What if those admin guys who will say the last word about the OS on that huge cluster of servers chooses Redhat Enterprise Linux over SuSE because of these news? Here goes more than $100M in fact.
I don't really understand the point of using a MS Backed Linux/Mono/Moonlight myself. Why not choose the original? Aka Windows? Seriously I am not trolling, I don't understand the point. I could make good guesses considering the horrible future of Novell before MS deal but that time, I would be trolling:)
If you look/remember MS Halloween documents which are verified to be true, you will notice they figured out the weak spot of community: Easy to divide.
So, each person boycotting Novell for a very good reason or doesn't use Gnome because of Icaza is a win for Microsoft. $100M is nothing for them, absolutely nothing.
Does anyone actually believe that Microsoft will fund anything which will provide exact or better experience than the same thing on Windows?
Why would people use Windows than? Why does MS create Silverlight at first place absolutely knowing industry will laugh at them? They were so bugged by Adobe changing policy and shipping Flash to all big three platforms at same time. A person enjoying Youtube on Linux is the Microsoft's worst nightmare. It shouldn't work!
Also Flash is way more than Youtube, you can even ship a full feature media player on 3 different platforms just by some Flash/Flex/Air stuff. E.g. Adobe Media Player.
The "Flash Lite 3" plans to ship it for free to multiple handheld platforms must be particularly alerting for MS.
If MS really wanted to race with Flash as a "new option", not "another opportunity to lock people to windows". I tell you what would happen. SilverlightInstaller.i386.rpm _and_ 64bit version (bit to bit, PERFECTLY same as windows) would be available from Microsoft site itself. Man, _that_ would raise alarm at Adobe.
Also, lets not forget Adobe makes money from the Flash creation tools and servers etc. so a future open source flash minus (patented and binary) codecs is not impossible thing. I am speaking about that kind of thing: https://www.helixcommunity.org/ , what would be the meaning of monkeying with open source code to replicate a microsoft technology knowing you will never achieve windows version?
If some AV vendor ships some heuristic signature to detect this kind of attack and prevent it, I will defend that software and vendor in all occasions.
Especially OS X antivirus vendors. Come on, signature update? You are selling software more expensive than Windows ones telling people to be "future ready".
Some people really think iTunes is helping Quicktime to take off or vice versa. I wanted to explain why that is wrong and because of the never ending stupid policies like that, both programs aren't popular as they should be.
It is like cheering the evil genius (!) idea of putting Safari to software update of Quicktime and pre-selecting it. For Apple fan blogs, it was such a good idea helped Safari gain market share. In fact, it caused large companies to get rid of Apple software all together. I know at least 2 companies like that.
It is way worse than you may think. It is not just Win 98 with stuff/media. It is attempting to run NT like stuff (win2k) on DOS. It is designed in such a genius way that you can't even remove viruses (and some of them crash!), system restore will restore files and will even brag about it! It happened to us with the most dangerous/advanced windows virus on planet, Hybris. That is why I can't forget.
You know, there are like billion of drivers on planet but only handful of Formula 1 and NASCAR drivers.
I was once very lucky to play Q3A with top end players of my country, they were at some party or something and I decided to sit and watch rather than playing. Funny is, those guys can also manage not to shoot the noob (you) while killing each other in all that chaos.
Watching such top end players shouldn't make you think that the game is played that way. It is like not playing chess because you watch how Kasparov plays.
If you want pure strategy oriented FPS, World War II is the way to go but be prepared for 3-4 hour missions which you end up with a bullet in head accomplishing nothing:) http://www.wwiionline.com/
I don't know about current (811N) generation but I was surprised that Airport setup utility even suggests you to turn on IPV6 on OS X. That is the 811.11G model (extreme).
I hope it becomes like MPEG4/h264, you know nobody cared about Mpeg4/h264 until Apple figured it way early that is the future. I also remember everyone laughing to Apple for including 3G support to Quicktime as early as 2G was popular.
