Microsoft on every DVD?

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

How do you feel about the VC-9 format being a standard part of the next generation HD-DVD format?

An industry standards group has made a preliminary decision to include Microsoft's video compression technology in a next-generation DVD format, giving the company a key boost in the digital media arena.


The steering committee for the DVD Forum on Friday announced provisional approval for Microsoft's VC-9 and two other video technologies--H.264 and MPEG-2--as mandatory for the HD-DVD video specification for playback devices. VC-9 is the reference title for the underlying video decoding technology within Windows Media Video 9. The approval is subject to several conditions, including an update in 60 days of licensing terms and conditions.


The DVD Forum Steering Committee also approved a near-final version of the HD-DVD specifications for rewritable discs.

Here's the story from CNET:

Microsoft on every DVD? (http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-5166786.html?tag=cd_lede)

Take Care,

Richard

[fobotcso]

Richard, I confess that while I understand the principles of these technologies I have no hope of keeping up with the detail. But two thoughts occur to me.

First, I hope that the final decision will be of greatest benefit to the community at large and not just to the stock-holders of Microsoft.

Second, as this is US led, I hope that the US are not leading us towards another Old-World/New World standards division as has been seen in the NTSC/PAL/SECAM farraginous fiasco.

[Bre901]

fobotcso

Even worse :
VHS/BETAMAX/V2000
because you could not have multistandard devices

[ORAC]

There is a difference between compression technologies, used to fit data on a disk or feed it across a network and display format, used for presenting the picture on a TV. Standard DVD, for example, is compressed using MPEG-2, but the basic signal itself can be in either native NTSC or PAL format. Microsoft's VC-9 is just a more advanced compression system.

(DVDs are recorded in NTSC or PAL and compressed using MPEG-2. The standard for NTSC disks is 480p (progressive) which is the lowest of the HDTV formats, the others being 720p and 1080i (interlaced). The standard output for PAL progressive is 576p, but it doesn't give much of an improvement over normal PAL. You have to have a 1080i PAL picture before you see the improvement. NTSC and PAL Progressive Scan compared (http://www.hifi-writer.com/he/progscan/progscan.htm) )

There is no European HDTV channel or programme source generally available. Every time the TV companies looked at the market, people were happy with the present resolution and preferred to fit in more channels in the same bandwidth rather than fewer high quality channels. Unless there is an EU directive forcing the TV stations to broadcast it, as has happened in the USA, that is unlikely to change.

It is highly probable, therefore, that when HDTV disks start becoming available that they will be in the US HDTV format and that anyone who wants to watch them will need to watch them on a PC with a suitable card (See Naples' link about the Wonder HDTV) or buy a plasma screen.

There is a PAL HDTV format, but if you want to receive it, you'll have to buy a Euro 1080 (http://www.euro1080.tv/technical.htm) receiver to receive their signal on Astra from 19.2 East. They started broadcasting this month. Euro 1080 has a resolution of 1920 pixels x 1080 lines with a 18Mbps bit-rate stream and 5.1 surround sound. (It's 1080i format, but at 50Hz rather than 60Hz so it avoids the movie conversion problems.)

Thomson and Pioneer are funding Euro 1080 in an aim to kick start interest in HDTV and open a European market for PAL widescreen & plasma HDTV sets. Most of their output will be music concerts and the like, but they will be broadcasting the European Championship from Portugal this summer.

You will be able to watch it on a standard TV, but it will be much better on a plasma screen.

The receivers are due to be sold with a bundled decoder card, supposedly good for the life of the unit. I can't recollect the price off the top of my head, I think it's about £200. Buy one of the satellite TV magazines for more details, they had some details in this months issues.

[Mac the Knife]

Of course Microsoft would like it's proprietary compression algorithms to be part of the nextgen HD-DVD format. They can then gouge the studios, artists and the public for the use of their IP every time they create, record or enjoy an artwork.

"First, I hope that the final decision will be of greatest benefit to the community at large and not just to the stock-holders of Microsoft". Surely you jest! MS has never been very interested in the community at large (except as a source of revenue) and MS stock is so valuable that their stockholders are not a huge concern.

No, what MS wants is control - of DVD standards, of WWW standards, of recording standards, of processor microcode, and just about anything else you can think of.

