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Graphics Software

Windows Media Player 9 527

Posted by michael from the more-restrictions,-fewer-features dept.
captainclever writes "The Register has an interesting article about the posibilities for WMP Clients for Linux. Would anyone want to use MS WMP in Linux?" See also a news.com story.
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Windows Media Player 9 More

Windows Media Player 9

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  • Yes! (Score:3, Informative)

    by JThaddeus ( 531998 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:11AM (#5039110)
    Just because so much stuff doesn't come in MPEG. And while we're at it, how about Quicktime?

    • Re:Yes! (Score:3, Informative)

      by Oculus Habent ( 562837 )
      It would be nice to have the option to run WMP in Linux - this would also be a beneficial step toward desktop use of Linux.

      QuickTime would be damn nice, too. We could start an e-mail campaign (check out their contact QuickTime [apple.com] page and see if it goes anywhere...

      • Re:Yes! (Score:5, Informative)

        by m3000 ( 46427 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @10:08AM (#5039429)
        It would be nice to have the option to run WMP in Linux

        Crossover [codeweavers.com] does just exactly that. It only runs WMP 6.4, but at least that plays proprietary WMP files. It can also play as well Quicktime files and Shockwave. Well worth the $25 to register. I know I've been extremelly happy with it.

    • Re:Yes! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:21AM (#5039178)
      unless you are using linux on a different platform
      than x86, why don't you try www.mplayerhq.hu ?
      this player has support for every format imaginable.
      including MS and QuickTime stuff ...

    • Re:Yes! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Y Ddraig Goch ( 596795 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:22AM (#5039180)
      As much a I hate to admit it the WMA format is better than MP3. Until Sonic Blue adds ogg decoding to the RioVolt 250 (are you listening Sonic Blue, it's just a flash rom upgrade) it might be just the ticket.

    • NO! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by oliverthered ( 187439 ) <oliverthered@nOSPAm.hotmail.com> on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:27AM (#5039204) Journal
      If someone uses a nasty non-standard format then you don't want there content.

      No DRM Enabled player makes boycotting easy.

      OGG Yes, MP3 yes MPEG yes, non-standard formats no, it doesn't matter how good your format is, I wont use it unless you release it to a standards body.

      What ever happened to FIF &co.... good formats, yep, standards based, nope.

      • Re:NO! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by mmol_6453 ( 231450 )
        I think you're mistaking "non-standard" with "proprietary."

        While "proprietary" should imply "non-standard," it really can't. At the moment, Microsoft is the de-facto standard for desktop operating systems and office productivity software.

        I should also point out that POSIX is a set of standards, and FreeBSD's ports system is a standard, and the Linux kernel supports the UNIX98 pty system. PDF is a decent standard, and I don't think TeX should be counted out.
      • No - if Linux/OSS is your choice because of ideology. Yes - if it's because it's usable, puts fun back into computing and you want it to make it to more desktops. I'd say yes any day.
      • You don't want to play media with DRM in it, right? Stop playing DVDs then. And don't install any media players that are capable of playing DVDs.

      • DRM subverted by kernel (Score:4, Insightful)

        by caveman ( 7893 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @10:40AM (#5039625)
        DRM or not, any application has to talk to the hardware at some level. Unless microsoft ship binary only sound/video drivers that can't be hacked to write video/audio data out through network or unix domain sockets, or /proc devices, then anyone can access protected content digitally, before it gets to the output device.

        We already know that the SB Audigy turns off it's digital outputs when playing DRM-enabled content under windows. I doubt very much that open source drivers would bother to implement such a feature.

        If Microsoft do ship binary only sound/video drivers, they won't work for long, as the kernel interfaces will probably change, again. Besides, there are just too many cards out there. By careful manipulation of the VM subsystem, all driver I/O can be redirected in interesting ways anyway.

        Question is then, does this make the linux kernel a 'circumvention device' in the context of the DMCA? Perhaps this is the goal?
        • DRM or not, any application has to talk to the hardware at some level. Unless microsoft ship binary only sound/video drivers that can't be hacked to write video/audio data out through network or unix domain sockets, or /proc devices, then anyone can access protected content digitally, before it gets to the output device.

          They have done. It first appeared in XP, and is called Secure Audio Path. The data passes encrypted into the kernel, where it's decrypted before being passed to the drivers. That kind of thing is hard to work around easily, one solution being to host Windows inside VMware and use that (but how many people can really be bothered? it'd have to be damn compelling content).

    • Never. It's spyware. (Score:4, Informative)

      by giel ( 554962 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:42AM (#5039291) Journal

      WMP uses the web to retrieve information on songs/DVD's you play (...) and cookies are stored telling third parties which DVD's you watch, very usefull for directmarketing, spamming and etc. You didn't know? You didn't ask - I guess.

      It's about time, M$ tells it's users what their fucking OS is doing!

      A reference to an article I found on /. a few days ago. microsoft.htm [hevanet.com]

      • I've got one word for you: Firewall.

        • You are totally right about that. Might help, note however that WMP uses HTTP to retrieve the information.

          Also there are lots of people which do not have a clue on how to secure their machines, and a growing number of Linux (cheap & easy to use distro's; RH, SuSE) users belongs to that group. It's just too easy to react in a way of 'Their fault, RTFM stoopid.', as wrong as 'They should do more workouts!'...

        • Re:Never. It's spyware. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Blkdeath ( 530393 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @10:32AM (#5039580) Homepage
          I've got one word for you: Firewall.