BTW Linux/Windows nerds shouldn't suggest to their OS X friends to turn off IPV6, it is actually used as first choice on OS X home networks and it doesn't work "windows way".
If you ever trust to Microsoft about their declared policies, use OS X/Mac as a benchmark no matter what OS you use.
The OS X version dropping PowerPC support as early as 2.0 is a good benchmark for example if you consider they are the ones who can ship absolutely gigantic, complex code such as MS Office 08 to OS X Universal (PPC/i386).
They will use the "codecs" as excuse to abandon or lag Linux one (in terms of lagging behind, like Mono), just watch.
I am telling you, first time I see all my 4 G5 processors being used in a plugin is: Adobe Flash 10 beta. Not in a "bad" way, in a "good" way, for performance. I wasn't even aware that Webkit/Browser plugins could be SMP enabled. So, while Silverlight, the spoiled rich kid from neighbourhood says "I came, I got better toys, play with me but that black kid shouldn't play", Adobe Flash says "Not just supporting all of you, I will also enhance your experience by optimising for multiple cores while your OS vendor simply excludes you from next OS X release".
It is a major shame to make me defend Flash and Adobe BTW. MS could accomplish it.
iTunes and Quicktime in fact conspiring each others downloads and yet Apple still can't figure it.
You get advertised to use Quicktime, you go to Quicktime site, get iTunes bundled too along with that stupid "qt_task" icon and "iTunes helper" added to startup.
You try to enjoy iTunes, other than Framework and basic browser plugin, Quicktime "Player" comes which has sadly never used by content providers with its true power, another stupid qt_task along with Quicktime player in your start menu.
You would think Apple geniuses has a good idea, they are Apple right? If I told you they are the ones who asked for $30 to make Quicktime play fullscreen and practically left market to Windows Media Player and Real Player? Asking for "Pro" version to play fullscreen was such a genius (!) idea.
They didn't take time to put "play in fullscreen" to plugin menu (even in pro) thinking webmasters will hate them. Guess what? Those webmasters now enjoy "fullscreen flash" which is complete junk.
I think lots of computers and userbase which would really enjoy iTunes and/or Quicktime are not getting them as result of these stupid policies which made Flash de facto standard for video, a thing which it was never designed for.
It will simply make you ask "So that technology being able to do this is wasted for bugging ads and embedded videos in style of 1994?"
Adobe should spotlight such stuff rather than those junk they advertise. I found about that site while randomly browsing Amazon S3 pages (it is powered by Amazon cloud).
I didn't really read the rest of your paragraph, because this statement is nonsensical: H.264 is part of MPEG4, and it comes in an mp4 container.
There are 3 kinds of mpeg4 to choose from. 1) mpeg 4 SP (most basic one, large file size but if done well, even HD is OK) 2) mpeg4 asp (serious issue: stock qt won't play it) 3) h264 (excellent, modern compression with great features and size. Will kill low speed CPU without hw/chip support)
It is very sensical for media, we don't argue the file header or the container. When you talk about straight mpeg4, it is mpeg4 sp or the asp (3ivx for example)
I was not discussing the container or anything, I am saying that VP3 is no go. It is not arguable in a World discussing mpeg4 or h264. They should start their own codec if they are alergic to patents or industry boards.
Funny really, they will be pushing "I listen live, buy whatever I like" community (radio) to p2p "own music"'. It will be a little hard to convince the guy having FLAC of Album to buy the CD now.
" (including my PowerMac G5 with 4 x 2.5GHz cores"
If you install Flash 10 beta to that Quad Mac, you will figure it is not just supported (of course!) but it also enables multi CPU (4x) acceleration on that G5 Mac. Of course if it was Opto-Xeon, it would be 8x.
Gives clue about how serious companies are.
In a while, if Silverlight becomes successful, Intel Mac people will notice things like "Silverlight 4 shipped but it will take months to ship for OS X". Or... "Microsoft, citing patent problems have dropped (insert important codec here) support for Moonlight."
