, Standard Oil got control of the oil business by being extremely aggressive and efficient and paying the best for workers. They controlled the distribution network (oil pipelines and, effectively, railroad rates). It had little to do with predatory pricing.

Incidentally, the real price of petroleum products dropped dramatically as Standard Oil consolidated the market. Standard Oil squeezed out many inefficiencies in the petroleum drilling, transportation, refining, and distribution processes and dropped an enormous amount of thoses savings into the pockets of the consumers.

Here is a nice summary, including parallels to the MS case:

http://reason.com/0111/fe.dk.antitrusts.shtml

GF.

Re:They cannot survive selling lower!

[Zathrus]

Again, name one instance where MS raised prices AFTER the competition went away

Both Office and Windows exhibit this behavior. Back when Office had stiff competition from competing suites the price was lower. When Windows was facing off against OS/2 it was cheaper as well.

We may see a reduction in price in the near future, since there is some backing behind competing office suites (with HP and Gateway bundling non-MS suites, plus OSS products like AbiWord and OO.org). Windows is feeling increasing pressure on the server pricing from Linux as well.

That said, I can't really whine about the royalties on MPEG4 vs MP9. The royalties on MPEG4 are generally considered excessive in the first place, particularly since most of the R&D by various companies was done as a tax write off. This really isn't a case where the competition can't afford to match prices.

It's really amusing watching this thread as people try to decide which is the lesser of two evils.

Re:They cannot survive selling lower!

[gillbates]

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.

If I follow your logic correctly, then Linux should be gaining a monopoly in the desktop market, because Microsoft simply CANNOT sell any lower.

Somehow, I wonder if this is actually true. OpenOffice and StarOffice have been free for a long time (IIRC, Sun is starting to charge for StarOffice now...), yet they have barely made a dent into the MSOffice monopoly, in spite of the fact that MSOffice is about $550 more. So it would seem that marketing has a far greater effect on sales than price or performance. With this being the case, I believe that the MPEG folks will be able to charge twice what MS does, because obviously it's worth more if they're charging so much...

Sorry to say it, but some people want to be suckered. Musicians, especially, have a reputation for selling themselves short and allowing themselves to be exploited by Corporate America(TM), and I don't think this is going to change anytime in the near future. Thus, the MPEG folks have nothing to fear - they're charging too much for an (arguably) inferior* product (in other words, using the same tactics that made Microsoft rich).

MPEG has a far greater market saturation than Windows Media 9. Microsoft knows this; their trying to turn the tide their direction. However, Microsoft has historically been very inept at catering to niche markets (Apple, anyone - they can charge twice as much, yet their machines still sell). For this reason, I don't think that Windows Media Player 9 will have any impact, nor gain significant market share. AVI has been around since the Windows 95 days, but has yet to gain any significant market share - Apple's QuickTime and MPEG-4 are more universally used. Why? Because Apple is an expert at niche marketing, whereas Microsoft is not. It is far more likely that Microsoft will buy out the MPEG group than actually win a marketing war with them.

* - I honestly don't think MPEG is inferior, but hey, I was trying to prove a point. And I'm sure there are some Microsofties who would say this anyway...

Re:They cannot survive selling lower!

[tshak]

Have you not followed the entire Monopoly cases?

I'll ask you the same question. MS got it's BILLIONS legally. MS got it's monopoly legally. They did NOT get it by undercutting the competition by selling software at a loss (hence the billions) and then jacking the prices up after they gained significant marketshare. So, no, this is not standard MS Monopolistic tactis.

Standard monopolistic tactis is to make strong-armed agreements with OEM's and the like that make extreme special pricing conditions for companies that don't sell the competition. This is anti-competitive, and this is what MS got slammed for in court.

Re:They cannot survive selling lower!

[oyenstikker]

Microsoft doesn't even have to raise prices afterwards. They can continue to sell an individual product at a loss for the life of that product. The advantage to them is control of the market. Why won't most desktop users ever switch to linux? Its not because it won't run Photoshop. Its because it is a royal pain to open the files that everyone else uses, files that can be opened with the programs that MS gives you, or sells you cheap.

Additionally, if your competitors can't get in, they won't have time to come up with products that compete with your cash cows: Windows and Office.

Re:They cannot survive selling lower!

[NineNine]

Microsoft wins!


And you forgot the most important part... so does the consumer. The consumer gets cheaper prices. Would it be better if the MPEG4 group colluded with other companies creating competing products to keep prices artifically high? Last I checked, that was called collusion and is illegal for a good reason: it hurts the consumer.

Re:They cannot survive selling lower!

[hkmwbz]

That's just because Microsoft want a foothold on the Mac, and it isn't even the same browser. It is developed by a completely different team.

Re:They cannot survive selling lower!

[moncyb]

This sounds a lot like the stories I've heard about Standard Oil. Coincidence? I think not!

Free option already available

[cascadefx]

Despite what some might say:

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

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.