For those of you who have not been following the MS/SCO lawsuit:

MS has been worried for some time by the increasing popularity of the Linux operating system. Linux is free software distributed under the GPL http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html - the majority of Linux software is also free and open source under the GPL.

MS (who have a substantial interest in SCO) have not discouraged SCO (who own a part of the UNIX code that Linux is modelled on) from now claiming that Linux contains some UNIX code that belongs to them. [This despite the fact that SCO itself distributes a flavour of Linux under the GPL]

Despite their unwillingness/inability to specify exactly what the code in question is, SCO are now suing IBM (a Linux promoter) for $3bn and are threatening to sue all companies using Linux if they do not licence this unspecified code. Despite widespread legal opinion that the claims are groundless, all Linux users (like me) are asked to licence this unspecified (and unproven) code from them for $699 per computer.

EV1Servers.net a hosting company with some 20,000 computers has been (to the great dismay of most of it's customers) the first to agree to this, paying over $1m protection money to SCO for a yet unproven (and probably unprovable) claim. Naturally this improves SCO's very shaky credibility. The fact that EV1Servers.net is currently installing another 30,000 servers with MS software has of course no bearing on their decision to publicly knuckle under to SCO's claims....

There is widespread agreement that SCO will lose in court, so why have they embarked on such a spectacularly expensive form of suicide? Well, SCO was ailing anyway and MS would dearly love to get their hands on UNIX (so they can kill it) and guess who will pick up the pieces at the garage sale? And bye-bye to that pesky Linux too!

The spectacularly rapacious MS have already demonstrated that they are above the law and can buy the DOJ, so why not your DVD's too?

[ORAC]

Of course Microsoft would like it's proprietary compression algorithms to be part of the nextgen HD-DVD format. They can then gouge the studios, artists and the public for the use of their IP every time they create, record or enjoy an artwork.

The companies represented on the steering commitee aren't that dumb.

"As a condition to Microsoft before it could establish VC-9 as a standard, it had to strip VC-9 of proprietary status, Majidimehr said. The company satisfied that condition when it submitted the underlying video compression technology to SMPTE last year and opened up its software to developers for the first time. Now developers can download the technical spec, build on it and not be beholden to Microsoft".

[fobotcso]

An organisation as high profile as the Gates' Microsoft Corporation is bound to have its every move looked at suspiciously. It's very easy to be critical with the help of the media that feeds on rumour and speculation.

And certainly Microsoft has made mistakes and been caught out. But who hasn't?

However, try to take another view.

I doubt that I would be best pleased to learn that a British National Daily Newspaper had hundreds (or was it thousands?) of copies of unpaid-for unlicensed software on its worksations. Software that was my intellectual property. And I would also want the development costs of similar products to be safeguarded in the future. That means making as much money as I could from the market.

The world has made amazing strides in an astonishingly short space of time because of the IT industry. And Microsoft is a major player at the public interface as well behind the scenes in industry and commerce. All these companies are in the business to make money.

Oh, and by the way, can anyone remind me of how much Microsoft has contributed to the Charities and needy causes of the world in, say, the last couple of years?

[RomeoTangoFoxtrotMike]

ORAC

"The companies represented on the steering commitee aren't that dumb."

Possibly not :rolleyes: , but "opening the source" won't stop MS, says the cynic in me...

"``As a condition to Microsoft before it could establish VC-9 as a standard, it had to strip VC-9 of proprietary status, Majidimehr said. The company satisfied that condition when it submitted the underlying video compression technology to SMPTE last year and opened up its software to developers for the first time. Now developers can download the technical spec, build on it and not be beholden to Microsoft' ' ".

That's as may be; however, I wouldn't put it passed MS to "open the standard", have it adopted and become widespread as a result, and then start to add all manner of proprietry extensions, for which a license fee will be payable, which it will be cheaper to pay, rather than to switch technology wholesale (see the SCO/Linux example above.) MS never do anything unless there's money to be made somewhere downstream...

