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Microsoft The Internet Technology

Microsoft Going Its Own Way On Audio/Video Specification 215

Posted by Soulskill from the you're-not-the-boss-of-me dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Several groups are currently working on specifications for plugin-free, real-time audio and video communication. The World Wide Web Consortium has one called WebRTC, rudimentary support for which is found in Chrome, Firefox, and Opera. Back in August, Microsoft announced its own specification, CU-RTC-Web, because it thought WebRTC wasn't worthwhile. W3C carried out a vote to choose between the two specs, which came out strongly in favor of WebRTC. Microsoft went ahead anyway, and it has now published a prototype for the proposed specification. 'So what's Microsoft playing at, persevering with its own spec in spite of its rejection by the WebRTC group? The company's argument is twofold. First, WebRTC simply isn't complete yet, and Microsoft believes that working on its proposal can shed light on how to solve certain problems such as handling changes in network bandwidth or keeping cellular and Wi-Fi connections open in parallel to allow easy failover from one to the other. Even if Redmond's spec isn't adopted wholesale, portions of it may still be useful. Second, the company believes that WebRTC may not be as close to real standardization as its proponents might argue.'"
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Microsoft Going Its Own Way On Audio/Video Specification

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  • Old dog (Score:2, Insightful)

    by El_Muerte_TDS ( 592157 )

    And something with learning new tricks

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by DavidClarkeHR ( 2769805 )

      And something with learning new tricks

      What? Microsoft is preserving an alternative format, even though there is competition, on a hypothetical, un-used format? This is not a bad thing.

      It becomes a bad thing when one of these three things are true:
      1: You are forced to use the lower quality format through hardware/vendor lock in
      2: You are forced to use the lower quality format because of widespread adoption
      or 3: When a company acquires the "rights" to the better format, and refuses to allow commercial use.

      I don't see any of these things happe

      • Re:Old dog (Score:5, Insightful)

        by catchblue22 ( 1004569 ) on Saturday January 19, 2013 @08:36PM (#42636257) Homepage

        I don't see any of these things happening at Microsoft, with this project, at this time. Sure, it may have happened in the past, but it's hardly a microsoft thing to do - all the big kids do it.

        It is more a matter of history. Considering what they have done in the past, I am NOT ready to trust them. They are a pernicious monopoly that is now beginning to realize that they are threatened. They are starting to act like a cornered animal, trying to pull out many of their old monopolistic tricks out of their war chest.

        • Re:Old dog (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Sponge Bath ( 413667 ) on Saturday January 19, 2013 @08:57PM (#42636355)

          They are starting to act like a cornered animal, trying to pull out many of their old monopolistic tricks out of their war chest.

          Or maybe they are developing what they believe is better technology in a time frame better suited to their needs. I guess you see what you want to see. Yes, they have a spotty past. If they neutered every project in fear of appearing anti-competetive, they would be dead in short order.

          • Re:Old dog (Score:5, Insightful)

            by amiga3D ( 567632 ) on Saturday January 19, 2013 @09:27PM (#42636469)

            I suppose you could be right. The odds are against it though. Microsoft is like the guy who has been married 10 times and cheated on every single bride. Now they are going to the altar again promising to be true this time. Want to bet on it?

            • Get a prenump then.

              I mean seriously, make them promise it will be open to all and if ever patented, an unrestricted license will be issued for commercial and private use including derivative uses (cams and other equipment) as long as it is a standard. At least for the implementation of the standard itself. Of course MS can copyright it's own products built off it.

              Actually all standards should be this way so there can't be any submarine patents or anything involved.

              • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

                by ozmanjusri ( 601766 )

                I mean seriously, make them promise it will be open to all and if ever patented, an unrestricted license will be issued for commercial and private use including derivative uses (cams and other equipment) as long as it is a standard.

                They can't.

                At heart, the difference between Microsoft's "standard" and the real one is how to support video codecs. The World Wide Web Consortium and most other stakeholders want the specification to include an open, royalty free codec. Microsoft and Apple want to be able to use any codec, including patent-encumbered ones like H264. Any standard lacking an open codec would allow vendors to restrict interoperability (eg, with free implementations whose developers can't pay the licensing fees). There are othe

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by Lennie ( 16154 )

                  You are wrong:
                  1. the video codecs haven't even been decided yet for WebRTC, it could still have H.264 on the list, they were planned for the previous IETF meeting, but I guess that will now be in March
                  2. there are no restrictions in standards like WebRTC for applications to support additional codecs. If both parties suppot the same codec they can use that.