1.5 million of downloads a day is a joke for Windows scene especially when you are Microsoft and put Silverlight to Windows update site with a "Q" number like a required system update, auto selecting it for some. People will download whatever they see on "windows update", they are afraid. That is the same company who dared to put Flash 6 to Win XP SP3 ISO.
480i isn't decent streaming video. If they went with an actual plugin rather than advertising Silverlight for MS, they could go up HD 720, 1080 very easily and there are actually solutions existing to legally p2p stream protected content.
Result? P2P has 720p and actual 1080p mpeg 2 TS (42 GB!) and people choose it over their site. Why? Because they are standard based formats and any computer can play them. Not just Intel/Windows/Mac. Yes, if you have PPC mac, you can't view too because MS "abandoned" PowerPC as early as 2.x release. Like anyone cares:)
Another interesting thing is, you can get those formats and convert them to 3G/MPEG4 to view on your portable device. Another opportunity they missed.
Funny thing is, they could make (and save!) massive amounts of money if they checked with commercial bittorrent providers. DRM whatever could be applied too.
I tell you the issue with Quicktime and my personal favourite (really!) Real Player.
Flash player plugin is a single click install with a joke like 1.2 MB size, it lives inside browser, nothing added to startup.
Quicktime and Real missed the opportunity because of their size and old policies (Real, especially).
There is no way you can explain to Apple fans that adding a taskbar icon on Windows, bundling additional software with UI tricks (iTunes) are reasons of "death sentence" on Windows scene. I am sure there are similar thinking people at Apple themselves. Would you want rc.flash.startup in your/etc everytime you install Flash? It is same for them.
I see Real doing lots of things to get the download smaller with less user irritation but they still can't understand a basic trick: bare minimum framework+plugin. That is what Adobe does, even on recent Adobe Air.
HTML5 guys pushing ogg format really, really doesn't make sense. Media have gave up VP3 ages ago and you know as people having lawyers dedicated to copyright, they aren't that bugged about patents. Big media is arguing whether they should keep on MPEG4 or convert to H264. It seems new fashion tiny laptops saved MPEG4 fate;)
Adobe at least tries so hard to support multiple platforms, even planning to ship Flash Lite 3 for free to Symbian/WinMo whatever while Microsoft would sit and cry if somehow all operating systems have Silverlight support.
They (MS) dropped PowerPC support as early as release 2 while Adobe enabled (finally!) multi core/SMP support on Flash 10 plugin OS X.
Moonlight? Yes, we see how Mono helps windows developers to ship for Linux.;)
I know lots of people will smile when reading this comment but I actually report issues to Adobe, especially alpha/beta testing Flash 10. They are NOT very communicative but I see some stuff I reported has been fixed. I am also on PowerPC (still) which MS overlords decided to drop support as early as Silverlight 2.
Another issue with closed source/large company software is, they can't include "crash reporter" so they don't actually know who crashes doing what. It is problem on OS X too but at least we send them to Apple, I don't know what Apple does with them though. For that part, also thank to paranoids and conspiracy theorists. They can obviously have "crash dump" code attached and next day, you would see "Adobe spies on their Linux users!!!" type of story.
Anyway, if you know a specific site triggering crash, you better report to Adobe. Linux is _very_ important to them in light of recent developments. If they didn't care, you wouldn't see Flash 10 beta shipped for Linux.
For "Real Networks" and "Adobe", realistic companies not spoiled like Microsoft, Linux support is passport to "devices" and somehow OSX/future iPhone. Don't think they don't care.
Some open source tools and codecs have surpassed the "originals" in terms of quality and ease of use. Licensing original software and yet using free, open source implementation is becoming common.
"When did Dolby touch their SSE3/Altivec code (if exists?)" is the question to ask. Or can they encode 10.000 files in one batch with a cluster like environment using Dolby software? They can, using open source software.
No, it is a common mistake. The most common and widely supported format which performs really well at low speed broadband is MPEG4 SP. I would be glad to say "MPEG4-ASP" but sadly, Quicktime still doesn't support ASP features out of the box.