I'm just waiting for the moment when they announce their new "mail protocol" which will be just incompatable enough with Internet Standards to force people to change to Outlook / Hotmail / whatever with the lure of "spam-free email". And it will hardly cost you more than a few tens of pounds per year per email address to obtain your MS "email license" by which they can track all your email -- sorry, that should have said "by which they can be sure that if you do spam they might know who you are..." :hmm:
It's the spammers who should have to pay -- not legitiamte email users who have already paid for the priviledge. (See this thread (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=120694) for more of my rants on the subject of victims having to pay for spam, not the spammers (or the spam friednly... :mad: )

/RTFM

(Since we've started thread-creep, Obligatory BSD plug :)

If you're worried about Linux licensing, (just kidding) or just want to explore the alternaitves, try looking at

NetBSD www.netbsd.org (http://www.netbsd.org/)
FreeBSD www.freebsd.org (http://www.netbsd.org/)
OpenBSD www.openbsd.org (http://www.netbsd.org/)

Each have their own merits -- let me know if you want a potted summary...
:ok:

[goates]

I have to agree with RTFM on this. Microsoft has a history of adopting or introducing open standards and then slightly modifying them to make them just incompatible enough to keep people on their software. They did this with Java. At first the deal with Sun was supposed to allow Microsoft to develop a version of Java that ran better on Windows. Fair enough. Who would know Windows better than its creator? The problem came when they started adding features to the Windows version and Microsoft's Java development suite that only worked with tht version of Java. So now companies that had spent large amounts of money on developing Java apps, probably because they wanted the cross platform compatibility, could only run the apps on Windows. It was then usually too expensive to move to another platform, so now they are stuck using Microsoft products.

This policy of embrace and extend was confirmed after the Halloween documents were released a few years ago. These documents were internal Microsoft memos talking about their response to Linux (Microsoft confirmed the documents as legitimate). As they couldn't undercut the price or the vast community of developers, one option was to embrace and extend open protocols and standards.

Maybe this case will actually work the way it looks, but Microsoft does have a long history of twisting things around for their own exclusive benefit.

goates

[Mac the Knife]

Sorry fobs and ORAC but I think that that's very naive. I agree with RTFM and goates. And the question of pirated software (and I'm antipiracy) doesn't come into it and is a whole other ballgame.

"..certainly Microsoft has made mistakes and been caught out.." yep, and got away essentially scot free from an antitrust conviction.

"..how much Microsoft has contributed to the Charities and needy causes of the world.." - all tax deductible.

SCO is Microsoft's backstairs funded sock-puppet in this carefully calculated attack on free (GPL) software and the FSF. If this case succeeeds (and there is always the outside chance that it will) then all coice will disappear from the OS market and there'll just be MS, who will then be free to do exactly as they wish.

And RTFM, don't be so sure about BSD - if SCO win they will certainly go after BSD, which WILL be vulnerable since it is a UNIX based OS.

Remember, this is just the pretrial discovery phase, if it does proceed to trial the trial itself will take years and cost billions. Only Microsoft (who have already given SCO $10m) has pockets deep enough to sustain it for that long.

And so what if SCO eventually loses? The Open Software movement will have lost enough that MS's much delayed Longhorn OS (not due out until '07-'08) will have a far better chance of being widely taken up than it's present uninspiring outlook. And you'll pay, oh boy will you pay - in more ways than 64.

MS have a long history of playing hardball to win and no, they're not interested in your best interests.

"The Freedom to Innovate" - don't make me laugh.

[fobotcso]

Mac, you're a sweetie!

"Sorry fobs and ORAC but I think that that's very naive."

I'll take that as a compliment. :) :) Haven't been called naïve in a coon's age.

So, I take it that in view of the strength of your invective against Microsoft and being a man of honour you will have nothing to do with any Microsoft product and won't allow them in the house? :\

PS, Microsoft gave the entire damages awarded to them in a piracy suit to charity. It was something like M$50 but I know you'll spare me looking up the detail; it's only a Google away if you want to check.

[Mac the Knife]

Gizza kiss fobs! Well, I thought naïve was nicer than stoopid.

1) Yes, except from the kid's PC with his games.

2) Googled for "microsoft piracy charity donation:, so presume you're talking about

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1999/Dec99/SanMonDonatePR.asp
Looks more like $0.5m rather than $50m and mostly in M$ software that costs 'em nothing and locks da kids nicely into the Microsoft fold.

Or http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/4520-6033_16-4206249.html
"....Microsoft Australia sent the charity, PCs for Kids, a letter telling them to stop installing old versions of Windows onto the machines..."