          Sure thing - firewall all ports incoming and outgoing. Selectively decide which traffic can and can't leave your network to the Big Bad Internet. If you're not sure, walk upstairs and ask the people at each of the computers stationed there "Did you mean to send a 384 byte UDP packet to 257.54.27.23:37654 from port 36363?" (IP address changed to protect the innocent)

          Then run proxies on all outgoing services, like HTTP, SMTP, POP3, IMAP, SSH, Telnet, FTP, and anything else you might want leaving your network so you can log all requests that leave and trace sources and destinations.

          While you're at it, buy yourself some mega storage so that you can dump TCP and UDP data streams to disk for future analysis.

          At some point during all of this, I'm sure you'll find some time to, I don't know, use your computers, perhaps have a life - maybe even gainful employment.

          The long and short of it is, it's just not worth it. There's such thing as best-effort, yes, but the there's the level of ridiculousness that dictates one should attempt to catch all attempts by software makers to spy on them. Piggy-backed HTTP requests, cookies, or any number of other tens of thousands of methods are available to software engineers to get seemingly innocuous packets out of your network and into their databases.

      • Re:Never. It's spyware. (Score:5, Informative)

        by fireduck ( 197000 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @10:23AM (#5039522)
        except with Media Player 9, MS actually seems to be taking a higher road than with other products. I installed it over the weekend and was rather surprised to find that at the end of the install process, a window popping up, asking whether I wanted to allow WMP to go online to retrieve track listings for cds, licenses, complete info for my mp3s, etc. Don't recall all the options, but it seems that with this product, a concious effort was made to easily allow the user to opt out of most (if not all) spyware type activities.
      • When you install it, it asks you about privacy settings. After setting them you can change them again at a later date, so it's only "spyware" if you set it to be.

        Come back when you have a clue.

        • Re:Never. It's spyware. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @01:10PM (#5040626)
          "When you install it, it asks you about privacy settings. After setting them you can change them again at a later date, so it's only "spyware" if you set it to be."

          No, sorry, I don't believe that. I know they're stealing my information of what DVD's I watch so they can maintain their monopoly. Of course, I can't verify that claim or even give you a good reason as to how that information would possibly be useful, but it doesn't matter since we all know MS is evil anyway, right?

          There, I've made an unverifiable claim about MS, mod me as insightful.

      • Stick to the facts. (Score:4, Informative)

        by tshak ( 173364 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @12:43PM (#5040450) Homepage
        WMP9 disables ALL internet communication by DEFAULT, and prompts you with multiple options regarding the ANONYMOUS data that they can use for marketing if that's your cup of tea.

  • Depends... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by StarTux ( 230379 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:11AM (#5039112) Journal
    Depends on the licensing and whether it invades your privacy too much.

    I'm not going to preclude MSFT just becuase they are MSFT, but would preclude depending on a variety of issues (like the ones mentioned).

    StarTux

    • Re:Depends... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Unfortunately MSFT know that most Linux users will preclude them just because they are MSFT and therefore this will remain just a rumor. Unless their entire strategy changes from that of a platform company to an applications company they have no reason to port it. File this one with the rumors of MacOS on x86, and Duke Nukem Forever being released ever.

      (Those who give away their money for useless products are no better than fools - fuck 'em, I'll take their money if they want my garbage.)

    • Right ... (Score:4, Funny)

      by twitter ( 104583 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @07:18PM (#5043458) Homepage Journal
      I can see the rpm now.

      $ rpm -i MSWMP.RPM

      You must be root to install Microsoft Digital Rights Management

      $ su

      $ rpm -i MSWMP.RPM

      contacting Microsoft, please fill out the registration form.

      ............ done.

      C:\ ls /

      program is not authenticated.

      Works perfect, Bill Gates is root. Next.

  • Xine! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by essdodson ( 466448 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:11AM (#5039114) Homepage
    After reading about the DeCSS case I finally decided to sit down and devote some time to getting DVD playback on my FreeBSD system. Xine seems to work pretty well. I'd prefer seing Xine and mplayer move forward rather than have WMP.
    • I've been using Xine forever, and 0.9.13 works incredibly well. I tried out 1.0-beta2 + 0.9.17 last night, and every time I try to open the GUI configuration tool, it crashes my X server. Guess it still needs some work, but that's probably why it's beta.
    • Hmmm...Xine seems only to support unencrypted DVDs, though. Personally I use Ogle for DVD playback, which uses libdvdcss to read CSS-encrypted DVDs. IIRC, there was some muttering on Xine's website about a plugin for Xine to play CSS-encrypted DVDs but I couldn't find it. :(

      • Re:Xine! (Score:3, Informative)

        by essdodson ( 466448 )
        I installed libdvdcss as well as xine-dvdnav-plugin and all was fine, all be it a bit choppy on my lowly Celeron 400.

  • Double Edged Sword? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by OutRigged ( 573843 ) <rage@outCOUGARrigged.com minus cat> on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:11AM (#5039115) Homepage
    Sounds like a double edged sword to me.. On one hand, we get support for all of Microsoft's formats, in a native client. On the other, it furthers Microsoft's reach with thier DRM technologies.
  • If Microsoft's DRM makes more headway, those of us who enjoy media will be begging for them to make a linux client. Of course, that is not exactly likely.

