Stop Microsoft
All Things Microsoft => Microsoft as a Company => Topic started by: Refalm on 16 August 2006, 14:53
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vnunet.com / 16 augustus 2006
Real to offer Windows Media on Linux
Real Networks will launch a Linux version of its Real media player by December, enabling users to play audio and video files in the Windows Media format.
The company's Helix player for Linux currently supports Windows Media, but the upcoming Real Player has more advanced features, Jeff Duchmann, general manager for client and DRM technologies at Real Networks, told vnunet.com.
The application supports the burning of CDs and allows users to synchronise media files between a computer and a mobile device.
The Linux version of the application will increase the appeal of Linux on the desktop for consumers and enterprises, which increasingly use media for training and corporate communications, argued Duchmann.
"We are making this a desktop that consumers and enterprises can use for all their media needs," he said.
Windows Media codecs have been made available for Linux, but the legality of these offerings is open to debate.
The Linux Real player will only play Windows Media files without DRM technology, excluding media purchased from online music stores such as Napster.
Real also unveiled an agreement with Novell for the bundling of its media player with the SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 operating system.
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Windows Media codecs have been made available for Linux, but the legality of these offerings is open to debate.
Not in the EU, surely.
Real also unveiled an agreement with Novell for the bundling of its media player with the SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 operating system.
I wonder how that'll work, since SLED 10's already out, isn't it?
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Well, I dunno, I never liked Real Player ... besides most Window$ Media formats are shit. But, whatever, I'm sure other people will have less problems setting up a media player than can handle almost anything on Linux. (Mplayer handles most anything currently)
As for DRM ... fuck it.
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RealPlayer for Linux is great. The Mac version is pretty good too...it's only the Windows version that sucks ass. This is a Good Thing (tm).
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What makes them think we want Windows media available for Linux? I won't play it, even if it is completely supported. Christ, I don't even play Windows media in Windows!
IIRC, Real had a bit in its license where you, the user, were required to let Real have access to the internet. Blocking Real, or blocking the ports Real used, was considered a license violation. Not sure if that still holds, but that's one more reason why I don't consider this to be a good thing.
Mplayer + VLC = just fine, thanks
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after their shit windows media player I stay far away from real.
my collections in mp3's anyway. wma's seem to work fine too.
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Real is taking a big chance going with Linux, I hope it works out well for them so others will follow.
Real has offered a player in OS X only since Panther. ffmpegX uses the Helix code to allow a mac user to recode Real Video (not audio) into an mp4 avi that is more universal. Real will play mp3's without the hacks required for Quicktime, too.
ffmpegX is a bitch to install. Everyone is covering their butts about intellectual property rights, so you have to download and install 2 or 3 third-party softwares to actually use ffmegX. That said it works well if you choose the default settings and use a genuine Real Video file. I don't use it often, but it has it's place.
I don't allow Real to access the internet. If that violates the eula, tough. I don't let Quicktime out of the box either. I don't like having to watch ads just to play a file.
I don't like Windozes Media at all, but with VPC Win98SE and TMPGEnc Plus it doesn't take long to recode WM into an mp1 or mp2 that VLC or MPlayer can handle.
Google and YouTube use Flash instead of WM, which I think is good and bad. Good, because Mr Bill doesn't get any money from it but bad because Flash sucks worse than WM.
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Heh, I use MP4 (if ever) and Ogg Vorbis (often, also MIDIs). Nice to know I can use a bad format on a good OS.
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Personally I don't care. The more people that challenge WMP by using WM codecs and making it supported in their players could force MS to conform to some type of regular standard. I don't think DRM will ever go away though.
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I don't think DRM will ever go away though.
Neither will mold but that's doesn't mean I want to buy it.
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Sure you can. Just not watch it. As for what will the members at your site say? Who cares? Tell them true. Tell them that whatever format you switch to is better.
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Whether you like it or not, you can't escape from it yet.
Oh, but sir, I have escaped. If it cannot be played with mplayer or VLC or xine, I don't need to watch it.
Welcome, by the way.
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The sad truth, however, is that many, many media files on the internet are wmv... I hate it too, but I use it when I have to...
I have win32codecs installed with Mplayer for desperate situations, too. It's called peer pressure - if others can't make use of your system, by their standards, your system must be useless. That doesn't mean I have to like - or even accept - either so-called "standard". What you're REALLY saying there is that people (the vast majority, at any rate) are too stupid to use anything other than Movie Maker to submit their content. I don't buy that - it's Microsoft's marketing prowess that has conviniced those users to live in ignorance, but it doesn't make them any less intelligent.
For example, I run a site where we collect funny movies, image, texts... I can imagine what members will say if I start banning al Windows media...
"You mean we have to use LINUX now?"
"No."
"Well, how else can we make videos in Windows?"
