“The battle to create and own a proprietary industry standard generates rapid improvements in price and performance, at least until somebody emerges totally dominant. If fact, even after a monopolist emerges, there is still considerable pressure to innovate, because unless you can induce your installed base to upgrade frequently, you have a hard time continuing to grow.” More at streamingmedia.com.
DVD Forums Adopts Windows Media
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Adam Scheinberg
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I can see the need for better codecs in the wireless field. But for DVDs? Is there really such a hurry to get rid of MPEG-2? Is it that bad? I personally consider it good enough for most peoples need at the moment.
There is a risk that a monopolist can misbehave, but slow moving, least-common-denominator, nonproprietary, committee-developed standards are often much worse than any monopoly.
Much worse in which way? Perhaps they aren’t as good as many proprietary products but at least they are developed as a standard to be shared by everyone. This is really important when it comes to IT. Relaying on a company to develop the standard is very risky. The advantage of having an open standard is much larger than the advantage of having a better algoritm.
There’s really no need to rush into anything, the development is moving too fast in this market as it is now anyway.
To date, Microsoft’s obvious investment in video technology and infrastructure has been made for strategic reasons, not for profit.
So they make their strategic moves to loose money? They will make profit by maintaining their monopol. Just because they don’t make direct profit from it doesn’t mean that there’s no profit in it.
This is just an example of an industry that has gotten used to a certain moneyflow and refuses to change.
Maybe stupid, but what does this mean? Does this mean people who are using a non windows platform either have to wait for a hack or 3 years for a legal codec (if it’s already coming)?
*No flame intended just curious.*
These guys also chose, if I recall correctly, AAC to use as the standard in DVD-Audio discs (they said it sounded better)…
Yeah, I’m sure everybody is going to be willing to toss aside their current DVD player just for the privilege of buying a new one that does, wait for it… the exact same thing!
Please. MPEG-2 ain’t goin anywhere.
I thought that this was about control… ‘rights’ management and all that. Arent the Windows media formats supposed to be good for that sort of thing?
The heading for this thread is misleading, this is _provisional_ approval – not absolute approval!
From the article:
Finally, it’s hard to minimize the importance of the DVD Forum’s provisional approval for Microsoft’s VC-9 technology, essentially Windows Media Video 9, along with two other technologies, H.264 and MPEG-2, as mandatory on next-generation playback devices.
umm, when High Def players are released, the transition can take place. all new players will support the old and the new codecs, and when everyone is on High Def players, everyone who buys media will be buying WMV coded video with AAC audio.
and when the next revolution in DVDs takes place, the MS codec will be up for review against the next crop of codecs.
my question is, does MS have to provided licenses to all companies that want to make players for what ever platform they like or will MS dictate which platforms get codec support?
My understanding is that this was political, to send a message to the H.264 people who are demand payment for usage along with encoding / decoding (which the article is complaining about for MPEG 4).
If Microsoft gets approval it’s because they’ve offered good terms, 25c per unit and no charge for usage. The H.264 group are just being greedy.
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The BlueRay people have played it rather differently, they have beter disc technology but have stuck to MPEG 2 and got around stupid licensing schemes and Microsoft simultaneously. There’s no problem with MPEG 2 quality and the increased capacity of the discs ensure they can hold High Definition content.
A lot of people don’t care about hi def. It all looks the same to them, so why would they buy a new DVD player?
I know I won’t buy a DVD player that supports Windows Media unless it’s just an “extra”.
This article: http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-5166786.html
Was on Slashdot a while back and basically it covers all the bases for the deal. Basically, Microsoft had to open up the format to be considered for the standard. Anybody can download the technical specs for the codec and implement them.
While it may be that the forum has not (or has it?) adopted MPEG-4 in any way, shape, or form, that sure hasn’t stopped DVD player manufacturers from supporting XviD, DivX, and other MPEG-4 based codecs as included features. Just take a look at http://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdplayers.php to get an idea of whats out there; over 144 players found suporting DivX when I last searched. Surely, that could only be a sign that MPEG-4 is at least breathing?
As I understand it, the DVD-Forum manages all the license-stuff.
If you build a DVD-Player you pay your license-fees to them and MS gets their share of the fees from the DVD-Forum.
So MS has nothing to do with those who actualy build the players.
Please correct me if I`m mistaken.
well, since all movies will one day be in high def only format, even if you have a low def TV, you will need a high def capable player for any new movies pasted the point that they stop encoding in low-def .