Real to Offer Open Source Windows Media for Linux

cpugeniusmv writes to tell us News.com is reporting that RealNetworks plans to release an open source method to allow Linux users to play Windows Media files. Currently Linux users are able to play the two main Windows Media formats (wmv and wma) but only if they install closed-source modules. The ability to launch this initiative comes from a recent licensing deal between RealNetworks and Microsoft and the antitrust settlement against Microsoft.

Comments

Satan:

[Winckle]

"Brrr, it's getting chilly!"

Re:Satan:

[sumdumass]

I'm really curious at how they are going to do so and still remain compatible with the GPLv3draft2 as it currently reads.

It is obvious that they don't control the downstream propagation of MS's patten rights. Or do they?

Re:Satan:

[morgan_greywolf]

Actually, I personaly doubt they will release it using GPL, in whatever incarnation of the license. They are more likely to get OSI approval for an open source license of their own, just like SUN and IBM did. And considering the stakes here, the approval (or not) should be handled by the OSI board as high priority.

It's going into Helix Player, which is multilicensed. The two open source licenses it currently supports are the GPL and RPSL, their own OSI-approved license. You can also license it under a commercial license. The question is will they continue licensing Helix in this manner? Will they stop support for GPL? Or will they make the Windows Media Support a separate plugin that's not part of Helix and available under RPSL? I agree with you in that I think the last scenario is the most likely, IMHO.

Re:Satan:

[TheOtter37]

My understanding is that any algorithm can be patented, so it would be up to the patent holder to decide whether to restrict decoding, encoding, or both. From a commercial standpoint, it seems to make sense most often to enforce the patent only on the writing side of the equation (if at all). That way free readers abound, but people developing the software to create content have to pay a license fee.

Re:Satan:

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I'm wrong about this, but this is how I've aways thought it worked.

Unfortunately you _are_ wrong. Case point: Go to http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/ and behold the royalty rates for a "decoder". Note that this patent is generally ignored but some more careful distributions like Ubuntu do not support mp3 playback out-of-the-box for that very reason.
I assume your misunderstanding is the result of the situation with the LZH-algorithm, or in practical terms, the GIF format. Thos, now expired patents only covered the LZH encoding not decoding, hence one could make, use and distribute a decoder but not an encoder. However this was just the special situation with regard to these 2 patents covering this particular algorithm, i.e. they were luckily (from the patent holder's point of view, unluckily) worded in such a way that they only covered the encoder.

Nota bene: Yes, there were indeed two patents covering exactly the same algorithm, one was held in its latter days by Unisys and was the more notorious one due to Unisys' active enforcement. The other one was held by IBM and just recently expired but IBM never actively enforced it (It would've probably fallen due to prior art anyway but it does illustrate the utter stupidity of the USPTO specifically and the patent system, especially with regard to software, generally).

Re:Satan:

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

For reference, the actual algorithm is LZW (Lempel-Ziv-Welch), not LZH. LZH is compressed file format (similar in function to ZIP) generated by old versions of LHarc.

Too little, too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

This comes right on the heels of having a fairly complete wmv9 decoder functioning in ffmpeg.

Bastards... I don't want their crap anyway

That's really...

[Anonymous Coward]

(buffering... buffering)... gr....(buffering...buffering)..eat new (buffering)s.

...err

[mrsev]

Is this god news or not... It could be a trojan horse ...(in the Greeks bearing gifts sense...not script kiddie sense)

Re:...err

[WilliamSChips]

It's open source. We'll just change what's inside the gifts from Greeks so it won't be dangerous.

Re:...err

[WilliamSChips]

Unless we use Real's compiler I doubt that a Trusting Trust problem will happen. If there's a deliberate problem it would be obfuscatory.

Re:...err

[Red Flayer]

It could be a trojan horse ...(in the Greeks bearing gifts sense...not script kiddie sense)

Just a note, the original Trojan horse was a gift bearing Greeks, not the other way around :)

Re:...err

[Mr. Slippery]

the original Trojan horse was a gift bearing Greeks, not the other way around :)

It was Greeks bearing a gift bearing Greeks. And if a few of those Greeks was carring presents, say birthday presents to give to somebody after the battle or something, then it would be Greeks bearing a gift bearing Greeks bearing gifts.

Re:...err

[Red Flayer]

It was Greeks bearing a gift bearing Greeks. And if a few of those Greeks was carring presents, say birthday presents to give to somebody after the battle or something, then it would be Greeks bearing a gift bearing Greeks bearing gifts.

And if instead of a horse they had built large wooden bears, it would be Greeks gifting bears.