AAC/H264/SP are all part of MPEG4 standard which was based on Quicktime container format. They can be payware, patented but there is nothing making them something like "windows media". First of all, an industry board rather than a single, convicted monopolist controls them.
I think PR arm of Microsoft does some tricks to make people believe that h264 is just as "evil" as wmedia. No, nothing can match you on evilness guys...:)
BBC also made every single embedded video "Flash" which -as I predicted- disabled ability to play them smoothly on slow computers with slow CPU. A computer here which played every embedded video all fine now chokes. There is no unity among mobile devices but all can play 3G compliant mpeg 4, BBC takes mobile very serious.
Flash is new on Video scene and they had Real servers already. They could at least give choice to users or scrape all together and start embedded plain mpeg4 or h264. All they need is change container, there is no "codec war" anymore, it is just "our H264 is better than your h264" type of stuff. Of course MS still pushes their stuff.
A plugin doing bandwidth switching, predictive stuff and working with UDP is not really match for embedded flv file.
I wonder if they trust to "whatever they do, Real sux" attitude among people.
Lets say Real sux... What about "BBC Video player/plugin" which would be in fact VLC along with a huge donation to VLC project? Impossible? Google did it.
If they can't pay the money, they go to jail too right?
I am trying to explain people that it is not a very simple "little company trolls Apple" thing. It has real life consequences. People have right to be curious about where they get their trust from.
Those guys manage to get banned right? What about a "3 strikes" solution
(for abusers)
Strike 1: You get idle stories mixed to slashdot front page. Strike 2: Slashdot front page becomes "idle colour" (Teal) Strike 3: Slashdot.org forwards you to idle.slashdot.org no matter what you do.
Lets see if anyone dares to abuse slashdot from now on!;)
Slashdot Mirror
What if those admin guys who will say the last word about the OS on that huge cluster of servers chooses Redhat Enterprise Linux over SuSE because of these news? Here goes more than $100M in fact.
I don't really understand the point of using a MS Backed Linux/Mono/Moonlight myself. Why not choose the original? Aka Windows? Seriously I am not trolling, I don't understand the point. I could make good guesses considering the horrible future of Novell before MS deal but that time, I would be trolling :)
If you look/remember MS Halloween documents which are verified to be true, you will notice they figured out the weak spot of community: Easy to divide.
So, each person boycotting Novell for a very good reason or doesn't use Gnome because of Icaza is a win for Microsoft. $100M is nothing for them, absolutely nothing.
Does anyone actually believe that Microsoft will fund anything which will provide exact or better experience than the same thing on Windows?
Why would people use Windows than? Why does MS create Silverlight at first place absolutely knowing industry will laugh at them? They were so bugged by Adobe changing policy and shipping Flash to all big three platforms at same time. A person enjoying Youtube on Linux is the Microsoft's worst nightmare. It shouldn't work!
Also Flash is way more than Youtube, you can even ship a full feature media player on 3 different platforms just by some Flash/Flex/Air stuff. E.g. Adobe Media Player.
The "Flash Lite 3" plans to ship it for free to multiple handheld platforms must be particularly alerting for MS.
If MS really wanted to race with Flash as a "new option", not "another opportunity to lock people to windows". I tell you what would happen. SilverlightInstaller.i386.rpm _and_ 64bit version (bit to bit, PERFECTLY same as windows) would be available from Microsoft site itself. Man, _that_ would raise alarm at Adobe.
Also, lets not forget Adobe makes money from the Flash creation tools and servers etc. so a future open source flash minus (patented and binary) codecs is not impossible thing. I am speaking about that kind of thing: https://www.helixcommunity.org/ , what would be the meaning of monkeying with open source code to replicate a microsoft technology knowing you will never achieve windows version?
If some AV vendor ships some heuristic signature to detect this kind of attack and prevent it, I will defend that software and vendor in all occasions.
Especially OS X antivirus vendors. Come on, signature update? You are selling software more expensive than Windows ones telling people to be "future ready".
Lets see now...
