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Windows Media 9 in Digital Theaters
SpamJunkie writes "Feel like watching new releases in 7.1 surround sound with full digital video? It's coming, not with MPEG 4 but with Windows Media 9. Microsoft announced it is bringing Windows Media 9 to 177 screens in Landmark Theaters."
Wow.....blue screens that huge will be awesome to look at!!!!
There is no patch for stupidity
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Due to DRM restrictions, your eyes must be gouged out after the showing for reprocessing. That is all.
-Staff
The newly outfitted theaters will be able to screen films encoded digitally in Windows Media 9 Series, which enables high-resolution,theater-quality experiences with up to 7.1 channel surround sound. The network rollout is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
Umm... shouldn't it go without saying that it's theatre quality if they're rolling it out?
[overheard from the booth] ...dammit, where the hell is that installation cd-rom?
WM9 is a good mpeg-4 implementation. It has slightly better results than Divx 5 or X-vid from what I've seen (with the same file size). If they start doing High Definition transfers of movies and showing them digitally in the theaters, thats a great thing. I don't understand why you'd need a super-advanced codec to do it other than publicity, though. Mpeg-2 works for High Definition just as well, the file sizes are about 30% larger though.
Well reading the article, it seems like the movies are going to be compressed into some kind of MS proprietry format from now on at these digital theatres, but regardless of whatever quality I have seen these files in, MPEG has always seemed sharper & generally better all round.
No I wont make the usual 'is that BSOD supposed to be in the middle of that film' type gag, but I do find this quite a weird move. MPEG has always been, in my opinion at least, one of the more superior video formats. VideoCD uses MPEG, and doesn't DVD?
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Remember when people used to cheer the THX Lucasfilm logo? That was before Phantom Menace. I hardly expect anyone to cheer the Microsoft logo, but after the first big public fiasco with Palladium, the jeers may come.
I wonder if people will notice the subliminal "OBEY", "CONSUME" and "REPRODUCE" messages from MS..
Trolling is a art,
They don't care what tech is actually playing the movie. They just care about the movie. So, I am not sure what MS is trying to accomplish? Besides, now they will be competing with industry gaints that have been supplying to the theaters for decades.
It doesn't mention this but woulnd't this make the stuff easier to pirate? Just copy the movie off the hard drive, reencode to desired format, distribute.
This is screwed up, I don't see how you can respond without even taking three seconds to think about what you are saying. WM9 is actually pretty impressive, but of course you already knew that, right, cause l1NuX r0x0rz!! Right??
WTF is right, but WTF are you talking about. Looking good? The big thing here is the infrastructure that this all represents. Being able to distribute and display completely digitally at a somewhat reasonable price is the news here. I guess MS should not attempt to move into any new markets or find new uses for their technology?
WM9 is an implementation of MPEG-4, it's just a proprietary one. It uses the same I-frame and compressed p-frame concepts as mpeg-4. DIVX is another well-known implementation. Also X-Vid.
This could be a great boon to the independent film "industry!" As they mention in the article, the costs of getting your movie out to distributers would be much much lower...no more copying and mailing huge film reels to each theater (but no more spliced-in single frames of porn either :-( ). Of course, this would only be the case if the encoding software were similarly inexpensive, and with MS cuddling up to Hollywood for DRM, I don't see this happening.
Perhaps, this will provide the impetus to upgrade to digital projection equipment on which someone will implement an open codec...
credo quia absurdum
I guess you also never watched a DVD? That video is compressed with a lossy compression scheme, yet it still looks good. Why? Variable compression. Someone just didn't pop a tape into a tape player, hit play, then click the record button on a computer. There are actually people that go through and master these things over a period of weeks or months to make the video stream as small as possible while trying to make it as quality as possible. There are also all sorts of measurement and analysis tools applied to it along the way to remove scratches from the film transfer, and to make multiple streams of audio (for foreign languages, commentary tracks, and I've even seen some DVDs that not only support the AC3 digital surround, but will have a Dolby Prologic encoded stream.)
Given a static, known platform, I'll bet they can make it reliable. One of the biggest challenges for operating sytem reliability is that in the typical PC or server, the OS vendor has to try and make allowances for combinations of hardware and software that they have never even thought of. In this scenario, as long as the boxes are dedicated for the purpose of displaying digital video I'm sure they can figure out how to overcome any bugs that come up.
