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Microsoft Code in Every HD-DVD Player
Neophytus writes "The DVD Forum steering group has given preliminary backing to Microsoft's VC-9 codec along with H.264 and MPEG-2 as mandatory playback modes for HD-DVD players. Having this technology, the most fundamental part of Windows Media Player 9, in every new DVD player could well give Microsoft major leverage into the Cable and Satellite TV markets where currently MPEG2 dominates. The approval is pending an update in licencing terms and other conditions within 60 days."
No, no. This has nothing to do with DRM. It's a video codec.
What are the licensing terms for MS's VC-9 codec? Is it free, or is every HD-DVD player manufacturer going to be required to pay MS a licensing fee? I don't necessarily mind MS being the ones to author a commonly used codec, but I'm pretty violently opposed to them getting automatic royalties on every HD-DVD player manufactured, and getting stuck in the same position we were with decss regarding open source players.
Coming soon to Slashdot: meta-meta-moderation!
"At the end of the day they said, We're going to trust Microsoft. It does require us to be responsive in providing the kind of licensing terms that the industry can accept."
Sometimes the shortest sentences can mean the most. Here's one: Uh oh.
Sunny
Be my Friend
before this thread degenerates into Java vs .NET
Though seeing as how both MS and most media conglomerates are looking towards DRM lately, I would imagine it's just around the corner.
If they would have loaded these things with DRM right away there would have been more outcry from the knowledgable public (bit of an oxymoron there). Just having their plain codec onboard so many machines gives them the leverage to toss in DRM when the time is right.
"All those fears were on their mind," Majidimehr said. "At the end of the day they said, We're going to trust Microsoft."
Now, forgive me from laughing at that, but my mind is wandering towards the various ways that Microsoft will exploit this for their own gain:
1) They can increase the licence fees on the new DVD-9 standard. That's not ineffective because once endorsed and DVDs are released, all players will have to support (and pay) for Microsoft's DVD-9 even if other formats are supported.
2) They will 'extend' the standard. You can see this coming, can't you? "New DVD-9.1 with extra tracks that are only accessible if you buy Microsoft's new dvd player/software/media unit... etc. etc." This is pretty predictable.
3) They will offer discounts for those players that remove support for the other standards, thus forcing DVD producers to produce in the only format guaranteed to be multiplayer. Again, pretty predictable -- it's what they always do.
4) They will patent the transmission of "over the air" DVD-9, so any future Tivo like device will have to pay royalties.
I could go on, but you see where Microsoft's going with this. It's a horrible, horrible decision for the DVD steering committee. They've just voted themselves into the guillotine. "Trust Microsoft" -- sheesh!
The baby's fine -- please stop sending business cards.
Buy yourself a clue.
MPEG2/4 requires payment of royalties as well.
The Chinese have developed their own format for HDTV capable DVD's, and if high licencing costs is needed for the competition they could easily succeed worldwide. (Despite what major corporations claim they do actually need customers able to view their media)
Well, since I'm not a big fan of Microsoft's multimedia products, I am very sceptical. Well, of cource, if they manage to keep the software small, free of bugs, and reliable, then it would work. The only problem is that my experience with Microsoft's multimedia software is that they add too many features that the average user dont need/want in a player.
A quote that can be compared to this:
"Emacs would be a great Operating System, if someone wrote a good text-editor for it"
Well, Windows Media Player would be an awesome operating system, if someone wrote a good app for viewing videos. Dont misunderstand me here, wmp is good, but it would be better without all of the effects and features that does nothing more than slow down the entire program. This makes me think of something: In Windows 3.1/3.11 there was this program called mplayer. It worked perfectly, it didnt have any other features than those you need, and it was stable as hell. It is still included in Windows98, but like notepad: Microsoft does not like keeping simple things simple. I can only hope they do so when injecting their code into my DVD-player..
this is probably the most boring sig in the world
Microsoft will no longer be the ones to control revisions added to the codec if it's approved. SMPTE will be.
Coming soon to Slashdot: meta-meta-moderation!