Re:Free option already available

[the-banker]

Sorry to rain on your parade, but Ogg Vorbis is not a replacement for MPEG4. Vorbis competes with MP3, which means "Mpeg-1 Layer 3". Obviously, the audio layer. MPEG-4 is a next generation A/V standard, like MPEG-1 and MPEG-2.

Currently we have no Free Software alternative to these codecs, tho OGG Theora may be done in the next year.

Re:Free option already available

[supergiovane]

Gzipped txt is another good compressed standard.

Let's make a deal: tell me how do you store videos in OGG format and I'll tell you how I archive all the pr0n I create in gzipped textfiles.

Re:Free option already available

[nutshell42]

You'll have to use the Ogg-DirectShow filter available at doom9.org and similar sides. You can store videos in most common formats in ogg-files

So please tell us how you archive all your pr0n; we crave enlightenment =)

What you mean is "there's no free video *codec* of a similar level as vorbis for audio"

Re:Free option already available

[nutshell42]

the point is that ogg is only a container-format designed to handle different content-streams with the mentioned ds-filter that would be video and audio streams in all kind of formats and text subtitles (and chapters, iirc they were handled as own stream)

You wanted to point at the lack of a truly free video codec therefore you'd better talked about vorbis (the audio codec) not ogg (the file format).

I know it's kind of nitpicking but above some people wrote how mp3 was so much better and ppl would never use mp4 and then this "we don't need mpeg4 we have vorbis"-thing; it's just that everyone was bitching without having a clue and I got this twitching right forefinger and then suddenly I had clicked on the "reply to this" button beneath your comment and then my hands began moving, typing and then, and then... it was stronger than I, sorry, I just needed a victim for my own bitching =)

room to prove themselves?

[The Evil Couch]

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.

Re:room to prove themselves?

[sqlrob]

point is, you don't need "room to prove yourself". if your product is superior, the market will MAKE room for it.

You mean like Beta v. VHS or OS/2 v. Windows?

Re:room to prove themselves?

[Idarubicin]

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.

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.

You've demonstrated that it's easier to make room for oneself in a market by giving your product away for free. 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.

Bit tougher, isn't it? Not to say that it can't be done, but this would not be the first time that MS has crushed a better product by pushing its own products at a loss--at least until the competition went away.

Re:room to prove themselves?

[liquidsin]

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.

Neither standard is open

[rknop]

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

Re:Neither standard is open

[benwaggoner]

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!

MPEG-4 is open because full implementation details are public. While you certainly need to pay to do commerical products with MPEG-4, all details are available for implementation. This NOT true of Windows Media 9. There are nearly a dozen companies today competing to develop the best MPEG-4 encoder. But the only company that can produce the WM9 codec is Microsoft.

And Ogg Theora is still vaporware, with a public release not until this summer. It's based on VP3 and Vorbis, neither of which are as efficient as today's MPEG-4, let alone the next generation codecs like AVC and the AAC-SBR audio codec, both of which should be in products this year.

Re:Neither standard is open

[rknop]

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

Re:Neither standard is open

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Neither standard is open

[benwaggoner]

I'd say MPEG-4 is Open, but not Free, in FSF terminology. Different strokes for different folks. MPEG-4 probably has more engineer-hours in it that the Linux kernel, and a lot of those companies wouldn't have participated if they hadn't thought they'd get money back on licensing terms. But yes, more flexible licenses would certainly help. We'll see what happens.

And I expect a lot of "black sheep" apps ala MP3, to exist for Linux. Check out MPEG4IP for a LAME-equivalent.

As for Theora, who knows? It isn't even in beta yet. It's VP3 based, and unless they enhance that code a LOT, it isn't going to be quality competitive with the best MPEG-4 implementations. But maybe they are enhancing it a lot.

Video codecs are a lot harder than audio codecs. And the new MPEG-4 audio codec (AAC-SBR) is a LOT better than Vorbis.

Re:Neither standard is open

[IamTheRealMike]

I'd say MPEG-4 is Open, but not Free, in FSF terminology. Different strokes for different folks.

Indeed... in fact Alan Cox himself has said that the licensing of the code doesn't matter so much as open interfaces, so if people want to charge for implementations that's fine by me as long as free implementations are allowed as well...

And I expect a lot of "black sheep" apps ala MP3, to exist for Linux. Check out MPEG4IP for a LAME-equivalent.

Yes, well that's the worry isn't it - it's open now, and hopefully it'll stay open, but can the licensing be changed in future? Everybody thought you didn't need a license to decode MP3s until recently, and now people aren't so sure. That kind of legal vagueness is something to be warey of.

As for Theora, who knows? It isn't even in beta yet. It's VP3 based, and unless they enhance that code a LOT

According to the FAQ they have replaced the fixed lookup tables with dynamic ones that they can vary and tweak after Theora is actually released, and can possibly be altered on the fly. I don't know enough about codecs to say, but this approach seems to have worked well for Vorbis with the codec approaching and then surpassing MP3 for compression quality (though not by a huge amount).