Some people really think iTunes is helping Quicktime to take off or vice versa. I wanted to explain why that is wrong and because of the never ending stupid policies like that, both programs aren't popular as they should be.
It is like cheering the evil genius (!) idea of putting Safari to software update of Quicktime and pre-selecting it. For Apple fan blogs, it was such a good idea helped Safari gain market share. In fact, it caused large companies to get rid of Apple software all together. I know at least 2 companies like that.
It is way worse than you may think. It is not just Win 98 with stuff /media. It is attempting to run NT like stuff (win2k) on DOS. It is designed in such a genius way that you can't even remove viruses (and some of them crash!), system restore will restore files and will even brag about it! It happened to us with the most dangerous/advanced windows virus on planet, Hybris. That is why I can't forget.
You know, there are like billion of drivers on planet but only handful of Formula 1 and NASCAR drivers.
I was once very lucky to play Q3A with top end players of my country, they were at some party or something and I decided to sit and watch rather than playing. Funny is, those guys can also manage not to shoot the noob (you) while killing each other in all that chaos.
Watching such top end players shouldn't make you think that the game is played that way. It is like not playing chess because you watch how Kasparov plays.
If you want pure strategy oriented FPS, World War II is the way to go but be prepared for 3-4 hour missions which you end up with a bullet in head accomplishing nothing :)
http://www.wwiionline.com/
I don't know about current (811N) generation but I was surprised that Airport setup utility even suggests you to turn on IPV6 on OS X. That is the 811.11G model (extreme).
I hope it becomes like MPEG4/h264, you know nobody cared about Mpeg4/h264 until Apple figured it way early that is the future. I also remember everyone laughing to Apple for including 3G support to Quicktime as early as 2G was popular.
BTW Linux/Windows nerds shouldn't suggest to their OS X friends to turn off IPV6, it is actually used as first choice on OS X home networks and it doesn't work "windows way".
If you ever trust to Microsoft about their declared policies, use OS X/Mac as a benchmark no matter what OS you use.
The OS X version dropping PowerPC support as early as 2.0 is a good benchmark for example if you consider they are the ones who can ship absolutely gigantic, complex code such as MS Office 08 to OS X Universal (PPC/i386).
They will use the "codecs" as excuse to abandon or lag Linux one (in terms of lagging behind, like Mono), just watch.
I am telling you, first time I see all my 4 G5 processors being used in a plugin is: Adobe Flash 10 beta. Not in a "bad" way, in a "good" way, for performance. I wasn't even aware that Webkit/Browser plugins could be SMP enabled. So, while Silverlight, the spoiled rich kid from neighbourhood says "I came, I got better toys, play with me but that black kid shouldn't play", Adobe Flash says "Not just supporting all of you, I will also enhance your experience by optimising for multiple cores while your OS vendor simply excludes you from next OS X release".
It is a major shame to make me defend Flash and Adobe BTW. MS could accomplish it.
iTunes and Quicktime in fact conspiring each others downloads and yet Apple still can't figure it.
You get advertised to use Quicktime, you go to Quicktime site, get iTunes bundled too along with that stupid "qt_task" icon and "iTunes helper" added to startup.
You try to enjoy iTunes, other than Framework and basic browser plugin, Quicktime "Player" comes which has sadly never used by content providers with its true power, another stupid qt_task along with Quicktime player in your start menu.
You would think Apple geniuses has a good idea, they are Apple right? If I told you they are the ones who asked for $30 to make Quicktime play fullscreen and practically left market to Windows Media Player and Real Player? Asking for "Pro" version to play fullscreen was such a genius (!) idea.
They didn't take time to put "play in fullscreen" to plugin menu (even in pro) thinking webmasters will hate them. Guess what? Those webmasters now enjoy "fullscreen flash" which is complete junk.
I think lots of computers and userbase which would really enjoy iTunes and/or Quicktime are not getting them as result of these stupid policies which made Flash de facto standard for video, a thing which it was never designed for.
Using Flash for video really have become really sad de facto standard (still better than idea of Silverlight).