Your duty, as a sysop, should be to encourage bold new ways to consider the same old marketplace - and if you're revenue-based, your pocketbook will thank you for such considerations. Sticking to the norm hardly makes your site a unique product in the grand scheme of things.
Whether you like it or not, you can't escape from it yet.
Fair enough, but a good number of us already have. There is little point in preaching to the choir on these matters, good sir. Eric Schmidt & Sergey Brin (http://video.google.com)'s site doesn't accept WinMedia, and it's doing just fine. Hell, even Putfile accepts AVI, MPG, MOV, and MP4 in addition to varying flavours of WinMedia. My point is that neither site is likely to go anywhere anytime soon (especially not Google).
Welcome to the forums, btw. :)
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The sad truth, however, is that many, many media files on the internet are wmv... I hate it too, but I use it when I have to...
For example, I run a site where we collect funny movies, image, texts... I can imagine what members will say if I start banning al Windows media...
Whether you like it or not, you can't escape from it yet.
With the "non-free" and probably also "illegal in the US" codecs and Mplayer or Xine you can play any wmv out there. I very much prefer any other format than wmv, simply because it's horrible. If you haven't seen the horrible quality, go find yourself the same movie encoded in wmv and any other format. The wmv will always lose.
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With the "non-free" and probably also "illegal in the US" codecs and Mplayer or Xine you can play any wmv out there.
You realise that every major codec has some lib or another that's closed-source in some place or another? At the very least, some jackass coder somewhere decided to obfuscate variables where it wasn't at all necessary. Also, win32codecs illegal? Where do people keep getting this crap? Last I checked, the DeCSS case was dismissed as the primary usage was Fair Use private copying (as in, not for the use of others) which trumps DMCA (IIRC, there's even a provision for it in that law's text).
I very much prefer any other format than wmv, simply because it's horrible.
Actually, I prefer to keep away from WinMedia because it's a proprietary codec financed by a marketing giant that could only produce a *live* weasel if it searched its own PR department.
If you haven't seen the horrible quality, go find yourself the same movie encoded in wmv and any other format. The wmv will always lose.
Not necessarily. More often than not, the poor quality is due to neophytes that think higher compression is always better - as it results in lower filesizes. Few people concerned with the size of a WinMedia file consider the quality loss - AVI, MPG, and MOV degrade at lower bitstreams, too. I've seen BRILLIANT game-ad pieces produced ENTIRELY in WinMedia, but the sad truth is that the majority of Windows users making videos can't be trusted to collate copies.
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Actually, I prefer to keep away from WinMedia because it's a proprietary codec financed by a marketing giant that could only produce a *live* weasel if it searched its own PR department.
ROFLMAO
weasels, indeed
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I like real, it has it's own erotic section on the front page...
It doesn't take a lot to please me :D
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Indeed, that's what I was trying to say.
Next time I should think, than speak. :p
Damned, now I forgot to think, again. :p
Like I said, I don't buy that. These are the same people that would use FinalCut or Cinelerra if people took the time to steer them in that direction. The end results of such apathy are the worthless WMVs we see floating around the Internet today, since Movie Maker actively encourages users to set higher compression on their files (hey, it saves space, but if you read the fine print - which we know you won't - it says that some degradation MAY occur - can't sue us NOW, can ya?) while ignoring the subsequent ramifications. Seriously, if WinMedia vanished overnight, I doubt very many would lose any sleep over it - particularly not Avid, Adobe, and a host of others I'm sure I could name if I spent five minutes looking into it.
Yet Microsoft feels it's their sole duty to perpetuate their format AND ONLY THEIR FORMAT for their tool, while encouraging users to make bad editing decisions. Sounds like another setup to sue the PC vendors for "willful negligence" if you ask me (hey, we TOLD them not to use higher compression ratios, but YOUR fine-print reader made the type too small. Give us money.)
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OK. Why are the WMP codecs illegal?
They aren't hacked. They are the original codecs. They are not being sold as a part of windows. They are downloadable separately. Admittedly, I haven't looked at the licence agreement, but I don't see you violating jack squat.
Like I said, I haven't looked into this really closely, but I don't see this as being any less legal than using Windows TrueType fonts on my Linux box (and that is 100% legal).
Furthermore, most of us have a legit copy of windows with those same bloody codecs on it. So what's the problem?
I'm not calling anyone a liar here. If someone knows something for sure, please specify. Otherwise, I see no reason to assume illegality.
By the way, WMV and WMA sucks! I wish they would DIE.
Most of the stuff from the OGG project blows MS crap away. OGG FLAC, OGG Vorbis, Ogg theora, is awesome from technical, usability, and freedom standpoints. Windoids go with the default (which MS knows and relies on).
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I don't think they are illegal in and of themselves. But, I believe they may be illegal to redistribute without permission.
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They should be illegal due to high amounts of suck found in them, as well as multiple counts of douchebaggery.
