Oh well. Back to bored.

Dan,

I responded to your apparent claim that the Flash codec was based on animation. In your first Dec 15 post you said "flash was designed for animation, not for video, which is why the quality is so bad"

After I pointed out video was simply added as a content type to Flash and it was probably a Sorenson codec, you said "the flash video picture quality is no different than the typical qt junk, because of it's sorenson roots".

So which is it? Animation or Sorenson.

I can produce fine looking QuickTime as do other and as can Marcia which solves that question she raised. What tools are you using for QuickTime that you are having problems using and can't do what others do? There's been no answer to the WMV issue she raised.

I quoted Ben and pointed out that in his quote, he gave the same reasoning I had been presenting here in counterpoint to your reasoning. I made no claim to relative intelligence as you incorrectly and erroneously assert.

the next machine rocked for that day and age, lol! yes, it's a bit dated today, but you are bad-mouthing a g.u.i. that never had time to develop... i hope that you aren't going to be foolish enuf to claim that the mac o.s. at the time was better! the mac o.s. wasn't up to serious computing until apple came out with osx, and it's not perfect by any means... what microsoft needs to do now is come up with a unix-based o.s. for pc's.

my first computer job was at kaypro, back when that was da bomb, so my frame of reference wrt the evolution of the desktop computer is different than yours... your senior year was when i was a computer tech at cal state, and next wasn't giving anything away for free to the general public, the only reason colleges got next machines was because next wanted that market real bad, it didn't have a damn thing to do with the quality of the platform... i personally have never liked any of the mac g.u.i.'s, and the hardware totally sucks, but they used to be a better alternative for people who have never been on a computer before... maybe they still are.

ernest, you STILL haven't provided any reason why marcia should use qt instead of wmp... that's really the bottom line... who cares what your opinion is, when you can't back it up with any facts? you need to stop wasting bandwidth out here, lol.

i proved that wmp has far better player penetration than qt, i quoted an expert who recommended wmp but not qt, and we all know that wmp has better video quality than qt.

My frame of reference for computers began with BASIC, TRS-80 computers, the Apple 2 series, and then others until my LC II. No, the GUI for NEXT sucked then and it sucks today. It completely misses some of the most basic UI principles and it is clear that Jobs is more interested in flash than substance when it comes to the OS. The machines were a great platform for developing because of their object oriented platform, but they weren't overall good machines. They were too expensive, lacked color screens, and used a crappy UI. The UI of Mac OS 9 is still better than OS 10 or Windows. The technical capabilities was not up to snuff, but speaking only of the GUI and usability, it is still better than X or XP.

MS has no reason to move to a Unix based OS. BSD Unix is really bloated and not really an elegant solution. Hell, a lot of it is based on 40 year old code. The most impressive OS that actually gained some users was the BeOS because it was written from scratch and therefore could perform amazingly. MS has such a large installed base, they would never change over... just like they supported bugs in their code, they can't afford to piss off huge corporations by making such a fundamental change... and they've got such a huge infrastucture based on .Net now, there is no reason to change... Mac needed to do Unix to get more developers, MS doesn't need that.

If WMP sucks on the Mac, and she thinks she will have Mac visitors, she should go with QT Dan. What else needs to be said?

<<-- Originally posted by Dan Euritt: ernest, you STILL haven't provided any reason why marcia should use qt instead of wmp... that's really the bottom line... >>

Marcia said she she wanted to use QT but couldn't make one she liked. I recommended tools to address that issue. As for other statements I made in this thread regarding recommendations that included Flash or QT, I gave reasons. You'll find them if you read the posts.

<<-- Originally posted by Dan Euritt: who cares what your opinion is, when you can't back it up with any facts? >>

I and others gave facts along with reasoned analysis behind the conclusions. You'll find them if you read the posts.

<<-- Originally posted by Dan Euritt: i proved that wmp has far better player penetration than qt, i quoted an expert who recommended wmp but not qt, >>

Yes you have. What we have disagreed on is the validity, relevance and importance of WMP penetration. Also, I've quoted the same expert supporting the validity of the broader approach that I've presented here in counterpoint to you.

<<-- Originally posted by Dan Euritt: and we all know that wmp has better video quality than qt.>>

You keep saying that. I responded to it early on. You'll find it if you read the posts. Of WMP, Marcia said (paraphrased) "I got audio only, no picture.......about 30 seconds into it, everything freezes".

I've read your posts but not found anything from you to address the problem with WMP that Marcia had whereas using QT, MPEG4, Flash, and Real Video do address that problem.

And finally:
<<-- Originally posted by Dan Euritt: you need to stop wasting bandwidth out here, lol.>>

As DVInfo is a community forum, it seems arrogant to me for you to assert yourself bandwidth policeman. In fact, I was thinking that the name calling you've done, the nature of some of your posts and the tendency in your posts to have platform wars might be violating the Community Rules of Conduct like this one written by Chris Hurd:

"I will not tolerate ad-hominem attacks upon someone's character, capabilities, or sensibilities. There will be no platform wars, period."