Re:Neither standard is open

[Srin Tuar]

And the new MPEG-4 audio codec (AAC-SBR) is a LOT better than Vorbis

Do you have anything to back up this vague assertion?

I wrote a book about video compression! http://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm

Why damage your credibility with a sig like that

Re:Neither standard is open

[benwaggoner]

What do you want?

XM Radio uses this, and are able to do nearly CD quality at 48 Kbps. By nearly, I mean casual listeners don't notice artifacts, although it certainly isn't mathematically identical to the original. Better than FM.

I don't have any public samples I can distribute, but I've heard it myself, and it sounds darn cool.

Essentially, AAC-SBR bolts on the Spectral Band Replication features of MP3 Pro, but uses the much more efficient AAC to encode the base frequencies instead of MP3. It's really pretty straightforward, with big payoffs.

Re:Neither standard is open

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

For some values of "vaporware" which include "you can download and play with it, and it works".

And, I must say, as someone who downloaded and played with Ogg Theora Alpha 1 within days of its release, it kicks butt.

The only problem Theora has right now is that development is being done "offline" semi-invisibly by one person and is getting rather behind (Theora Alpha 2 code updates are about a month-and-a-half late at this point - the LAST posted date was "shortly after Dec 27".). This MAY not be much of an issue, considering how well Alpha 1 performed, but I really wish development would start happening in CVS instead of on someone's personal hard-drive. The standard's not yet defined well enough for anyone else to contribute code yet, it seems...

Beta 1, when the format is supposed to be "frozen", is/was due to arrive March 1, last I heard. I'm looking very much forward to seeing it, but am beginning to despair of seeing "Theora 1.0" by June 2003 unless development becomes more visible and accessible soon...I fear Theora may miss its chances for public visibility if the license fee wars blow over before it appears...

All that said, I can say that even with Alpha 1's unoptimized code, I found the quality of 640x480 video at a low quality setting (about 600kbps at that size at 29.97fps) was very good for "live" video (I haven't looked at animation yet, which may or may not be different - lots of blocks of solid color and all that...)

Oh, and if anyone from Xiph is browsing here - how about some updates once in a while!

Re:Neither standard is open

[zurab]

XM Radio uses this, and are able to do nearly CD quality at 48 Kbps. By nearly, I mean casual listeners don't notice artifacts, although it certainly isn't mathematically identical to the original. Better than FM.

I don't have any public samples I can distribute, but I've heard it myself, and it sounds darn cool.

Essentially, AAC-SBR bolts on the Spectral Band Replication features of MP3 Pro, but uses the much more efficient AAC to encode the base frequencies instead of MP3. It's really pretty straightforward, with big payoffs.

I agree, it sounds cool; you can actually get some samples from Digital Radio Mondiale's website.

I am no professional in this, but as far as I understand, the SBR algorithm, most of which is contained in the decoder itself, bases its foundation upon the belief that in most cases there are significant dependencies between the lower and the higher frequencies in the audio signal. By transmitting the lower frequencies, then SBR algorithm is able to guess and reconstruct the higher frequencies on the decoder.

If I got the gist of this right, then it seems to me that this technique is being optimized solely for the low-bitrate audio transmission, e.g. from 20-40Kbps. While this method does provide audio that sounds "cool", it definitely does not provide anything that will sound like an original high quality recording.

I just wanted to clarify this, since you said AAC-SBR provides "nearly CD quality" at low bitrates, and said Ogg Vorbis was "not as efficient" as AAC-SBR. Vorbis still sounds better than MP3 and AAC in listening tests; SBR is just an addition to the latter two to reconstruct high frequencies at low bitrates when only low(er) frequencies are encoded.

Re:Neither standard is open

[benwaggoner]

Well, that's a pretty big "just"

As for AAC or Vorbis sounding better, it really depends on the AAC implementation and the data rate. There is a point of "good enough" where all codecs sound just fine. The interesting and hard area is sub 96 Kbps over lossy networks.

Re:Neither standard is open

[xiphmont]

Ogg Theora exists, but is not in full release. I reserve 'vaporware' for products that are more glossy brochure than code. Theora is substantially in the form it will take for final release; it's waiting on Ogg infrastructure, not codec hacking. ...and Vorbis is currently well ahead of MPEG4 audio. AAC+SBR is purely catch-up (as practically the entire world is ahead of AAC at the moment). Run a few tests for yourself if you don't believe me.

By the time AAC+SBR is finalized, I hope to be on to Vorbis II. But that truly is vaporware at the moment.

Monty

Re:Neither standard is open

[zurab]

Well, that's a pretty big "just"

Not really if you consider that most of the times you would like to preserve high frequencies as they appear in the original audio; SBR will not sound like the original recording.

As for AAC or Vorbis sounding better, it really depends on the AAC implementation and the data rate. There is a point of "good enough" where all codecs sound just fine.