Or http://news.com.com/2100-1017-274071.html?legacy=cnet or http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25085.html or http://www.themacobserver.com/columns/thebackpage/2002/20020423.shtml (worth reading, that one!)

"Microsoft has already forced one Australian charity that was seeking to place donated computers in the hands of low-income kids out of business. They wanted that charity to pay for new software licenses on the 486 and Pentium (I) computers it was doling out. Class act, that was."

So before I gave my previously disadvantaged student that old 386 so he could write his thesis I should have scrubbed the drive of Win 3.11 and Office prehistoric and encouraged him to purchase XP? Yeah, right.

I honestly tried to find any of the GREAT CHARITABLE ACTS OF MS on Google, as you encouraged me to do but came up a bit short.

[ORAC]

Do a search on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation instead. You'll find thing's such as this (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-1000268,00.html), this (http://malariavaccine.org/files/MVIStatementfinal.htm), this (http://www.gates.scholarships.cam.ac.uk/) and this (http://www.oneworldhealth.org/media/details.php?prID=13).

I could go on. I found dozens of them. Their foundation mainly funds work in the areas of vaccine research and education; it presently has an, individually funded, endowment of about $24 billion. It has already given away in excess of $6 billion.

The Gates' have declared that their children will be left $10M each, the remainder of their fortune, above and beyond that already donated, will go to the foundation upon their deaths. Whatever else you may think of him, Bill Gates has a strong strong moral awareness of his position and intends his fortune to be spent doing good, he intends to follow the example of past philanthropists such as Andrew Carnegie.

I can think of an awful lot worse places for the money to go, including the pockets of the companies buying/teaming with the major Linux distributors such as Red Hat (Oracle & IBM) and SuSe (Novell).

[Mac the Knife]

I thought we were talking about Microsoft?

[ORAC]

On the basis that the subject of charity contributions was raised up by Fobotcso in a post which opened with the sentence,

"An organisation as high profile as the Gates' Microsoft Corporation is bound to have its every move looked at suspiciously".

I consider it a legitimate call to assume that, for the sake of argument, Bill Gates and MS can be considered as synonymous. ;)

[Mac the Knife]

I doubt whether Gates would agree with you, but never mind. Personally I'm sure that he is a lovely man, kind to dogs and old ladies and a family paragon. With wealth that no-one could spend in a thousand lifetimes to give some of it away to good causes is a reasonable thing to do, particularly if you are not much loved (Carnegie, Getty, Rockefeller etc.).

However, unlike Oracle/IBM/Novell/SuSe MS is a company which has been convicted of monopolistic and antitrust practices and basically escaped with a slap on the wrist. Similar cases are ongoing against MS in the EU and Japan.

On April 3, 2000, in a two-part decision, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ruled in Washington, D.C. that Microsoft's dominance of the personal computer operating systems market constituted a monopoly, and that it used its power against competitors in ways that stifled innovation and harmed consumers (the "findings of fact") - http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm.

I think it's nice that you believe in a benevolent Microsoft who feel that the freedom to innovate applies to everyone and who able to determine your best interests and administer them impartially.

I am afraid that on the evidence I am not able to believe this and like many others am deeply suspicious of MS's motives for anything. If MS do not like this then they have only themselves to blame.

I don't hate MS and I recognise the coherence that they brought to the emerging market of the '80's. But there is plenty of room in this world for everyone and their operating systems and software. I find MS stubborn insistence that they be the only one both pathological and harmful to us all.

[PPRuNe Towers]

And RTFM, don't be so sure about BSD - if SCO win they will certainly go after BSD, which WILL be vulnerable since it is a UNIX based OS

..... and that is when all hell lets rip. Every copy of Mac OSX used BSD as its kernal. Maybe not in the Microsoft league but Cupertino does have a billion plus dollar warchest. However, is this the ultimate aim or the place Microsoft will stop shortof attacking?

As someone who runs a website, operates downroute and has to maintain financial affairs and sorts out the problems of many PPRuNers I have to say that I can only agree with the views of Mac, RTFM and Goates.

Forget charideeeeee chums - at a purely technical level Redmond has never done anything but usurp and corrupt open standards.

Regards
Rob

[RomeoTangoFoxtrotMike]

Towers

..... and that is when all hell lets rip. Every copy of Mac OSX used BSD as its kernal. Maybe not in the Microsoft league but Cupertino does have a billion plus dollar warchest. However, is this the ultimate aim or the place Microsoft will stop shortof attacking?