If you read the rules, you'll find it in the section entitled "Please be cool and respect your fellow members."

obviously we'll never agree about the next, lol... apple had to bail out of the old mac o.s. because it was so dysfunctional in the modern computing world... it simply couldn't have cut the mustard, and they took way too long to make the move to osx, as you very well know.

mark, there are many unix nerds who would take you to task for fud-mongering their platform, lol... ibm has 500 programmers working in china on linux, and right now there are more unix-based desktop computers on the 'net than macs... so of course apple made the correct decision to go unix-based as well, there is a whole bunch of developer talent out there for that platform.

marcia indicated a problem with wmp on her mac, and she got *zero* help with that issue from all the mac people out here.

and she STILL doesn't know how many qt players there are on the 'net! and since there are no macs on the 'net, she has no good reason to stick with qt.

>> marcia indicated a problem with wmp on her mac, and she got *zero* help with that issue from all the mac people out here.>>

The answer given was one that Marcia had already arrived at, was the same answer as has historically been the case and not solved by WMV9. WMP is a poor cross platform format. Therefore, use another format.

<<and she STILL doesn't know how many qt players there are on the 'net!>>

Setting aside the point that the count lacks significance, you actually don't know how many WMP players are on the net either. You think you do but you don't for the same reason you don't know how many Real, Flash, MPEG4, H.264 or QT players there are.


<<and since there are no macs on the 'net,>>

Before you said 3% are Macs. Now you say there are none.


<< she has no good reason to stick with qt.>>
...except that it solves the problem she had that WMV failed as a cross platform format unlike Flash, QT, MPEG4 and Real.

Its not FUD. All of the current GUIs are sub-par, even compared to Mac OS 9, which is just sad. NeXT had great object oriented development tools, but in terms of a user GUI, it still sucked... and Apple inherited that. XP just tries to copy Mac OS and misses the point... like drives NOT being accessible on the desktop... shortcuts instead symbolic links (OS X makes the same mistake)... etc. They don't get it and neither do you... which is fine, but it is my job to be critical of such things and try to make them better where I can.

As for the move to OS X... still waiting on Longhorn aren't we? How late is that? Again, you don't know what you are talking about... to change an OS with billions of lines of code or to revamp an OS as dramatically as OS X or Longhorn is a huge undertaking. Read the Mythical Man Month and you'll get an idea.

No one knows how many WM Players there are on the net technically either. It is all indirect inference. So if you want to discount the # of QT then maybe you should discount the # of WM players too because you cannot quote real numbers of WMP either. Which is as silly to say as not knowing how many QT players are out there exactly is a problem.

Should there be better WMP tools for the Mac? Yes. There are tools you can buy to do it too. But in the end it comes down to do what makes sense... and especially if you have a significant (individuals determine significance) number of Mac users, QT makes a lot of sense. Is the quality great for free? No. But then, it is better that it works than not at all. And again, WMV9 does not cover use for all WM Players out there. So what? If people are downloading videos they can download an installer... especially one that 36% of the net's content is served up in.

XP just tries to copy Mac OS and misses the point... like drives NOT being accessible on the desktop

Er, you can put a shortcut to any drive on the Windows desktop, just like on the Mac.

Wow, has this thread gotten off topic!

Of course you can, but you shouldn't have to. Its an option in OS X too. It defeats the whole metaphor of a "desktop" to have to search for your drive or to have your files relegated to some deep folder on your hard drive by default. Multiple users have been around long enough to address the problem more elegantly than either Linux, OS X (a step back from OS 9) and XP. The whole thing should be transparent and clear and it is a mess. Abstract the file structure, hide unnecessary directories... do something, but as it is currently they are all bad...

Marcia, if you're still reading, I hope you solved your problem.

most of what you guys have posted is fud, lol! it's gotten so bad that i quit reading anything ernest posts.

and you all STILL haven't posted any kind of numbers about qt player penetration on the 'net.

mark, i don't want a bunch of drive icons on my desktop... you keep bashing these g.u.i.'s based on your silly personal preferences, which does not work, because people use different roads to get to an end goal... our brains do not all work the same way... for example, most of the engineers i've supported over the years wouldn't be caught dead with an apple computer, but newbies and artists tend to like macs.

one thing that has become apparent here is that none of these mac fanatics have done their homework regarding 'net video codecs... marcia didn't like qt video, and now we have proof that her complaint was legit, despite the fact that nobody out here will admit to it.

here are 3 clips, all the same bitrate, using sorenson squeeze pro in two-pass vbr mode for everything:

http://www.oceanstreetvideo.com/videocodectest.zip

to sum it up, wmp9 blows qt and flash out of the water.