Plus, with the proclivity of Greeks to be naked, you could end up with:
Greeks gifting bears bearing Greeks being bare bearing gifts.

My head hurts now. But "What if we build a large wooden badger..." will be stuck in my mind all day, at least that's a plus.

alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Among other things, does this mean that Real Alternative will soon be legitimate?

False Summary

[brunes69]

Currently Linux users are able to play the two main Windows Media formats (wmv and wma) but only if they install closed-source modules...

Totally false. ffmpeg / mplayer / vlc etc. can all decode WMV files *natively* using the ffmpeg libavcoded libraries.

The problem is not decoding the files, that is trivial. The problem is dealing with the copy protection. Another open source library is not going to help this, because it will still never be allowed to decrypt the copy-protected files.

Re:False Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally false. ffmpeg / mplayer / vlc etc. can all decode WMV files *natively* using the ffmpeg libavcoded libraries.

Well, mostly. ffmpeg can decode WMV 7/8/9 and WMA 7/8. There is no decoder for WMA Pro, WMA voice, or WMA lossless. WMV8 decoding has bugs and may drop certain keyframes.

Re:False Summary

[chris_7d0h]

The mov extension is typically used by Apple Quicktime video files.
Thus your beef is with Apple and not Microsoft.

What I really lack is a way / program to move a video stream from one container format to another without transcoding the video stream. For example, the Ogg format hosts MPEG4 steams fairly well, so why can't I simply "lift" Microsoft MPEG4 or Apple MPEG4 videos from their respective proprietary containers to the open Ogg container?

Re:False Summary

[jZnat]

I actually prefer Matroska, but I'd also like to mention that Apple's MOV container is pretty open and well documented (PDF warning), unlike Microsoft's crap.

That'll be great

[also-rr]

For 20 minutes before Microsoft break the spec.

(You need 4 years of engineering graduate school to acquire this level of cynicism folks.)

I've been very impressed with Real's approach of late (ever since Helix, really, although they did some good things before then). They are showing a very cooperative attitude - enough to overcome any ill will I might have felt towards them - and I hope that they get a warm reception for this contribution that encourages them to embrace the open source/free software community further.

I do wonder though if any of this open source love is being pushed by the BBC? They are after all proabbly one of the biggest single drivers of Real installations and have demonstrated in the past their ability to push Real to change their stance.

I'm thinking particuarly of the fact that the BBC cancelled it's Ogg testing aboiut the same time that the whole Helix thing started - could Real opening up a bit in return for no migration to open source or free software codecs have been the price?

Re:That'll be great

[ledow]

Possibly. I just wish that they wouldn't do everything possible to make their primary piece of software (at least by downloads) so obnoxious.

1) Try to instruct a novice user to find and download the free version on their website. Not an easy task but doable.

2) Try to install it without it inserting stuff into Windows startup - I use Startup Control Panel but not everyone is so lucky.

3) Try to remove the messages/popups etc. from a standard installation - again, not for the novice.

I applaud any attempt at open-sourcing software but I would worry about the quality of the code if their primary app is in this much of a mess.

Re:That'll be great

[baadger]

The WMV3/VC-1 specification is formal and out there and is going to be used on Bluray/HD-DVD. They aren't likely to break compatibility willy nilly, not in the video profiles people care about anyway.

Re:That'll be great

[also-rr]

1) Try to instruct a novice user to find and download the free version on their website. Not an easy task but doable.

This certainly used to be a massive problem (the easiest way was in fact to use the link provided by the BBC which went directly too it) but these days their download page (the one you get to by clicking real player on the front page) outlines your options pretty clearly.

2) Try to install it without it inserting stuff into Windows startup - I use Startup Control Panel but not everyone is so lucky.

Not really a problem when installing on Linux, so I can't help you there. Windows users should be used to it by now from WMParasite anyway. Maybe someone who has installed a more recent version than you have can provide some insight.

3) Try to remove the messages/popups etc. from a standard installation - again, not for the novice.

Last time I ran Real Player on Windows that just involved changing the settings in the options tab. Now, i'll not overestimate the technical ability of most users, but unless things have changed it wasn't a lot harder than grasping the principle of how to turn your computer on.

Re:That'll be great

[kosmosik]

> I applaud any attempt at open-sourcing software but I would
> worry about the quality of the code if their primary app
> is in this much of a mess.

Maybe they assume that most Windows users are idiots... Real Player for Linux if in fact quite neat application - GNOME style I would say. Real Player for Mac is a bit slow sometimes but again it works and is a little neat application. Only on Windows Real Player is real bloatware changing your settings (associations, putting shit in autostart etc).