Well, and there is a point where all codecs sound very bad. There have been several blind tests, some of them referred to here on /. as well, that resulted with Vorbis on top of all MP3, AAC, and MP3 Pro at different bitrates, AAC coming in the shameful last (sorry, don't have URLs). I'd like to see a blind test of Vorbis and AAC-SBR at different bitrates. Remember though, these tests usually answer the question of "which sample sounds closer to the original", rather than which one sounds "cooler". Still, I imagine AAC-SBR would beat Vorbis at very low bitrates.

The interesting and hard area is sub 96 Kbps over lossy networks.

I would say 20-50 Kbps for broadcasting; above 90Kbps you can already store the audio at a somewhat reasonable quality. Depends largely on use.

How about something like Ogg Theora?

[MtViewGuy]

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.

Re:How about something like Ogg Theora?

[FooBarWidget]

Open source != open standard.

An open source codec that implements an open standard without licensing fees, now that would be sweet...

One Robber Baron to Another

[javahacker]

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?

Doing business

[Ninja Master Gara]

Everyone seems to think MS making prices this low is a good thing. MS is cash rich and can sustain losses enough to put any software company out of business while it undercuts and dominates a market. This is standard operating procedure for Microsoft, and it's how it pushes it's way into a new market and then becomes the defacto standard.

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".

Re:Doing business

[FooBarWidget]

Yes, it's true that MS has lots of cash. But doesn't MPEG4-LA also have lots of cash? It's an organization with lots of members. Surely all of them together have enough cash?

Not as Simple as it seems

[the-banker]

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.

So, how is this different?

[BWJones]

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.

In other news...

[trcooper]

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.

Paying for standard or implimentation?

[Halo-]

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?

Re:OpenDivX?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. DivX (5) is an implementation of MPEG4. It may be free for you to download and use, but there would still be royalty implications if you were to use it in your own application.

I thought WMV9 was based on MPEG-4?

[mccalli]

Could be wrong here, but I thought that the Windows Media Video stuff was based on MPEG-4 anyway.

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

Re:I thought WMV9 was based on MPEG-4?

[stratjakt]

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.

Re:I thought WMV9 was based on MPEG-4?

[benwaggoner]

Well, you could say the same thing about Doom 3, or the Linux kernel, or pretty much any other big software project!

The key is finding the right balance of tools that can provide optimal quality while keeping the complexity required by a decoder as low as possible.

A video compression engineer once told me that designing codecs is 10% R&D, 10% Sun worship, and 80% alchemy.

R&D is all the PhD's thinking of new techniques, like wavelets, new motion estimation patters, etcetera.

Sun worship is spending a LOT of time doing test encodes on Sun workstations.

And alchemy is trying different combinations of tools in different orders, and seeing which work better in practice. It's by far the hardest and most time consuming element.

OpenDivX is dead

[FooBarWidget]

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.

Re:OpenDivX is dead

[stud9920]

OpenDivX isn't developed anymore. It's codebase is dead. The latest release (from more than a year ago) is full of bugs.

-It is no more. It has ceased to be. It is an EX-codec. -Look ! It moved !

Re:OpenDivX is dead

[FooBarWidget]

I don't know about ffmpeg, but all the OpenDivX code in XviD have been replaced now.

Too bad.

[TheSHAD0W]

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...

Re:Too bad.

[rebbie]

They're already proven monopolists. What you're saying is that they should be allowed to "kill again" before anything can or should be done about it. Sorry, I disagree.

Re:Too bad.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I thought that MPEG-4 was based on some "predatory" models too. They even attempted to broadly charge a licencing fee based on how many times a video file was played. Large fragments of the DVD Forum really bitched about for the HD version, because they didn't think consumers would take pay-per-play on videos they already paid for.

Reason they can't undercut...

[klocwerk]

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.

Re:Reason they can't undercut...

[Sycraft-fu]

So? That's bussiness. I'll relate a similar situation to you since I know about it very well:

Haynes and Chilton are the two major car repair manuals in the United States. Haynes is a British company that does just books, and almost exclusively car repair and modification books. Chilton was a small part of the media giant Cap Cities, that's ABC television. Chilton continued to hound Haynes by offering price cuts and big deals and so on. they were operating at a loss, but as part of the huge Cap Cities empire it wnet unnoticed.

Well Disney decided to buy Cap Cities some time back, and the first thing you do when you buy someone is go over all their books with a fine tooth comb. They found this tiny little auto repair manual sinkhole called Chilton and promptly sold it to some venture capatilists.

Those people then tried to compete with Haynes, but Haynes has a more popular product and a more efficient printing process (they own it instead of outsourcing) and they decided it was unprofitable and finally sold Chilton to Haynes.

So despite Chilton's money advantage, Haynes was able to keep costs low, produce a superior product, and has now obtained an effective monoply on the car repair manual market in the US. Chilton books are still sold, but they are printed and owned by Haynes.

Warped Logic?