That's fine Dan. By all appearances. you've joined this thread promoting a WMV agenda (as you've done on other threads) that didn't address the questions in the originating post and you've used this thread to serve your campaign for WMV9. The posts that I and others have made proving your statements and positions either wrong, faulty, conflicted or biased, are there for the other readers that seem to be hitting this thread (around 15 a day) so that when you state your opinion, they can decide how much stock to put in it.

Dan, I don't think I've argued that QT is better than WMV9 in terms of quality. Simply that in some cases it is the right decision to use QT. At every bitrate WMV9 is going to win in quality unless you use AVC/H.264 like Sorenson MPEG 4.

"mark, i don't want a bunch of drive icons on my desktop... you keep bashing these g.u.i.'s based on your silly personal preferences, which does not work... our brains do not all work the same way... for example, most of the engineers i've supported over the years wouldn't be caught dead with an apple computer, but newbies and artists tend to like macs"

They aren't my silly preferences. Its based on over 40 years of studies. Studies that have proven that putting the menu system at the top is way more efficient than on the window (Fitts Law)... especially for new users, you are supposed to provide the things they need to access the most, the most easily. You then have things like keyboard equivalents to allow experienced users to move more quickly. You put the drives on the desktop because the brain is much better at remembering WHERE you put something in a physical space than say, its name and folder heirarchy. The default should be more usable and let there be options for preferences.

As for the engineers... I don't know who you talk to, but all of my old college friends are engineers and they love Macs because it is the easiet to maintain of the Unix based platforms and their laptops are top of the line. Getting proper driver support in a Linux distro for new laptops is not fun... at least, not since having tons of time in college. ;-)

mark, you can't have any engineering friends working on macs, because all of the engineering software is written for pc's... and it's been that way for many years.

i do find it funny that the fact that you can put a shortcut to the drive icon in windows pretty much ruined your tirade, tho ;-) lets not confuse human psychomotor efficiency with how the brain stores and processes information.

and of course fitt's law won't help a web surfer who has to wait longer for his qt video to download, because the file had to be made bigger, due to the lousy quality of qt video.

for a guy who is supposed to be into useability, you have conveniently ignored that very important fact... and so have all the other mac people in this thread.

today i re-ran the same encoding test with sorenson squeeze pro version 4, the very latest release... i had it also create your AVC/H.264 mpeg4 file, but then it was unable to play the file back! the latest version of qt didn't recognize it as a legitimate file, either.

at least the vlc player sort of played it... right now there is a lively discussion over on the sony vegas forum... many complaints about how the latest qt won't even play simple mpeg2 files, lol.

so that's two file formats that qt can't handle... sounds like a pretty poor choice for useability to me.

Wow, Dan, I'm so glad you are here with your vast depth of knowledge to educate me so that I can now go tell my computer engineer friends (I'm an ex-programmer) that they don't know what they are doing. How did you know that all engineering software is written for PCs... you have knowledge of all engineering fields... that's amazing. I should also go tell my friends who are architects that no serious structural design work is done on Macs so they don't get sued for a building falling down or something. Or were you just insinuating that I'm a liar? I'm sure your computing ability and usability design skills are amazing as well, as seen on your site.

The fact you think the drive icon ruins my point simply highlights the point that you don't understand the issue. Nor does looking up the word psychomotor efficiency on google make you any more knowledgeable about how the human brain stores and processes information. When you've studied cognitive science, human computer interaction and usability for a couple of years... then write something. The only reason I've responded to you to this point was that I actually believed that you might be interested in having a rational discussion... which it is clear you don't. You're only interested in slamming QT and Macs (which they do have their faults, just as MS stuff does) and that is it.

The fact you tried to play an AVC/H.264 file in QT only proves you don't read. QT doesn't support AVC/H.264 yet, which was pointed out again and again. As for MPEG2... How many file types are out there? How many does WMP support? How many does Real? Each manufacturer made their choices. QT doesn't support MPEG2 by default, but you can buy it as an add on... Why? MPEG2 isn't used for the web, it is used by video professionals, and so they decided to make it an extra charge.

A longer download isn't a usability issue... its a user experience issue. Go google those terms and learn some more... but I'm done here. Sorry for the tangent Marcia.

i worked for a number of years at some of the top rf engineering firms in the country... i supported the computers that were used by both hardware and software design engineers, on all kinds of projects... e.e.'s, m.e.'s, chip design, circuit board design, case design, you name it, no macs anywhere!! that's real world experience, so spare us your "friends" b.s....

and making whiney excuses about useability vs. user experience is absurd, lol... how would that matter to somebody who is waiting for that qt garbage to download?

fyi, it's only the very latest version of qt that won't play those mpeg2 files, and the people having problems have the plug-in... pay attention and you might learn something :-)

Epilog...This just in on the wire....Wednesday December 22, 2004...

....MSFT ordered by a European Union court to change its business practices and immediately market a stripped-down version of Windows...

...The world's largest software maker said it would comply immediately by introducing a stripped-down version of its computer operating system without its Windows Media Player music and video software next month....