Having said that, it would be nice to see Red Hat or one of the other Linux distributions try to compete in this space. Certainly Linux does well in these sort of dedicated applications (e.g. Tivo).
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
At least with the digital cinema system I was working with, that won't work. The projectors use a decoder card so the compressed media goes right to the projector which then decompresses it and displays. So to play games on it, the video data would have to first be encoded, then sent to the projector and then decoded. The reason for this is that the digital media they play is incrediably huge uncompressed (40 terabyes I think?) and even compressed it is still between 60-30 gigs for a 2 hour movie.
This is just a way for microsoft to champion their own codec.. this has been done for some time in DLP theaters across the country with MPEG-2 format movies. Star Wars Ep2, Lilo & Stitch, etc etc were shown in digital theaters. Now it's a Microsoft (!) digital theater. Great.
Sure this sounds all peachy on the outside, but is this quality really due to the film and not the projector?
Great if we start getting digital films, but unless they make 30 foot plasma screens, I really don't expect to see much of a difference.
Posting useless rant since 2003.
The exciting aspect of digital video in movie theaters (regardless of whether the underlying technology is MS or not) is the flexibility that becomes available.
With digital projection, why not rent out a movie theater for a super bowl party? maybe we'll start seeing Monday night independent film festivals in suburban theaters? In theory, digital projection could open up all kinds of new possibilities for the theater industry.
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
The standards for digital cinema are still being worked out. The major studios have a consortium named Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) which is developing standards, and recently announced a minimum of 2k lines of resolution as their goal. http://www.infocusmag.com/03April/digital.htm The National Association of Theatre Owners has a general list of User Requirements for digital cinema here: http://www.natoonline.org/digitalcinemauserreq.htm
Windows Media 9 tops out at 720k currently.
1. Screensaver kicks in
:)
2. Projectionist plays an MP3 and it blasts out of the speaker.
3. Projectionist forgets to turn off Windows desktop sounds
and so on......
I would hope that the ticket prices do down with the film in digital format. I get a bit upset when $20 doesn't cover a night at the movies.
I am going to re-invent the wheel, and this time I will make it round!
And for those who hate trial subscriptions, here's the full text:
Landmark going digital
All auditoriums nationwide to be outfitted with d-cinema
By CARL DIORIO
Arthouse giant Landmark Theaters will today announce plans to outfit its entire 177-screen circuit for digital cinema and a related effort to deal directly with filmmakers lacking distribution for their low-budget digital video features.
The d-cinema initiative involves a joint venture with Microsoft and L.A.-based Digital Cinema Solutions. Terms weren't available, but it's believed the unique three-way relationship will shave Landmark's costs to a fraction of the usual $100,000-plus per screen to install most d-cinema systems.
All auditoriums in Landmark's 53 theaters, located in 20 markets nationwide, will be outfitted with d-cinema playback systems based on Microsoft's Windows Media 9 Series. DCS will select digital projectors from a variety of manufacturers.
The Windows Media systems are substantially less expensive than other systems, because they essentially represent off-the-shelf technology, officials said. The playback systems will be married to relatively inexpensive digital projectors, because the smaller size of its screens requires less illumination to project an image of acceptable resolution.
Landmark chief Paul Richardson said he doesn't expect a lot of immediate interest from specialty distribs in converting their primary releases for digital distribution. But he believes they may be more inclined to acquire niche pics shot in digital video than previously.
"There's a whole bunch of product that doesn't get picked up at the film festivals because people don't believe it's worth the cost to invest the money to make a master print, which can cost $50,0000-$60,000," Richardson said. "But for $6,000-$8,000, you can encode the film for digital (to) play our circuit, and I think some distributors will be interested in doing that."
Landmark and its joint venture partners will also ante up the encoding costs for some number of pics, he said. "We're not going to bid on films against the guys in the business," the Landmark CEO said, noting he won't be personally prowling any film markets.
"The films we're going to package are maybe a year old and haven't gotten picked up yet," he explained. "Those people are in contact with us all the time."
In the past, Landmark's steered such filmmakers to various indie distribs but now will deal with them more directly in some instances. Richardson said he's not sure how many such pics the joint venture partners themselves will distribute, nor have they identified a likely first release to run through the digital circuit.