On Windows boxes I tend to install Real Alternative which is basically stripped set of Real codecs and browser plugin. But I don't really know if it is legal to use it.

Great for those novice users of yours:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternati ve.htm :)

Re:That'll be great

[ajs318]

Yes it does.

You -- the rightful recipient of an encrypted message -- have to have all three of the following: the encrypted file, the decryption key and the player {which contains the decryption algorithm}. Without the file you have nothing to watch / listen to, without the key you have no way to decrypt it and without the player you have no way to view / hear it. If you had the source code to the player, you could find out where the key is obtained from {it might be in the encrypted file or it might be in the player itself} and use the decryption algorithm independently to decrypt the file.

Of course, reverse-engineering a binary-only program is possible -- it's just not easy. DRM is fundamentally flawed {in the worst case, it can be defeated with cameras and microphones}. This is likely to persist until we get schemes that perform the final decryption in your brain.

Re:already there?

[freshman_a]

Yes, but I think the legality of the way mplayer does it is questionable since it uses Windows DLLs directly. It sounds like this is going to be completely separate code written by Real.

I do love mplayer though.

Re:already there?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the latest ffmpeg can play WMV3, no windows dlls needed.

You will need to check out the latest ffmpeg svn and compile it tho.

Re:already there?

[Sharth]

non-x86 users can't use mplayer for wmv.

and afaik, it can't handle wmv10 drm.

ffmpeg already have this in the works!

[baadger]

The guys behind the ffmpeg/libavcodec implementation which mplayer, xine and VLC and a whole bunch of a/v media apps in Linux already make use of, already have a working and pretty good WMV3 (WMV v9 Video) implementation in CVS. Infact it'll probably trickle into distro's before the end of the year.

Yeah so, move along... nothing to see here.

What about the streaming protocol

[jonwil]

Does this (or any other open source stuff such as mplayer) cover whatever protocol is used by the microsoft server for streaming windows media cotent? (whatever it is)

Being able to play windows media streams is just as usefull as being able to play windows media files on a disk or web url or etc.

Re:Licencing issues...

[compm375]

Yeah, but can you play Flash 9 videos on Linux or even Flash 8? Does it work on x64, in an x64 browser?

Dear RealPlayer,

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Please open up your own format first before going and opening up other peoples' formats. Windows Media is already easy enough to play most anywhere. Streaming (or even non-streaming) RM is a pain to convert to another format - and most of the downloadable converters require you to have RealPlayer itself already installed (so it can use the DLLs). This is as much a "solution" as Captive NTFS, and it doesn't work on platforms other than x86/Windows.

(My underlying complaint is that you don't have a half-recent version for Windows Mobile. I've tried to convert these to WMV but it doesn't work well. Releasing a WM5 player - or even a J2ME player - would shut me up for now, but your real problem is you have the obscurest, proprietariest file format ever.)

Re:Dear RealPlayer,

[SanityInAnarchy]

Mod parent up. I won't be shut up, by the way -- every single RealPlayer I've ever had the misfortune to play with has been nothing but pain. Windows version I'd heard described as "behaves like a virus" by my most MS-loving, proprietary-loving technology whores -- and this was before we had a word for "spyware". Difficult to uninstall, a pain to live with. Linux users had to deal with truly ancient versions, so while there were players and plugins which used the RealPlayer DLLs (.so's), and while RealPlayer itself was distributed under package management (so not much chance of spyware if I don't run it), it was compiled with a truly ancient version of gcc, and thus wouldn't work with any of those things. So I ended up having to run it anyway...

And while most players let you have a fairly big buffer, RealPlayer sounded staticy, like bad radio reception. I suspect it had some clever way for dropping quality, but I shouldn't have needed that with my connection -- and yet, it still spent half the time buffering.

CarTalk is a humorous radio show which answers automotive questions, half-seriously, you never know if they're giving you good advice or just messing with you. They switched from RealPlayer several years ago, because as amazing as it seemed (even to them!), RealPlayer managed to be significantly worse than Windows Media Player -- Microsoft did far, far better than them by being almost mediocre.

If Real wants to gain respect, then yes, they should open their own format. We don't need all the source code, just the codecs, thanks.

If Real wants to survive as a business, they should drop the farce and just start selling their spyware directly to botnet controllers and peddlers of animated cursors.