[tarnin]

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.

Re:Warped Logic?

[praedor]

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.

Re:Warped Logic?

[afidel]

The problem is proving that MS is intending to lose money on the codec, elsewise it is not dumping. If MS expects that the revenue received will be above the cost of development then they should legally be allowed to sell it at whatever price they wish. Now there is the abuse of monopoly position, but what monopoly does MS have in the media world? None, and I for one don't see how they can leverage their OS monopoly to gain a stanglehold on the media market since such a tiny fraction of media is consumed on pc's. Besides it's not like the MPEG-LA is made up of smalltime players, Canon, GE, Toshiba, Thomson, Sony, etc for a complete list of liscensing companies see This link

Apple warned them....

[jjh37997]

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...

Re:Apple warned them....

[IamTheRealMike]

(drat, posted anonymously for some reason, i must have clicked the box by accident)....

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?

Re:Apple warned them....

[IamTheRealMike]

Quicktime is indeed open, the fact that a huge majority of quicktime encapsulated videos use proprietary codecs does not change that fact.

IMHO if the company that makes an open container format chooses to encode all the videos it produces in a closed codec, semantic distinctions about whether the format is open or closed are meaningless.

The fact is that QuickTime is basically dead outside of apple.com and the occasional interactive CD. If Apple didn't encode all the movie trailors using Sorensen, most people would never even use it.

When the only company that uses it in any meaningful way chooses a proprietary codec and labels them as "QuickTime files", as far as I'm concerned, QuickTime is closed. I'm perfectly aware that technically that statement is inaccurate, but in spirit it is true.

Xiph didn't create an open container format and a closed audio codec when they made ogg vorbis. They went all the way. Apple should do the same.

Re:XviD

[FooBarWidget]

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.

Re:Unfair?

[Lussarn]

MS can give money to the companies/people using this and raise the price on WinXP/Office and make a profit anyway. (And yes, I know they are not related but IE wasn't that either.)

The MPEG group can't do that. And thats why they think it's unfair. They have to earn money on the actual product or they can't survive.

I couldn't care less about this one though because we need a truly open standard for video.

Not quite so anticompetative

[Simon Hibbs]

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

This worked so well for Netscape...

[TheConfusedOne]

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.

Re:This worked so well for Netscape...

[guacamolefoo]

> The foul is something called dumping. The
> practice of below cost in an effort to drive
> competitors out of the market.

At some point, this practice can become dumping. On the other hand, to some extent it represents the competitive nature of business. Cutting prices is not always dumping. Do you drive around your neighborhood to buy gas at the most-expensive place you can to avoid supporting "dumping"?

I suspect that both price levels are artificially high. Seeing the two sides cut into the costs of multimedia licensing fees is probably going to be very good for consumers of multimedia.

I am aware that MS does cut prices in order to stave off the competition and to protect encroachments on other areas where it has a monopoly (i.e. add a free IE to the "OS" in order to stave off middleware challenges to their desktop supremacy and to kill Netscape). On the other hand, are we then requiring the largest software company in the world to unilaterally stop doing anything other than matching features and prices of its competitors? That would be bad for competitors, bad for MS, and bad for consumers.

If the MPEG people feel that they are being wronged, they know where to look in the phonebook to find a beaucoup antitrust lawyer. They may be running to the press with this story in order to protect their own wallets by calling attention to this practice. Do we really know if this is going to distress the MPEG folks, or are they just crying wolf in order to protect their own fat wallets at the expense of you and I?

MPEG may be playing a very devious game here -- they could be protecting their oligopoly profits (which involve raping you and I ruthlessly) and simultaneously getting people like those in the /. crowd to cry out in defense of their rapists. It's almost a classic Stockholm Syndrome.

GF.

Re:This worked so well for Netscape...

[$rtbl_this]

...they could be protecting their oligopoly profits (which involve raping you and I ruthlessly) and simultaneously getting people like those in the /. crowd to cry out in defense of their rapists. It's almost a classic Stockholm Syndrome.

I've noticed the same patterns of behaviour in Microsoft apologists. I'd like to propose calling this Redmond Syndrome.

Re:This worked so well for Netscape...

[TheConfusedOne]

First, your gas analogy is a trifle flawed. Comparison shopping is a tried and true past time these days. (Just look at sites like fatwallet.com.) The problem comes if one gas station were to come into the market and sell for something like $.40 per gallon. (The actual amount is arbitrary, as long as it is below the actual cost of getting the gas to the station.) Obviously, no competitor could reasonably keep up with prices like this. (The only way to do that would be to have supplemental income from another product/line covering these losses.)

I have made absolutely no comments on the merits of the MPEG group's claims. I was merely pointing out that the collection of "this is how it works in the free market", "what's the matter, can't compete?", and "make a better product" retorts that I've seen here conveniently ignore the ramifications of actions by companies.

The fact that I chose to do this using historical evidence of previous behavior from the company being accused in this case should give everyone a little more pause for thought.