I think it's nearly certain that HD-DVD and other formats will include SOME DRM since DVD has some today. But this announcement is limited to video codecs. The decision around DRM choice will be independent of video.
... We will see blue screens on TV too!
Why don't they just put the the codec in some byte code format on the media? That way the player can play any codec [within reason: e.g. you'd still have to spec out a codec size, memory alotment, hardware assist standards].
This way the content producers can use the codec they like not the ones they are forced to by another governing body. OSS people can use their Xvid [or whatever] and the commercial entities can use their MPEG2 [or whatever].
Put something like a Crusoe with CMS+8MB of ram in the player and just load the codec at play time. Cheap, power efficient and enough MIPS to run any decent codec.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
funny, media player certainly works fine on OSX new update is quite nice..
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Unless and until there's an open standard for subscription digital video from signal distributor to consumer, cable comapanies and DBS companies will always need their own box connected to your TV. Therefore, having any given codec in the DVD player isn't going to lower the cost of selecting that same codec for signal distributors...
I was really hoping that something like this would happen, especially since hearing that MS was opening it up to the standards organization.
HDTV content really does look and sound awesome and I itch to get my hands on HD movies. But if it would require a whole new format HD-DVD would fall flat on its face, not because of the need for new players as having to introduce another disc format in stores at a time when DVD has huge momentum. It would annoy customers and retailers.
WM9 can fit a feature length film at 720p with decent 5.1 sound in 3-5 GB. With so many DVDs now coming as a 2-Disc set anyway it doesn't seem like much effort to throw in a HD WM9 version along side the standard DVD version and some movies (e.g. Terminator 2) have already done this. No need for a new production processes, wacky labeling at retail outlets, etc. This way those of us wanting HD content won't get snubbed while waiting for a more lossless based (MPEG2) HD-DVD format to get settled and at the same time it won't upset the currently booming DVD market.
The only annoying thing about movies like this at the moment is they usually require that the player bundled with the movie is used to aquire the license instead of just the standard media player. Most of those bundled players are annoying and mess up far more often. It will be nice when the internet authentication based DRM gets removed so I can just watch things on my netless media PC.
You can view clips of WM9-HD stuff on the MS website, but honestly their samples are a little disappointing and the two feature length films I watched in the format looked WAY better. It takes quite a bit of horsepower to play the 1080p clips, but the 720p ones aren't so bad. I for one hope to see WM9-HD to pick up ASAP.
With MPEG2, H.264 (aka MPEG4 AVC) and WMV, they're trying to ensure that one player plays all. Kinda how burnable DVDs didn't start to take off until they went both DVD+R and DVD-R.
With movies, I imagine most people would wait much longer for the "winner" than for burnable DVDs - after all, I plan to have my movies far longer than my DVD burner.
Noone wants to get stuck with the Beta of HD-DVDs. Particularly since this standard is probably going to be around until we move to something better than HDTV - goodness knows how long that'll take.
But for now, my 19" CRT is the only thing doing HDTV anyway. So I guess, no hurry.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It is a fact that Microsoft has hoodwinked and swindled their way to the top. Ask about GO, STAC, DR-DOS, forged video evidence at the anti-trust trial, rigged bencharks, blatant lies and FUD, any period of their history, including that the very MS-BASIC that Bill Gates so infamously complained about being stolen when he himself had stolen the computer time to develop it, and you will find blatant decption and skulduggery.
Then the other side of it, what has Microsoft actually done that is new? You sure won't find much. They are excellent at doing a shoddy job of copying others.
Consider a serial killer, say that guy in Canada who murdered several dozen prostitutes. Would you suggest that some other prostitute should take a chance on that guy?
I doubt it. So why should anyone believe a thing Microsoft says, or have any expectations for future decency in any of their current activities?
Reputations take time to build. Microsoft has shot their own reputation so many times that it will take a wholesale change of corporate leadership to change their reputation, and years and years of reinforcing that new sense of ethics. In the meantime, they continue to reinforce their current reputation. Apologists like yourself do them no good.