  • mPlayer (Score:4, Informative)

    by warmcat ( 3545 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:13AM (#5039121)
    Mplayer [mplayerhq.hu] is the man.


    Microsoft not required.

  • No (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JanneM ( 7445 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:14AM (#5039125) Homepage
    mplayer actually supports more video formats that mediaplayer; I see no reason for me to use anything else. If only mplayer could get a definitive release and become a bit easier to install...

  • why not? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by John_Renne ( 176151 )
    I've switched to linux on the desktop some time ago and the only thing annoying me once and a while is the amount of WMP-streams (dutch radio for example) out there. If there's a way to view / listen to them I would consider it. After all I've used proprietary software in the past, I'm still using it sometimes and I don't want to beat RMS in GNU-evangelism ;-)

  • Why? (Score:4, Informative)

    by tourettes ( 97445 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:14AM (#5039130)
    Other open source alternatives have been paving away for multimedia in linux. Such projects like MPlayer and Xine make it easy to play almost any type of format especially with MPlayer's recent addition of Quicktime codecs as well as Windows Media 9 format. In addition to these, Xine and MPlayer also can support dvd playback, so moving from such an established open source software solutions to Windows Media Player just doesn't seem to be a logical move on the Linux platform. Especially since both projects (among many more I am sure, ogle comes to mind) have been putting there hearts into their releases and deserve the focus and attention of the community.

    This may enter the Linux platform, some people will boo, some people will cheer, but the bottom line is that the hype will die down as quickly as it did when Real Player came to Unix.

    • Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by delta407 ( 518868 ) <slashdot@nosPAm.lerfjhax.com> on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:49AM (#5039332) Homepage
      but the bottom line is that the hype will die down as quickly as it did when Real Player came to Unix.
      Perhaps, but it's still a huge thing.

      Let's see here: Redmond giant creates a native client for their media formats to run on a competing operating system. If they release a Linux client, Microsoft will be acknowledging the sizable (and growing) user base of Linux and would show by their actions that ignoring the Linux crowd would be harmful to their business. That would be the story, not that Linux users can get WMP9 audio/video (which, BTW, is already possible [sourceforge.net]).
  • It's interesting how so many Linux users complain about how horrible Microsoft products are, yet at the same time embrace things like Wine, Crossover and now potential ports of MS products (and they also like to have Windows-ish desktops, ala GNOME and KDE). I read this article yesterday and it seemed to me that it was more like MS was willing to license the technology they use in WMP9 to third parties to make the software, not that they were directly porting the software themselves.

    Nothing good can come of this. I for one don't want to see a Microsoft product on Linux.

    • It's the GUI. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Sheetrock ( 152993 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:25AM (#5039192) Homepage Journal
      I might be able to offer some perspective on this.

      Users don't want to have to learn the same thing eight or nine times. Windows doesn't do a whole lot that is fantastic, IMHO, but their interface offers the best compromise between range of operation and ease of use. On Linux, we've tilted the dial towards range of operation (well, except for Quicktime video...), but there's still the issues of compatibility and ease of use that have been largely disregarded.

      The average user has an index of approximately 27 different motions that can be easily recalled. People generally start at the bottom of a surface such as the page of a book or the screen on their computer when they first look at it, but if they're going to be with it a while they begin looking at the top (when they turn the page or open an application). This is the type of research that you can see in Windows -- Start bar on bottom, menu options on top of the application.

      So maybe duplication isn't such a bad thing... after all, even they just took the best parts from the innovators of the GUI (Apple) and improved on the rest.

      • That said, there is a wide gulf of "motions" between making the Linux interface more consistant and simply throwing in the towel and allowing a proprietary product to wiggle its way into our everyday lives.

      • Re:It's the GUI. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by David Gerard ( 12369 ) <slashdot AT davidgerard DOT co DOT uk> on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:37AM (#5039264) Homepage
        I would question this. I recently put a Win98 user in front of my FreeBSD box, with KDE and Mozilla set up for them. They had no problems whatsoever.

        This person has the technical clue and geek thinking abilities of a small piece of cheese, and they did just fine - Mozilla, KsIRC, KDE Patience (Freecell!), MP3 playing, KWord for editing their .DOC resume ...

        I realise I'm working from a sample of one here, but IMO, KDE 3 is ready for prime time. The Unix usability problem is solved. The hard part now is greater application integration, easy hardware support and so on.

    • Do a little simple thinking. Wine is GOOD because there are some apps that are indispensible to people that ONLY come in windoze versions (games, tax software, etc). They can avoid the lockin and overbearing control demanded by Gates while still using their software. As for look-alike GUIs...duh. First, there are only so many ways to make a GUI system on present systems. It would be quite hard to come up with a great new way of doing things when this aspect of computing is sooo mature. More importantly, people are used to a certain windowing environment. Radical change from that makes it less likely that people would switch - they don't want to have to learn whole new ways of doing things, they just want to get on and get going on "important" stuff right ASAP.


      Tell me, do you honestly think that the Apple interface (which is the ultimate originator for the Windoze copy/interface) is really different than that of windoze? Arethere ANY widely used GUIs that are substantially different than that used by windoze? They are ALL very similar to the extent that with a little futzing, many people could get things going on these "alien" wm/guis. They are not copying windoze, rather they are all (M$ including) following a generally accepted GUI paradigm (ultimately copied from Apple who based theirs on the ideas of Xerox). Come up with a better GUI yourself that doesn't require a massive learning curve and be a hero. Not up to it? Of course you aren't.