...The commission had found the U.S. software giant abused the virtual monopoly of Windows and also levied a record 497 million euro ($665 million) fine....

....a decision the commission designed to prompt computer makers to choose from various audiovisual offerings....

...."Anything that helps create a level playing field, anything that puts a premium on quality, not on monopoly, is good....


Excerpted from:
http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=965933&tw=wn_wire_story

Any moderators here? LOL!!! This is actually funny at this point.

"friends b.s."
hm. That's twice now you've called me a liar.
"that's real world experience"
That's old experience. And not your experience either, you're not an engineer nor do you have any programming ability. And one RF firm is not every firm either, so to make categorical assertions and call me a liar is plain wrong, but then, you tried to play an AVC/H.264 file in QT... Its nice that you are a self learner and have done a lot and enjoy computers, but that doesn't make you an expert and certainly doesn't give you the right to write this kind of crap in an open forum.

Yes, the actual implementation of circuit design is still done on PCs. I said my friends had and worked on Macs, and it isn't because they are Macs, and it is only since 10.2 that they started looking at them because that is when X11 and great POSIX compliance really came in. There are many steps to the design of a motherboard or a video card, one being writing a test bed for the software strawman of the board. My friends prefer their favorite Unix/Linux tools and can run them on their Powerbooks. At that level they are working on assembly, C or C++ code, they don't have to do it on a PC and they prefer not to. Even before then, creating block diagrams, developing finite state machines to do high level process development, none of that has to be done on PCs, any platform works. Hell, one of my friends replaced the Aqua gui with his own, favorite windowing system, so it isn't the fact they are "Macs".

Epilog II ... This Just in..Interesting data from December when this thread was glowing

Ironically, this story was printed in the Seattle Times:
"Penetration of selected media applications in Internet-enabled PCs"
Flash: 98.2%
QuickTime: 59.6%
Real: 58.5%
Shockwave: 52.7%
Windows Media Player: 42%

sources: NPD Online Research, Macromedia

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002245540_adobe19.html

"2,000 participants, comprising a representative Internet sample responded to this survey..." -http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/npd/

last month my websites pulled in ~28,000 unique url's... a far wider sampling of the state of the internet than that measly npd survey of only 2,000 people.

my desktop operating system webstats show winxp 73%, win2k 12%, both of which came with windows media player as a mandatory part of the o.s... you cannot uninstall it from winxp: "Windows Media Player is a feature of the operating system and cannot be removed entirely." -http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/mp10/faq.aspx#2_4

so the windows media player is installed on over 85% of the computers on the internet.

Yawn.

Same old flawed logic. It isn't about what OS is installed. It's about what media application is used. That's what was counted in the survey, something web hits don't/can't count.

If I recall, your site caters to the drag racing crowd whereas the NPD survey claims a representative Internet sample, something else your stats can't claim.

This is a great disscusion.
I am a pure mac user and I have just opted to offer WMP on my site as I saw that out of 9000 or so hits aprox. 6500 are P.C. users and it seems they choose to not download QT. I am slightly dissapointed as I have near lossless video in QT but the WMP has -1 mediorce video quality at best, -2 you have to wait for it to buffer -3 the audio is pure crap.
I know there will greater choices in the near future but for now I am a primary quicktime user.

If you want you can look for yourself.

It really comes down to your target audience, and the player reference demographics of that particular audience. The challenge is, this is something that is very difficult to measure.

Material you REALLY REALLY want to be watched should probably be posted in both MOV and WM9 formats. Most Windows computers come preinstalled with Media Player 9, so even in offices where users are not permitted to install ad-on applications, WMVs are genearlly playable. My (limited) experience with consumer users is that the ones that are really into downloading/playing videos on their PCs will have both QT and WM players, so you probably get best general coverage by offering these two formats.

There is a good sized contingent of Mac users who simply can't or won't play Windows Media files. I've had no problem using WM9 files on my Dual G4, but admitedly, I'm primarily a PC user and have only had the Mac for a couple months. I don't know what issues long time Mac users may have encountered with earlier versions of WM on earlier Macs. Long short, if you offer "only" WMV, you exclude this audience. It can be an important one too. A major portion of the creative industry (ad agencies, post production houses, etc.) is very Mac-entrenched.

Other players and formats are out there, of course, but I'd be surprised if someone could show that there was a significant popluation that had some other player installed that did not ALSO have either QT or WMP available.

Bottom line, if you release something in BOTH MOVand WMV, you are likely to be compatable with the widest audience. Also, unless the content of you're video is platform specific ("How to configure this on a PC" or "Using this cool feature on a Mac", there are almost definitely populations prospective viewers that will NOT watch the video if one of these two players is not supported.

