Microsoft Going Its Own Way On Audio/Video Specification

An anonymous reader writes "Several groups are currently working on specifications for plugin-free, real-time audio and video communication. The World Wide Web Consortium has one called WebRTC, rudimentary support for which is found in Chrome, Firefox, and Opera. Back in August, Microsoft announced its own specification, CU-RTC-Web, because it thought WebRTC wasn't worthwhile. W3C carried out a vote to choose between the two specs, which came out strongly in favor of WebRTC. Microsoft went ahead anyway, and it has now published a prototype for the proposed specification. 'So what's Microsoft playing at, persevering with its own spec in spite of its rejection by the WebRTC group? The company's argument is twofold. First, WebRTC simply isn't complete yet, and Microsoft believes that working on its proposal can shed light on how to solve certain problems such as handling changes in network bandwidth or keeping cellular and Wi-Fi connections open in parallel to allow easy failover from one to the other. Even if Redmond's spec isn't adopted wholesale, portions of it may still be useful. Second, the company believes that WebRTC may not be as close to real standardization as its proponents might argue.'"

Comments

Old dog

[El_Muerte_TDS]

And something with learning new tricks

Re:Old dog

[DavidClarkeHR]

And something with learning new tricks

What? Microsoft is preserving an alternative format, even though there is competition, on a hypothetical, un-used format? This is not a bad thing.

It becomes a bad thing when one of these three things are true:
1: You are forced to use the lower quality format through hardware/vendor lock in
2: You are forced to use the lower quality format because of widespread adoption
or 3: When a company acquires the "rights" to the better format, and refuses to allow commercial use.

I don't see any of these things happening at Microsoft, with this project, at this time. Sure, it may have happened in the past, but it's hardly a microsoft thing to do - all the big kids do it.

Re:Old dog

[catchblue22]

Microsoft Going Its Own Way On Audio/Video Specification

And I too am going my own way. I almost never use Microsoft products, and intend to keep it that way. Bye bye, Microsoft.

Re:Old dog

[catchblue22]

I don't see any of these things happening at Microsoft, with this project, at this time. Sure, it may have happened in the past, but it's hardly a microsoft thing to do - all the big kids do it.

It is more a matter of history. Considering what they have done in the past, I am NOT ready to trust them. They are a pernicious monopoly that is now beginning to realize that they are threatened. They are starting to act like a cornered animal, trying to pull out many of their old monopolistic tricks out of their war chest.

Re:Old dog

[Sponge Bath]

They are starting to act like a cornered animal, trying to pull out many of their old monopolistic tricks out of their war chest.

Or maybe they are developing what they believe is better technology in a time frame better suited to their needs. I guess you see what you want to see. Yes, they have a spotty past. If they neutered every project in fear of appearing anti-competetive, they would be dead in short order.

Re:Old dog

[poetmatt]

this isn't a new trick.

creating their own standard to shoot down the competing standard is microsoft's standard technique.

Re:Old dog

[amiga3D]

I suppose you could be right. The odds are against it though. Microsoft is like the guy who has been married 10 times and cheated on every single bride. Now they are going to the altar again promising to be true this time. Want to bet on it?

Re:Old dog

[englishstudent]

It becomes a problem when each browser has their own specification and you have to support all of them.

Re:Old dog

[DavidClarkeHR]

I don't see any of these things happening at Microsoft, with this project, at this time. Sure, it may have happened in the past, but it's hardly a microsoft thing to do - all the big kids do it.

It is more a matter of history. Considering what they have done in the past, I am NOT ready to trust them. They are a pernicious monopoly that is now beginning to realize that they are threatened. They are starting to act like a cornered animal, trying to pull out many of their old monopolistic tricks out of their war chest.

Pfft. Who you gonna trust instead? Sony? Apple?

Pick your poison. They've all been abusive in their own special way, at once point or another.

Re:Old dog

[ilsaloving]

Or 4, they think they can get away with screwing everyone else and taking control of a potentially very lucrative market, like they did with:
* Internet Explorer and their custom implementations of HTML/CSS
* Their custom windows-only version of Java
* OpenXML and their subverting an entire standards body to get it ratified as a 'Standard' just so they could go after special government contracts requiring an open format, without having to give up control of the office suite space.
* Custom extensions to LDAP to hinder interoperability with Active Directory.
* Countless other things that anyone could find doing a few searches of Microsoft's history.

There's a reason Microsoft's catch phrase is "Embrace. Extend. Extinguish." and it's sad that, like an abused spouse, people keep giving Microsoft another chance because, "They will do better this time."

Re:Old dog

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like, that the new mega site only "works" with chrome? :P

Re:Old dog

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I guess you see what you want to see. Yes, they have a spotty past.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 5-10 times, and I deserve to have a gorilla throw chairs at me.

Re:Old dog

[Smauler]

What? Microsoft is preserving an alternative format

Is this a typo? I'm not sure, since persevering doesn't fit in the sentence. Microsoft is preserving nothing. The article is about Microsoft persevering with alternative standards.

Microsoft pushing formats is almost always a bad thing. The OOXML debacle is evidence of this - MS were pushing a shitty open format purely to compete with legitimate formats being proposed - they had no interest in it becoming a standard, they just wanted to protect Office, and sow confusion. They are bound to be against open formats in spheres like this - the Office dominant position is based upon it being the de facto standard, and other software having poor interoperability with it.

Re:Old dog

[LordThyGod]

Or 4, they think they can get away with screwing everyone else and taking control of a potentially very lucrative market, like they did with: * Internet Explorer and their custom implementations of HTML/CSS * Their custom windows-only version of Java * OpenXML and their subverting an entire standards body to get it ratified as a 'Standard' just so they could go after special government contracts requiring an open format, without having to give up control of the office suite space. * Custom extensions to LDAP to hinder interoperability with Active Directory. * Countless other things that anyone could find doing a few searches of Microsoft's history.

There's a reason Microsoft's catch phrase is "Embrace. Extend. Extinguish." and it's sad that, like an abused spouse, people keep giving Microsoft another chance because, "They will do better this time."

Thank you. Well said.

Re:Old dog

[Sfing_ter]

First, Microsoft is the Newt Gingrich of software companies... wow... nice
Second, Why do must you call Balmer a gorilla, it insults gorillas everywhere... :D

Re:Old dog

[catchblue22]

Pfft. Who you gonna trust instead? Sony? Apple?

Pick your poison. They've all been abusive in their own special way, at once point or another.

I just bought a made for linux laptop. On principle. I have been a mac user, since it is based on unix. But I am moving away now. The iPad walled garden creeps me out.

Oh, and about Microsoft. In 1987, NeXT introduced a unix workstation that in many ways wouldn't be terribly out of place today. It was based on BSD unix, and had some features that no operating system has even today, display Post Script for one. I only bring up NeXT as an example of the technology that was available in the mid 1980's (and I admit that the ideas in that OS came from others outside the company). Microsoft used their monopoly to foist a series of abominations disguised as operating systems through the 1990's. Remember Windows 95? I do. User: "My computer is crashing randomly." Tech Support: "Did you try rebooting it?" User: "Yes". Tech Support: "Well, there's the problem. Reboot the computer two more times while praying to the god of your choice". User: "Thanks, that worked."

This is not a debatable point. It is a statement of fact. The principles allowing the design of a strong and secure operating system have been in existance at least since the 1980's, and were in fact implemented in several different operating systems (usually unix based). But Microsoft ignored most of those principles, choosing to push out horrible technology with the intention of slowly polishing the turd over many different operating system versions. Microsoft's monopolistic actions have held back the computing industry by at least a decade. And this makes me angry. I will do what I can to put a knife into their pernicious monopoly.

Re:Old dog

[jamstar7]

Or maybe they are developing what they believe is better technology...

LOL.

Of course they believe it's better technology. It's a Microsoft product. Whether it really is or isn't is yet to be determined. But it will be copyrighted and trademarked out the ass to better preserve corporate profits.

Re:Old dog

[blind biker]

It is more a matter of history. Considering what they have done in the past, I am NOT ready to trust them.

No need to look at the past to see what Microsoft is today, present will suffice: they're creating their own walled garden with Windows 8, and the Surface RT is (and all other tablets capable of running Windows RT) have a locked bootloader, preventing the owner from running anything but Windows RT on them. As for Metro, you're going to like it... whether yo like it or not, because almost every new PC comes preinstalled with Win 8/Metro (here in Finland it's worse than in the US; because here it is indeed impossible to find a new PC/laptop without Win8). They're leveraging their monopolistic position to get people on Metro.

Re:Old dog

[sumdumass]

Get a prenump then.

