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

What?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am shocked. Shocked and dismayed. Microsoft lied? My world is falling apart.

Team Microsoft, fuck yeah!

Re:What?!

[Enonu]

Matt Daemon.

Re:What?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I was once in a large meeting where the company I was working for was expressing concerns about an agreement they had entered into with Microsoft. One, very wise, ex IBMer who had battle scars from OS/2 told the stunned room:

"Doing a deal with Microsoft is like going into Mike Tyson's bedroom. You're going to get fucked and you're not going to like it".

It was topical at the time ...

Re:What?!

[ConceptJunkie]

A friend of mine with many, many years of Microsoft experience with development and a broad range of their server tools and other high-end stuff was in a meeting with the Microsoft rep for his client.

It quickly became apparent that the Microsoft rep wasn't doing too well, since he wasn't giving acceptable answers to a lot of tough questions. Eventually my friend was asked to leave the meeting. Even though everyone felt the same way, it wasn't too politic to refer to MS as "$^%#ing idiots".

That's the thing about MS. Thet are just barely good enough to avoid serious repercussions from their incompetence... so far anyway. They seem to have a knack for screwing up the absolute maximum that allows them to maintain their monopoly... or another way, having just enough monopoly to get away with the huge amount of screw-ups they make.

Oh, well, VS6 is a good product and that's what my world is about.

Re:What?!

[jschottm]

And the only person who's actually cited badmouthing the VC-1 codec is the head of Vbrick. Let's see what Vbrick is financially inolved with. Why, it's H.264. (scroll down toward the bottom)

I'm not saying that he's wrong or right, but *everyone* involved in this "who's better" fight has heavy financial incentive to say the other is bad.

Pseudo Letter to Microsoft...

[Eberlin]

Finally finished and somewhat appropriate to post it here. Again, my apologies to the ones who wrote the original work...and no need to be upset y'all, it's supposed to be funny.

(chorus sung by DiiDdo of band Yank'n Grope)
My fee's all gone, I'm wondering why
I sold my soul at all --
The morning mail locked up my Windows,
They all call me a troll.
Even if they don't, everything I say
Gets all hackers' eyes to roll --
Still I tell me that it's not so bad,
It's not so bad...

Dear Bill, I wrote but you still ain't respondin'
I left e-mail, my URL, and my home IP at the bottom
I sent two bug reports last autumn -- you must not a got 'em
There probably was a problem with hotmail or somethin
Sometimes the packets take the scenic route when you route them
but anyhoo, fsck it, what's been up? Man, how's Ballmer?
Is he still a dancin' foo, screamin' "developer?"
If I have a daughter, guess what I'ma call her --
I'ma name her Clippy.
I read about your XP SP2, I'm sorry.
I had a friend bork his box over some bitchy driver problem
I know you probably hear this everyday but I'm your biggest fan.
I even got Software Assurance that the zealots called a scam.
I got a room will all your certificates and manuals, man.
I like the stuff you did with Java, too, that stuff was phat!
Anyways, I hope you get this, man. Hit me back
just to chat, truly yours, your biggest fan
This is Dan.

Dear Bill, you still ain't ack-ed my note. I hope you have a chance.
I ain't mad -- I just think it's fscked up when the shizznit hit the fan.
If you didn't want to fix the bugs through Trustworthy Computing
you didn't have to, but you coulda posted a work-around for Matthew
That's my kid bro, man, he's only eight years old
Been a good boy, rebooted as he was told by you
for years and you just said "No."
That's pretty crappy, man, his drive was going idle.
He wanted to be just like you, man! Now he gets more porn than I do!
I ain't that mad, though, I just don't like bein lied to.
Remember when we met in Vegas? I said that I'd write you
And that I've always gots your back. See, man, patching is ok, in a way.
I wouldn't have bothered either
But my mom's machine got hosed and she's not a control-alt-deleter.
I can't relate when people say you're doing wrong
So when I have a crappy day, I flame away and bring it on
'cause I don't really know shit else and get confused on what to press
I even got wit blizzard and got Warcraft Battlechest
Sometimes I get a troll to axe a seal to watch it bleed
It's like adrenaline, that is until the game locks up on me.
And when you rolled right over Real, man, I respect you cause you did it.
The linux folks are jealous -- their uptime is 24/7
but they don't know you like I do, Bill, no one does
they don't know what it's like for systems like ours booting up
You gotta write me, man. I'll be the biggest fan you'll ever lose.
Sincerely yours, Dan -- P.S.
I'm glad you beat up OS/2

Dear Mister-I'm-Too-Good-To-Fix-Or-Patch-My-Bugs,
this 'll be the last e-mail I ever send your ass
It's been so long and Word's still bork -- I don't deserve it?
I gotta upgrade to write letters?
I almost switched down to Wordperfect!
So this is my ogg file I'm sending you, I hope you hear it.
I'm running firefox on the information superhighway
Hey Bill, I clicked on Bonzi Buddy, will it install in my drive?
You know that song by Shawn Colvin, it's called "Sunny Came Home"
about that girl who came home with a box of tools and said that
it's time for a few small repairs -- she came home with a vengeance?
That's kinda how it is, I was one "rescue disk" from switching
Now it's too late -- I'm with a million penguins now and happy
and all I wanted was a lousy ack or a call
I hope you know I trashed ALL of your cd's from my drawer.
I loved XP and IE together, think about it --
It's ruined somehow, I hope you can'

Open disk

[EdZ]

Is MPEG 4 an open standard? Are there any open standards (Dirac maybe?) that are at an advanced enough stage of development to be used as an alternative?

Re:Open disk

[pchan-]

sure it's an open standard. anyone can buy the implementation specifications, and get the reference code for a marginal fee. but it uses patented methods, so even if you make your own implementation, you still have to pay the MPEG licensing authority (MPEG-LA) on their terms.