"We're starting out on an adventure here, and we really don't have a road map," he acknowledged. "We have a huge opportunity, but we're just not exactly sure where that opportunity is going to evidence itself."
Landmark aims to outfit all of its screens for digital projection by December. "We're starting on the smaller auditoriums first, because that's where these pictures will play," Richardson said.
Landmark and Microsoft previously collaborated on a small number of digital installations in connection with the BMW Films digital shorts series. For that series, which features BMW autos in several digitally produced action shorts, DCS installed d-cinema systems in a couple dozen theaters, including several Landmark sites.
Landmark also used Microsoft-outfitted auditoriums to exhib Artisan's recent music docu "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" in nine locations.
Agreed, but this appears to be for smaller independant film makers/distributers/theaters, not for the George Lucas' of the world. Plus, how many standards are there for this type of distribution system? How many products are offered and what type of price range are we talking about? Do other manufacturers offer packages? If so, then what's wrong with MS trying to get into this market segment?
Dunno about you but if I go to a movie and it crashes I'm gonna demand my money back at the least. I'd be really pissed if the movie locked up and even more so if I got a blue screen or similar error messages. It's bad enough at airport terminals and on POS devices.
One more way for Microsoft to lock up artist works in their own file formats. How long before studios decide to release Windows only DVD's rather than bother reencoding the movies?
Why was this needed? Couldn't studios have just mastered the movies to DVD and either mailed them to theatures or allowed the theature to download the movie if they had the bandwidth? Damn it costs about $2 to burn and mail a DVD. They couldn't afford that? Then the theature could use a fairly standard DVD player hooked to their projector and audio system. If the movie won't fit on DVD then split it over several discs and allow the theature to rip the DVD to a harddrive and playback.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I can just see it now -- watching a movie like Outbreak or Andromeda Strain, about a killer virus and it is suddenly changed to XXX porn by the latest M$ TheaterO$ virus....
Also, this is a company that is driven by conquests. They conquered the desktop. What now? You have to expand in order to keep your stock moving upward. It's never enough to stay big; you need to be bigger.
So as with Sidewalk, MSN, XBox, et. al., Microsoft is attacking Google and moving into the moviehouse business because to their way of thinking there is no other option.
For those of you who scoff at these latest attempts, remember that these guys have tremendously deep pockets. They can afford to pour money down a profitless hole for years, knowing that eventually they'll figure out how to market the product. Notice I said "market the product."
The best product doesn't always win. Microsoft's continued dominance is proof of that. Laugh at them all you want, but they're dangerous in almost any arena.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I think this a great example of MS using its monopoly leverage to extend its brand (sorry for the buzzwords). They've implemented technology which probably has no real relation to what people do on their home computers -- i.e. it uses special software and hardware -- but are including it under the Windows Media brand to further entrech it in the tech-ignorant public's minds. Unless the theaters are able to go out and buy an off-the-shelf Dell, hook it up to their projection systems and use this content, MS has no business pretending this is just another great use for the same software people already have at home.
How often does the tape get chewed up in a modern projector. I go to the movies every other week, and in the past four years there have been two movies stopped due to projector failure. This isn't the ISS, people won't die if the projector needs to take a 5 minute break. And honestly, Windows XP does run very reliably and stably for the first two hours, and clearing a theartre takes a lot longer than rebooting XP (Windows 98, no. XP...).
Windows has been running for years in many display kiosks around town and info-screens at the airport. You know it's Windows, because NT will pop up every now and then with a bluish happy little screen. But these things are left on all of the time, all day. If all a machine had to do was boot, display a WM9 file, and reboot, XP should be fine.
Honestly, I'd expect fewer people will be dissappointed with the projection than with the content when the next digitally-projected Star Wars comes out.
The ______ Agenda
Here.
You can't shut us down! The Internet is about the free exchange and sale of other people's ideas!
Microsoft today: "Hey kid! Over here. Try this stuff. The first hit is free!"