It isn't about what OS is installed. It's about what media application is used. That's what was counted in the survey, something web hits don't/can't count.

your crippled survey did NOT count what media application is used, it attempted to count whether the media application was installed and working, by used the retarded logic of viewing still images, not moving video... wmp is not a still image viewer, so the results are meaningless:

"The survey presented respondents with several pages, each with an in line image in a different format on each page, and asked respondents to indicate whether or not they could see each of the images." -http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/npd/

i just proved that the wmp player is on 85% of the computers on the internet, you can't ignore that level of player penetration... you don't have a clue what the qt player penetration level is.

mick, your wmp files are lousy because you are using a mac to create 'em... up until a couple of months ago, there were no decent wmp creation tools on the mac platform... since you haven't read this thread, i'll re-post the codec test i ran, you can see that all the native qt web codecs are garbage: http://www.oceanstreetvideo.com/videocodectest.zip

and once again, lets not forget that only 2.9% of all the computers on the 'net are macs.

Dan Euritt Said:
"wmp is not a still image viewer, so the results are meaningless:"

If your claim was true about the survey then the WMP results would be zero. Since they aren't zero, your claim that the results are meaningless is false. Nothing new here.

Your survey only demonstrates 85% of visitors to your drag racing site have XP and therefore WMP. Perhaps representative of the internet. Perhaps not. You don't know. It is well documented here that you make blanket claims ad assertions based soley on your personal experience. Nothing new here.

You assert it is "my crippled survey". To the contrary, it is NPD's survey.

A little digging produced the actual NPD survey, or at least a portion of it. Check it out: http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/survey/npd_survey.

Interestingly, the avi, which is used to test Windows Media player, didn't load in either Netscape 7 nor Internet Explorer 6 on my computer. The player at least appeared in IE, minus image, while the player didn't appear at all in Netscape even though I know it's installed because I've played plenty of WM videos in Netscape.

If this happened when the participants took the survey, then many would no doubt have answered the question designed to test Windows Media player “No” even though the player was installed. I know I would have answered the question "No", as they just ask if you can see the image, not if so and so player is installed. (To be fair, many people don’t know what media players they have on their computers.)

We may have our passionate disagreements, but please let us keep the discussion civil. We can learn from each other so long as we don't let passion run ahead of reason.

nice post, chris... that bogus "survey" crashed the java viewer on my pc... so i guess that i don't have java installed ;-)

notice how they didn't ask if you had winxp installed? what a clever way to hide the true facts about the number of wmp player installs... because every winxp pc comes with wmp, and it can't be uninstalled... so if you have winxp, you have the windows media player.

other stats back up the overwhelming winxp/wmp domination of the 'net:

63.1% winxp/wmp: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

64% winxp/wmp:
http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2005/February/os.php

and then there are still all those win2k installs that came with wmp... ~15% or more.

i guess that we should give ernest's little npd survey some credit, at least they aren't using still images to twist the stats, like apple used to do... now the platform fanatics just leave out the true facts about the o.s. numbers instead.

if you are trying to figure out what this all means, the significance is that you don't want to put up web video in a format that people can't view... if they don't have the correct media player installed, they will typically leave instead of hassling with your q.t. content.

I noticed they left Windows XP out. A little odd since it's been out for four years; Windows 2000 has been around even longer. They also omitted Mac OS 9 and X. And in the browsers, no IE 6 or Netscape 6/7, or Firefox. This looks like a survey that would have been designed five or six years ago.

Another thing that could have skewed results is that, judging from the names of the pages in the address bar, they had separate tests for Flash players v2 and 3, Shockwave players versions 6 and 7, and QuickTime versions 3 and 4, while only one each for RealMedia and Windows Media player.

I tried the avi URL directly and got a message that Windows Media player couldn't play the file because it might not support the file type or codec. I then downloaded the avi, and file properties lists the video compression as IR45. I've never heard of that codec before.

I don't know if what Macromedia has up there is the whole survey or not, as they list it as an example. (I wouldn't think they would want to make it much longer than what's up there. How many animated fish can people take? It surely isn't Nemo, let me tell you!) If that is all of the survey then I can understand why RealPlayer, and in particular Windows Media player, scored so low.

Did the avi load for any of you? Has anyone else heard of the IR45 codec?

The avi file works the charm on my Win2K system -- the Java one doesn't, but all the rest do.

GB

Dan Euritt wrote:
"now the platform fanatics just leave out the true facts about the o.s. numbers instead."

You conflict yourself again. You readily admit you are a platform fanatic yet you cite platform stats all the time. :-)

The name calling is inappropriate here. I can only assume you are directing the name calling at me and not yourself. I, unlike you, use and view both platforms equally.

The point remains that the platform count is not a valid count and that it is the flawed basis for your argument. To date, surveys are the only manner in which accuracy can be achieved.