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In the computer industry, suck and douchebaggery actually increase the cost of the product. Panels of experts have not yet been able to ascertain the reasons why this is so, but are expected to release a verdict sometime in 2019.
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I forgot about that. I await their findings!!
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Windows formats suck big time !
hell you all people :
"oh this is the new new new new player that will even brush your teeth!"
grrrr...
to be loathed:Real Player,Music Mach Juke Box(or something),WMPlayer,Quick time
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Um, Quicktime is Apple, not Windows. Sorry bud. :D
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But we can still loathe Quicktime, right?
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The Window$ version of quicktime is kinda bloated and shitty ... dunno about the Mac version.
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QuickTime for Mac is ok. At least now they are trying to push open formats (like H.264) instead of yet another version of Sorenson video.
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did somebody already say that mplayer has had windows mediocre player support for years?
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did somebody already say that mplayer has had windows mediocre player support for years?
Not explicitly, but that was what we were talking about with respect to the windows media player codecs. It doesn't have open source support for WMP codecs in the way that xmms supports mp3, it uses the same codecs that WMP does. You can copy them from Windows if you want.
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Well, I dunno, I never liked Real Player ... besides most Window$ Media formats are shit. But, whatever, I'm sure other people will have less problems setting up a media player than can handle almost anything on Linux. (Mplayer handles most anything currently)
Ok, maybe it wasn't as explicit as it should have been, but yes I have yet to find something mplayer can't handle.
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Not explicitly, but that was what we were talking about with respect to the windows media player codecs. It doesn't have open source support for WMP codecs in the way that xmms supports mp3, it uses the same codecs that WMP does. You can copy them from Windows if you want.
Can't it play them via ffmpeg?
Most video and audio codecs are supported natively through the libavcodec library of the FFmpeg project.
FFmpeg have reverse-engineered and reimplemented, among others:
* The Sorenson 3 Codec used by many QuickTime movies
* Advanced Streaming Format
* Windows Media Audio
* Windows Media Video (and thereby also the associated DivX hack)
* QDesign Music Codec 2, used by many QuickTime movies prior to QuickTime 7.
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They probably mean the older Microsoft MPEG-4 video, not the infamous WMV9 format.
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I use a Mac. What do you do to get MPlayer to play WM? I can't get VLC to play it most of the time.
Even Flash is difficult outside of a browser. I downloaded a Japanese commercial in Flash and iSquint crashed trying to make it an mp4. It said the file was 'truncated', but it played it Firefox.
YouTube and MySpace are messing with each other, too. The new version of Flash required by MySpace disables sound if you use the older version and go to YouTube.
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http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/all-ppc-20051120.tar.bz2 (http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/all-ppc-20051120.tar.bz2)
these are the codecs ... install them.
Well if I'm wrong they're in here somewhere:
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/
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They should be illegal due to high amounts of suck found in them, as well as multiple counts of douchebaggery.
(http://me.queensu.ca/MECHClub/pictures/banquet_2004/images/applause.jpg)
well said!
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regarding the wm9 codec, i believe its uptake has been slight at best, so i'm not worried. i now use mp3 for preference even though it's weak compared with ogg vorbis. the reason for this is that hardware mp3 players of several people i know only do mp3 (not ogg or m4a, the two other main formats for me at the moment). Luckily i have some scripts (http://wma2mp3.501megs.com/)* to convert any i may download into other formats. These scripts rely on having all the right codecs installed in your /usr/lib/win32 directory though.
* which i fully plan to update in a month or two
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I use a Mac. What do you do to get MPlayer to play WM? I can't get VLC to play it most of the time.
From the readme file you get when you download the codecs package from Mplayer:
Support for Windows Media formats except WMV9 exists but still has some bugs, your mileage may vary
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/dload.html#binary_codecs
You'd probably get better results if you built mplayer yourself, after installing all the codecs yourself. Which is a pain in the ass, guaranteed.
Personally, and I've said it before, if it doesn't play on mplayer, quicktime, xine, or VLC, then I don't need it. But you can do what you want. If you need any help building mplayer, let me know.
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I have the native mPlayer for Panther, version 2.0 b8. It wasn't finding the codecs folder because I lowercased the name of the folder, codecs instead of Codecs. :o It was in the correct place, hd>Library. Now it plays things it wouldn't before.
What else can I put in the codecs folder, like for real media or Flash? I don't care if it's "legal" or not. It would be nice to be able to use mPlayer to recode audio and video to more common file types.
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I believe you can put any codecs you want in there, probably even extract the linux package into there (most are dlls and a few others)
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They should be illegal due to high amounts of suck found in them, as well as multiple counts of douchebaggery.
You know... we need a chunk on the site with really good quotes like this.
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You know... we need a chunk on the site with really good quotes like this.
A wiki would sort that out.
/waits