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Microsoft Codec Required For Blu-Ray Players
dmayle writes "According to ExtremeTech, the Blu-Ray Disc Association (which consists of many big names, like Sony, Philips, and Pioneer) has decided to mandate Microsoft's VC-1 video codec. With HD-DVD incorporating Microsoft's patented video codecs as well, what will happen to the state of media players on Open Source? (Here's an additional source for Blu-Ray info)."
Ahem, it seems that they are making their inroads to Media domination...
Microsoft will maintain its neutral position in supporting the emerging high definition video formats, said Amir Majidimehr, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Windows Media division, in a statement.
MSFT will remain "neutral" as long as they are getting paid royalties to use the codec in the design. This will likely mean that Open Source alternatives will be shutout although with other technologies OSS has been able to make its way around those roadblocks.
How long until the MPAA gives in or will yet ANOTHER media format be created that won't include MSFT or OSS?
It'll be reverse engineered. it'll happen in some other country. it'll move "underground". they'll be a giant legal battle.
Either that or it'll fail as a format. I'm kinda guessing the latter.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
Could someone please explain this to me is words that actually made sence to a person that has no idea what codec and all that stuff is?
"Cutting off the oxygen supply"
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-07 -22&res=l
Orwell was right... First it starts with computers... Then to home appliances... Next to the very cable TV we watch... And who can forget the patent that MS put on watches commercials that ask you questions for a prize... The worst part about this, is what it does to open-source codecs... Things like ogg-vorbis and xvid... Will the world every get a clue?
I am 60% pleased, 30% worried, and 10% indifferent.
Pleased: Despite all the MS bashing that occurs here, MS does make some very nice A/V codecs.
Worried: MS has a history of hamstringing their good codecs with DRM and other crap too.
Indifferent: Nothing to see here folks, FOSS will reverse-engineer and/or come out with far better codecs.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Based on my take of the article, seems this is going to be just one option of many.
"We've been committed to adding advanced codecs to enrich the Blu-ray Disc format," said Maureen Weber, general manager of HP's optical storage solutions business and a member of the Blu-Ray group, in a statement.
"We want to offer content providers a variety of compression codecs to suit their various needs. With the addition of Microsoft's VC-1, we extend that option in a package that makes Blu-ray Disc's capacity advantage even more substantial while still delivering the picture quality that consumers demand from high-definition technology."
A variety of compression codecs sure makes me think we're going to have options...
Most of Microsoft's patent portfolio exists solely to protect MS from the lawsuits of other companies.
Now, if MS licenses this and plays nice (and yes, MS can play nice if it benefits them to do so, i.e. making money by licensing the use of their codecs), we won't have any problems and this isn't necessarily a bad thing. IMO, only if MS keeps it closed, secret and has no licensing options will this hurt OSS.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
This is tantamount to telling people what gasoline they have to put in their car.
The difference is, as long as the blue-ray players drop in price quickly, the average consumer really won't give a damn.
You'll only hear a true uproar once prices go beyond what the majority of the market can bear. So prepared to be screwed - because there isn't a damn thing you or I can do about it.
Yeah, I'm Free. Right.
With HD-DVD incorporating Microsoft's patented video codecs as well, what will happen to the state of media players on Open Source?
My prediction is this, someone will reverse engineer the codec and release it a la DeCSS and everyone will have it. Microsoft will try to shut it down and there will be T shirts with the code printed on them.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
How is this different than mandating all current DVD player support Dolby Digital? This doesn't preclude the standard from accepting other open source codecs. Market forces have pretty much made DTS decoding standard in all current players.
All in all, I think this may be more of an annoyance than a real problem. But I'd be interested in the opinion of other
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
"We want to offer content providers a variety of compression codecs to suit their various needs. With the addition of Microsoft's VC-1, we extend that option in a package that makes Blu-ray Disc's capacity advantage even more substantial while still delivering the picture quality that consumers demand from high-definition technology."