I mean seriously, make them promise it will be open to all and if ever patented, an unrestricted license will be issued for commercial and private use including derivative uses (cams and other equipment) as long as it is a standard. At least for the implementation of the standard itself. Of course MS can copyright it's own products built off it.

Actually all standards should be this way so there can't be any submarine patents or anything involved.

Re:Old dog

[MikeKaminski]

I am replying to this as it is my writing. Forgot to sign in before posting.

Re:Old dog

[ko7]

sarcasm detected

Re:Old dog

[marcello_dl]

WebRTC is not a finished implementation, right?
So you are telling us that Microsoft has some good ideas to improve RTC but to do that it needs to reimplement all the protocols from scratch?

Then they are incompetent, and you should do business with more adaptable people, just in case your needs change in time.

I'm more for the malicious theory, myself. WebRTC is a standard not controlled by MS? what gain do they have by adopting it? None. What disadvantage? Their web related products become even more swappable with the competition.

Now what would satan do? case closed.

Re:Old dog

[Runaway1956]

The old woman lives down the road from me has a spotty past, as well. Nine kids, none of whom shares the same father. In fact, a couple of the kids aren't even sure who their fathers are. Spotty, indeed.

Re:Old dog

[bazorg]

They are a pernicious monopoly that is now beginning to realize that they are threatened. They are starting to act like a cornered animal, trying to pull out many of their old monopolistic tricks out of their war chest.

Interesting this. If we consider personal computing to be revolve around of beige tower-shaped boxes and grey laptops, then yes, MS has something installed on 90%+ of devices.
If however we consider personal computing to be made up of x% "PCs" and a growing share of mobile phones and tablets where MS is a challenger, then how can we see these new formats MS wants to push as an attempt to leverage a monopoly on the desktop rather than an attempt to improve their products in a changing personal computing market?

Re:Old dog

[maxwell demon]

They are starting to act like a cornered animal, trying to pull out many of their old monopolistic tricks out of their war chest.

Or maybe they are developing what they believe is better technology in a time frame better suited to their needs.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

Re:Old dog

[MatrixCubed]

Google. At least they can put out cool, desirable shit at a rate that can keep up with my ADHD/OCD while they become overlords.

Re:Old dog

[ozmanjusri]

I mean seriously, make them promise it will be open to all and if ever patented, an unrestricted license will be issued for commercial and private use including derivative uses (cams and other equipment) as long as it is a standard.

They can't.

At heart, the difference between Microsoft's "standard" and the real one is how to support video codecs. The World Wide Web Consortium and most other stakeholders want the specification to include an open, royalty free codec. Microsoft and Apple want to be able to use any codec, including patent-encumbered ones like H264. Any standard lacking an open codec would allow vendors to restrict interoperability (eg, with free implementations whose developers can't pay the licensing fees). There are other differences, but the codec issue is there the danger lies. https://plus.google.com/111991826926222544385/posts/MjQykqkJA4v

It's another attempt to Balkanise the browser market.

Re:Old dog

[Lennie]

You are wrong:
1. the video codecs haven't even been decided yet for WebRTC, it could still have H.264 on the list, they were planned for the previous IETF meeting, but I guess that will now be in March
2. there are no restrictions in standards like WebRTC for applications to support additional codecs. If both parties suppot the same codec they can use that.

Re:Old dog

[ozmanjusri]

If both parties suppot the same codec they can use that.

And if both parties cannot support the same codec, they cannot communicate. Hence the opportunity for vendors like Microsoft to Balkanise

Microsoft has stated that "a successful standard cannot be tied to individual codecs, data formats or scenarios." Instead, CU-RTC-Web will support a number of "popular media formats and codecs as well as openness to future innovation."

They want to preserve the ability to lock their customers into a proprietary "media format and codec". Same leopard. Same spots.

Re: Old dog

[ozmanjusri]

name ONE viable alternative to Windows 95 at the time. There was none.

OS/2

Re:Old dog

[Waccoon]

Many of those things involved using another standard and not complying with it.

If Microsoft makes their own formats, that's called competition. Thankfully, IE is not ruler of the Internet any longer, and it's arguable that Windows isn't, either.

Re:Old dog

[dgharmon]

4. Microsoft gets to control CU-RTC-Web.

Re:Old dog

[serviscope_minor]

Microsoft has stated that "a successful standard cannot be tied to individual codecs, data formats or scenarios." Instead, CU-RTC-Web will support a number of "popular media formats and codecs as well as openness to future innovation."

In the first part, I agree. Each lower layer should be agnostic with respect to layers above. e.g. IP can transmit anything. UDP over IP can trasmit anything with CRCs. RTSP/RTP over UDP can do realtime streaming of almost anything meeting very basic requirements etc.

But it's a safe bet that microsoft don't want what that.

Re:Old dog

[Lennie]

What I mean is: there is no reason you need a different (possibly incomppatible) standard if you only want to use other codecs.

Re:Old dog

[exomondo]

It is more a matter of history. Considering what they have done in the past, I am NOT ready to trust them.

Trust them? Why would you have to trust them?

Re:Old dog

[Anonymous Coward]

Like it or not the only fact here is that at that time Microsoft made the only operating system you could actually get stuff done with and use, this is back in the late 80s before they even had a monopoly. The alternatives were horrible broken messes that were built by engineers for engineers, though even some of them, like MacOS, failed on the most basic elements like multitasking. Windows 95 doesn't stack up by todays standards but OS/2 and MacOS didn't even stack up by the standard of 1995. I'm glad competition is raging in the personal computing (PCs, tablets, phones) landscape because the last thing we ever needed was a monopoly though really in the 90s it was unavoidable - the realistic choices were Microsoft, IBM or Apple, I really don't think it matters which you choose it's no better.

Re:Old dog

[exomondo]

No need to look at the past to see what Microsoft is today, present will suffice: they're creating their own walled garden with Windows 8, and the Surface RT is (and all other tablets capable of running Windows RT) have a locked bootloader, preventing the owner from running anything but Windows RT on them.

Can you really blame them? The success of Apple in doing exactly that has demonstrated that that is indeed a part of what many users want, the open alternative is already there with Android so there's no problem unless of course for some reason you really want to use Windows RT and want it not to be locked down - but i can't see any reason for that, can you?

Re:Old dog

[exomondo]

There's a reason Microsoft's catch phrase is "Embrace. Extend. Extinguish."

So in this context what is it they are attempting to 'Embrace, Extend and Extinguish'?

Re: Old dog

[ozmanjusri]

Microsoft tried to pay IBM off so they wouldn't compete. That suggests MS considered it a potentially viable competitor.

While OS/2 was arguably technically superior to Microsoft Windows 95, OS/2 sales were largely concentrated in networked computing used by corporate professionals. OS/2 failed to develop much penetration in the consumer and stand-alone desktop PC segments...

  Microsoft made an offer in 1994 where IBM would receive the same terms as Compaq (the number one PC manufacturer at the time) for a license of Windows 95, if IBM ended development of OS/2 completely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2

Re:Old dog

[ozmanjusri]

WebRTC is the (proposed) standard from W3C.

CU-RTC-Web is Microsoft's incompatible set of protocols.

At one stage, Skype was part of the working group developing aspects of the real standard, now Microsoft is actively fighting to block it.

For more than three years, Skype has worked to improve online audio through involvement in a project now called Opus [the audio codec for WebRTC). But perversely, Skype's new owner, Microsoft, is undermining Opus just as a Web standards effort is poised to carry it into the mainstream.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57494622-93/how-corporate-bickering-hobbled-better-web-audio/

Re:Old dog

[catchblue22]

It's just ridiculous that any Microsoft or Apple story never gets to a debate on technical merit because tards with an agenda always interject their religious views as though if we look at the business practices of one of the companies from 3 decades ago...

And yet your angry post lacks technical details and smacks of "religious zealotry", though to be honest I would call it "enthusiasm" in the perjorative Enlightenment sense. I've got one specific example of an OS, and I even mentioned it in my post: NeXT. It was unix based and thus by nature network hardened. It's BSD Unix heritage gave it strong hardware abstraction, such that it was comparatively easy to port it between different architectures. Compare that with win95, whose network security model was based on the assumption that the extent of a computer network wouldn't go beyond the walls of your house.

If you can't see the difference between windows, that was built on a shaky buggy foundation, and unix, that grew up running mainframe computers with hundreds of naughty brilliant computer science students concurrently accessing it, then you aren't even worth talking to.

Re:Old dog

[catchblue22]

Windows 95 doesn't stack up by todays standards but OS/2 and MacOS didn't even stack up by the standard of 1995

NeXT existed in 1987, eight years before windows 95. And to be clear, NeXT was only a reflection of what already existed in the sphere of unix...I am not worshiping at the church of Jobs. However, most of the important parts of NeXT went on to become OSX sans certain lovely features like display Post Script. In other words, an operating system of today's standards already existed eight years before the buggy turd that was windows 95. I really don't think you can argue against that juxtaposition, but I'm sure you'll try.