    • It's interesting how so many Linux users complain about how horrible Microsoft products are

      Well, the complaints are usually targetted at specific apps, usually Windows. Microsoft make some truly great software, especially in the games dept (though it's arguable whether this is Microsoft producing them or not). I never cared much for Media Player, but a few of my friends prefer it to Winamp.

      Wine is a great thing, critical for desktop success even. There are just way too many apps for Windows that don't have any Linux equivalent. I was talking last night to a guy on IRC who needed CATIA, an engineering app. Needs Windows. Unfortunately, it doesn't work on raw WineHQ (it might have worked had he used CrossOver...), but it is a good example.

      (and they also like to have Windows-ish desktops, ala GNOME and KDE)

      Well, the GNOME configuration I have isn't all that much like Windows, but it does have similarities. Like I said, Microsoft make some good stuff. There are good ideas in the Windows GUI, which KDE and GNOME rightfully nicked.

      Nothing good can come of this. I for one don't want to see a Microsoft product on Linux.

      I'd be OK with that if they weren't trying to use it to leverage their own proprietary platforms. If Microsoft started releasing games for linux, I might buy them. I might not of course, you could say you shouldn't by any products from MS ever again because of principle. But, I wouldn't have anything against it. The problem is that they only rarely release something that isn't tied to, or doesn't try and tie the users to their own platforms, usually Windows.

  • Question again, is why? I have Xine working great. It plays DVDs (LibDVDread,LibDVDNav,LibDVDcss) and I have AC3 Passthrough on my SBLive 5.1 to a DTT3500 DTS Dolby Digital Surround Sound System. It took a bit to get everything compile together but it works great. Got a link on my site for a simple how-to with a screen shot. http://www.linuxlogin.com/linux/emu10k1.php [linuxlogin.com] And yes, Xine will play AVIs too, about the only thing I think we are really missing is Quick time.

  • There are solutions already (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rusty spoon ( 564695 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:17AM (#5039148) Homepage
    For playing media there are already many solutions for all intersting platforms, and the only reason for using WMP would be for the DRM stuff...which no-one honestly likes.

    I think it's a Good Thing regardless of whether people use WMP simply because it demonstrates MSFT's acceptance of a widening world where they are currently looked down on.

    I use Intervideo's stuff mostly and only use alternatives eitehr by accidental association or when I'm forced into it.

    Personally, I'd avoid anything that restricted my use of media I own. I don't care who produces it.

  • The real problem is not the availability... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by altgrr ( 593057 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:17AM (#5039150)
    ...it's the fact that these are controlled standards. The internet is a free place, and standards should be as free as possible. MS may be releasing WMP 9 such that we'll see a client on Linux, but that doesn't mean that this is a good thing.

    What we'll see is a proliferation of WMP DRM through our systems, as well as Real and QuickTime. What we really need is a single open standard that can be played back on anything without proprietary software. If it's secure, so much the better for the content creators - but I don't see why they can't settle for a simple copyright at the end, like they do for their web pages.

  • I don't think so (Score:2, Insightful)

    by nagora ( 177841 )
    Why would I want to help hand MS a monopoly on deciding who's allowed to listen to music?

    TWW

    • I agree. If M$ releases WMP for Linux, that shows just how desperate they are to fsck us with their DRM badware. Then again, porting WMP to Linux might trigger a direct assault on their DRM crap, as the heavy-duty hackers would have the "home field advantage".
  • Mplayer works just fine, without Microsoft ... http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/

    • ...works markedly better than the slightly older one that came with SuSE 8.1. It plays divx files and VCDs at least as well as WMP on Windows 98 and better than WMP on NT.

      MEK

    • Re:No (Score:2)

      by hughk ( 248126 )
      Mplayer works just fine, without Microsoft

      Not fine, well 'Fullscreen' mode has some weirdness asscoiated with on the latest rc, but otherwiuse it does work well. Of corse, it can and does make use of Codecs from WMP and Quicktime when needed. The former is in a slighly grey area unless you have a dual boot system.

      For non-Microoft formats, then the codecs provided seem to work fine and I agree that the performance is very good.

  • If what is being reported is indeed true then this is rather telling about Microsoft and how they see things playing out in the future. *If* they thought that they could keep %95+ market share on the desktop and achieve high penetration on the CE/PocketPC side of things they could continue to snub anything that wasn't their own. I assume they've come to the conclusion that this set of circumstances will not come to pass. Maybe when shopping around the technology potential clients told them they weren't interested if it was locked into to MS only clients.

  • This would have been nice last year... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Idimmu Xul ( 204345 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:19AM (#5039164) Homepage Journal

    But I'm flying with GStreamer [gstreamer.net] atm and couldnt be happier. Also Xine [xinehq.de] and MPlayer [mplayerhq.hu] are top quality too. Especially when used on conjunction with interfaces like Totem [hadess.net], I really couldnt ask for much more! DVD playback is also coming on strong!

    Off the top of my head I cant think of anything (apart from DRM) that WMPlayer can do that any of the above can't do anyway? [conspiracy]Maybe that's the point.. this is a cunning plan to get DRM onto Linux :)[/conspiracy] Anyway, by the time it's available the other Linux media players will have either caught up or be better I expect.