Notice "A VARIETY OF COMPRESSION CODECS". VC-1 is merely one of several and is being added for those who want better images on high definition displays.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
I can't help to think that this is incredably short sighted by said companies. They go through all that trouble to create a new format, and then dictate that the compression method used is propriatary, and currently non-standard. It's not about Microsoft(!?), this is about clear and common sence: If you use a propiertary format, don't you think that the owner will charge some kind of royality fee for the useage ? This could only make this more costly, and less attractive to future users of this. Clearly this is akin to shooting one's self in the foot, let's not even get started with OSS trying to keep up on this format too...
In this case, though, the two competing standards (Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD ... think back to DVD vs. DivX) are *both* using Microsoft's VC-1 compression. So as it stands now, next-generation DVDs will use Microsoft software regardless -- unless other manufacturers want to come up with a THIRD competing format. What are the odds of that?
The Ezine Directory
In the U.S. at least, MPEG2 and CSS used in current DVD players are not really "Open", although they have been reverse engineered and implemented in open source projects (Opened with a crowbar, in a sense.)
I suppose you could make an argument MPEG2 is somewhat more open, if not unencumbered, than Microsoft codex XXX, but CSS certainly isn't.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
I think this is the problem they're going to face. There was a giant untapped market of people who wanted to buy movies/TV shows on a permant media, but the sound/image quality and physical size of video tapes didn't make it worth it for them.
While BD-ROM will appeal to the home cinema fanatics, who will have the kit to really appreciate the HD images and ungodly number of sound channels that can be put on these disks. For most people though, the jump in image and sound quality is trivial compared to that when going from cassette to DVD.
corrected link, sorry.
For the record, Blu-Ray also has MPEG2 and MPEG4 AVC High Profile as mandatory codecs. So it's not like anyone is forced to use VC-1.
It might seem surprising that they would mandate 3 codecs, due to the added complexity of supporting them together. But it turns out that once you've implemented an MPEG4 decoder in silicon, VC-1 is not that difficult to add on. As for MPEG2, that's needed for back compatability, but as anyone who uses DivX knows, it's far less efficient than modern codecs.
HD DVD supports MPEG-2, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, and Microsoft VC-9.
Blu-Ray Disc (BD) already supported MPEG-2 and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, and now just added Microsoft VC-9. So what?
[i]Let's think about that one. You think anyone could prove this time around MS has a monopoly when there are millions of Linux users out there?[/i]
Do we already make the whole 1% ? And reducing that number by the servers (non-desktop after all) what is left. The monopoly is as strong as ever and IF there's a recognizable number of alternative desktops it will have to be Apple..
Ayes, I'm among the 1%..;) It's just reality kicking in..
Nobody expects the spanish inquisition!
1- Remember that Hollywood is supposedly afraid of Microsoft
2- Royalties jack up the price of things
3- There is still plenty of time for bickering and delay to kill this a-la-Digital-Audio-Tape.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
I know there is a lot of anti-MS sentiment around here, but this is really great news. VC-1 (VC-9) is a great codec for HD and is vastly superior to the aging MPEG2 standard. Think better picture quality at a third of the bitrate on 1080p material. Note that the inclusion of VC-1 does NOT mean the inclusion of any kind of Microsoft DRM. They are completely separate issues We will certainly get some kind of restrictive DRM, but that is a separate issue from VC-1.
Please note that MPEG2 is still a part of the spec and content providers will still be free to use it if they choose. I believe there is still a chance for H.264 to be included as well. (HD-DVD includs all three codecs)
I'm of the opinion that Blu-ray will ultimately win this format war, but we shall see. It has a nice capacity advantage over HD-DVD (and now a next-gen codec to utilize it efficiently). I think the only real advantage HD-DVD has right now is intial lower duplication costs due to its physical similarity to DVD. Sony has stated they are going to run with Blu-ray to the bitter end, so I expect them to press enough discs to overcome that initial disadvantage.
Time, money, connections, the usual stuff. Besides, it appears that the decision is all but set in stone.
Assuming blu ray becomes the dominant hi def format (it's not clear but the ps3 supporting it gives it an edge IMO), the same thing will happen that happened with dvd's.