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.

Re:Open disk

[myowntrueself]

"They just want the patent holders to be companies that can be pushed around by the content providers."

Like Microsoft, for example.

Re:Open disk

[wmeyer]

You're right about the need for license payments, but as an employee of a company that pays license fees to MPEG-LA now, I can tell you that in most cases that would affect readers of /., the fees are small enough that I think the bookkeeping costs MPEG-LA more than they collect. Over the last 5 years, I don't think our quarterlee fees have been much in excess of $100.00 per quarter.

Re:Open disk

[Wesley Felter]

You're the exception. At $2.50 per DVD player, digital cable box, or digital satellite box, some companies are paying MPEG-LA a lot of money.

Well it's surprising.

[marcello_dl]

A company the size of MS that cannot write a decent test suite. Incompetence or the need to keep the proposed standard as obscure as possible to stifle competition... or both?

Re:Well it's surprising.

[upsidedown_duck]

Microsoft's plan is probably to be the only implementor and to license that implementation to the suckers...er, manufacturers. Providing a half-assed test suite is a perfect way to delay them long enough to allow the plan to take shape.

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?

Re:Hmm

[upsidedown_duck]

What were they thinking?

Sitting next to a billionaire feels really really cool.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

What were they thinking?

That's the problem, they weren't thinking.

You asked why a ".. 'standards body' would consider a completely closed, proprietary codec ...?" The answer is in the article:

"Ironically, a Microsoft executive chaired the H.264 joint video team and successfully guided the group to the H.264 spec ratified at ITU-T in May 2003. Nevertheless, Microsoft has been promoting WMV9 as a proven codec that strikes a better balance between compression efficiency and computational efficiency than H.264."

and

" But now that the WMV9-based VC-1 has been put to the test in the arduous SMPTE standardization process, VC-1 is perceived as behind in quality and behind in licensing terms, compared to H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, one source said. "

Catch that? Microsoft railroaded the committee, while lying about WMV9's capabilities. Inspite of that behavior some committee members continue to be Microsoft sock puppets:

"In short, industry players that have embraced VC-1 fear they may have to go back to Microsoft and pony up fees for a WMVx license in the future. MPEG's Koenen dismissed such a possibility. "Microsoft knows better than that," he said. "

Ya, right. As PT Barnum said, "you can fool some of the people all of the time", an obvious reference to the SMPTE.

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?

Surprising?

[FiReaNGeL]

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

And if you RTFA, you'll see that "On the assumption that WMV9 was destined to become an industry standard, Microsoft convinced both the Blu-ray Disc Association and the DVD Forum to include it as a mandatory video compression format (along with MPEG-2 and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC) for next-generation high-definition DVD formats. Now, there is speculation that delays or licensing problems for VC-1 could prompt either -- or both -- of the DVD industry groups to simply delete the Microsoft technology from their specifications."

So it's not like WMV9 was the only codec incorporated in the standard anyway. Microsoft overpromised it seems, at least on the feature set. But cheated and lied?

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:Surprising?

[smiff]

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

This shouldn't surprise anyone. This is how Microsoft Bill Gates built his business. He told IBM that he had his BASIC implementation all ready (in reality he had barely started). He told IBM that he had his operating system all ready (in reality, he ended up buying it from someone else and modifying it to fit IBM's specifications).

Bill Gates seemed quite proud of those feats when he later bragged about them. Microsoft has made similar promises regarding Windows 95, Longhorn, etc.. This is the way Microsoft does business.

The only surprise here is that Microsoft may face some pitiful little ramifications for their actions.

AVC/H.264

[Aztech]

If WM9 can't even compete with MPEG4 LC, which is relatively established now, it will get eaten alive by AVC/H.264, not that MPEG-LA help themselves by encumbering a promising technology with patent and royalty complexities, by the time they get a satisfactory resolution they hand people like MS time to bribe and cajole a less worthy codec onto hapless consumers, and eventually studios of course.

MS is like my dog, who I've nick-named monopoly, he was promisng to start with then he jumps up to bite me in the ass given any excuse. He eats all the food out there and demands more resources, not to mention his lack of standards cause bad conflictions with other four legged beasts (such as the beast).

Re:AVC/H.264

[ConceptJunkie]

MS is like my dog, who I've nick-named monopoly, he was promisng to start with then he jumps up to bite me in the ass given any excuse... ...and now he doesn't do anything useful but sit around and lick his Ballmers.

Funny Stuff

[Lord Kano]

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

Or politicians.

LK

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.

Re:Does *anyone* want Windows Media anyway?

[jonathan_ingram]

XviD *is* MPEG-4.

More specifically it's a codec which implements certain parts (up to and including the AS 'Advanced Simple' profile) of the ISO MPEG-4 specification.

Wrong: VC-1 does not include DRM!

[kylef]

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.

This just shows how little you actually know about this subject. VC-1 is a compression standard only. It does not include DRM features, or any user-interaction features for that matter. This is very clear if you have been following this standardization process at all.

Oh, and by the way, what Apple codecs are you referring to that have been designed to be so superior to WMV9? Please tell. (And don't say "Quicktime" because that is a format, not a codec.)

Re:Wrong: VC-1 does not include DRM!

[kylef]

I'm pretty sure Nova Express was referring to WMA vs AAC.

Heh. AAC isn't even an Apple codec. It's a Dolby Laboratories codec, licensed by Apple.

Regardless, it's offtopic because we're discussing video codecs...

Not exactly

[beakburke]

MPEG 4 was based in part on some of Apple's "native Quicktime" codecs/formats IIRC.

Re:Apparently, a highly technical standard body is

[incom]

Well if the nerdy geniuses would repoduce more than the average person, instead of less, things would be different.