    2003 will be the year for linux \o/

  • PDF has been pretty well accepted since Adobe has been good at creating readers for all (reasonable) platforms. If WMP becomes the same thing, I wouldn't mind TOO much, except for the fact that I would have to run a hardened kernel because of MS security track record.

  • Windows Media Player under Mac OS X (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:25AM (#5039194)
    Hey it is wishful thinking that WMP for Linux would solve many of your media playing wishes. However, from my experience useing WMP (current) for Mac OS X (10.2) not all media is playable. Nor does the WMP work nicely with browsers other than IE.

    In one word MS doesn't fully support WMP on any platform other than Windows. I must admit some of the problems are due to third party hack up solutions. (read tuning in to your fav air wave station over the internet) Maybe MS would provide some plug-in architecture to improve its media playing abilities.
  • I wouldn't recommend linux developers touch this with a 10 foot pole. It just legitimizes the use of proprietary file formats, and (gasp) digital rights management.

    And who can forget folks, who has Microsoft managed to NOT screw. There are so many ways they can twist this dagger once it's in our back I need to see a chiropractor just thinking about it,

  • Hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 13Echo ( 209846 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:27AM (#5039209) Homepage Journal
    I'll stick to MPlayer. At least it doesn't send off your download statistics and crap. Plus, it already supports beta WM9 codecs anyways.

  • NIMBY (Score:5, Insightful)

    by E-Rock-23 ( 470500 ) <lostprophytNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:28AM (#5039211) Homepage Journal
    Yep, NIMBY. Not In My Back Yard. The whole reason I use Linux at all is to get away from The Machine. I don't want M$ branded crap bundled in with the next distro I pick up.

    I'm gonna venture a guess here, and I'll probably get modded down to the 10th level of hell for it, but here goes. My guess is that, since M$ knows it can't directly attack Linux and the GPL, it figures it'll go along with it, then tear it apart from within. Get inside the game, then start picking it apart. Since they'll more than likely want the source of their apps closed, we won't really know what's going on with it while it's running.

    If the current Media Player is any suggestion, it won't be good. Media Player theives all file associations, making you go back in and change them back to the way you had them before you installed it. And who knows to what extent this DRM crap will get to. Would they go so far as to disable anything they don't find "trustworthy" in the Palladium model? Knocking out XMMS, MPTV, and locating and disabling the open OGG format's plugins?

    The real problem lies in the obvious. Noone but M$ knows. And you know what they say, Knowledge is Power. Right now, M$ is holding alot (but not all) of the cards. Honsestly, if this gets any worse, I'm more than willing to move outside of the country I love, just to get away from Micro$oft. Extreme, yes. But I enjoy my personal rights and freedoms too much to have them yanked away by the likes of M$, the RIAA and the MPAA...

  • WMP on linux -- I'll believe it when I see it. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ACK!! ( 10229 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:33AM (#5039240) Journal
    Listen this might be good. If WMP comes to linux then perhaps IE might follow and then Outlook Express. Think it is crazy? All the apps mentioned have Solaris versions so why not?

    Sure, I won't use them. But the corporate folks will love it.

    Also, a lot of folks scream about how hard it is to set up some of the latest greatest video/audio apps but with apt and apt for rpm I have had an easy time of it. The only problem is that when you want the newest latest greatest features like Sorennson support in mplayer.

    I am just waiting for a complete quicktime Sorrenson solution. Either it needs work or my setup is weird because it did not work for me. It has not been out that long so no worries. I will probably get a version working of this early code two days before the apt for rpm folks put rpms for it on freshrpms.

    Anyway, I would not use WMP or Outlook Express in Linux but there are plenty of corporate adopters that would. Not only that, I have to admit I would use IE every day in Linux, for about five minutes. Why? The corporate timesheet app online works only on IE. :->

  • Windows Media Player 9 could quite possibly be the most critically evaluated piece of software every to hit linux. In that case it will be a hit for sure, just as long as it does what it is supposed to.
  • WMA is a crappy format with horrible DRM in it, if no one uses it, it won't catch on... pure and simple.

  • The only legs that Linux has to stand on is technological quality and price. It just so happens that Windows media has the same two advantages of MPEG-4. The licensing is about half the price the sound quality is the best I have ever heard hands down, and the compression is amazing. Before you go spouting off crap about standards compliance, just remember that Windows is as much of a standard as MPEG.
    • The engineer definition of standard is different from the business/joe user idea of standard. To an engineer, a standard specifies everything that is needed to implement the widget in question. To business/joe user, standard just means "what everybody uses". Well, 12 years ago the standard in office documents by that definition was WordPerfect. Reading those documents could be difficult since there wasn't an engineer's standard to go along with the vernacular standard. It can be reverse engineered but the devil is in the details. Anything can happen and it is possible that Office could become what WordPerfect is today. Since there is no engineer's standard for Office, that data will decay faster than newsprint in a compost heap.

      To us, it just isn't a standard unless we can implement it. The fact that enough clueless people use it to make it a defacto standard of sorts is absolutely of no help when trying to archive data or communicate with someone.

      Needless to say, we also don't like it when someone takes an engineer's standard like an RFC and Embrace 'n' Extends it into a hairball non-engineer's standard. Defacto standards shift like quicksand. There is a reason why say weights and measures are defined precisely and reproducibly. You can never tell when you may implement them on your own and same applies to data interchange and communication.

  • It's weird (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dnaumov ( 453672 )
    It's weird and kind of funny...