Someone will reverse engineer it, you will be able to play these movies on a linux system but it won't be legal.
"Even if we have a much better Free codec, that codec is worthless if every single DVD/movie released *must* be encoded in Microsoft's codecs because the standard mandates it"
The support for Media Player 9 codec is mandated for the players, to ensure that they are capable of showing video files encoded in that format. They are also mandated to do good ol' Mpeg 2 (just like DVD) and Mpeg 4 as well.
Of course, Mpeg 2 has its patents as well, but that doesn't seem to be hugely bothering people when discussing what this does over DVD, just because "Microsoft = Bad".
I'm just happy because a more efficient video codec leaves more room for audio on the discs, and we might see some MLP-encoded films.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Good thing I gots my Blue Blockers!
---
Those who can, do
Those who can't, teach
Those who don't know how, supervise
Why would Sony want a MS technology to go into the PS3 when they now compete with the Xbox?
Does anyone know what a ballpark cost would be for licensing the IP for a blu-ray player, including the MS and other patented bits?
With all these codecs on board i'd imagine it's a lot more than for regular DVD, and seeing the Chinese manufacturers attitude towards this they'll just go right ahead with their own patent-free platform. Hollywood will ignore them, at first, then they'll panic like mad knowing that a couple of billion users can only buy pirated copies of their films. Brilliant, way to go.
The Microsoft video codec will be required for inclusion in Blu-Ray players, but others won't be excluded. That means M$ getting a royalty for every player sold in the world, which is a great business for them. It's certainly been a great business for Sony and Phillips, with their codec required in every CD player. It also guarantees their own media products will be compatible with the new players, without any extra R&D, to say nothing of putting their logo on all those consumer devices.
Other codecs can also run. There might be pricing pressure on manufacturers to exclude the other, non-mandated codecs. Just like the PC "bundling" coup that drove Microsoft to their monopoly position. Blu-Ray needs at least one required codec to be a stable target for media delivery. By requiring Microsoft's codec, they've pushed Microsoft's monopoly-perpetuation strategy into the wider world of consumer TV.
--
make install -not war
Detail #1: "...I predict ...reverse engineered..."
That doesn't mean anything! It's not Copyright, it's Patents that is the problem here. Microsoft could give away the source without licensing the patent for use in any given software.
Detail #2: A patent in a legal monopoly by definition. Until patent law is changed, they can't be hit with anti-trust or monopoly abuse quite so easily.
I think "Open Source" should be organized into a religion... it's just about the ONLY way it will get government protection.
If you read the article you'd know that this isn't an issue of support, it's an issue of MANDATE. From the article: Blu-Ray, backed by companies like Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Philips and Matsushita will require the codec to be used in playback equipment. They're not announcing that they support the codec. They're announcing that they REQUIRE the codec. There's a BIG difference here. What we have is a collaborative standard MANDATING one company's codec over open, standard codecs.
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
People misquote Orwell's 1984, Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and Huxley's Brave New World because the books are too new (being published on or after 1923) for people to find the time and money to get through them.
In the worst case scenario, us OpenSource/GPL freaks won't be able to watch these wonderful hi-definition movies on our wonderful full-room TVs.
Instead will have to do something else with our time....like...
Go hiking.
Learn to play an instrument.
Drink beer with friends.
Read obscure books.
Learn a foreign language.
Play with children.
Cook good food.
Run.
Microsoft can keep it's crap for all I care.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Developing the fancy algorithms behind codecs is expensive and at least I think that companies are entitled to protect their inventions. It's up to the standards bodies to define under what (fair) terms the IP must be licensed in order to be adopted into the specs. Some are stricter than others. I'd like to know what's the case here.
- 4r0g
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Most players are made in China.
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The Chinese government wants to reduce dependencies on foreign technology that requires royalties.
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With players selling for as little as $29.95, paying royalties to high-wage countries is no longer competitive.
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The top-grossing movie this week is
Hero.
It's from China.
It no longer matters what Microsoft or Hollywood wants. EVD players will be in Wal-Mart.Wow, you must know some very developmentally challenged 13 year olds. If a 13 year old cannot read, (s)he has bigger problems than not being able to watch foreign movies.
There are no tiger attacks in my area and it's all because this rock I'm holding keeps the tigers away.
MPEG is also patented. Of course, the MPEG licensing association may not have had much interest in going after open source because there is little money in it. Microsoft may go after open source just in order to hurt open source. But, ultimately, the problem is patented codecs in general, not which particular patented codec gets put into hardware.
The same thing that will happen to all serious Free software development: it will eventually migrate out of the United States where it can continue unhindered by insane patent and export laws. The finished product will find its way back into the US via FreeNet/WASTE/etc.
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
HD-DVD thinks pressing cost (a few cents difference now) will be what wins the war, and cites the VHS/BETA wars as precedent.
But it wasn't blank tape costs that killed BETA, what killed BETA (in the home market), it was 3 HR record time (extended to 4 ½) versus 6 for VHS on standard tapes.
Consumers will make the same decision here. Blu-Ray now supports all the HD-DVD formats on 25 gig single layer vs HD-DVD 15 gig. Not only this, but HD-DVD is 2 layers max (per side), while Blu-Ray is planning on going anywhere from 4 to 8. Exactly how many hasn't quite been worked out yet, but at least 4 are almost a certainty and 100 Gig on one side as a result (can you say one full season in HD on one side?).
HD-DVD's only advantage (and it is a slim one) is the DVD name. But Blu-Ray is a good name too, and one I think the general public will pick up quickly, and assume better because it's using that newer Blue Laser don't you know (even though HD-DVD will be using Blue Lasers also).
The new Holographic storage is nice too at 200 Gig, but it may be too late to the party to be a video standard storage, it still has a year or two of basic development left. Better to keep working on this one and release it in 2010+ at 1T plus to support Ultra-HDTV. By 2020 I predict Movie Theaters will be an anachronistic oddity like Drive-Ins now. Of course we may not be using Disks at all by then, and downloading U-HD straight off of the internet.
Letter To Iran
I remember reading a "report" in a "men's entertainment" magazine that gave the statistic that 2% of men could orally pleasure themselves.
If these numbers are accurate, that means for every person using Linux, there are 2 guys who can suck their own dicks.
I wouldn't call that penetration.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
Most people simply don't have the level of equipment to hear the difference between CD and SACD and so won't care.
Will the blu-ray discs deliver like 2000 lines, though? That might do the trick.
Of course in ten years the networks might be big enough that you'll just pipe a movie in HD down the line.
Microsoft will likely have to submit to some kind of RAND licensing as part of the deal, which will probably still exclude free players, but last I checked there was no such think as a free MPEG4 patent license either (just plenty of unlicensed implementations).
...is the fact that many of the companies behind these formats are media giants.
If for instance Sony decides to only release Spiderman 4 on Blu-Ray, whatcha gonna do? It would only take one mega-hit for people to starting shelling out the cash. Hell, I've bought GAME SYSTEMS because I liked one game.
Just imagine how they will put us all on the rack with two competing formats.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Ok, I have to weigh in here in the interest of some objectivity. Most DVDs currently are in the $25 or less range. Most of the DVDs I've recently purchased have been $10 to $14. I don't see that as overcharging, particularly since a matinee ticket costs $5.00-$5.50 and as high as $9 for evening showings, and you have to schedule yourself to be at the theater at their showing time, not when best fits your schedule.
Some people apparently missed the Good Old Days when VHS tapes of movies were $30 up to $80 (one studio was always in the $70 to 80 range, while others were much lower) and if you adjust the dollars these would be considerably more in today's bucks.
Blank media may be pricey, but don't confuse that with what's on sale with content.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Remember like TV you are not the customer.
The studios are the customer, they are buying a distribution mechanism. They want a good standard so that this channel will work well when it is deployed to the movie customers.
People don't buy DVD players to have a DVD player, they buy a DVD player to gain access to the DVD entertainment channel.
Damn I sound like a management/marketing droid.
MPEG2 may be lacking in certain efficiencies, but MPEG2 with enough bandwidth (and the point of Blu-ray was to GET enough bandwidth) looks AWESOME.
The draw-back to new CODECs? HDTV was SUPPOSED to standardize on MPEG2, not because it was the best, but because it was pretty good when it came out and would be cheap to implement by the changeover in a few years.
Remember, televisions are going to start having to ship with HDTV decoders (err, did have to start shipping as of a few months ago, a certain percentage of sets), and they don't want to include OTA without CableCard...
This means that within a few years, all new sets will ship with HDTV decoders, which includes, an MPEG2 decoder. Therefore, the manufacturers should start including Firewire.
A wonderful day was nearly upon us, Firewire for EVERYTHING but videogame systems. We were going to be able to use a basic remote instead of $200-$800 programmable remotes that depend upon screwy macros.
Instead, we're going to lose the Firewire stereo, and instead suffer with messes of cables and macros...
Sure HDMI offers some ease of use, but not the beauty of Firewire.
The AV-HD or whatever it was called was brilliant... it was a harddrive in a box that supported the decryption/encryption of HD from OTA sources... Your television could manage it.
Instead, before the HDTV mainstream adoption (those of us with sets are still 5%), we're already abandonning MPEG2...
It would have been nice if the FIRST round of HD gear could all be MPEG2... We could have gone with fancier codecs with the NEXT replacement, but oh no, we're getting trashed before it began.
I have over 100+ wires behind my entertainment center, I dreamed of cutting down to 8...
Alex
RTFA people.
They are mandating that the player have the *ability* to decode this codec not that all media use this codec. The vast majority of Blu-ray DVDs will still be mpeg 2.
I believe that this announcement is the result of Microsoft pressure to include the codec. MSFT announced a Windows native driver for HD-DVD but did not commit to doing one for Blu-ray. How long now before MSFT announces that yes indeed, they will now provide a native driver for Blu-ray too?
Oh, and it was also twice in the mid-1800s:
The Revision of Copyright act of 1830, and the adoption of the Berne Convention in 1886. That makes 6 times.
You know, it's not like MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 aren't patented codecs, either.
Both versions are common. "Coding" generally doesn't mean encryption. It means replacing input data with output data that has some desirable property. Error correcting codes are bigger than the input they represent, but allow the input to be reconstructed even if some bits are changed in transmission. Huffman codes convert input symbols to variable length output strings - common symbols get short strings and rare symbols get long strings. Spreading codes are combined with baseband signals to create spread spectrum signals.
So, generally, coding/encoding is not related to encryption.
Maybe not:
i sc
First EVD disks and software players have been presented in April 2004. As the disk is physically a DVD disk it can be read with any computer DVD drive. Successful copies have been made with DVD-R disks. The number of films offered is still very limited. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Versatile_D
IMO, only if MS keeps it closed, secret and has no licensing options will this hurt OSS.
Whether the codec will be closed or secret is irrelavent. If the spec is not published, someone will reverse-engineer it. Therefore, there will undoubtably be ways to technically play this media on Linux/BSD/etc.
Legally, however, is a totally different issue. Sure, there will be licensing options. How much do you want to bet that there will be no options compatible with FOSS (ie. free of cost and distribution restrictions)?
Eventually there will be a legal means to play these on Linux (just like TurboLinux allows you to pleay WMP9 and DVDs on their distro). However, it runs counter to the FOSS goals of restriction-free software, and therefore has no chance of widespread acceptance.
So, in a way, you're right in that this won't "hurt", since we're presently already in this situation with DVDs. However, the ones licensing DVD's technology are not convicted monopolists hell-bent for the destruction of FOSS.
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
Why do you assume MPEG-2 will be dominant? the VC-1 codec (aka VC-9, aka WMV9 Advanced Profile) can provide similar quality to MPEG-2 at half the bitrate. This means that content providers could do a project with a cheaper, single layer disc instead of a dual layer disc for longer projects.
I believe the big driver behind this is the competition form the DVD Forum's own blue laser format. DVD Forum already has tentative support for VC-1 and H.264. Even though the DVD Forum has lower digital capacity, the support for better codecs meant that DVD Forum could actually get more hours of good quality content on the disc. So equalizing the codecs means that Blu-Ray's capacity advantage can shine.
That said, I'm still betting on DVD Forum. 30 GB will mean more hours of HD content that DVD can do of SD. Also, DVD Forum discs are MUCH easier to convert an existing DVD plant to, and likely will be more durable in day to day use.
Blu-ray seems more likely to win inside cameras and that kind of thing, where capacity is a bigger deal. Think VHS v. Beta, where Beta turned into the Betacam format, giving Sony a 15-year dominance in professional video formats.
My video compression blog
xvid is based on MPEG-4 part 2, which is roughly as patent encumbered and has roughly similar license fees and terms as Microsoft's VC-1. If xvid is good enough from a licensing perspective for you, so will VC-1 be.
Now, if what you want is an open-source VC-1 encoder, I'm sure it'll happen once the standard is fully finalized, ala LAME and Xvid. The same kind of open-source but unlicensed codec implementation should be perfectly applicable there.
My video compression blog
Look at it this way. 1% of computer users != 1% of men. They're the same percentage, yes, but they don't represent the same actual numer of people. 2% of men is roughly 1% of the population. Unless you can show there are half as many computer users as there are people, there's no 2-to-1 ratio.
As a more valid analogy, assume that 2% of Linux users users use Emacs, and 1% of Windows users use Notepad. Does this mean that Emacs has twice the usage of Notepad ? Of course not. The group of Windows users is different than the group of Linux users, and so are any percentages of them.
--LordPixie
Does no-one read TFA?
In order to be used for next-gen media, VC-1 has to be OPEN SPEC. Therefore, no-one needs to do any reverse engineering in order to get it to play back, like with the MPEG1-4 family. The bitstream specs are available for anyone to look at. However, like MPEG, VC-1 will be haevily patented.
What is interesting is how MS will handle things when someone *does* write and open source encoder/decoder. While the MPEG patent holders (Fraunhofer and Thomson IIRC) don't seem to mind too much when people write MPEG codecs* without paying royalties, something strikes me that MS are going to be alot less liberal with their patent portfolio once it gets bundled into the version X of mPlayer and Xine. Expect them to get driven away from US and other shores to have their pages located in somewhere that doesn't give a crap about US patents.
*Most of you will note that in order to remain semi-immune to patents, all the popular open source MPEG codecs I know of (LAME, XviD) are distributed as source-only, and they leave it to third parties to (semi-illegally) build them into binaries.
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
Folks,
Everyone seems to be thinking that somehow VC-1 is more patent or license protected than MPEG-2. This simply isn't true. Now, maybe real-world enforcement of the MPEG-2 patents aren't particularly aggressive for OSS software decoders, but every DVD player, and EVERY DVD DISC STAMPED requires a payment to MPEG-LA. And VC-1 license payments will also be handled by MPEG-LA. MPEG-2 or VC-1, there still will be payments, and the checks go to the same company. The interesting differences here are technical, not licensing.
My video compression blog
Prediction: You won't be able to buy a non-HD set of more than 23" within a few years. It's not that much more expensive to build an HD set these days. And it's a feature people are willing to pay for.
See many new black and white sets anymore? This changeover will be quite a lot faster.
My video compression blog
I thought Apple had claimed that H.264, which they made a big deal out of as part of Tiger, and that was the "official" codec for HD-DVD.
So are there in fact 2 camps? DVD Forum and H.264 and Blu-Ray and this Microshaft drivel?
I hate it when that happens. I'm all for competition, but not when its from MS. They'll just FUD, lawyer, and beat you to death until you submit.
A side note: all dvd drives and players are made in China. There may be some stereo tweeks out there doing custom boxes, but the drives are all sourced from the same 10 or so plants.
Luke, help me take this mask off