Re:This worked so well for Netscape...

[guacamolefoo]

I've noticed the same patterns of behaviour in Microsoft apologists. I'd like to propose calling this Redmond Syndrome.

While the joke wasn't obviously directed at me, let me go on the record as being highly skeptical of MS and generally in favor of OSS alternatives to proprietary products. The fact of the matter is that the height of irony and hypocrisy is seeing /. readers crying foul as the MPEG consortium gets it in the nuts just because it is MS going after them. If anyone else had done this, there would have been loud and numerous cheers from the Amen Corner.

GF.

Re:This worked so well for Netscape...

[$rtbl_this]

Just for the record, my smart-arse response wasn't meant as any kind of defense of MPEG-4 or its licensing; I simply used this opportunity to take a cheap shot at Microsoft.

Re:This worked so well for Netscape...

[gimpboy]

If one group is selling their product below the actual cost of production then there are real problems.

so what is the _cost_ of a piece of software? after paying for the initial development of an encoder/decoder then you have maintainance, support and enhancement costs. i didnt see any estimates for these costs in the article. it would be nice of the mpeg4-la folks to provide this information so we could determine for ourselves if ms is dumping.

say for example the costs associated with maintainance/support/new features is 5 cents per encoder and decoder then ms isnt dumping if they sell them both for 25 cents. the mpeg folks could easily match the price and make 150% profit.

now if the costs above cost 25 cents per sale then it would be dumping.

i realize that by dropping the prices more people would use the software, and this would change the costs per sale. until the mpeg folks provide us with more than accusations, we really cannot make these.

it could be that because of ms's infrastructure they can produce things cheaper. in this case i would say that the mpeg folks either need to adapt or move on.

Re:This worked so well for Netscape...

[guacamolefoo]

We're not talking about price competition.

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 /. post. You are to be commended.

GF.

Re:This worked so well for Netscape...

[guacamolefoo]

Just for the record, my smart-arse response wasn't meant as any kind of defense of MPEG-4 or its licensing; I simply used this opportunity to take a cheap shot at Microsoft.

Understood, which is why I didn't go as far off the deep end as I normally might. FWIW, gratuitous MS shots are welcome anytime, as far as I am concerned. I just thought it was funny to see people jumping out to defend the MPEG-4 scoundrels.

Something like Sun-Tzu, who I think was the one to say, "The enemy of my friend is my friend" except that he didn't speak english, and he probably said something like, "Yoo chi mao lo gingo, gingo, mao lo chi".

GF.

Re:This worked so well for Netscape...

[Sycraft-fu]

Dumping is selling a product in foriegn markets for less than at home. That's illegal. It is not illegal to sell products cheap, even for a loss. When the PS2 first came out, Sony lost about $100 on each sale. It's not dumping and it's not illegal.

Re:Unfair?

[Waffle Iron]

Can the MPEG Group COMPETE or not price-wise?

Of course not. Nobody who doesn't have a $40 Billion war chest and a direct distribution back door hook (Tools->Windows Update) into 95% of the world's computers could possibly compete.

That's why we have laws that are theoretically supposed to prevent this kind of market abuse.

Why is there a charge at all?

[Zog The Undeniable]

This illustrates everything that's wrong with software patents. You're not really getting anything for your money if you pay either of these guys, but if you got your own R&D geeks to come up with a video compression format independently, you can bet some of their ideas would infringe either the MPEG4 or the MS patent.

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...

yet another stupid anti-microsoft thread.

[a7244270]

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.

Re:yet another stupid anti-microsoft thread.

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Does anyone remember that browsers didn't use to be free until Internet Explorer came along ?
Netscape was de-facto free well before IE came along. Early on, they figured that they needed to get the browser out to everybody to make it THE platform. Anyone that actually paid for it, well that was found money. They really wanted to make money from servers, bu Apache and IIS killed them on this.

Re:yet another stupid anti-microsoft thread.

[ErikZ]

What are you talking about? I never had to pay for Netscape. At the time I was getting into the WWW, Netscape was free for personal use.

Re:yet another stupid anti-microsoft thread.

[ErikZ]

You didn't say "for business use".

You said "Browsers didn't used to be free until MS came along."

Which is wrong.

Feel free to admit that you were wrong at any time.

I won't hold my breath though.

The real problem...

[eclectric]

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.)

There *is* an alternative - XVID

[WD]

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

Re:There *is* an alternative - XVID

[mcrbids]

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

Re:There *is* an alternative - XVID

[Cyno]

Actually they quit posting their developement work for obvious reasons. You probably would too if someone was stealing your work, taking credit for it and profiting from it illegally. But when they finally updated the website they were at the 0.9 mark and it has been completely useable since April last year. I haven't even tested the 0.9 stuff. I'm waiting until B-Frames are out of beta and some SMP enhancements are fine tuned. Looks like they're getting very close to the 1.0 release.

Losers!

[RAMMS EIN]

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.