    People "wonder" why they would want to use a Microsoft-made video player and claim that MPlayer and Xine are the best thing since sliced bread. The truth is, they are not. They are just slowly becoming "OK" in my book, but nothing exceptional.

    Where are the good GUIs for the video players (yes, GUIs, not skins) ?
    Where is search-that-does-not-suck support for Real Media ?
    Where is high quality Real Media playback ?
    Where is high quality Quicktime playback ?
    Where is .ASF/.WMV/QT streaming support ?

    The list can go on and on...

    And no, don't give me the standard "but they use evil proprietary codecs we have to re-engineer" crap, because Joe Average is not going to care. Joe Average wants stuff that "just works". And MPlayer and Xine, while making good progress, still don't.

    • Re:It's weird (Score:4, Informative)

      by tempest303 ( 259600 ) <jensknutson@@@yahoo...com> on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @11:54AM (#5040119) Homepage
      You make some great points, but fortunately there are some answers coming to your questions.

      Where are the good GUIs for the video players (yes, GUIs, not skins) ?

      Nice that you made the distinction. :)

      For a totally sweet Xine GUI, check out Totem! [hadess.net] It's a really slick, super-easy to use GNOME 2 app for video and DVD. Good stuff, very nice attention to usability.

      Where is high quality Real Media playback ?

      Real Player 8 works fine on my box! Plus, with Helix going all OSS/Hippy on us, we'll have a (mostly) OSS and completely legal Real Player for Linux this year.

      Where is high quality Quicktime playback ?

      Shoved up Apple's ass... stupid, politicking bastards.... *mutter*

      But really... Totem can do Quicktime, if you get the proper codecs installed for Xine.

      Where is .ASF/.WMV/QT streaming support ?

      Still not the greatest solution, but Crossover Office and Crossover Plugin [codeweavers.com] do a great job of running WMP and QT right on your desktop.

      Yeah, these aren't perfect, but there's obviously some serious progress being made in these directions.
  • I think there is one reason why Microsoft might make it possible to have an Open Source client program that can read .WMA, .WMV and .ASX files--it will put Real Networks and Apple at a serious competitive disadvantage.

    It's just like the fact that Microsoft has no qualms about Ximian's Mono project to create the Open Source equivalent of a .NET server--in one fell swoop the Sun-led Liberty Alliance project has been kiboshed because Windows clients and Linux clients can use more or less the same .NET services.

  • Not me... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sfe_software ( 220870 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:55AM (#5039358) Homepage
    Would anyone want to use MS WMP in Linux?

    I certainly would not.

    Years ago, I knew people who wanted very badly for Microsoft to release an IE for Linux, because at the time we had no decent browsers. At the time, even I considered IE to be superior.

    But, on my Linux boxes, I gave it time, and sure enough we have several better-than-IE browsers (Mozilla, Konqueror, Opera, etc).

    The same can be said about MS Office. We now have a few alternatives (though I *hate* that Open/StarOffice tries to mimic MS Office down to the last detail...)

    Likewise, MPlayer for Linux is coming along quite nicely. Unlike WMP on my Windows box, MPlayer consistantly plays 98% of the video files I run across, where WMP likes to suddenly stop working for various reasons, or start refusing to play certain types of files (currently Divx 4 won't play, and MP3 audio is severely clipped).

    Plus, I don't consider WMP to be a one-stop end-all solution even on Windows. For QuickTime I have to use Apple's player. Many Divx files need to be played in a Divx-specific application (I know WMP is *supposed* to work with various CODECS but in practice it gives meaningless error messages).

    MPlayer on Linux, OTOH, is pretty good about playing the majority of file formats I wind up with. This is why my "media box" runs Linux/MPlayer (with no X; just using the vesa output gives nice results). At the moment, QuickTime with "compressed headers" won't play. All other files I have (300+ video files, various sources) play back nicely.

    I personally don't want Microsoft invading my non-MS systems. I use Windows a lot, sure, but the oddities in IE/WMP/Office/etc are part of the reason I use Linux on other systems - the systems where I won't put up with odd, random behavior from software, like my media box.

    And I won't even get started on the idea of having DRM on my Linux boxes...

  • Yes, we will use it... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by valentyn ( 248783 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:56AM (#5039370) Homepage
    ... and just when everyone and their dog has switched - the cock will probably not crow today until you have all denied three times to ever start using WMP - then Microsoft will suddenly dump WMP support for Linux - or even better, WMP will cost money, as "the free days are over and Linux users should know that software costs money". Embrace and extend this is called. Been there, done that.

  • Say what you will... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ryanvm ( 247662 )
    Say what you will about Microsoft, but I've been using the WMP9 RC for the last two weeks and I've been impressed. It's more bloated than WinAmp (what did you expect?), but it's got some pretty compelling features.

    First, the cons:
    • It's bloated
    • It doesn't rip to MP3 or Vorbis
    • The visualizations suck
    • It tries to coerce you into ripping your music as "protected" WMA files. (Whew! Thank you for protecting my music Microsoft.)

    Now, the pros:
    • Built in DSP enhancements that actually sound decent. No downloading trialware DSP enhancers.
    • Minimize to Quick Launch. When you minimize it, instead of getting just a button on the taskbar you get a mini control panel. Slick.
    • Song rating. You can rate each song (1 to 5 stars) as it plays and and eventually get 'Top 10' lists or whatever.
    • Built-in playlists. You can select "Songs I listen to at night", "Songs I haven't heard lately.", "4 and 5 star songs", etc.
    • Automatic ID3 tag updating
    At this point, my main grudge against WMP9 is that it won't rip to MP3 or Vorbis. Of course, I use CDEx for that anyway, so it doesn't really matter. I do know that I've tried WinAmp 3 on two seperate occasions and as far as I'm concerned WMP9 blows it away. So yes, I would be interested in a Linux version.