Infuriate left and right
"It looks like you're trying to watch a DVD..."
You do realize that DVDs today, utilizing only MPEG-2, require payment of royalties to the MPEG-2 Licensing Association. Furthermore, if you enable Macrovision, CSS, or Dolby Digital audio, you are also paying royalties to the respective organizations because they own patents regarding these technologies. See Section 6.1 of the DVD Demystified FAQ for details.
Neither MPEG-2 nor the other technologies that are part of the DVD standard are free (save for possibly PCM audio). Furthermore, the hardware royalties are quite nominal as shown by the proliferation of DVD players, on the order of less than a dollar as the FAQ shows clearly. MPEG-4 Part 10 (aka H.264) and MPEG-2 are still available for use in authoring DVDs. Nobody is forcing anyone to use WMV9 if they don't want to. Just because Microsoft's CODEC is included in the standard doesn't mean that they're taking over anything. It's not mandatory.
You're missing the point. In this case Microsoft doesn't give a damn about hackers. They want to own the industry like they own the desktop, and they want to strengthen their hold on the desktop. Microsoft pattented property being required for playing a HD-DVD will be the tool they need to be sure that no official Linux release ever has a HD-DVD player. Sure, a few hackers may add on after the fact, but for the masses Windows software will be able to play HD-DVDs and Linux will not.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
exactly, to submit the standard, ms had to specifically remove the codec from its proprietary 'vault' and make it publically licensable. after the years of development that they've put into their video compression, this is quite the move for them - considering that years ago the idea of a microsoft standard was simply breaking existing ones with proprietary extensions. frankly the video compression is the ONE thing that microsoft gets right. not that i want ms tech in my dvd player mind you.
Gekido's Lair
Just talk to Microsoft. Or go look at their site, it's all layed out there. $0.10USD per copy was the going rate last I checked.
It's no different than MPEG-4. An open, but not free, standard that you pay a royalty to the owner to use. Open standards can still be patented, all it means is that the technology is open to the world and there is a standard licensing fee that anyone can pay to use said technology.
Firewire would be another example. It's not a free technology, Apple owns it and you have to pay them royalties to use it. However the technical spec is open for anyone to look at and provided you pay the royalties, Apple is happy to have you implement their technology.
This is actually an example of the patent system working as it should. A company does research, makes the results available to the world to use, and profits from it. That was the intent as perscribed in the constitution.
How many people really out the longing for better than DVD resolution and are willing to pay for it.
The only obvious reason to push this new-and-improved DVD is to try for a whole new round of DRM lock-in. Since they lost the CCS battle, they'll start over with DVD-HD. Feh.Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Really?
Let's take a look at the T2 disc that is available with WM9 HD content now.
To watch it, you have to install the player on the disc.
Then, the player needs to "call home" to make sure you're allowed to use it (via the Internet).
Then, the player needs to be updated.
Then the update needs to call home.
If it hasn't crashed by then (mine did, three times), you MIGHT get to watch your DVD.
Remember DIVX? Not the codec, the abomination Circuit City was pushing as an alternative to what we now call DVD? Basically a dial-home, pay-per-view DVD format.
Do we REALLY want that whole scenario all over again?
I HATE the way companies try to push all of this before the general consumer populace is even aware it's occurring. DVD early-adopters won the DIVX battle, but primarily because Circuit City was the only distributor, and they were easy to boycott. They were also in poor financial shape to begin with, and couldn't bankroll a protracted battle to push their format through.
MS can. MS will. And our DVD players will have to dial home to ask for permission every time we want to watch a DVD. And you can be certain that "ask permission" will morph into "pay for use" at some point in the future.
.@.
perhaps should clarify. distributing mpeg-2 decoding or encoding without paying a license fee to MPEG-LA is illegal. This is why linux distros pretty much never ship with DVD playback built in. however, I agree that CSS and other DRM schemes are a much bigger challenge to OSS than license fees, which can always be done with separate, binary distributions.