Slashdot posting 5 years from now: "I run a small studio. I'm not happy about the new Microsoft media licensing either, especially the royalty-per-view terms. But we've invested so much in Microsoft software, equipment and training that we just can't afford to switch. We've decided to suck up and pay. Plus, with the exclusive deal Microsoft has with all the theater chains, we just can't use any other format. It's industry standard. I wish there was another viable solution, but this is the only game in town."
Landmark is a chain of mostly "art-house" theaters that show a pretty eclectic fare. I think this is a really great announcement, because it means a much lower distribution cost for a lot of films that otherwise would go without screenings. This will lead to more choices at their theaters, since you won't have the huge costs of dealing with film spools and prints. Films that currently only play a week or two because the print has to go to the next city can have longer runs, and its easier to play repertoire films due to no shipping costs.
I'm looking forward to see how this works at Austin's Dobie Theater. At South by Southwest 2002 and 2003, lots of the festival films were screened using digital projection, and I thought it worked pretty well, with the biggest problem being the limited resolution of the DV source.
... why everyone's against everything coming from Microsoft.
Sure, the company is evil, but now in this case it seems to me that they really "invented" quite a good thing, and why not use their product?
Of course, yeah, we can wait a few months till there is an OSS alternative, but hey, they were first.
I think many people should think over their opinion, because there are just too many stereotypes concerning Microsoft. Most people don't think, because "everything that comes from Microsoft is bad."
They certainly have to be kicked of their monopoly-socket, but we have to allow them as well as any other company to bring their ideas to the market and sell them - with fair methods of course.
Martin
Tend to post comments only when drunk
how it's a monopoly (which, it isn't)
Actually, it is. I'm going to be putting together a computer for my sister soon. I'll give you two guesses to tell me what operating systems she can choose from, and I'll give you one guess as to which operating system is the only one she really can choose. Here's a hint: she doesn't have the money for a Mac. I'd also give you a guess about her word processor, but it isn't worth it.
I don't have to fuck about for hours installing this and that, having the right hardware...
I say the same things about Solaris and Mac OS X relative to Windows.
The movie goer does not care how the movie is projected, how it gets to the cinema, or whatever.
I'd bet there will be a two-minute preview hammering into the minds of the audience how great WM9-based movies are. I'd also not be suprised if there are borderline-subliminal messages in that preview to gain even better penetration.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
I've been to 3 movies in my life that crashed. We got free tickets at 2 (the other was free already, a school field trip) and were allowed to finish the movies when they got back up and running.
shit happens in analog, too.
The truth doesn't care what I think.
Slashdot posting 5 years from now: "I run a small studio. I'm not happy about the new Microsoft media licensing either, especially the royalty-per-view terms. But we've invested so much in Microsoft software, equipment and training that we just can't afford to switch. We've decided to suck up and pay. Plus, with the exclusive deal Microsoft has with all the theater chains, we just can't use any other format. It's industry standard. I wish there was another viable solution, but this is the only game in town."
Gads, but I wish I had a mod point handy. This is precisely the problem, and I can't understand why it keeps being dismissed as ``Microsoft bashing.'' (Usually by people who have a Score:3 post who, at some point lament ``I'm sure I'll be modded to Hell for saying this, but...'')
The progression is obvious and has been seen a number of times already: Microsoft behaves in a seemingly generous manner (in this case, setting up low-cost digital projection systems so smaller film producers have a shot at distribution; previously, it was giving away a web browser), gets a whole lot of people using one of their proprietary formats, manages to lock out other formats thereby, and then starts jacking up licensing fees once they're the only game in town.
``And you fall for it every single time.''
--Angelus
sans the popcorn, though. My in-flight movie crashed with a white screen of death and a Windows error. The reboot took 30 minutes. (and then another 20 minutes to fast forward to where the movie had crashed)
Except for their peripherals department, which makes very good mice, keyboards, and cool joysticks. Give credit where it's due. (note: the x-box controller does NOT fit into the above category :op )
Projectionist must be present at all times to jiggle the mouse every ten minutes during the feature.
Actually, WMV9 isn't a MPEG-4 codec. Earlier versions were based on draft MPEG-4 standards, but they forked quite a while ago.
Also, the difference is a lot bigger than 30%. It's more like 100% more for MPEG-2, with the gap increasing as data rates get lower.