I agree with you on one point though, whenever I find a cite with WMV, I typically leave and not hassle with it. I don't encounter much of it though. :-)

i think that ir45 is an old intel legacy codec that won't work under osx... you might try downloading the intel video 4.5 codec from the apple website, and see if it'll play inside of qt, but only in mac classic mode.

all that's left is to prove is how many computers don't have the qt player.

right now there are at least 822 million computers accessing the 'net: http://www.c-i-a.com/pr0305.htm

some stats claim 888 million internet users: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

remember when apple bragged last year about 250 million qt downloads? what did that amount to, less than a third of all 'net computers?

every winxp pc has a mandatory installation of the windows media player, and you can't uninstall it... and at least ~80% of the world's computers have winxp or win2k as the o.s.

so wmp is the clear winner in media player penetration, by a long shot... even a mac platform fanatic can read those numbers ;-)

Dan,

You're right, it is the Intel Indeo video 4.5 codec. Interesting thing is, the video plays fine in RealPlayer and Nero Showtime. Go figure.

Whoops, spoke to soon. Windows Media player plays it just fine locally on my computer. It still won't load in the browser for the survey, though.

On prior episodes, Dan wrote:
"i have become assimilated"

"every winxp pc has a mandatory installation of the windows media player, and you can't uninstall it... and at least ~80% of the world's computers have winxp or win2k as the o.s."

"i just proved that the wmp player is on 85%"

"63.1% winxp/wmp:"

"the bottom line here is that pc operating systems make up around 96% of the desktop computers on the 'net"

"so we have at least 75% of the internet that is wmp9-capable."

-----------------------

Citing the OS installs "number of the week" and its native media player as the basis for media format is like saying 90% of drivers smoke because 90% of cars have cigarette lighters (made the number up to make a point). It's flawed logic and all the name calling and ad-hominem attacks in the world won't change it. Nor will it change that WMP won't play an ISO standard MPEG-4 video because MSFT wants to own and control the internet video format with their proprietary WMV-9 format. This is what the EC convicted them of doing using illegal means and in addition to fining them ~6 million, now require MSFT by law to ship a version of XP without the media player.

So, as content producers, we each get to make a choice. A moral choice having nothing to do with fanaticism, name calling or subjective opinions of image quality. Support the convicted monopoly proprietary model or a competitive free enterprise model?

chris, i was thinking that you were on a mac, but it looks like you're on a pc... and that bogus npd "survey" still won't work with wmp inside your pc browser, even tho you have the codec installed.

the whole "survey" scene is such a racket... companies pay for bogus data that is way too small of a sample size to be representative of anything, just so that it can be used to help sell product... and platform fanatics post it all over the 'net, you should see how many flash sites are quoting that npd "data" as if it was gospel that came down from on high, lol... a malfunctioning "survey" of 2,000 pc's out of a lot size of 822 million pc's is a joke!

Ernest,

I believe there is room for both open standard and closed standard video formats. I don't see a problem with WMP not playing an MPEG-4 file. If I need to play an MPEG-4 file I can use the QuickTime player. And WMP can play an MPEG-4 file if you have the Nero suite installed. Microsoft also has a downloadable codec pack for WMP (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/format/codecdownload.aspx) that includes an ISO MPEG-4 codec, though it didn't work on the two systems I tried it on.

Microsoft's stance on MPEG-4: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/WM7/mpeg4.aspx

And it will probably surprise you, but the Mac version of Windows Media Player supports MPEG-4 ISO files: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/software/Macintosh/osx/default.aspx

Both Apple and Microsoft want to control the computer world; Microsoft just happens to be at the top of the heap right now. So in that regard I don't trust either company. MPEG-4 just happens to be one area where Apple supports open standards.

Lest you think I'm against MPEG-4, I'm not. In fact, I'm looking forward to the H.264 support in QuickTime 7. I just think that a healthy mix of video compression standards pushed by different companies will produce competition, which will result in further improvements. MPEG-4 shouldn't be the only codec supported and used, and neither should the Windows Media video codec, or the RealMedia codec.

Dan,

Yes, I'm running Windows, XP to be exact. But I think both platforms are good. I've used OS X (and 9, ugh!) when I apprenticed at an illustration/graphic design firm.

Chris,

I find the ideas you express about MSFT and this format issue naive. It's like being leary of BMW of dominating the sedan market instead of Toyota, Honda, GM, and Ford. At least there, you have healthy competitive free market. In contrast, MSFT was convicted (twice) of abusing it's monopoly position and using illegal means to thwart competitors. The EC judgement in particular was on the issue of media format. So, I disagree with the blanket statement you made.

Apple is on a standards strategy not a world domination strategy. MSFT is overtly not supporting MPEG4 because it wants the control point of owning the video format as a way of controlling competitors. You need to read up on the industry. Here's an article quoting Gartner Research and Frost & Sullivan on why they think Apple has the right strategy with QuickTime and why MSFT with WMV does not.
http://www.macworld.com/news/2004/06/11/streaming/index.php?redirect=1087152097000

Playing an ISMA MPEG-4 in WMP on a Mac results in "Cannot play back the file. The file format is invalid." Nero on Windows plays it just fine.

There can be no "healthy mix" as you propose because of MSFTs control. The way to a healthy market is through standards. Implementors compete on a level playing field. We have it elsewhere and it works.