Just check this site, can work with guest account. You must be using a current generation Mozilla/Webkit/IE and latest Flash
http://g.ho.st/
It will simply make you ask "So that technology being able to do this is wasted for bugging ads and embedded videos in style of 1994?"
Adobe should spotlight such stuff rather than those junk they advertise. I found about that site while randomly browsing Amazon S3 pages (it is powered by Amazon cloud).
I didn't really read the rest of your paragraph, because this statement is nonsensical: H.264 is part of MPEG4, and it comes in an mp4 container.
There are 3 kinds of mpeg4 to choose from.
1) mpeg 4 SP (most basic one, large file size but if done well, even HD is OK)
2) mpeg4 asp (serious issue: stock qt won't play it)
3) h264 (excellent, modern compression with great features and size. Will kill low speed CPU without hw/chip support)
It is very sensical for media, we don't argue the file header or the container. When you talk about straight mpeg4, it is mpeg4 sp or the asp (3ivx for example)
I was not discussing the container or anything, I am saying that VP3 is no go. It is not arguable in a World discussing mpeg4 or h264. They should start their own codec if they are alergic to patents or industry boards.
Funny really, they will be pushing "I listen live, buy whatever I like" community (radio) to p2p "own music"'. It will be a little hard to convince the guy having FLAC of Album to buy the CD now.
" (including my PowerMac G5 with 4 x 2.5GHz cores"
If you install Flash 10 beta to that Quad Mac, you will figure it is not just supported (of course!) but it also enables multi CPU (4x) acceleration on that G5 Mac. Of course if it was Opto-Xeon, it would be 8x.
Gives clue about how serious companies are.
In a while, if Silverlight becomes successful, Intel Mac people will notice things like "Silverlight 4 shipped but it will take months to ship for OS X". Or... "Microsoft, citing patent problems have dropped (insert important codec here) support for Moonlight."
...and CNET who still chooses to be MS-CNET even after CBS deal says:
"Microsoft is not disclosing specifics on the number of Silverlight downloads--except to say that it registers up to 1.5 million downloads a day."
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10787_3-10017507-60.html
1.5 million of downloads a day is a joke for Windows scene especially when you are Microsoft and put Silverlight to Windows update site with a "Q" number like a required system update, auto selecting it for some. People will download whatever they see on "windows update", they are afraid. That is the same company who dared to put Flash 6 to Win XP SP3 ISO.
480i isn't decent streaming video. If they went with an actual plugin rather than advertising Silverlight for MS, they could go up HD 720, 1080 very easily and there are actually solutions existing to legally p2p stream protected content.
Result? P2P has 720p and actual 1080p mpeg 2 TS (42 GB!) and people choose it over their site. Why? Because they are standard based formats and any computer can play them. Not just Intel/Windows/Mac. Yes, if you have PPC mac, you can't view too because MS "abandoned" PowerPC as early as 2.x release. Like anyone cares :)
Another interesting thing is, you can get those formats and convert them to 3G/MPEG4 to view on your portable device. Another opportunity they missed.
Funny thing is, they could make (and save!) massive amounts of money if they checked with commercial bittorrent providers. DRM whatever could be applied too.
I tell you the issue with Quicktime and my personal favourite (really!) Real Player.
Flash player plugin is a single click install with a joke like 1.2 MB size, it lives inside browser, nothing added to startup.
Quicktime and Real missed the opportunity because of their size and old policies (Real, especially).
There is no way you can explain to Apple fans that adding a taskbar icon on Windows, bundling additional software with UI tricks (iTunes) are reasons of "death sentence" on Windows scene. I am sure there are similar thinking people at Apple themselves. Would you want rc.flash.startup in your /etc everytime you install Flash? It is same for them.
I see Real doing lots of things to get the download smaller with less user irritation but they still can't understand a basic trick: bare minimum framework+plugin. That is what Adobe does, even on recent Adobe Air.