By the way, whoever suggested that Flash has replaced Real as the format that does copy protection... Flash may not be as open as we'd like for playing, but it's easy enough to rip the video out of it. Or at least, I've done that with audio -- pulled an ordinary mp3 file out of a Flash presentation. With Real, you have to use the Analog Hole, not that it's that bad -- the sound quality sucks so much that encoding it as a 56-bit mp3 wouldn't hurt.

no thanks. (bombing on Real.)

[deviceb]

*skip unless u want to hear my negative opinions on Real.

I have no time to read an article about Real networks, but i will take the time to state how much i dislike it.
Real media has been one of the most annoying web technologies since it came out. For instance: trying to sneak in lame apps and silly toolbars during the install. Trying to hi-jack file permissions.. Winamp has always delivered better quality, free and less annoying content.
It is just about worthless as a media player when compared to VLC or any number of other players.
The only thing Real had going was content protection,.. but now streaming with flash (youtube, pornotube, google.video, ect.) is cake so they do not even have that. I can see why they would be trying to give the app to anybody who will take it.

the last place i want to see it is in a linux distro.

hrm... what else.. it's ugly & stinks too! /end rant

Re:already there?

[kidgenius]

When Redhat or Suse ship their distro, they are not allowed to include the DLLs. The location you downloaded them from is not allowed to distribute the DLLs. You are not allowed to download the DLLs. It has not stopped me from doing it for xine, mplayer, etc., doing this is in violation of copyright. What Real is doing is providing a LEGAL way of acquiring these codecs.

Re:Licencing issues...

[nmos]

The last time I tried to download Flash for Windows the license was really obscene. Among other things it gave Adobe the right to audit my computers and also came with a list of devices and OSs that it was not to be used with including Windows MCE. These are just nuggets among something like 7-9 pages of legelese. A few pages in I just gave up and decided I didn't really need the latest Flash that bad.

wmv9 in changelog

[GodWasAnAlien]

in version "":

http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/changelog.html

Missing Features

[yo_tuco]

FTA

"... Duchmann said in an interview here. However, the software [Linux version] won't support digital rights management available with Windows, he added."

How come only the Windows version gets all the good features?

Re:already there?

[jZnat]

Yes, but many people would have to agree that the binary codecs MPlayer supports really suck compared to the native ones. Besides, DLLs (common usage) only work on x86 processors, yet MPlayer is cross platform (so is Helix), so that doesn't solve the problem completely.

Re:already there?

[hoeferbe]

An Anonymous Coward wrote:

Not if you download them from Microsoft! That's perfectly legal.
Though, actually I just copy mine from my windows partition. Also legal, AFAIK.

I asumme that you mean "download Windows Media Player" from Microsoft, and extract the CoDec DLLs from it. Would you please list which DLLs you get from this download, and where you put them on your GNU/Linux machine for your media plyaer to use? Thanks.

Use ffmpeg

[Kristoffer Lunden]

ffmpeg -i infile.mov -vcodec copy -acodec copy outfile.ogg

Untested, but something like that should work. See the friendly man page for more info.

Helix Player?

[Kunta Kinte]

Please open up your own format first before going and opening up other peoples' formats.

They have, AFAIK.

Helix Community offers the open source Helix Player which supports encoding and transcoding of RM along with a bunch of other formats.

Re:Helix Player?

[noldrin]

The Helix Player can use those codecs, but it doesn't come with those codecs. When you download the open source Helix Player, all you are getting are the open source codecs which does not include the real formats. If you download the closed sourced Real Player for Linux, you are getting a closed source Helix Player which includes all the closed source real formats. Also this player is crap and plays Real files and MP3 files so slowly that my machine skips every 3 to 7 seconds when player Real files, and can't refresh the player while playing an MP3. MPlayer using Real's codecs does not have this problem at all. Also the RealPlayer for Linux can't play older formats, while MPlayer using Real's Codec's can.

Re:except this one will be legal

[Wesley Felter]

How is Real going to legally give away an open-source decoder for a format that is patented by Microsoft? Is MS giving away free patent licenses to Linux users, while charging others per copy? This doesn't make a lot of sense.

Re:Licencing issues...

[agallagh42]

I just scanned through the Flash EULA at the Adobe site. Either they've recently changed it, or you mis-interpreted it. I couldn't find any reference to auditing your computer, and MCE is specifically permitted.

Re:...err (going offtopic)

[cp.tar]

All you need to do, in that case, is write a C interpreter in assembler that can interpret enough of the C language to run the compiler interpretatively as it compiles the compiler. Then you know what the interpreted compiler is doing {because you wrote the interpreter code yourself} and that the compiler it's compiling really is clean {because you checked the compiler source}.

I just imagined Nigel Hawthorne explaining this bit to me.