Ernest,

I think we will just have to agree to disagree. As I already said, I've used Macs and I think they are good computers. I'm not a Windows/Microsoft fanatic. If a company has behaved unethically, they should be punished. That said, I still believe there is room for all the formats, provided none of the companies behave unethically.

Is that a satisfactory position for you? ;-)

Just out of curiosity, what would your ideal computer world/video format world look like? Everyone running Macs streaming MPEG-4 video through QuickTime? :-)

Like I said, just curious.

Well that is a more reasoned position. I think you'll find opnion and evidence that one party has acted unethically. There's been many lost court cases and out of court settlements as testimony.

Standards create interoperability and the largest market. DV is an example. First, as a standard, it created a huge market that had previously been fragmented by 8mm, S-VHS, Hi-8, and others. All the equipment manufacturers built to the spec. Because of standards, DV cameras, decks, firewire cards and NLEs all became interoperable. This created a healthy competitive ecosystem. The consumer video market exploded.

Standards are the backbone of the internet. A standard video format is just as important as a standard image format. As long as the standard is adequate, standards trump marginal technical differences. When there's a standard, everyone who wants to build an internet capable device (computer, PDA, smartphone) has equal access to the technology and isn't locked out of providing a player or creation tools.

As an example, the standards body for cell phones is 3GPP. THey've chosen MPEG-4 as the standard for video. Phone manufacturers are free to use whatever HW/SW OS they want to implement a player. They aren't locked into a format owned by a single company/competitor. So, my position is that similar to DV, producers and consumers of web video should standardize on MPEG-4 part 2 now, part 10 later (aka H.264) so it doesn't matter what HW/SW platform the surfer is using. Don't like MPEG4? Go to 3GPP or ISO whatever and argue the case. Submit somthing better. Drive improvements to the standard.

Finally, there are critics of MPEG-4. It isn't perfect. Neither was 802.11, DV and IEEE 1394 but the industry worked at smoothing out the kinks and moved the standards forward. The same should happen in web video but isn't. One reason is that MSFT has a monopoly position on the install base and refuses to support the standard in favor of it's own. This links back to the ill-logic that install base should drive format decisions for producers. If you've read this thread and others, you'll see it stated numerous times by posters and pundits that there are a number of factors that should go into the decision. Adoption is one but not the only one.

Ernest,

Thanks for the reply. Your more in-depth explanation gave me a better understanding of why you take the position you do. I understand your reasons better now.

Just to clear up a bit of hooey here, WMP9 is not required for WMV9. WMP8 downloads the codec automatically. I think only WMP6.4 needed a hotfix to load the codec (I think that was a misdirection correction). WMP7 should load it automatically also, but I have not used it for about 3 years. So, it is not true that because you do not have WMP9, you cannot use WMV9. Therefore, not having XP does not exclude using WMV9.

As for Real, that has to be one of the worst players ever written. Even if their codec was the best, their player ruins the experience. The only reason they have any foothold is their inclusion and preference in the AOL bundle.

Lots of ABM here.

as content creators, it is our responsibility to educate our customers about internet codecs and platforms that deliver the best quality at the lowest bitrate, with the greatest player penetration, a platform that has a real working drm solution that is widely accepted... you should never screw your customers over because of platform bigotry.

is anyone out here using digital rights management to sell their internet video? do you want your content to be stolen and pirated all over the 'net? of course not... so you won't be able to use the apple drm "solution", because it was cracked a long time ago... on top of that, it's capabilities don't begin to compare to the microsoft drm, which is still secure.

so why would anybody want to pimp an unsecure internet video platform like qt off on their fellow forum members?

http://www.macworld.com/news/2004/06/11/streaming/index.php?redirect=1087152097000.

the author of that worthless piece of rhetoric is also the editor of macCentral news, and a writer for macworld publications... hardly an impartial source of unbiased information, lol.

the dv video standard is royalty-free, but you must pay licensing fees to mpegla for mpeg4, just like you would pay royalties for using the windows media format... so it's o.k. for apple to promote a standard that people have to pay for, but not microsoft? get a grip on reality.

and speaking of cellphones, apple also has patents in the mpeg21 area that they intend to make a lot of money off of, by controlling the standard... no different than what microsoft is doing.

perhaps you don't want to do business with a company because of it's business tactics? you better educate yourself about apple.

apple has a long history of screwing over it's business partners and dealers for big $$, check the links for more info... and now they are threatening free speech by suing website owners:
http://www.macobserver.com/columns/thebackpage/2005/20050316.shtml
http://tellonapple.com/
http://www.macobserver.com/columns/thebackpage/99/august/990820.html

Dan wrote:
"the author of that worthless piece of rhetoric is also the editor of macCentral news, and a writer for macworld publications... hardly an impartial source of unbiased information"

The article reported on analysis from industry analysts Frost & Sullivan and Gartner. The article author and your opinion of him is not relevant.