Re: Old dog

[lwriemen]

You're an idiot. OS/2 ran circles around anything Microsoft produced back then. The Amiga and NEXT were certainly viable alternatives. Microsoft's abusive monopoly was the only reason it's OS survived past the 90's. If you need a citation, go look up the findings of fact in the antitrust case. Microsoft was born due to antitrust action and they should have died due to antitrust action.

Re:Old dog

[metzjtm]

Shouldn't that be "Nec pluribus impar"?

Re:Old dog

[RockDoctor]

Old dogs are perfectly capable of learning new tricks, if you turn the voltage in the cattle-prod up high enough.

Not IE only

[Billly Gates]

Chrome also supports the standard and can already interface with IE 10. WebRTC is not standardized as no one can agree on the exact implementation yet and no 2 browsers can work with it the same. Microsoft did submit this to the W3C with its implementation.

Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can care to comment?

Due to Microsofts past with IE 6 and also them buying Skype I do feel a little skeptical. Is WebRTC really that difficult compred to the other one?

Re:Not IE only

[Eirenarch]

The issue MS has with WebRTC is that they cannot easily and reliably port the Skype protocol over to WebRTC because WebRTC is relatively high level. They propose lower level API that would allow more kinds of protocols to be implemented. They argue that higher level API would come through libraries. The WebRTC proponents argue that the core use case of WebRTC is browser to browser communication and as such the API should be higher level and if you want to do browser to Skype for example you are screwed. Frankly I think they are full of shit.

Re:Not IE only

[aliquis]

Which one of them? Both maybe? WebRTC?

Re:Not IE only

[Eirenarch]

The WebRTC guys. Lower level API makes more sense in this case for interop with existing apps. The WebRTC guys seem to think that everything should be in the browser anyway so other software be damned.

Re:Not IE only

[shutdown -p now]

Microsoft's distaste for all of the issues with SIP/SDP are one of the reasons they have largely not leveraged themselves as a VoIP vendor.

Doesn't Lync (nee Office Communicator) use SIP for VoIP?

Re:Not IE only

[maxwell demon]

Why should all browsers change to communicate with Skype, instead Skype to communicate with browsers?

Re:Not IE only

[Anonymous Coward]

For one, all browsers already have to change anyway, so why not change to something that's easy to interoperate with?

For another, Skype isn't the only application.

Re:Not IE only

[aliquis]

Yeah, that what I thought but I don't know anything about WebRTC and what it is. Haven't even read TFA :)

After I had replied I went to bed but just before I thought that maybe the issue with it being more low level was that the rest of the implementation could end up different and lead to incompatibilities.

But then again I have no idea what it really is or what it's supposed to be used for so I don't know whatever that can become a problem. Thought that would be a typical Microsoft/proprietary thing.

From a usability point / get maximum usage / .. to restrict it more than necessary seemed stupid (and to design anything like that if you don't need to as well. Better make it of very small bits which do each thing.)

Re:Not IE only

[serviscope_minor]

Why should all browsers change to communicate with Skype, instead Skype to communicate with browsers?

Because the only thing worse than generalising from one example is generalising from none...

Re:Not IE only

[exomondo]

Why should all browsers change to communicate with Skype, instead Skype to communicate with browsers?

What an odd statement, all browsers have to change anyway, the only question is should they change to only communicate with other browsers or have a lower level API to communicate with software other than just other browsers...why do you prefer the former over the latter?

How shocking

[Ultra64]

Are we supposed to be surprised by this?

Does anybody even care

[Tough Love]

Does anybody even care what Microsoft does these days? They even seem to fail at being evil, though they still try.

Re:Does anybody even care

[Billly Gates]

Does anybody even care what Microsoft does these days? They even seem to fail at being evil, though they still try.

Yep. IE is still the most popular browser in the world. g.statcounter.com may say otherwise but others such as netappliances say 55% of everyone on the net including tablet and phone users use Internet Explorer.

Regardless you can't ignore it. If IE wont support it you can't use it PERIOD. Until IE gets below 5% marketshare no sane business will dare cut them off. IT would be like owning a restaurant and telling 1 out of 10 users to leave and go fuck themselves. You will be out of business fast.

So this is a big deal if MS is being evil or maybe brilliant if the standard actually works and Mozilla copies it. FYI webkit supports this standard too as Chrome already works with it as webRTC still has major hurdles.

Re:Does anybody even care

[Tough Love]

IE is still the most popular browser in the world.

No it isn't, it fell off that perch years ago. Nobody uses Microsoft's browser by choice. Face it, Microsoft's sun is setting. Don't let the chair hit you on the way out.

Re:Does anybody even care

[Billly Gates]

IE is still the most popular browser in the world.

No it isn't, it fell off that perch years ago. Nobody uses Microsoft's browser by choice. Face it, Microsoft's sun is setting. Don't let the chair hit you on the way out.

I think statistics say otherwise. Remember, most people do not hang out on slashdot and are into browsers. Ask any webmaster here who writes internet sites that average people or businesses use? They will say 50 to 60% still use IE. It still sets the standards if you want to be paid by anyone to attract users sadly.

Remember these users are grandmas, 40 year old moms, accountants in the office with locked computers, redneck Joe Six Packs, and little kids at home whose teacher showed them that little blue e = internet. Not techies. Which browser do you think they use? I give you a little hint? It is the one they are familiar with that they use at work or school. Sometimes they geeky smart nephew will introduce this foxfire thingie for many ... but not everyone.

Lets say people who are not grayhairs who hate change and are set in their ways decide to switch to Chrome? IE drops to say 10% of users! Can we still ignore it? Still a NO. Unless you want to use my example of telling 1 out of 10 customers to go screw themselves to a client who is paying you the answer is you support it. 5%? Then maybe you can put a polite banner with a link to Chrome or Firefox then.

Arstechnica, zdnet, slashdot, and engadget are a tiny minority. It is not like the 1990s when the internet was a geek thing.

Lets hope MS has technical reasons for this as Skype would be better support the w3c standard?

Re:Does anybody even care

[fast turtle]

Sorry Bubba but I do use IE by choice. The 64bit on Win7-64 due to improved security and because the FF Devs gave out the excuse that there wasn't any 64bit plug-ins that mattered. WTF are they smoking as I want some of it. Seriously, Flash has be 64bit for 18+ months, thus their argument is bogus. Then they decided to completely stop work on the 64bit version of Firefox until we screamed load enough at them to get back to work. No, I use IE because Firefox stinks. For those area's where I need the add-on feature, I now use Palemoon64. It supports noscript, ghostery and my favorite down-them-all.

One of the main reasons I actually use IE for most of my browsing is the few sites I actually visit. IE works fine and I don't have to worry about the devs breaking something so badly that the site no longer works as has happened with Firefox. Another reason is that MS has actually tightened things up enough that w/o flash/Adobe Reader and Java, it's pretty damn secure along with stable while working quite well with MS websites.

Re:Does anybody even care

[Eirenarch]

So how does the fact that "Nobody uses Microsoft's browser by choice" changes the fact that it is the most used browser in the world?

Also I use it by choice and know many people who do too.

Re:Does anybody even care

[Billly Gates]

Let me know how slashdot works with IE 9 on changing the comment threshold? I have to go into IE 8 compatibility mode to change it.

Also, IE 9 64 bit uses the older javascript compiler as in the IE 6 -8 one! Maybe that is why it worked for you? THat or it is not optimized and is as slow as IE 8 according to some users. If you must use IE 9 use the 32-bit version even though slashdot and a few other sites are not fully compatible with it yet. Hence, why the corps are sticking with IE 8.

IE 9 is much improved overall even if it has issues with some sites still.

Firefox has 32-bit support still because of plugins. Flash is one that you mentioned. Others are corporate oriented ones that are starting to replace their activeX counterparts. Many of them still use Java 1.4 as that is what Cisco routers seem to prefer which is one of the thorns that is keeping hte beancounters from leaving Windows XP. Those things cost hundreds of thousands to replace.

Re:Does anybody even care

[redneckmother]

Hmmm... I am a gray-haired, 50+, joe sixpack redneck, and I don't use MickeySoft at all. I prefer to have control of my purchases (including 'puters), and I support truly open standards.

Okay, I lied. Most nights, a six pack doesn't cut it for me. My native american name is "Ten Beers".

Re:Does anybody even care

[shutdown -p now]

Let me know how slashdot works with IE 9 on changing the comment threshold? I have to go into IE 8 compatibility mode to change it.