HTML5 guys pushing ogg format really, really doesn't make sense. Media have gave up VP3 ages ago and you know as people having lawyers dedicated to copyright, they aren't that bugged about patents. Big media is arguing whether they should keep on MPEG4 or convert to H264. It seems new fashion tiny laptops saved MPEG4 fate ;)
Adobe at least tries so hard to support multiple platforms, even planning to ship Flash Lite 3 for free to Symbian/WinMo whatever while Microsoft would sit and cry if somehow all operating systems have Silverlight support.
They (MS) dropped PowerPC support as early as release 2 while Adobe enabled (finally!) multi core/SMP support on Flash 10 plugin OS X.
Moonlight? Yes, we see how Mono helps windows developers to ship for Linux. ;)
I know lots of people will smile when reading this comment but I actually report issues to Adobe, especially alpha/beta testing Flash 10. They are NOT very communicative but I see some stuff I reported has been fixed. I am also on PowerPC (still) which MS overlords decided to drop support as early as Silverlight 2.
Another issue with closed source/large company software is, they can't include "crash reporter" so they don't actually know who crashes doing what. It is problem on OS X too but at least we send them to Apple, I don't know what Apple does with them though. For that part, also thank to paranoids and conspiracy theorists. They can obviously have "crash dump" code attached and next day, you would see "Adobe spies on their Linux users!!!" type of story.
Anyway, if you know a specific site triggering crash, you better report to Adobe. Linux is _very_ important to them in light of recent developments. If they didn't care, you wouldn't see Flash 10 beta shipped for Linux.
For "Real Networks" and "Adobe", realistic companies not spoiled like Microsoft, Linux support is passport to "devices" and somehow OSX/future iPhone. Don't think they don't care.
Some open source tools and codecs have surpassed the "originals" in terms of quality and ease of use. Licensing original software and yet using free, open source implementation is becoming common.
"When did Dolby touch their SSE3/Altivec code (if exists?)" is the question to ask. Or can they encode 10.000 files in one batch with a cluster like environment using Dolby software? They can, using open source software.
No, it is a common mistake. The most common and widely supported format which performs really well at low speed broadband is MPEG4 SP. I would be glad to say "MPEG4-ASP" but sadly, Quicktime still doesn't support ASP features out of the box.
AAC/H264/SP are all part of MPEG4 standard which was based on Quicktime container format. They can be payware, patented but there is nothing making them something like "windows media". First of all, an industry board rather than a single, convicted monopolist controls them.
I think PR arm of Microsoft does some tricks to make people believe that h264 is just as "evil" as wmedia. No, nothing can match you on evilness guys... :)
BBC also made every single embedded video "Flash" which -as I predicted- disabled ability to play them smoothly on slow computers with slow CPU. A computer here which played every embedded video all fine now chokes. There is no unity among mobile devices but all can play 3G compliant mpeg 4, BBC takes mobile very serious.
Flash is new on Video scene and they had Real servers already. They could at least give choice to users or scrape all together and start embedded plain mpeg4 or h264. All they need is change container, there is no "codec war" anymore, it is just "our H264 is better than your h264" type of stuff. Of course MS still pushes their stuff.
A plugin doing bandwidth switching, predictive stuff and working with UDP is not really match for embedded flv file.
I wonder if they trust to "whatever they do, Real sux" attitude among people.
Lets say Real sux... What about "BBC Video player/plugin" which would be in fact VLC along with a huge donation to VLC project? Impossible? Google did it.
If they can't pay the money, they go to jail too right?
I am trying to explain people that it is not a very simple "little company trolls Apple" thing. It has real life consequences. People have right to be curious about where they get their trust from.
Lets be productive.
Those guys manage to get banned right? What about a "3 strikes" solution
(for abusers)
Strike 1: You get idle stories mixed to slashdot front page.
Strike 2: Slashdot front page becomes "idle colour" (Teal)
Strike 3: Slashdot.org forwards you to idle.slashdot.org no matter what you do.
Lets see if anyone dares to abuse slashdot from now on! ;)
It is either designed that way (?) or severely broken on Opera 9.52 too.