WMP 9: Open and on Mac this Fall

[MacRumors]

A Reuters article reports that Microsoft will be opening the specifications for its Windows Media video format, allowing other companies to implement the technology. The video format was submitted for review by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers on Monday. This review process is reported to take 6-12 months.

By opening the specification, Microsoft could increase the adoption of Windows Media 9.

As previously reported, Microsoft is already working on bringing Windows Media Player 9 to Mac OS X. Beta News managed to get some commentary from a Microsoft representative who narrowed the target date for the OS X release to "sometime this fall".

[DanUk2003]

since when has anything Microsoft made become a universally-accepted "standard"...!!!

[Matthé]

movietrailers in windows media anyone?

[encro]

Well that is great news. Microsoft looks like they are changing for the better.

We will have options with plugins for .wmv and .wma.

We may even be able to play them with the QuickTime frameworks

[encro]

Is Fall = spring or autumn?

[AppleMatt]

fall = autumn

Please Microsoft, performance. Please please please.

AppleMatt

[nagromme]

All well and good, I approve of wider compatibility and I approve of MS porting things to Mac... but don't expect me to accept DRM based on anything from Microsoft! No thank you.

This is the kind of thing you have to be suspicious of with MS: a play for control. But at least it's a legal play for control this time!

[encro]

Originally posted by AppleMatt
fall = autumn

Please Microsoft, performance. Please please please.

AppleMatt

Thanks for the helper.

While we are speeding up MS apps: Entourage also needs a massive performance increase. Its so incredibly sluggish but have to use it because of a much better feature set than Mail/iCal/Address Book Combination.

[Lord Bodak]

From the article:

With open standards, other software companies could create applications that use Microsoft's video-encoding technology, although they would have to pay a license fee, which Usher said would be "low-cost and straightforward."

So it's an "open standard" but there will be license fees?

[arn]

Originally posted by Lord Bodak
From the article:


So it's an "open standard" but there will be license fees?

That's how MPEG4 is.

arn

[dricci]

Originally posted by Lord Bodak
So it's an "open standard" but there will be license fees?

Sorta like MPEG-4 and AAC

Edit: Arn beat me to it!

[Powerbook G5]

This is great and all...but I have never liked WMP/WMA formatted media, anyway. Does this mean this will be popping up more often? *shudders* I much rather keep my QT movie trailers, thank you very much!

[Lord Bodak]

Originally posted by dricci
Sorta like MPEG-4 and AAC

Edit: Arn beat me to it!

Aren't there open implementations of MPEG-4 though? Even if it's through reverse engineering. I can't imagine Microsoft allowing the VideoLAN people or anyone developing a WMV client without paying the fee.

Or I may be totally off base

[Photorun]

As someone mentioned, by "open standard" I hope this means Quicktime can now be made to play WMP files. That way I don't need their crappy media player on my machine.

[bikertwin]

Originally posted by dricci
Sorta like MPEG-4 and AAC

Edit: Arn beat me to it!

Sure, but those are by consortia--so the standards are contributed to by a multitude of companies, and a multitude of companies benefit from the fees.

Same thing with Compact Disc, DVD Video, DVD-R, DVD+RW, Compact Cassette, PCI, SCSI, etc.

But I guess if you have a monopoly, you are the consortium.

If the studios are smart, they'll point to the new Asian governments' Linux project and tell MS that they need to provide a free Linux player for it to be considered a standard. Of course, that still doesn't help Apple.

[luiss]

This is obviously a play against MPEG4 technologies. Bring them in with cheap license fees, and then.....

[dho]

As far as WMP and its "standards" I could not care less. I use VLC as my primary player, which plays just about everything already.

IMHO...

VLC: Best for playing and broadcasting

Quicktime:Nothing exciting

Quicktime Pro: Best(cheap) way to convert video

WMP: nothing exciting

[SiliconAddict]

Originally posted by encro
Well that is great news. Microsoft looks like they are changing for the better.

Fool me once shame on you, Fool me 9,836 times shame on me. Its nice the MP9 will be on the Mac, more options is always a good thing, and that they are opening up the spec but at this point I no longer take anything Microsoft says or does at face value. 9 times out of 10 there is a hidden motive or agenda that will rear its ugly head at some point.
When dealing with MS walk softly and carry a googleplex of lawyers and open source code.
I want to beleve this is the real deal but there is this little voice in me saying You’ll be sooooooorrrrrry

[Powerbook G5]

I am also very cautious. Microsoft hates open standards so the one reason they could be doing this is to possibly find a legal way to be the only player in town with once it becomes more widespread and "accepted". I personally never liked WMP, the files are usually slow, crash or lock up, skip, or just aren't the same quality as any other option when given the option to choose the format to download. Not only that, but with the DRM being used and Microsoft's ever unforgiving EULA, it just doesn't sound good.

[gopy]

Originally posted by SiliconAddict
When dealing with MS walk softly and carry a googleplex of lawyers and open source code.

Not to be picky or anything, but "Google" is the search engine, while "googol" is the number. (I think I remember the guy who named the number saying something to the effect that he was annoyed by the misspelling, but not terribly...)
Related note:

According to Webster's Dictionary, the name was coined in 1938 by Milton Sirotta, the nine-year-old nephew of American mathematician, Edward Kasner.

tom

[e-coli]

WMP is complete junk.

But MS opening their formats can't be at all bad.

[mstecker]

I get no end of amusement from seeing the knee-jerk microsoft bashing around here. A story in which

- Microsoft announces opening of its format
- Microsoft announces support of WMP9 for the Mac

gets more negative than positive ratings? Sure, you might like to see them make the standard more open, but how is this bad news? I just don't get it.

[SiliconAddict]

Originally posted by gopy
Not to be picky or anything, but "Google" is the search engine, while "googol" is the number. (I think I remember the guy who named the number saying something to the effect that he was annoyed by the misspelling, but not terribly...)
tom

*shrugs* I was being lazy. I figured it wasn't spelled like the website

[montecristo]

Originally posted by SiliconAddict
Fool me once shame on you, Fool me 9,836 times shame on me. Its nice the MP9 will be on the Mac, more options is always a good thing, and that they are opening up the spec but at this point I no longer take anything Microsoft says or does at face value. 9 times out of 10 there is a hidden motive or agenda that will rear its ugly head at some point.

I don't know if I am missing something, but it seems to me that the hidden motive (not so hidden) is to become more of, or as much of, as standard as Quicktime is. Don't the two products have pretty much completely overlapping uses? (Sure Quicktime might be better now, but that's precisely the problem in the eyes of M$). They also want to target Real, I'm sure. If they really want to be "open", loosen up on Office and Windows....

[gopy]

Originally posted by SiliconAddict
*shrugs* I was being lazy. I figured it wasn't spelled like the website

Well, give it a year, they'll probably both be the same....