Xine Gets Native Sorenson3 Decoding

gooofy writes "Freshly (im)ported from ffmpeg, xine 1-beta12 finally has native support for Sorenson SVQ3 video. This means that you're finally able to watch the latest quicktime trailers on any xine supported hardware platform, not just on x86. Other goodies in this release include support for ogg/theora, playback of cd/dvd over the network, improved handling of mpeg-2 files (resyncing) and many detail improvements."

Comments

yeah but does it embed in a browser?

[7-Vodka]

Most movie trailers and stuff that i'd need quicktime for are embeded in webpages. It's a pain in the ass sometimes to find the url for the file you want and download it so you can play it.

What has xine done

[Fefe]

to get all this free publicity? The ffmpeg and xvid people do all the hard codec work and the mplayer people support every codec, container format and play even severely broken files, setting new records for tweakability to get it to excel even in really bad circumstances (it can play DVD in real-time on my EPIA-M 9000, using software AC-3 with stereo downmix; go ahead and read all the reviews that say it can't be done even under Windows where they have hardware MPEG-2 acceleration and use an external S/PDIF decoder).

xine is always lagging behind. Their main "innovation" is that unintuitive and ugly GUI. WTF were they thinking when they created a GUI that is unusable without all those tool-tips?

I have no idea whom the xine people had to bribe to get all this slashdot exposure, because it sure as hell didn't earn it on technical merit.

whining about no official linux quicktime player

[SuperBanana]

"btw screw you apple and microsoft for not providing media players for linux"

Says the PFY as he fires up MPlayer(having downloaded the illegally-distributed Windows DLLs from the mplayer authors) to watch The Matrix trailer. I seem to be saying this a lot on slashdot lately, but, get a grip!

Linux has half a percent of the desktop market. Apple, with MacOS, has something like 4-5%, I think? Maybe 8% tops? Why exactly -should- Apple give a hoot about Linux? They're not THAT big a company, and they're busy as hell(have you stopped to think about how many software products they now produce? OSX, OSX Server, Quicktime Streaming Server, Quicktime, iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie and Final Cut Pro, iDVD and DVD Studio Pro, iCal/iSync...the list is ENORMOUS.) They don't, quite frankly, have the time to screw around with, essentially, something that can't even be called "competition"(Apple's products have always represented the complete antithesis of Linux - coherence, ease of use, simplicity, elegance...)

I've owned Macs for years, and no-official-quicktime-or-wmp-player doesn't bother me. Why? Because there are clever(if sometimes annoying) people out there who figure out how to do it themselves. While Apple hasn't released a player, their normally vicious legal department has, by its lack of action, practically applauded mplayer for using the quicktime-for-windows DLLs. Apple's not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, basically. They get their cake(quicktime support on linux for those who really want it) and they get to eat it too(nothing to develop, maintain, or even support). Besides, the DLLs are getting used the same way a Windows application would use them- about the only thing Apple could get the mplayer guys on would be distributing the DLLs alone and without license.

You say, "oh, but Apple just doesn't care enough". Apple cares about lots of little things, including people making themes that look like Aqua. Their legal department has no qualms about making a mountain out of a molehill if something displeases them(this is actually one of the things I hate about Apple the most- their legal department head is a total psycho-policy-bitch, completely the wrong thing for a cute-and-cuddly computer company. Lady, get a job at MS or something, you may be making a hit in the legal world, but you're pissing off thousands of Apple customers and techies with every move you make.)

Re:Compress in Soreson

[PhoenixK7]

This would be great considering that the alternative would be to use expensive Apple software on a Mac.

You mean $30 for quicktime pro?

Certainly you can pay more for better encoders from sorenson, but I'd hazzard a guess that if there are ffmpeg encoders for sorenson they're probably not even on par with apple's basic one since its only just been announced.

Re:xine

[Spy Hunter]

Looks like KXine hasn't been touched in over half a year. KPlayer and KMplayer, on the other hand, seem to be progressing nicely. I won't be happy until some backend issues are fixed, though, like smooth seeking/rewind/fastforward and single frame advance/rewind. Seems like no linux media player is interested in tackling these issues. Quicktime is the only player that gets it right. But it is windows/macos only and has annoying advertisements and Flash-like "features". I want my movie player to just play movies, not be a "media center" where "media" is defined as "whatever stuff AOL/Time Warner/Disney/Sony/etc. want you to be paying for today".