Slashdot being broken on some browser or another is practically normal; I don't think it can be used to gauge standards compatibility.

On the other hand, all the JS here does make for a pretty good stress test. I recall Opera dying a lot because of that, but it's really their problem to fix.

Re:Does anybody even care

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

The reasons are many to use IE:

1. A few uses microsofts brower since they work at microsoft and are forced too.
2. Other uses it because their company forces them
3. Some because they are forced to use them for some webb sites they use.
4. Other uses it because they don't know better.
5. Some dont really surf the web so they don't bother to download a great browser.
6. Some are masochists.

IE users fall into one or more of these six categories.

Re:Does anybody even care

[Grayhand]

Does anybody even care what Microsoft does these days? They even seem to fail at being evil, though they still try.

Microsoft is akin to Dr Evil kidnapping Mitt Romney only to find out not only will the Republicans not pay the million dollars for his return but his own family won't. Trying to force a standard now is the same as trying to capture the water supply in a bucket full of holes. Apples pulls it off only because the axis of evil, iDevices/iTunes, that the world spins on. Every time Microsoft has tried to do similar things it's failed. Microsoft said software rules the world and Apple said it was hardware. In the end Apple won.

Re:Does anybody even care

[Tough Love]

You're being nice. 4. Others use it because they are mentally retarded.

Re:Does anybody even care

[Bert64]

Lots of IE users are people browsing from work, who have no choice as to what browser they can use...
I see a significant difference in browser stats between a porn site (which you would assume has very few people browsing from work) and other sites with various content. I see IE users at ~15% on the pornsite (which places it third after firefox and chrome) but somewhere between 30 and 40 on other sites.

Re:Does anybody even care

[Bert64]

Anyone using java to configure a cisco router is doing it wrong...

Re:Does anybody even care

[Kjella]

2. Other uses it because their company forces them

I think "force" is too strong a word, at home I haven't used IE since before Firefox 1.0 (Opera before that) but at work I don't much care. If I have the rights to install something else with no fuss I will, if not then whatever I'll use IE - it's not my security problem and it's not my time and money wasted. To date I've not yet been at a company - and I've been consulting and been to a fair bunch - that didn't have IE as their default browser. Some places you could install your own, some places Firefox was an officially supported alternative, some places you couldn't do anything but if you didn't take an active choice to use anything else it was IE. As long as IE ships with Windows, it will always have a significant market share because of companies that simply do nothing.

Re:Does anybody even care

[Tough Love]

As long as IE ships with Windows, it will always have a significant market share because of companies that simply do nothing.

That's the kind of company that can't hold its high value employees. Makes for a good short.

Re:Does anybody even care

[Billly Gates]

As long as IE ships with Windows, it will always have a significant market share because of companies that simply do nothing.

That's the kind of company that can't hold its high value employees. Makes for a good short.

I will make the same tired arguments that have been made for 10 years. When you have a $2,000,000 peoplesoft installation that only works in IE 6 and java 5 will you dare to approach the PHB cost accountants at work and say you should throw that $2,000,000 away because Chrome is sooo cool!! Go do it? ... while the whole department is on the floor laughing at you then say .... "I will walk if you make me use that ancient browser one day longer!!" PHB: Uh ok. Do not let the door slame your ass on the way out!

When you graduate college or work in anything but a small business you see IE everywhere. One to throw a bitch fest, yell at Oracle, SAP, IBM, and other enterprise vendors.

They are finally supporting Firefox 3.6, but anything above 4+ they wont certifiy as it changes every 6 weeks. So IE it is!

Also yell at Mozilla? Only IE has group policy objects, active directory integration, and other things where you can push a IE update to 90,000 workstations across 5 continents with ease. Have you managed thousands of PCs before? Only IE has this.

Until Mozilla wakes up the enterprise will constantly always pick IE.

Re:Does anybody even care

[Tough Love]

That's all pretty comical. Your view is obviously colored by working at the kind of company that can't hold its high value employees, and you are obviously not one. So just stay at that sorry place where you have the misfortune to be abused every day by incompetent IT staff with unsustainable ties to last century software and the rest of us will have a life. Yes, I would be out of that place you are in like a shot, if I was stupid enough to land there in the first place. And I don't give a rat's fuzzy behind if your idiot PHB thinks that's funny, that's his problem. Anybody who is worth anything will get paid more by leaving a place like that.

Re:Does anybody even care

[Billly Gates]

That's all pretty comical. Your view is obviously colored by working at the kind of company that can't hold its high value employees, and you are obviously not one. So just stay at that sorry place where you have the misfortune to be abused every day by incompetent IT staff with unsustainable ties to last century software and the rest of us will have a life. Yes, I would be out of that place you are in like a shot, if I was stupid enough to land there in the first place. And I don't give a rat's fuzzy behind if your idiot PHB thinks that's funny, that's his problem. Anybody who is worth anything will get paid more by leaving a place like that.

Well your salary is a cost center, and that $2,000,000 million peoplesoft/DerpMaster ERP solution is an asset! (aka money in accounting terms).

Who do you think the accountants will value more? You (cost center who steals money from the shareholders) or that annoying app that generates money? I give you a hint. It is cheaper to replace you with a BestBuy employee/Indian h1b1 worker who is happy to use IE 6 than to make you happy. Who cares?

Every single employer will sell their souls to fire you if it means more money with an IE 6 app. That is work and you can say it is the PHB problem but he is just looking after the CEO.

CEOs get rewarded for staying behind by the shareholders for being so intelligent and industry leaders yada yada. You can't just get rid of an app unless you prove it is cheaper to do so. Windows 7 is now just forcing them. Being cool with great technology just doens't motivate.

You wont find a job elsewhere who will share your values. Everyone would happy downgrade to IE 6 if an app made them more money to do so and costs more money to be hip to be modern. Just do not be modern and everyone but you gets a nice fat bonus for being cost saver geniuses including your boss.

Re:Does anybody even care

[Tough Love]

Boy, am I ever glad I don't work where you do. And I'm glad I'm not you, that must really suck. Sorry about that, better luck next life.

Business as usual for Microsoft...

[SmoothTom]

Microsoft has followed this path from the beginning with standards: Adopt, adapt, expand and control.

Always adding something "extra" so that other software that actually follows the standard doesn't work quite right with stuff built to Microsoft's "standard" so that the stuff built to actually follow the world standard looks inferior. :(
--Tomas

Re:Business as usual for Microsoft...

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

Well, to be fair, ATM it's Microsoft trying to convince others to adopt and adapt to its proposed standard. There's every reason to be suspicious of MS's motives, but the company has released some technologies that have gained wide deployment and yet have not resulted in a botnet of lawsuits against developers companies attempting to write their own implementations. MS might be trying to turn its FAT filesystems into a cash cow, but the RTF spec is free for anyone to use.

Re:Business as usual for Microsoft...

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Noone really uses FAT - everyone uses VFAT and Microsoft require alla companies who uses VFAT to pay them for a license.

That way noone can do a free software version of it.

It's their way to stop free software.

Re:Business as usual for Microsoft...

[Bert64]

The problem is even worse with exFAT...
There are plenty of perfectly capable and open filesystems, most of which are much better than fat/exfat and some designed specifically for flash storage among other things...
And yet the world is forced to use an inferior and patent encumbered filesystem because MS refuse to support anything else.

This is pretty crazy...

[Dwedit]

This is pretty crazy...
Microsoft owns Skype. Skype's technology is half of the Opus codec. Opus is what WebRTC is supposed to use. So why isn't Microsoft all over this?

Re:This is pretty crazy...

[Eirenarch]

According to some articles I've read it is very hard to port the Skype protocol (or other protocols) to WebRTC because WebRTC is relatively high level. MS's proposal is for a lower level API that would allow different protocols to be implemented over it including Skype. They argue that higher level API would be provided through libraries.

Re:Good luck with that MS

[LocalH]

No one use IE any more.

Sure they do. They don't have the majority numbers they used to have back in the old Netscape days, but they still have market share. Any web developer worth their salt will at least use IE for testing purposes (if you're developing websites, not testing in IE for whatever reason, then you suck as a developer). I also know several people personally who use IE because it's what they're used to, and they're not power users (they have difficulty learning unfamiliar programs on their own). Even after I've spoken to them and advocated the use of Firefox (or of late, I'd advocate Chrome), they chose to continue using IE.

I'm not saying that IE is the best browser out there (although they have made great strides in standards compliance and security since the days of IE6), but to state "no one uses IE anymore" with no facts to back it up is simply short-sighted and borderline zealous.