My video compression blog
I'm actually in the process of designing a digital cinema system along these lines, so here's a few comments
Everyone is focusing on the codec being the quality limitation, but that's not true. In fact, the projector is the biggest deal. There are plenty of modern codecs that can give you visually lossless quality if you throw enough bits at them. The issue with codecs is getting compression efficiency up so that transmission and storage is cheaper, and keeping decode complexity down so you don't need to have expensive hardware in the projector. The WM9 system is pretty much a high end (but not the highest end) Dell workstation, strapped to a cart with XLR audio out, a control pad, and a big data projector on the top. All off the shelf parts, which makes implementation cheap, and upgrading the computer very cheap. But those are nice things to have, but not strictly required for digital projection.
But we could do the same thing with MPEG-4, or other formats. WM9 has a more mature DRM solution and some other advantages, but it is absolutely possible to use another format.
The big limit is in having a projector that is bright enough to fill the room, with a dark black, and high resolution. Moore's law gives us improvements in compression faster than we get improvements in projection, so the big photon cannon will be the true limit on quality for a while.
My video compression blog
Because bandwidth costs money aaand. . .
We are talking about resolutions MUCH higher than that. Picture transferring 50 gigabytes VS transferring 40 gigabytes. Now imagine that difference times the hundreds if not thousands of theaters across the nation that would be receiving just that one film in digital format. Multiple this by an even larger number of videos are "streamed on demand" rather than stored locally after being transferred once.
Paying some dude $20 an hour or so to squeeze that extra bit of compression out of the codec all of a sudden becomes well worth it.
Heck, for that matter, just bumping up the bit rate is not always enough. multi-pass VBR encoding kicks ass, as do any of the five gazzilion other new options that keep on appearing in various MPEG4 codecs. If Microsoft wants to truly promote this as a professional standard, then they WILL start adding more and more of the twiddly bits to their compressors, and the movie studios will have to hire somebody who knows exactly how to twiddle those various twiddly bits.
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Actually, it is.
Actually, it isn't. The fact that you think the (many) alternatives are too expensive doesn't negate the fact that they exist, and that alone is enough to rebut the accusation that Microsoft is a "monopoly." Does Canjet have an airline monopoly in Canada? I always fly with Canjet. I can't afford to fly with Air Canada, so I guess by your definition, CanJet is a monopoly in Canada. Whatever.
I'd bet there will be a two-minute preview hammering into the minds of the audience how great WM9-based movies are.
I'd take that bet. Movie commercials are very expensive. What on Earth makes you think movie producers will put up with a full two minute ad (your words, not mine) before every one of their shows, without Microsoft front a massive wad of cash? The only analogy I can think of is that occassionally, some movies I see show a 15 second "THX" or "Dolby Digital" promo. Certainly not two minutes.
Stop with the FUD. You sound ignorant.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
DVD in the big screen is a Bad Idea. DVD has a max 720x480 resolution.
That said, it's possible to have high-bitrate (but still compressed) video that looks good on the big screen.
Try watching some 1080i HDTV content. (Like CSI or CSI: Miami). This will look pretty good on the big screen. Especially if you use a "studio master" bitstream, which is often at 40+ megabits/sec as opposed to the 19.2 Mbps of ATSC HD.
Now take that further, and use a better codec, like MPEG-4. With MPEG-4 at 1080p resolution and a high bitrate, you can still have a high compression ratio but have it look excellent on the big screen.
Probably MPEG-4 encoded at HDTV bitrates (19.2 Mbps) would be indistinguishable from pure film.
(BTW, there is already a looming format war over "high definition" DVDs, as HDTV users are beginning to realize that DVD isn't all it's cracked up to be. The two main competing techniques are standard DVD media but with MPEG-4 encoding, and Blu-Ray with MPEG2. There is also DVHS, which supports MPEG-2 at up to 25+ megabits/sec.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
No? Well it doesn't work. Xvid, DivX 4 (not earliest versions I think) & 5 is MPEG4 compliant. DivX 3.11, WM is not. Fine you can make a proprietary *encoder* implementation that creates a valid MPEG4 stream. But when you need a proprietary decoder too, it's not MPEG4. It's your own Microsoft "standard".
The I- and P- frame concept are extremely old and in use in almost every video codec out there. They took some good ideas from MPEG4, but have been going in their own direction ever since.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings