SMPTE Adoption Of WMV9 Hits Some Snags

SysKoll writes "EETimes is running an interesting story about the future of the video codecs for HD DVDs. The Redmond Beast convinced both the Blu-ray Disc Association and the DVD Forum to adopt its WMV9 video codec over MPEG4 for the upcoming VC-1 standard that is mandated for high-definition video devices. That was a huge coup for MS. Now it turns out that Microsoft cheated and lied: its code is not as good as MPEG 4, the WMV9 reference implementation is not available, and the WMV9 test suite does not exercise all the features. The SMPTE might drop WMV9 after all. Apparently, a highly technical standard body is harder to snowjob than the usual clueless consumers."

Comments

Hmm

[__aavhli5779]

What disturbs me is that a 'standards body' would've considered a completely closed, proprietary codec anyway. Patent-encumbered is one thing. Black-box is another. What were they thinking?

Microsoft should lose this one

[upsidedown_duck]

Windows Media Player would obviously play MPEG-4, but other platforms would not always have WMV9. MPEG-4 would be more ubiquitous, regardless of the "follow the winner" attitude people have about Microsoft. Microsoft really needs to be given the boot once and a while, and this is a good opportunity to do so.

Promising

[Pan T. Hose]

It all looks very promising, the amazing technology advancement is exciting, the quality will be truly outstanding, the article is very interesting, however the real question is: will we be able to watch our favourite movies legally using our favourite, free software in the future? Will we labeled "pirates" only becuase our otherwise legal technology is inconvenient for media conglomerates and proprietary software barons?

Does *anyone* want Windows Media anyway?

[byolinux]

Ballmer and co just don't seem to *get* media, in my opinion.

Now I'd like a fair deal for musicians and consumers, and right now iTunes is the market leader. Why? I think Apple seems to "get it" a lot more than other companies do.

From what I've seen of Windows Media and DRM, it's not clever, and worse yet, it's clumsy.

Does Microsoft have to own everything? Why don't they just play nice for once and use something vaguely standard, like MPEG 4 and AAC, or FLAC.

Theora promises to be really nice, but until then can anyone point me in the direction of a decent, free software, video codec (ideally with some nice Creative Commons tie in and even better, something I can give to my Mac using video encoders)

Re:Surprising?

[geg81]

Microsoft used shark-style tactics using his monopolistic power to get what it wanted and crush opposition... film at 11. Is this even news?

No, that's not news. What's news is that an important industry standards body noticed in time and is trying to prevent it.

Microsoft overpromised it seems, at least on the feature set. But cheated and lied?

I think if you "overpromise" in order to gain business advantages worth billions of dollars, that counts as "cheated and lied". In fact, it might count as "fraud".

Maybe we have gotten a little too jaded in this industry, but this kind of behavior should not be acceptable.

Re:Open disk

[geg81]

Are there any open standards (Dirac maybe?) that are at an advanced enough stage of development to be used as an alternative?

You've got to be kidding--the last thing the SMTPE and the motion picture industry wants is an open standard. They want something that is heavily patented because that gives them control. They just want the patent holders to be companies that can be pushed around by the content providers.

The ideal standard for the SMTPE would be something that is heavily patented, where the patents are held by labs and companies too small to make a business out of their own inventions, small companies that are happy with scraps and handouts from the motion picture industry.

Microsoft vs. Apple: Two Warring Views of Media

[Nova Express]

This is rather emblamatic of the differences between the way Apple and Microsoft approach any technical problem.

Apple asks: "How can we make the best product possible for the customer and still make money at it?"

Microsoft asks: "How can we use this to reinforce our monopoly and still get end-users to swallow it?"

All Microsoft's DRM and Codec schemes have seemed to design to "embrace and extend" to further their Windows monopoly. Apple's have been designed to be the best they possibly can, with just enough DRM to satisfy their media partners. It's a big difference, and it shows up in everything they do.

Preserving our culture?

[MisterP]

TV, movies and music make up a large part of our culture and here we have a corporation trying to railroad a standards commitee into accepting their product as the standard we will use preserve the sounds and images of our generation. That sounds pretty dorky, but it's true.

This makes with the BBC and Vorbis guys are doing seem a lot more important.

Apparently, a highly technical standard body is ha

[JessLeah]

Apparently, a highly technical standard body is harder to snowjob than the usual clueless consumers.

For the moment. The bar for what is considered "highly technical" is lowered all the time. Consider the following:

1) I've met people with Master's Degrees in CompSci who are clueless about coding. Maybe this "has been the case for a while", but surely it hasn't consistently been the case since the birth of CS as a discipline?
2) 20 years ago, I would have been a mediocre Unix SA... today, I'm practically deified by 90% of so-called SAs.

There will always be a few amazing brainiac engineer-types, and a few hard-theory CS geniuses (a la Knuth), and a few master hackers who can code x86, PPC, SPARC, and z80 assembly in their sleep... but their percentages among society will get smaller and smaller. Within 50 years, expect (e.g.) the IEEE, or the ACM, or whatever, to have devolved into organizations no more technical or consumer-minded than the RIAA or MPAA...

Re:Missing something here...

[Anita Coney]

You're forgetting two things: First the DVD could only be played on PCs AND second, the PC had to be very high end to play it.

Sticking a file on a DVD and getting it to play on a high end system is hardly demonstrating anything. Getting it to work on a cheap appliance is yet another.