No, you have it backwards

[TheConfusedOne]

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.

Re:No, you have it backwards

[Sycraft-fu]

Actually selling below cost is not illegal. Every major videogame console receantly has been sold at a loss when initally released. X-Box, PS2, PS, and so all were being sold at a loss initally, most of them to the tune of $100 loss. Even now they are being sold for a small loss, or very little profit. They then count on the royalties from game sales to make it up (that's the real money in the console market).

What's illegal relating to low pricing is:

1) Dropping your prices so low as to drive all competition out of bussiness and then jacking the prices up when you are a monoply.

2) Dumping, which is selling products for a low price (usually at a loss) in foriegn markets but not your home market. Japanese TV makers did this to try and kill RCA.

You are free to sell a product at a loss otherwise, however. Often sale items at a store can be near break even or even a loss. Loss leaders, they are called, and they are to get you to come in, with the idea that you will then do more shopping and spend enough to make it up.

Re:No, you have it backwards

[moncyb]

Actually selling below cost is not illegal.

In some states it is. For example, this Utah law prohibits it--though it may not apply to microsoft as the law only speicifies retailers or wholesalers.

Confusing Codec Crap

[Threed]

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?

Re:Confusing Codec Crap

[Inf0phreak]

DivX 4.12 comes rather close to being MPEG-4 compliant, but I'd personally recommend XviD which is a GPL'ed implementation of MPEG-4. As such, there are some licensing issues, but it is probably the best MPEG-4 codec there is. DivX 3.11 is really good, but there are serious legal issues as well as future compatibility problems. There might be made a program that can convert DivX 3.11 AVI files to ISO MPEG-4 though. Read about that here. Here are a few quick URLs:

Doom9. The site about MPEG-4 encoding (and SVCDs and DVD-ripping).
Koepi's XviD site. Has binaries. Be gentle on the server folks... we don't want it slashdotted.

Doom9 also has a quick tutorial to make XviD do as you want. It's probably not optimal, but it ought to guarantee that you don't end up with a piece of crap.

Re:Confusing Codec Crap

[Mwongozi]

Disclaimer: I am also not a video expert.

But, I do know that any of the MPEG formats are going to be playable for a long, long time to come. (Look how long MPEG-1 has lasted.)

However, if you're after something more like DivX, then XviD is like DivX, but also GPL!

Re:OpenDivX?

[benwaggoner]

No, DivX Networks pays their licensing fee to MPEG-LA. If you write an app that uses their codec, you don't have to pay an additional fee for the video codec.

well, ain't that just too bad

[g4dget]

Microsoft's media formats are not documented, hence they are less valuable. That's why they charge less. If the MPEG-4 folks think that they can't compete, they should lower their licensing fees. It is really an outrage anyway that MPEG-4 requires licensing fees for its implementations; it's difficult to see what profoundly new ideas are represented by its standards body.

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.

This is a good thing

[earthforce_1]

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.

Capitalist system at work

[AIXadmin]

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.

MS Has Seen the Error of It's Ways

[alteran]

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. ;-)

Doesn't WMV Violate Said Patents?

[Xesdeeni]

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

Uhh,,, XVID *is* MPEG4....

[Kjella]

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

I'd love a free software option....

[DesScorp]

But having to say "gnu/mpeg" all the time would be annoying as hell....

Determining Price?

[Ringwraith]

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?

Re:mp3 not going away...

[ihavenovoice]

Despite the fact that MP3 is an audio-only standard and MPEG4 is a video-only standard, just this: MP3!=MPEG3 doesn't quite cover it all. Because MPEG3 doesn't exist. First there was MPEG1, which is what was used for things like VideoCD. It has several "layers". Layer-1 is the video layer, Layer-2 is an audio layer, and Layer-3 is an compression type for audio-only streams. Normal MPEG1 have only Layer-2 audio. The there was MPEG2 which is what is used for DVD's. Then there was a whole lot of nothing, some designspecs for MPEG2.5 and MPEG3 but nothing specific. And finally MPEG4 (they skipped 2.5 and 3 entirely). So confusing MP3 with the videostandard MPEG3 is a bit weird, since it doesn't exist.

Re:Dumping

[Stonehand]

Dumping is selling below cost to damage competitors. What, prithee tell, is the cost to Microsoft of a license?

As long as they sell enough licenses to recoup their costs, they're definitely not dumping.

Remember, Users drive the market standards

[linuxkrn]

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.

I realize that /. 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.

Just like the issues with .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.

Re:Dumping

[recursiv]

You seriously don't know what MS's costs are? For one, try the cost of developing the software.

Open Standard

[GeckoX]

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.

Not well defined in math...

[danro]

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...

IE was a non-free product

[DrSkwid]

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.

Internet Explorer is $150, not $0

[yerricde]

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.

Free implementation?

[ArthurDent]

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

Re:Free implementation?