Real Microsoft name for new spec

[SuperKendall]

FU-RTC-Web

Re:Good luck with that MS

[icebike]

Any web developer worth their salt will at least use IE for testing purposes

If you write to the standards you don't need to test in IE any more than any other browser.
If IE can't handle standard code, its somebody else's problem.

Maybe this is the reason

[Bruce Perens]

WebRTC has Opus, the Open Source audio codec that can outperform MP3 and pretty much any audio codec*. It does seem that the proprietary OS industry will do anything they can to stop open codecs from being net standards.

* Anything but FLAC and Codec2 (because FLAC doesn't compress and Codec2 is voice-only and ultra-low-bandwidth).

Re:Maybe this is the reason

[stms]

FLAC does compress it just uses lossless compression.

Re:Maybe this is the reason

[Anonymous Coward]

One look at Opus is enough to convince me Microsoft is bullshitting. Opus was a collaboration by all stake holders involved.

Re:Maybe this is the reason

[93 Escort Wagon]

WebRTC has Opus, the Open Source audio codec that can outperform MP3 and pretty much any audio codec*.

Hmm... I'd like to see solid evidence of this. Outperforming mp3 isn't difficult, obviously; but I had a hard time finding evidence it's been compared against anything but lower bit rate (e.g. 64kbps) AAC, for example. I'd like to see comparisons with both at 128 or higher, if this is really one codec to rule them all, so to speak, as seems to be the claim.

In some ways the chatter around this seems similar to what went on with WebM. Being open source carries a lot of weight with people here on Slashdot, understandably; but that in and of itself doesn't equate to technical superiority.

Re:Maybe this is the reason

[Gaygirlie]

Yes. I am out of the habit of thinking of lossless as "real" compression, but I seem to be in the minority.

I have to ask why do you think like that? Do you view e.g. the compression method used by RAR/WinRar as not being "real" compression, even though it can achieve quite nice compression rates? Or bz2? Or 7zip? They're all lossless, they all have lots and lots and lots of math behind them, and implementing any single one of them isn't something that you can just do yourself in an hour or two. Or is it that you only view lossless compression as not being "real" compression when it comes to multimedia, as if the content somehow mattered how "real" one or another compression method is?

Re:Maybe this is the reason

[Smauler]

I think it comes from the fact that just about _everything_ uses compression now, by default. When was the last time you watched a video that was not compressed? I'll give you a hint... it's probably never. Image formats have used lossless compression forever, too - Windows 3.1 used Run length encoding on bitmaps, for example. Obviously, GIFs and PNGs are lossless compressed.

There's a difference when you're using RAR/zip though. Lossy compression is pretty sub-optimal if you're compressing anything that has to run.

Re:Maybe this is the reason

[yourlord]

Bruce, Microsoft contributed the SILK codec used in Skype to the Opus project and released any related patents royalty free. I would have a hard time trusting MS if they told me the sky was blue, but they basically made the low bitrate capability of Opus legally doable.

As for those who are posting their scepticism about the opus codec's quality, the IETF standardised Opus as RFC 6716 and is making it a mandatory to implement codec for WebRTC based on it's proven performance at every applicable bitrate.

For quality comparison info:
http://opus-codec.org/comparison/

RFC 6716:
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716

Re:Maybe this is the reason

[adolf]

I think it comes from the fact that just about _everything_ uses compression now, by default.

By default: My network doesn't use compression and my disks don't use compression. My audio recording rig doesn't use compression. The action of the "Submit" button under this form does not use compression. Nor does a document saved in OOXML. Not does BitTorrent. Et cetera.

Oh, wait. I guess you meant "just about _everything_" as in "audio, video, or graphical media that has been prepped for efficient digital storage and/or transport for eventual consumption by humans".

Perhaps your world is just more limited, but that's a pretty small subset of the "_everything_" that exists in my world.

When was the last time you watched a video that was not compressed? I'll give you a hint... it's probably never.

I'll give you a hint: At least as recently as June 12, 2009.

Indeed, come to think of it, it was much more recent: I watched some video that was not compressed just a few weeks ago, a Laserdisc edition of Blade Runner.

Lossy compression is pretty sub-optimal if you're compressing anything that has to run.

I guess you meant "sub-optimal" as in "ridiculously fucking broken in ways that would be impossible to mend were anyone foolhardy enough to actually try to do that."

So what were you going on about again? Oh yeah, you're confused about what "compression" means.

Except for yourself and Bruce Perens, I think we've all got that word figured out pretty well.

(Oh, and also: GIFs are not necessarily lossless in application. Do yourself a favor and think about that for a bit before you tell me that I'm wrong.)

Re:Maybe this is the reason

[MikeBabcock]

Coming from you that sounds a little odd. When my file halves in size, I can't think of it as anything but compressed.

Re:Maybe this is the reason

[AK Marc]

I watched some video that was not compressed just a few weeks ago, a Laserdisc edition of Blade Runner.

And a sampled digital signal is not "compressed"? Seems to me that 44.1kHz is "compressed" compared to 48kHz. Since there exists no sampling that doesn't have rate +1, *all* digital that is rendered from analog is "compressed" at least from my definition of compressed. Something filmed natively in digital isn't "compressed" until it's compressed.

Re:Maybe this is the reason

[Bruce Perens]

It is because I have been working on Codec2, a perceptual compression project, for some years now. To say that we throw away data would be an understatement.

Re:Maybe this is the reason

[adolf]

*ahem*

The video information on a Laserdisc is always analog. Sometimes, the audio is as well.

So I'm not really sure what you are going on about, at least in the context of what you quoted.

Re:Maybe this is the reason

[Bert64]

If you don't make the codec part of the standard, then it is no real standard... You can technically comply with it but implement a codec that noone else supports, thus being completely and utterly useless.
What you need to do is mandate codecs now, and then release a revision of the standard in the future which supports others.
It worked well for SSL with encryption ciphers, there have been numerous revisions to add support for newer ciphers such as AES.

You may also find that the protocol itself needs updating when new ciphers come out, so you have a good opportunity there too. Also if designed properly, clients should be able to negotiate use of the older version if necessary.

Re:Maybe this is the reason

[Rockoon]

Just listened to a 1400b/sec codec2 voice sample and I am quite impressed. Can you give an idea on how much processing overhead is required/performed during compression, as well as decompression?

Re:Maybe this is the reason

[serviscope_minor]

For the point of view of realtime streaming, lossless codecs cannot work since they cannot guarantee compression. They will usually do it, but may fail. You also can't generally change the level of compression by very much.

If the channel bandwith shrinks, you're out of luck and will get every growing latency or outright dropouts.

With lossy, you can keep throwing away more and more to compensate.

Of course, lossless is still real and extremely useful for many things.

Re:Maybe this is the reason

[AK Marc]

Just because the size is smaller doesn't mean it has been compressed.

Sure, and 400Gbps Ethernet isn't "broadband". Sometimes the definition changes. When you find you are the last one using the old definition, it's possible you are wrong now, even if you were right once.

Re:Maybe this is the reason

[AK Marc]

I thought it was digitally represented analog. And that requires loss of data. Saving something in a smaller form seems to fit the common definition of "compressed". It's just when the format is changed at the same time, people tend to not call it "compression" though not for any rational reason.

"the company believes"....

[gmuslera]

the company will make sure that WebRTC may not be as close to real standardization as its proponents might argue.

There, fixed it for you.

Re:Good luck with that MS

[evafan76]

No one use IE any more.

Except there are many corporate intranets that are IE only. Hell, I've seen SharePoint 2010 instances that don't even play well with IE 9...

Re:obligatory xkcd

[sideslash]

Here you go: comic

Re:Good luck with that MS

[osu-neko]

If IE can't handle standard code, its somebody else's problem.

Spoken like a man without clients/customers...

Annoyingly, they're correct...

[Anonymous Coward]

As it stands, WebRTC sucks. I was hoping to utilise it in a current R&D project, but even FF and Chrome have different implementations of it to the extent tha it fails at what it's supposed to do. As such, it's in danger of becoming another mutant web standard that simply isn't, just like HTML5 video...

Re:Annoyingly, they're correct...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been balls deep in WebRTC server-side implementation for 2 months, and oh my god THE HORROR. I'll try to keep this short.

A bunch of telephony stalwarts were brought together to come up with some standards for interoperable, extendable, browser-based real-time media communications. To achieve this aim, they've taken several dozen existing standards & RFCs, and extended / contorted / selectively ignored / creatively implemented them such that they've inherited two decades of digital telephony industry technical debt, gaining absolutely nothing in return.

The bar of implementation has been set so high and so complex the average would-be WebRTC-endpoint-compatible implementor has very little hope of achieving anything without wholesale drinking of the kool-aid. Forget lightweight implementations, and forget being able to innovate around the technology. They've focused purely on the peer-to-peer aspect, entirely neglecting anybody who might want to create more complex topologies and server-side functionality.