I am not too concerned about BSD-derived Unices. The "open-sourcing" of BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) Unix was doen directly between the UCB CSRG and ATT Research, back in the days when ATT still actually "owned" it for real" from the ground up (Unix was originally developed at an ATT research centre in the seventies) and was done, very carefully, with successively released versions of the code to ensure that when they finally went "ATT-free", everything was watertight license-wise (this was around about release BSD 4.3-Tahoe or 4.3-Reno, IIRC.)

(Trying to dredge up the substance of a conversation I had over a beer with Kirk McKusick of the CSRG about this very subject many moons ago :) )

Crucially, BSD pre-dates Linux by some way :)

[Mac the Knife]

Goodness me! Now a leaked memo from SCO (which SCO have admitted is genuine) implicates MS in indirectly funding SCO (through BayStar) to the tune of $86m just before SCO started it's action. Evidently fobs is right, MS is indeed a great contributor to charity, electing to prop up a failing company out of the goodness of their heart. Obviously the thought of laid-off employees wrung Ballmer and Gates gentle souls.

<tinfoil hat>
Imagine Bill and Steve sitting around drinking a beer, and
Steve saying to Bill, "hey bill, that longhorn looks cool,
but we are loosing market share, and in 2-3 years, well
there might not be enough market left to convince anyone
those features are worth what it cost us".

Bill being the scheming guy he is says, "I got a plan,
how about we get all them Penguins all wrapped up in some
hokey thing. REmember a couple years ago when that guy
trademarked "Linux" the whole community about quit writing
code so they could beat up that guy?"

Steve, "maybe, but so, you know someone who could trademark
linux again?"

Bill, "No, I got a buddy at SCO who says they might have
legal claim to all Unix, patents and stuff. They are pissed
at IBM too, and they only need a couple million to make it
happen."

Steve, "Ain't IBM into Linux too? that'd be great, those
penguins wouldn't know what hit 'em"

Bill, "Right, they'd be so busy trying to get to Salt Lake
nothing would get done on Linux. Longhorn could be five
years out, and people would still be impressed with it's
improvements."

Steve, "What happens to SCO if this doesn't work"

Bill, "Who cares, we'll make it 10 times what they ask
for, and tell 'em they can do whatever they want with the
money. Remeber this will be all legal and stuff, it'll be
years before it gets all unsnarled, tell 'em the need to
use that jerk Boies, that'll make the biggest mess of it
all".

Steve, "Yea, Boies, he almost got us, 'eh?".

Bill, "Don't remind me, hey did you make that contribution
to ..."
</tinfoil hat>

Even Paul Allen (who I quite liked) comes into the picture.

Read all about it on Groklaw http://www.groklaw.net/

[fobotcso]

Go on then Mac, pucker-up :yuk:


http://www.fobotcso.co.uk/puckerup.jpg

Well you did dig deep, I must say, but only in selected places. I knew there was a "5" in there somewhere.

I'm outahere because we're way off thread (plse excuse us Richard) and it's not what this Forum is about.

But I'm always very slow to jump on the Conspiracy bandwagon when most of the time we're looking at the Cock-ups resulting from real people making real mistakes based on the way they see things at the time.

I'm happy that Microsoft has been in the world these last 20-30 years - warts and all. It ain't perfect; but from my position in the community I see that there are folks at all levels - from judges to janitors - whose lives are enhanced by the amazing progress in IT.

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

fobotcso,

That is ok, you and MAC take the thread anywhere you like. ;)

Richard

[Mac the Knife]

Gosh, things do seen to be unravelling don't they!

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=14707

Hope no PPRuNers have any SCO stock!

And an unfavourable EU judgement due out on Monday?

That's what you get for wanting ALL the cake instead of a respectable slice.

[Mac the Knife]

"We own the UNIX operating system." :E

Darl McBride in Dan Farber (ZDNet) interview at the Sand Hill Group's Software 2004 conference in San Francisco - http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040315001609501#comments

FTFM said, "I am not too concerned about BSD-derived Unices." - maybe you should be ;)

"All your code is belong to us" says SCO :yuk:

The markets don't seem to agree with Darl - http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mb?s=SCOX - they'll be lucky to end the day at $8.60