[Fnkmaster]

Yes. Patent license fees. The standard is completely "open" in the sense that you can read full and complete specs and probably even get your hands on a reference implementation without cost. Of course, to distribute any product using the MPEG-4 standard, whether distributed for free or for charge, requires licensing a patent bundle from the MPEG consortium, patents which were filed by the members of the MPEG consortium.

This is RAND licensing, folks. The same fine mess the W3C wants to get into. It hinders adoption, plain and simple, and locks out the Free Software community. I don't mind so much if companies want to keep intellectual property to themselves, but don't go around claiming it's a fucking "standard" if I can't implement it without paying you a fortune for the right to do so.

Re:Free implementation?

[smallpaul]

This is RAND licensing, folks. The same fine mess the W3C wants to get into.

Oh really?

Whiners

[Aknaton]

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.

MPEG-4 Fees

[szcx]

This isn't about Microsoft charging half as much, it's about the outrageous fees MPEG LA are asking for.

Under the plan, licensees would pay 25 cents each for MPEG-4 products such as decoders and encoders, with fees capped at $1 million a year for each licensee. It also suggests charging a per-minute rate, with no cap.

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.

You'd need a Flash-like authoring tool

[yerricde]

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?).

Re:Unfair?

[Waffle Iron]

When someone shows me that under the current WM9 price structure, that Microsoft cannot make money, then I will agree that the price is illegal.

Given that the only business units at Microsoft that currently report a profit are the OS and Office groups (i.e., the monopoly wielding groups), it's probably a fair bet that their codec operation is not making money right now.

Customers

[jefu]

The customer base here is actually pretty small. the MPEG people don't sell to end users, but to software developers/vendors.

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?

Pay to license an Open Standard?

[nuggz]

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.

Happens billions of times a day...

[NineNine]

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.

Patent-encumbered standard

[TFloore]

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.

Re:Witness Netscape

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

The free software community better start working on a video codec now[...]

Your Wish Is Granted.

IF they can get the standard stabilized and code to the point where more than one person can effectively contribute to development before it's too late, at least. Very promising project, in my opinion.

However

[_avs_007]

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?

If they really want to promote an open standard

[sjames]

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.

Hooray for Microsoft???

[mzipay]

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!

Here's some more basic economics for you...

[Ayanami Rei]

Lets consider: Microsoft is a major backer of the MPEG4 development project.

"Microsoft has made more than 100 formal contributions to the MPEG-4 standardization process and has patents that are relevant to MPEG-4 video implementations."

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...

Apple tried to warn them...

[ruiner13]

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?

What if ?

[defunc]

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.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

IE 4 *was* better than NS 4

[_xeno_]

It was widely regarded that the versions of NS were far superior to IE up to 4.0 (and there it's a debate).

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.

Open standards...

[Espectr0]

open standards my ass

open standards should be Free

Not to be a bugga boo but....

[greymond]

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

Predatory Pricing

[Jagasian]

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.

time to put another troll back in his place

[kilonad]

The real problem... is that you're a troll that has NO idea what you're talking about. WMV9 is an implementation of MPEG4. It's not a less capable video format because it's THE SAME FORMAT.

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.

Re:OpenDivX?

[Old Wolf]

I don't quite get all this, maybe you can fill me in

What do these fees apply to? I've seen ads for digital camcorders that support MPEG4, so if I buy one of these will I have to stick coins into it before I can view my movies?
Or is it the case that 50c of the purchase price of the device goes to the MPEG4 group?

Are there free MPEG4 encoders and decoders for Linux? If so, howcome the MPEG4 group didn't get paid for them and aren't suing?

Better products at better prices? From MS to OSS

[einhverfr]

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.

Re:Microsoft Question

[Chris Johnson]

Mm, apart from Office and Windows licensing itself they are more likely to go for CONTROL than immediate profit. I think it wouldn't be half as much of a problem if they were only out for money- then they'd just charge a buttload and the system would work, with price-sensitive buyers turning to other stuff. Instead, they want to control what you do and be the gatekeeper for pretty much anything you can think of. No government in the world has approached the level of intrusiveness into your life that Microsoft would like to have.

Re:OpenDivX?

[benwaggoner]

The manufacturer of the camera will have to pay $0.25 per unit, after the first 50,000, up to $1M. You don't have to pay anything,

If you make a site that is "renumerated" (like pay per view or subscriber), you owe $0.02 per hour, or $0.25 per subscriber per year (your choice), after 50,000 users per year, with a $1M cap per year per entity.

So, in general most users of MPEG-4 won't ever have to pay anything. Only big, commercial sites will have to pay anything for content.

XviD = MPEG4

[Steve Hamlin]

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.

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Re:No ...

[HiThere]

Umnh...
An awful lot of specs cost money.
I might even go so far as to accept 'An awful lot of "standard"s cost money.'

But if they charge you to use it, then it's not a standard, and they have no right to expect people to adhere to it. Calling such a thing as if it were a standard if obfuscation, at best.

I don't get why

[Cinematique]

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?