The discussion is about standards. MSFT participated in the ISO group that created MPEG-4 so it's wierd you keep talking about Apple. MSFT is not licensing a standard. They're trying to license a proprietary format. Their track record is to do it with platform hostile licensing.

Licensing patents for implementing standards is SOP. The format is license free and all have equal access to the specs. Good examples are VoIP and your cell phone. Chock full of technology that has to be licensed. Nothing wrong with that. It's a matter of equal access and accessibility. If the internet video format or DRM is owned by a single company, you have a problem. Especially when it's a twice convicted abusive monopoly.

Standards are all about freedom because there's freedom of choice.

The article reported on analysis from industry analysts Frost & Sullivan and Gartner. The article author and your opinion of him is not relevant.

the author deliberately ignored all other relevant factual data in order to twist the truth to suit his mac platform fanaticism... that's what he gets paid to do.

it's really not much different than what we've already seen in this thread with that malfunctioning 2,000 pc npd "survey", pretending that it was factual info that truely represented 822 million computers.

ignoring apple's key patents in the mpeg21 area won't help your case, either... apple wants to take over, look at the scope of their ambitions:

"MPEG21
Skipping a few numbers, we get to the last of the brewing standards – the MPEG-21 Multimedia Framework. MPEG21 seeks to let content distributors have complete control over content at all parts of the delivery chain and on all kinds of networks and devices. The basic idea is that digital media content is broken down into digital items...

...Perhaps the MPEG21 feature that has received the most attention is its DRM (Digital Rights/Restrictions Management) system. To maintain control over the dissemination and use of digital content, MPEG21 aims to assert total control over usage. Every digital item has granular rights and permissions associated with it, and every user who interacts with it – consumers or content providers – are granted specific rights according to their role.

Total control over the file's behavior for any purpose on any device or network, along with extensive restrictions and role-based authorization, will result in two possibilities. One is an ubiquitous and standardized capacity to do eCommerce with digital media in any environment – be it server-based, peer-to-peer, or "sneaker net." The other is that, without proper legal and technical safeguards, you also may be granting too much power to the content owner to control the way the media is consumed.

Copyright ©2003 Streaming Media Inc. an Information Today Inc. company. All rights reserved." -http://stream.uen.org/medsol/digvid/html/2B_mediaarchmpeg1.html

The fact that MPEG21 is being done in a standards body puts it on the moral high ground. Unlike proprietary closed MSFT approaches with platform hostile licensing.

The internet and our communications infrastructure is built on patented IP, licensing and standards. Whining about legal and ethical protection of intellectual property falls on deaf ears. It's silly actually. I'm not even sure you understand the Streamin Media Inc article you cite. It's clearly describing control given to content owners which is what you said you wanted in your last post.

The format is license free and all have equal access to the specs.

no, it is NOT free, here are the licensing costs for h.264, for example: http://www.vialicensing.com/products/AVCH264VC/license.terms.html

you pay microsoft directly for wmv codec licensing, or you pay a group of companies for h.264 codec licensing... or you pay apple indirectly for mpeg21 licensing... you still must pay, it is NOT FREE!

microsoft has spent a fortune developing proprietary codecs and digital rights management, they deserve to be paid for creating the best standards in the business... crippled standards like the apple drm trash that got cracked early on are a dend end when it comes to developing internet commerce... are you foolish enuf to think that hollywood is going to risk it's assets on apple drm? how many internet movie download sites use that garbage? they all use microsoft drm.

if it wasn't for microsoft, there would be no drm/media player solution available for serious internet commerce.

The fact that MPEG21 is being done in a standards body puts it on the moral high ground. Unlike proprietary closed MSFT approaches with platform hostile licensing.

The internet and our communications infrastructure is built on patented IP, licensing and standards. Whining about legal and ethical protection of intellectual property falls on deaf ears. It's silly actually. I'm not even sure you understand the Streamin Media Inc article you cite. It's clearly describing control given to content owners which is what you said you wanted in your last post.
VC1 has also been put to a standards body. Just because something is created by committee does not make it better or give it "moral high ground". It just means it took twice as long to approve and has everyone's pet components in it. What you really want is something that has been peer reviewed. That improves it.

Sorry for the delay. Been in LA.

Dan, you're right about the licensing fees. I never meant to say what I wrote. When I wrote "The format is license free and all have equal access to the specs." I bobbled two sentence fragments when editing. I meant to counterpose the player and format license to this affect:
"the player is license free to downloaders and all parties interested in creating products around the technology have equal access to the specs."

However, your points about MSFT deserving license fees is a strawman and a bit hippocritical. I nor anyone else implied MSFT should give anything away. You however, seem to complain about Apple getting license fees for standards they contribute their hard earned technology into and then you turn around and state MSFT has a right to charge fees.

Standards are not necessarily free to implementers. That's the ecosystem upon which the internet and other infrastructure works. The important thing is that they are available equally to enable a free market and not controlled a single player that is a competitor to most.