  • why? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @09:59AM (#5039383) Homepage Journal
    Why exactly would I want a proprietary, closed-source spyware application when I have free software mplayer which plays everything from .mp3 to quicktime and can double not only as a DVD player but also as an encoder ?

    That's like running IE when you can run Mozilla, isn't it?

  • Feel free to mod me down but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pavos ( 586999 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @10:03AM (#5039403)
    ... are we that desperate for "world domination" that we want WMP ported to linux? If you care so much about Microsoft applications, why bother switching to linux in the first place? At least for me, the whole point behind using linux is the freedom that comes with the GPL/BSD licenses and that warm, friendly atmosphere between developers and users in the mailing lists. From that viewpoint, whatever Microsoft-related is just irrelevant.
  • I don't use WMP under Windows - why would I want it cluttering up my linux box? I suspect the sort of people that actually like MS office would jump at the chance to run WMP under linux. I don't trust my audio and video files to a company which can't make a decent web browser, email client, word processor, or presentation program, and actively attacks those who can.

    I know I'm in the minority here, but I've used everything from word95 to word2000, and it wasn't until OpenOffice came along that I abandoned WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS.

  • Microsoft as a Software Vendor (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sfe_software ( 220870 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @10:09AM (#5039434) Homepage
    An interesting thought occurrs: if Microsoft got out of the business of pushing their Operating System (not necessarily stopping production, just playing nice), and got more into the applications-development side of things, what would we then think about Microsoft?

    For example, they release Linux, Solaris and *BSD versions of Office, WMP, IE, and other software, all fully functional and roughly equal to (say) the Mac versions. Likewise, they no longer resort to monopolistic tactics to push their OS monopoly, realizing that they can do better selling applications, and not worrying about which OS you use. Perhaps they even focus more on security in their software products (ignoring the OS for now).

    Would most of us reconsider how we think of Microsoft? If they slowly did away with the things we tend to hate the most, and focused on quality software, would they then be just another vendor (albeit extremely huge)?

    I posted earlier answering "Not me" on the WMP issue, but it really isn't too late for Microsoft to wisen up. I believe they make more money from Office sales than OS sales, but the OS monopoly helped with that. Perhaps they realize they are losing/will lose the OS monopoly, and need to focus on quality cross-platform applications to stay in business. Maybe the free-as-in-beer WMP is a first step toward this, or a test project, or...

    Or maybe I didn't get enough sleep and am still dreaming... Just random thoughts spewing out here. Resume normal discussion at this time ;p

  • no use for it and it broke my Win2K system. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Artifex ( 18308 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @10:27AM (#5039544) Journal
    We've got MPlayer, after all.

    Besides, when I installed WiMP 9, it broke some of my codecs, so I can't play some DVD-compliant MPG files I was arranging for an upcoming DVD burn. Since I can't even uninstall WiMP 9, I find that very tacky, indeed, because now I need to reinstall the OS on that machine.

    (but wait! I can't, yet! [slashdot.org])

  • The Real REAL problem (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lysol ( 11150 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @10:29AM (#5039555)
    is not whether you will use WM9, but whether or not the content providers use will it? And that answer, unfortunately, is yes, the content providers will be swayed by the monopoly and use the largest installed base media player. In fact, they already are.

    Just to see where these things were going, last weekend I watched a few movies from movielink and cinema(something) and they had a 'few' requirements:
    1. Windows
    2. Either Real or WM

    Regardless if we choose to use either of those, the content providers definitely will not, so we'll all be relegated to watching Quicktime trailers and definitely not DRM stuff, which both Movielink and the Cinema(something) site had.

    Personally, I'd much rather log onto a site and watch a movie that way instead of going to the video store. And either of the sites will let you download the movie and watch it. I think they both last for 24hrs.

    One thing about the 'service' tho that I thought sucked was that I paid $10 for a month of 'premium' access, but all the new movies were 'pay-per-view' which has an additional $3.95. That was pretty inconvenient. Actually kinda pissed me off. In that case, I'm better off going to the video store and freeing up my bandwidth.

    Anyway, back to the players; remember they're just the client and are the keys to the really bigger things: the content on the back end. Unfortunately, 95% of the computing world runs Windoze and their path of least resistance, monopoly pushed apps. These are always gonna be the people that the content providers will cater to. So I don't know what there is to do about that since it won't matter to the providers one bit if the Linux folks can't watch their movies.

    Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing the Real Helix stuff or even Quicktime pick up some steam. Apple has stated that they think that DRM as it exists for content now is not the way to go. So maybe they can use our support too.

    One other note, the only way I see the content providers backing away from WM9 is if it is found as insecure as IE. This could persuade them to go for something else. But then again, once you have a big catalog of digital flix that you have to re-encode for another platform, that decision to just ship, even in the wake of security concerns, seems highly unlikely. Or maybe not..

  • why not just give Mplayer your love? (Score:5, Informative)

    by GweeDo ( 127172 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @10:46AM (#5039665) Homepage
    Head on over to mplayerhq.hu [mplayerhq.hu] and get the latest Release Candidate. I am running the CVS version and watch all the quicktime, windows media player 8 and 9, MPEG 4, DivX, ect ect that I could possibly want to.