The W3C need to reassess their decision to burden everybody with finnicky, complicated, nuanced, potholed standards born in a different time, where connectivity, devices, usage patterns and scalability were all nothing like they are today. They need to take stock of the number of design decisions they've made which fundamentally break compatibility with other implementations of the standards they've chosen. They need to realise this is all completely pointless work: they could have truly revolutionised this shit, for fucks sake!

As for Microsoft's direction: they seem to be attempting to address a few of these issues, but they've also committed the sin of overcompicating the fuck out of it.

Re:Annoyingly, they're correct...

[Locutus]

probably very much like HTML5 video since it was corporate greed which fractured the HTML5 video standard and allowed so many differing implementations. IIRC, Microsoft would not accept anything but the ability to use their own codecs so the spec didn't get cleaned up and it was allowed to be a mess.

Surely Microsoft was involved in the WebRTC spec but then again, for 20 something years they have opposed open standards and felt doing it their own way, and usually a Windows-only way, was how they played. This just sems like the same old Microsoft way of doing it.

The only thing is, they might still own the desktop but the big growth market is mobile and they are not even players on the same field. I mean doesn't RIM have more market share than Microsoft?

LoB

Re:Annoyingly, they're correct...

[KingMotley]

The ability to use differing codecs is how you allow a standard set in stone to remain relevant for longer than 30 seconds. As for HTML5 video, I'm not sure what you issue is with it, but our websites use it just fine.

Do you think it was stupid of the HTML spec to allow the img tag to use more than just .bmp? I for one am glad it allows .gif, .jpg, and .png as well. Each of those have their own strengths, and we use different formats depending on which format gives us the best experience. I don't see how this is different than HTML5 video.

Re:Annoyingly, they're correct...

[Locutus]

yes, I recall there was lots of joy going around with jpeg patent threats back then. Let's relive that it was so much fun.

LoB

Re:Good luck with that MS

[SuperKendall]

If IE can't handle standard code, its somebody else's problem.

It is your problem when someone using IE browses your website and the site doesn't look or work well.

Who are they going to think is an idiot, you or Microsoft? After all, most other sites they browse work fine in IE...

Re:Good luck with that MS

[icebike]

Please note that I did say Write to the Standard.
MS handles the standard just as well as any other browser.

Board Meeting at MSFT HQ

[Jetra]

"We think their standard is crap, so let's make our own"

"But, how will it work?"

"Lots of security holes. compatible with IE only, and make damn well sure that they can't remove it from the OS."

Great job, Microsoft, add another junk program that takes up our precious CPU.

Re:Good luck with that MS

[nonicknameavailable]

Many websites have stopped supporting older versions of IE

hedging bets

[nadaou]

Microsoft believes that working on its proposal can shed light on how to solve certain problems such as handling changes in network bandwidth or keeping cellular and Wi-Fi connections open in parallel to allow easy failover from one to the other.

... and then patent the method before someone else does ...

Re:Good luck with that MS

[dreamchaser]

You've lost the mobile war, you've lost the browser war and you're going to lose the OS war soon enough.

No one use IE any more.

You don't get out much. While it doesn't have the market share it once did a lot of organizations/companies still use it as their standard browser. It also isn't all that bad these days. I use all three major browsers but tend to use Chrome more than others, but IE is not going away any time soon.

Testing is key

[SuperKendall]

Please note that I did say Write to the Standard.
MS handles the standard just as well as any other browser.

That means nothing as to how a site works though, you can "write to standards" all day long, but it's very easy to misunderstand a standard, or to simply have bugs that only surface on one browser because THEY misunderstood standards. You still have to test even when "writing to standards".

Re:Testing is key

[SQLGuru]

Look up the various implementations of the standards for dealing with the offline manifest file. In this particular case, Mozilla actually caches the file (which defeats the purpose of having the offline manifest triggering updates) and Chrome and IE don't. You basically have to reconfigure your server to work around Mozilla's interpretation of the standard.

It's not only the definition of the standard, but the interpretation of the standard by each browser......and then the interpretation by the developer coding to a standard.

So now not only will there be separate internets

[kawabago]

Now not only will we have separate internets for each country, so governments can decide what their people can see, but each company will have it's own proprietary browsers for their particular chunk of the internet. That is absolutely stupid, classic Microsoft! Can we change the name Steve to Wrong Way Ballmer since he keeps going the opposite direction as everyone else, invariably to Microsoft's chagrin?

Re:Good luck with that MS

[Billly Gates]

I had FIrefox work just fine with Sharepoint 2010.

It makes me wonder how complex is sharepoint and what does it actually do? If you need a consultant to set it up and programmers to fiddle with it then of course teh guys at work only know IE7 and IE 8 would write the vbscript.

The ones I got to work were compliant and I sincerely hope it is not as complex as I mentioned above as this was Microsofts answer to wikipedia. It should be simple theoretically with templates right?

Re:Webkit supports both

[Billly Gates]

Chrome and IE 10 interact fine if you follow the link.

Yes, we can bash MS for being evil but the grandparent is right. It is an empty standard with no implementation and is a nightmare as a result.

If Mozilla supports it then we will use that. Netscape and IE supported non w3c standards back in the day aka quirks mode even though they did do things only each browser would do.

It looks like we might have another modern quirkmode in this if everyone supports it.

Multi-Media on the Web is FUCKED

[l0ungeb0y]

In the post Flash era we are taking HUGE steps back. In-browser support for Video Codecs are neither here nor there, where we quite literally have to encode to two or even three standards. But, at least we have Wowza that can stream to various standards and Codecs. Audio is no better, with Google and Apple are using the Web Audio API while Firefox is committed to the Audio Data API, which has NOTHING in common with the Webkit standard. And the built in audio player on the Android Browser? WHAT. A. FUCKING. JOKE. And of course Apple's "HTTP Live Streaming" is NOT at all suited for actual Live Streaming. The latency is terrible!

And then we have Real Time Communication, an area that Flash excelled at with and RTMP and AMF, as well as various servers such as FMS, Wowza and SmartFox capable of facilitating chat rooms, multi-player games, even MMORPGs.

Getting data and devices streaming FROM THE BROWSER just isn't there. The support is incomplete, undecided and very much in flux. We are quite literally still a few years out from a standard and usable platform across browsers. And now we have Microsoft wading in to offer what will surely be a typical Proprietary Solution only available to Microsoft Partners and Licensees.

Frankly, this rush to kill Flash has been a self-centered money grab to try to take away the video market from Adobe and HAS FUCKED the users, leaving them with a broken internet and competing standards.

The hype of HTML5 has been years coming, with Steve Jobs and legions of techies on slashdot and other sites calling for the death of Flash.
Yet here we are, years out and we don't have anywhere near what we had with Multi-Media and Real Time Communication in 2005 with Flash.

How anyone can sit here and look at the current state of affairs and not see it as a monumental clusterfuck that is HOLDING BACK the progress and innovation we were promised with HTML5 is beyond me.

Re:Multi-Media on the Web is FUCKED

[Billly Gates]

Funny

I view Adobe as the evil money grab trying to destroy internet standards, GPL, hobbiests, and free operating systems.

Why? In 1999 Linux/FreeBSD was the ulitmate web development platform. So many tools and a cutting edge Netscape and Mozilla browsers, codecs (yes distros including them back then), and php modules galore. Today employers demand Adobe flash, adobe dreamweaver, adobe photoshop, adobe preimere, for any web development job. You need WIndows or Mac only to learn web development. Windows preferable as IE is standard.I have to pirate as I wont blow $2,000 to learn things and the cool tools of linux have to run on an ISP or another computer. That is messed up if you ask me.

Flash is terrible, insecure, hardware acceleration non existent on many platforms, non mobile friendly, and controlled by a corporation. HTML 5 is coming a long way but its a start.

Re:Multi-Media on the Web is FUCKED

[Billly Gates]

For the exact same reason, I had been wondering why people tried/are still trying to kill Java instead of improving it altogether. And I came up with a pretty obvious conclusion that people are selfish, egotistic, and arrogant. If we knew how to cooperate with the others, the world would definitely be a much better place.

We have HTML 5 and ajax to do just that. We do not own Adobe or Oracle. That is the difference. Java needs to die too. It had its chance but Sun and Oracle never improved it outside the 1990s and it is time to move on to something we own and control instead.

Re:Multi-Media on the Web is FUCKED

[maccodemonkey]

And of course Apple's "HTTP Live Streaming" is NOT at all suited for actual Live Streaming. The latency is terrible!

