Real Sues Baseball Over Windows Media

westlake writes 'According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, RealNetworks has sued Major League Baseball over its use of Windows Media. The dispute began with MLB's decision to stream exhibition games in WMA format only, under its revised contract, Real claims all live MLB streams must include RealMedia as an option. The piece states: 'Windows Media Player controlled about 34 percent of the U.S. market, compared with nearly 19 percent for RealOne player and 10 percent for QuickTime player, according to January data from Nielsen/NetRatings.'"

Comments

What's wrong?

[powerpuffgirls]

I can't see what's wrong with the lawsuit. RealNetworks has a contract with MLB.

Please note that Real is not asking MLB to only broadcast in Real, as the article stated, "MLB is free to use Microsoft's Windows Media format if it wants, but under the Feb. 8 agreement, it also must use RealNetworks' RealMedia format to provide live coverage of the entire baseball season, including spring training."

Re:Real Supports Other Platforms

[mhesseltine]

Now, with windows media being the only stream being offered, I will not be able to listen to the broadcasts as windows media player doesn't support either my linux machines (or solaris the other OS I use). So MLB take note, I probably won't renew this year if media player is all you offer.

Quick FYI: Mplayer's supported formats seem to include Windows Media formats. I've sucessfully opened ASF files and WMV files using Mplayer on Gentoo. I'm not sure about Solaris (I don't run it) but Mplayer's page on Solaris seems to indicate that it should work.

MPEG-4 != QuickTime

[Branka96]

The file format for MPEG-4 is based on QuickTime's file format.
The audio format and video format used in MPEG-4 are not Apple technologies. Heck, Microsoft unlike Apple is one of the patent holders for the video format.
Try to play a MPEG-4 file using one of the more advanced profiles in QuickTime. You can't. Apple only supports MPEG-4 Simple Profile.