    Here is the list of codecs their website has listed:

    # The most important video codecs: MPEG1 (VCD) and MPEG2 (SVCD/DVD/DVB) video
    # MPEG4, DivX ;-), OpenDivX (DivX4), DivX 5.02, XviD and other MPEG4 variants
    # Windows Media Video v7 (WMV1), v8 (WMV2) and v9 (WMV3) used in .wmv files
    # RealVideo 1.0, 2.0 (G2), 3.0 (RP8), 4.0 (RP9)
    # Sorenson v1/v3 (SVQ1/SVQ3), Cinepak, RPZA and other common QuickTime codecs
    # Intel Indeo codecs (3.x,4.1,5.0)
    # VIVO v1, v2
    # MJPEG variants, HuffYUV, ZLIB/MSZH, ASV2 and other capture/hardware formats
    # FLI, RoQ and other old/rare animation formats

    # The most important audio codecs: MPEG layer 1, 2 and 3 (MP3) audio
    # AC3/A52 (dolby digital) audio (software or SP/DIF)
    # WMA (DivX Audio) v1, v2 (native codec)
    # WMA 9 (WMAv3), Voxware audio, ACELP.net etc (using x86 DLLs)
    # RealAudio: COOK, SIPRO, ATRAC3, DNET (using RP's plugins)
    # QuickTime: Qclp, Q-Design QDMC/QDM2, MACE 3/6 (using QT's DLLs)
    # Ogg Vorbis audio codec
    # VIVO audio (g723, Vivo Siren) using x86 DLL
    # alaw/ulaw, (ms)gsm, pcm, *adpcm and other simple old audio formats

    Now...why would you want to run WMP9 when it doesn't support any where near that many codecs? Oh...you want more you say? What about these output options:
    # General: x11:X11 with SHM extension
    # xv:X11 using overlays with the Xvideo extension (hardware YUV & scaling)
    # gl:OpenGL renderer
    # gl2:Alternative OpenGL renderer (with multiple textures)
    # dga:X11 DGA extension (both v1.0 and v2.0)
    # fbdev:Output to general framebuffers
    # svga:Output to SVGAlib
    # sdl:SDL >= v1.1.7 driver (supports software scaling, and versions >=1.1.8 even support Xvideo, thus hardware rendering)
    # ggi:similar to SDL
    # aalib:Textmode rendering
    # vesa:display through the VESA BIOS (also needed for Radeon TV-out)
    # directfb:DirectFB support

    # Card specific: vidix:VIDeo Interface for *niX
    # xvidix:VIDIX in X window
    # mga:Matrox G200/G400 hardware YUV overlay via the mga_vid device
    # xmga:Matrox G200/G400 overlay (mga_vid) in X11 window (Xv emulation on X 3.3.x !)
    # syncfb:Matrox G400 YUV support on framebuffer (not tested, maybe broken)
    # 3dfx:Voodoo 3/Banshee hardware YUV support (/dev/3dfx) (not yet tested, maybe broken)
    # tdfxfb:Voodoo 3/Banshee hardware YUV support on tdfx framebuffer (works!)

    # Special: png:PNG files output (use -z switch to set compression)
    # jpeg:JPEG files output
    # gif89a:Animated GIF files output
    # yuv4mpeg:yuv4mpeg output for mjpegtools
    # pgm:PGM files output (for testing purposes)
    # md5:MD5sum output (for mpeg conformance tests)
    # null:Null output (for speed tests/benchmarking)

    I love Mplayer...it loves you...why use something from MS when you don't have to? ...goes off to watch more Quicktimes of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker...

  • Quality of CODECs? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by swb ( 14022 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @11:28AM (#5039935)
    We just had a vendor in here the other day installing a system a client wants us to use for sharing/previewing TV spots. They are switching their preferred formats to WM9 and MPEG2. MPEG2 is supported because of its use as a broadcast format.

    The engineer who did the equipment installation said that WM9 is preferred because of its extremely high quality at low bitrates and the bonus of ubiquitous support in Windows environments.

    While they still support (and will support) Quicktime, it is no longer their preferred format.

    I thought this was rather surprising, as I was unaware of "pro" tools for WM9 encoding or the availability of the codecs out outside of a Windows environment. But clearly for this application they felt that it was at the very least a superior codec.

  • No (Score:3, Insightful)

    by anthony_dipierro ( 543308 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @02:06PM (#5041102) Journal

    I wouldn't want to use WMP in Linux. The whole point of using Linux in my opinion is to extricate myself from proprietary systems. Anyone who makes media in only WMP format obviously is not sympathetic to that goal. Perhaps I'm too weak to resist it once in a while, and I'll have to boot into Windows to view a trailer or to play a game, but I want to make that explicit. This is a compromise. I'm willing to do it but I'm trying to fix it.

  • A little OT (Score:3, Informative)

    by vex24 ( 126288 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @02:07PM (#5041118) Homepage
    I noticed the other day that installing WMP 7.1 (which I despise for reasons that are my own), and then uninstalling it leaves behind the codecs to decode the more wacky Windows formats that WMP 6.4 can't do. Hence, once you uninstall it and go back to 6.4, you've got all the codecs you need to view movies made in silly MS formats. YMMV of course.

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