Huh? Unless the latency is somewhere beyond 60 seconds (which doesn't seem likely), it's fine. Otherwise you're fundamentally misunderstanding what Apple HTTP Live Streaming is for. It's aimed at broadcast live events one way (such as a TV channel), NOT real time video chat or conferencing.

Stuff like Facetime is NOT Apple HTTP Live Streaming, because again, according to TFM that's not what HTTP Live Streaming is for.

Re:Multi-Media on the Web is FUCKED

[shutdown -p now]

And now we have Microsoft wading in to offer what will surely be a typical Proprietary Solution only available to Microsoft Partners and Licensees.

Did you even RTFS? It's so proprietary it was submitted to W3C for consideration.

Re:Multi-Media on the Web is FUCKED

[BZ]

Mozilla is actively implementing the Web Audio API, for what it's worth.

Re:Multi-Media on the Web is FUCKED

[epyT-R]

The fact is flash sucked at all those things because:
1. It's bloated, it's slow, it's buggy as hell. It's so bad that browsers now have a plugin-wrapper to prevent it from crashing the entire browser.
2. It's closed, so it can't easily be ported to other platforms.. basically, flashterbated sites are only going to work well on windows, poorly on linux and mac, and not at all on anything else. Useless.. might as well just distribute OS specific binaries and be done with it..

I'm glad flash is dying. It's stagnated these activities since 1998. Even Cu-Seeme was better than flash. If we have to take a step back to motivate people, then I'm for it. To be honest, we shouldn't be using the browser for these tasks. This everything-in-a-browser trend is what's stagnated potential, not the death of flash. The browser should provide HTML, with links that open external applications which are far more likely to be better tuned for the environment the user is using, both performance wise as well as interface consistency.

Re:Multi-Media on the Web is FUCKED

[tokul]

The hype of HTML5 has been years coming, with Steve Jobs and legions of techies on slashdot and other sites calling for the death of Flash.

He is dead, Jim.

Re:Multi-Media on the Web is FUCKED

[Ambassador Kosh]

I am pretty glad flash is dieing also. Even with all the hardware acceleration turned on for a Windows 7 laptop flash kills my battery life. I get about 8-9 ours of normal usage from my laptop. With flash it drops to 4 hours or less. I have no idea why it sucks down so much battery time but even fallout 3 doesn't drain the battery as fast which is insane.

I have an AMD llano laptop that also has a dedicated 6750M graphics card in it also. While just playing flash video the AMD software shows me the dedicated card is completely off, the igpu in the llano chip is barely work and the cpu is doing a lot of work.

If I play the same video on youtube with the html 5 player I see almost no cpu usage, no dedicatd gpu usage and very low igpu usage and a very small impact on battery life.

Flash just has too large of a negative impact on the system. If adobe could fix that I would not mind as much but even the absolute latest versions still have these problems.

Re:Good luck with that MS

[Eirenarch]

Even if you were right (and you are not) many people consider "writing to the standards" to mean "it works in Chrome and Firefox" and this is definitely not what it means.

The REAL reason?

[ilsaloving]

How about the REAL reason Microsoft went their own way?

Because they want to control the plan form so that if they successfully gain traction, they can start locking everyone else out. Just like they do with everything else.

Re:The REAL reason?

[ilsaloving]

What do you mean, "Oh wait."? They *did*. And they managed to overwhelmingly dominate the market for many years. Once they destroyed Netscape there was no decent alternative for quite a while until zombie Netscape rose up again as Firefox.

WebRTC isn't just browsers.

[Ostracus]

WebRTC isn't just for browsers, but ATAs is well.

Re:Good luck with that MS

[Billly Gates]

Go launch IE 6 and try to use it? That is my cite.

On VMWare IE 6 crashes on the default MSN news page within 30 seconds. Pretty bad if you ask me since MS makes it and even www.microsoft.com doesn't work properly in IE 6 anymore.

The rule I use is 5%. If you spend 50% of your time with 5% of the market it is time to ignore them and put a polite banner with links to later browsers asking them to upgrade to enjoy the latest features.

You need to draw the line somewhere and 40% to 50% of all customers who use IE 9/10 who do not support this standard is batshit crazy! IE 6 is another matter. IE 7 is going out of support too as it approaches the 5% number too.

Plugin vs. built-in

[sunderland56]

Why should *any* codec at all be built in?

Make them ALL plugins. For really popular formats, just ship the plugin with the browser by default. Browsers are bloated enough as they are - trim the binary down to the minimum possible, and only load the plugins when they are needed. This also forces the browser developer to optimize the codec plugin path well enough to stream live video, instead of optimizing the builtins and leaving the plugin ones with half-baked support.

It would also allow users to remove support for formats they don't like/want/need. Apple fans could delete everything except aac, Microsofties could delete everything except their own. RMS could delete all the non-'Free' ones.

Re:Plugin vs. built-in

[shutdown -p now]

It would also allow users to remove support for formats they don't like/want/need. Apple fans could delete everything except aac, Microsofties could delete everything except their own. RMS could delete all the non-'Free' ones.

The point of standards is to enable interoperability - precisely the thing that's missing in your "perfect world" as described, by design.

Re:Plugin vs. built-in

[serviscope_minor]

Why should *any* codec at all be built in?

Yes. Lower level protocols should be as agnostic as possible about higher level ones.

A realtime connection protocol should allow the destination to inform the source of latency and dropouts.

Re:Plugin vs. built-in

[devent]

I'm not really fond of the "Browser as System" concept.
I already have a VOIP, Music and Video player. Why do I need the same functionality duplicated poorly in the browser?
It's like Firefox now includes a Pdf viewer. Why, I already have a perfectly good Pdf viewer in my system.
Why can't the browser leverage the resources already available on the system?

Make a standard that says: Web have to support: Pdf, Video (codecs a) b) c), Audio (codecs a) b) c), Jpg, png, gif,
And make it so that it is the operating system that have to support that standard. Call it "Web System Standard".
The browser will be just a client that uses that standards made available from the operating system.
Make browser that can integrate seaming-less those standards.

For example for Pdf. Don't include Pdf viewer in the browser, but make it very easy from the Browser to open Pdf files.
Or for video, make it so that the browser can open my video application inside the web page.

If the operating system do not include a Pdf viewer, or a video playback application that can work in the browser, then it will not be in compliance with the "Web System Standard".

Why double the effort? I like my Pdf viewer (Okular), I like my video playback application (VLC and Kaffeine), I like my audio playback application (Amarok). I do not want the browser for that.

But instead to follow the Unix way, we now need a second monolith besides the operating system: the browser. Great, not I have two operating systems.

OMG ! MS being a asshat, unbelievable !

[musmax]

said no one, ever.

Re:Good luck with that MS

[KingMotley]

Ours. We only support IE 9+, any older and we'll send you Chrome Frame so we don't have have to worry about the stupidness that is IE 7/8.

Re:Good luck with that MS

[drinkypoo]

If you write to the standards you don't need to test in IE any more than any other browser.

Clients don't care if a site is standards-compliant, they care if their potential customers will look at their site and see a hot mess. If you can give them something attractive and standards-compliant, so much the better.

Media streaming is the clusterfuck

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

"How anyone can sit here and look at the current state of affairs and not see it as a monumental clusterfuck that is HOLDING BACK the progress and innovation we were promised with HTML5 is beyond me."

If you're going to rant about taking a huge step backward, look no further than media streaming. Media streaming, where every time you want to watch the SAME video you have to download it again, wastes bandwidth, a much more precious resource than the 32GB micro-SD card you slip into your smartphone, much less the 3TB hard disk in your PC.

You're right though about "vested" interests preventing the progress of technology, from energy production to file sharing to medicine.

Re:Media streaming is the clusterfuck

[Kjella]

If you don't have the bandwidth to stream, you don't have the bandwidth to instantly watch a video unless you want to proactively keep an archive of everything you could possibly want to watch. And if you do have the bandwidth, who cares? Most the effort is in laying down fat enough pipes on the last mile, sure you add a little more traffic to the aggregate at your ISP's central but really that's pretty marginal. They still have to maintain the line and all the other tools no matter how much data flows through it. Besides, is it actually less? In all honesty, if I compare the amount of video downloaded because I thought I was going to watch compared to the amount of video I actually ended up watching, I think the savings are bigger than the repeat downloads.

Typical examples:
1. Download episode 1, looks kinda interesting
2. Put rest of season on download
3. See episode 2 and 3, realize they used all the good material already and it's rather dull
4. Delete entire season

1. Download low quality version of something
2. Life gets busy, a better version (e.g. BluRay, BRrip) available
3. Download again in better quality and watch that
4. Delete low quality version without ever watching

1. See some interesting screencaps
2. Download a siterip because what the hey
3. See a few clips, find maybe 10% interesting
4. Delete the other 90%

The vast majority of movies and TV series I have I've only seen once. If they were really good, maybe twice. And three times is roughly my absolute limit, because by then I remember pretty much everything and I'm just aching "get oooooooooooon with it". That said, without copyright we could do this much more efficiently with a hierarchy of caches, like a CDN but generic and open using hash keys. You'd just as for the hashes like those in the torrent file, and the closest cache would provide that block. The biggest waste of bandwidth today is not downloads vs streaming, it's that you're downloading from a peer in Australia instead of the other guy on the same block watching the same show.

Re:Good luck with that MS

[Billly Gates]

Which site is that if you do not mind asking?

IE 8 seems a little earlier. Especially if you have business users. Even on the internet many sites still work better with IE 8 including Slashdot. Yes, they have standards, but when they see a string that says IE they feed old IE code.

Maybe slashdot.org can fix the comment threading in IE 9?

Microsoft going own way on spec?

[Codifex Maximus]

You mean to say that Microsoft is not adopting an existing specification but designing it's own proprietary one? Get outta here! I don't believe it!

Like they haven't done that before. :P

Does it work on HD-DVD?

[tbg58]

If not, how about Betamax?

CU-RTC-Web?

[mianne]

Oh come now! If you really want a standard to take hold, you'll need a much catchier name..

How about, "Plays For Sure II: This time we really mean it!*

* until some soon to be announced EOL date.

Re:Good luck with that MS

[LocalH]

If you write to the standards you don't need to test in IE any more than any other browser.

Clients don't care if a site is standards-compliant, they care if their potential customers will look at their site and see a hot mess. If you can give them something attractive and standards-compliant, so much the better.

They do care if one delivers a site that isn't 100% in IE, however (or any other browser for that matter). That's why I don't get the mentality of those who actively block IE just for being IE. I remember a site a few years back that had loads of info about the 6581 SID chip, and what struck me as odd was that it actively blocked IE users. Now, at the time, that could reasonably be explained by saying "IE isn't standards compliant", but nowadays that argument doesn't hold much water with me. Even though I use Chrome primarily at the moment, if I find out that a site actively blocks any standards compliant version of IE, I will refuse to visit that site even though I don't use IE for daily browsing. Code to the standards, test in all major browsers (or at least all major rendering engines, I personally test under Trident, Gecko, and Webkit - including Safari on Windows, to get an idea of how the site will render on Safari for Mac, even though I know the font rendering is slightly different and not quite as good as on a Mac), and fix your bugs. Simple as that.

Here we go again.

[mrjb]

So MS will be publishing their own standard. What will happen?

1. Looking at VBscript and Silverlight/Moonlight, it will essentially fail - alternatives exist (Javascript, Flash) that are equally viable and more widely supported.

2. Some idiots will use MS-only tech ANYWAY, breaking support for anything but the Windows platform and alienating a substantial user base.

3. If the spec is open (looking at dot net), some open source group will produce their own version to permit interoperability with other platforms.

Wasn't it netflix that required Silverlight to be installed?

4. However, this doesn't guarantee that code written for Windows-based products will actually work out of the box on the other platforms.

An example of this once again is dotnet: Even with the whole CLR available on Linux, some idiot will tie their source code into a proprietary Windows API, e.g. to have SharePoint interoperability.

5. Eventually (looking at CSS and MS' implementation of JavaScript and the document object model) MS will have to give in and better support the actual official standard, but by that time the damage will have been done. Remember the original HTML spec only permitted writing JavaScript in the HTML header - just think for a moment how many cross-site-scripting issues that prevents. But NOOO, MS decided people should be allowed to litter script tags all over the document body. Great going, MS.

6. In some cases, an MS spec will end up sufficiently well-documented that it becomes the de-facto norm across platforms. The .wav file format is a good example of this; it's pretty much always supported. That doesn't mean it's not brain-dead (Why on earth is the length of a WAV file a SIGNED integer?)

Anyway, I'm not exactly looking forward to the implications.

Re:Here we go again.

[netsentry]

So MS will be publishing their own standard. What will happen? 1. Looking at VBscript and Silverlight/Moonlight, it will essentially fail - alternatives exist (Javascript, Flash) that are equally viable and more widely supported. 2. Some idiots will use MS-only tech ANYWAY, breaking support for anything but the Windows platform and alienating a substantial user base. 3. If the spec is open (looking at dot net), some open source group will produce their own version to permit interoperability with other platforms. Wasn't it netflix that required Silverlight to be installed? 4. However, this doesn't guarantee that code written for Windows-based products will actually work out of the box on the other platforms. An example of this once again is dotnet: Even with the whole CLR available on Linux, some idiot will tie their source code into a proprietary Windows API, e.g. to have SharePoint interoperability. 5. Eventually (looking at CSS and MS' implementation of JavaScript and the document object model) MS will have to give in and better support the actual official standard, but by that time the damage will have been done. Remember the original HTML spec only permitted writing JavaScript in the HTML header - just think for a moment how many cross-site-scripting issues that prevents. But NOOO, MS decided people should be allowed to litter script tags all over the document body. Great going, MS. 6. In some cases, an MS spec will end up sufficiently well-documented that it becomes the de-facto norm across platforms. The .wav file format is a good example of this; it's pretty much always supported. That doesn't mean it's not brain-dead (Why on earth is the length of a WAV file a SIGNED integer?) Anyway, I'm not exactly looking forward to the implications.

Let me preface by saying I am not a Microsoft supporter, following that up with...you're off-base here.

1. 1. Adobe discontinued work on Flash for mobile. Looking at the rest of the industry, that's a good indication of Flash's imminent death. Silverlight works fine on all major devices not made by Apple.
2. 2, Anybody who has published HTML5 video/audio knows you already have to have four different codecs to be cross-platform compliant. What's the difference?
3. 3, See #2. As if nobody has tried to unify formats and codecs before.
   Re: Silverlight. Yeah, and? How about all the sites that require Flash or Java to be installed? How is Java treating us these days?
4. 4. Your reference here is hard to follow, but I assume this is 3a? If so this implies a lack of understanding about codecs. These are not Windows-based or Linux-based, they are (for web purposes) browser-based. Firefox on Windows runs the same codec (Theora) as it does on Linux or OSX.
5. 5. Putting Javascript at the bottom of your page code optimizes page loading. Shame on Microsoft for allowing this.
6. 6. You can have this one, I don't see the connection anyway.

Look, I'm sorry to be critical of someone who shares my views on Microsoft, but you are giving us a bad name by making baseless points.

MS and the battered wife syndrom

[Nyder]

connection? I think so.

So, WebRCT has shortcomings?

[taikedz]

Microsoft still insists that they want to work on their own project, but why not contribute that effort to a working group whose goal is to improve WebRCT, or even help steer the project away from the SDP dependance that they so loathe?

Also, if they do continue down the loner's path, will they also be an ass, patent a whole bunch of core mechanisms, and thus greatly hinder WebRCT from becoming complete?

Re:Good luck with that MS

[drinkypoo]

This what's great about only having a vanity site, I just code to the standard and test in Firefox :)

Surenity Flashback!!!

[Genda]

So what (in the sphincter O Hell) is Microsoft playing at...

Ease up a bit Captain, goin' on three years now and Microsoft ain't had nothin' twixt her nethers weren't run on batteries!"

Re:Good luck with that MS

[armahillo]

While I agree with your sentiment, this is not really true in the Real World (tm).

My philosophy, as a webdev of...8 or 9 years now... is that you should test in IE so that the IE user experience is passable / acceptable. IE users should be able to access your site and not see a broken site. It can be degraded; it can even automatically redirect them to a page that says "your browser is so old and busted we can't show you our new hotness -- go upgrade, biatch."

There are 2 main reasons for this:

1. 1. If a user views your site in a shitty browser, and it looks broken, they aren't going to think "oh, maybe my browser sucks" they are going to think "why does this website suck?"
2. 2. Look at your analytics data. It's entirely possible that your Techno-Progressive-Hipster site is purely Webkit/Gecko based browsers, but it more than likely isn't -- chances are you've got somewhere between 20% to 70% of your users using IE. Would you really not test your site for that many of your userbase? Are you really going to reject that much of your traffic?

The sites I work with are pretty progressive about their IE support and are willing to only support back to IE8 (or in one case, IE7), so IE6 is no longer a concern. It's fine to advocate using better browsers, and it's even fine to design your site to the W3C specs explicitly (eg. go for the gold with your CSS and HTML5), but you should always test and at least provide your IE users (however many they are) with a degraded, yet stable, experience, at least. Base it on your analytics data.