                  • Re:Old dog (Score:5, Insightful)

                    by ozmanjusri ( 601766 ) <aussie_bob@hoMOSCOWtmail.com minus city> on Sunday January 20, 2013 @07:20AM (#42638247) Journal

                    If both parties suppot the same codec they can use that.

                    And if both parties cannot support the same codec, they cannot communicate. Hence the opportunity for vendors like Microsoft to Balkanise

                    Microsoft has stated that "a successful standard cannot be tied to individual codecs, data formats or scenarios." Instead, CU-RTC-Web will support a number of "popular media formats and codecs as well as openness to future innovation."

                    They want to preserve the ability to lock their customers into a proprietary "media format and codec". Same leopard. Same spots.

          • Re:Old dog (Score:5, Funny)

            by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 ) on Saturday January 19, 2013 @10:58PM (#42636789)

            I guess you see what you want to see. Yes, they have a spotty past.

            Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 5-10 times, and I deserve to have a gorilla throw chairs at me.

            • First, Microsoft is the Newt Gingrich of software companies... wow... nice
              Second, Why do must you call Balmer a gorilla, it insults gorillas everywhere... :D

          • WebRTC is not a finished implementation, right?
            So you are telling us that Microsoft has some good ideas to improve RTC but to do that it needs to reimplement all the protocols from scratch?

            Then they are incompetent, and you should do business with more adaptable people, just in case your needs change in time.

            I'm more for the malicious theory, myself. WebRTC is a standard not controlled by MS? what gain do they have by adopting it? None. What disadvantage? Their web related products become even more swappabl

          • The old woman lives down the road from me has a spotty past, as well. Nine kids, none of whom shares the same father. In fact, a couple of the kids aren't even sure who their fathers are. Spotty, indeed.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by DavidClarkeHR ( 2769805 )

          I don't see any of these things happening at Microsoft, with this project, at this time. Sure, it may have happened in the past, but it's hardly a microsoft thing to do - all the big kids do it.

          It is more a matter of history. Considering what they have done in the past, I am NOT ready to trust them. They are a pernicious monopoly that is now beginning to realize that they are threatened. They are starting to act like a cornered animal, trying to pull out many of their old monopolistic tricks out of their war chest.

          Pfft. Who you gonna trust instead? Sony? Apple?

          Pick your poison. They've all been abusive in their own special way, at once point or another.

          • Pfft. Who you gonna trust instead? Sony? Apple?

            Pick your poison. They've all been abusive in their own special way, at once point or another.

            I just bought a made for linux laptop. On principle. I have been a mac user, since it is based on unix. But I am moving away now. The iPad walled garden creeps me out.

            Oh, and about Microsoft. In 1987, NeXT introduced a unix workstation that in many ways wouldn't be terribly out of place today. It was based on BSD unix, and had some features that no operating system has even today, display Post Script for one. I only bring up NeXT as an example of the technology that was available in the mid 1980's (a

        • It is more a matter of history. Considering what they have done in the past, I am NOT ready to trust them.

          No need to look at the past to see what Microsoft is today, present will suffice: they're creating their own walled garden with Windows 8, and the Surface RT is (and all other tablets capable of running Windows RT) have a locked bootloader, preventing the owner from running anything but Windows RT on them. As for Metro, you're going to like it... whether yo like it or not, because almost every new PC comes preinstalled with Win 8/Metro (here in Finland it's worse than in the US; because here it is indeed

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by bazorg ( 911295 )

          They are a pernicious monopoly that is now beginning to realize that they are threatened. They are starting to act like a cornered animal, trying to pull out many of their old monopolistic tricks out of their war chest.

          Interesting this. If we consider personal computing to be revolve around of beige tower-shaped boxes and grey laptops, then yes, MS has something installed on 90%+ of devices.
          If however we consider personal computing to be made up of x% "PCs" and a growing share of mobile phones and tablets where MS is a challenger, then how can we see these new formats MS wants to push as an attempt to leverage a monopoly on the desktop rather than an attempt to improve their products in a changing personal computing mark

      • It becomes a problem when each browser has their own specification and you have to support all of them.

      • Re:Old dog (Score:5, Informative)

        by ilsaloving ( 1534307 ) on Saturday January 19, 2013 @10:21PM (#42636665)

        Or 4, they think they can get away with screwing everyone else and taking control of a potentially very lucrative market, like they did with:
        * Internet Explorer and their custom implementations of HTML/CSS
        * Their custom windows-only version of Java
        * OpenXML and their subverting an entire standards body to get it ratified as a 'Standard' just so they could go after special government contracts requiring an open format, without having to give up control of the office suite space.
        * Custom extensions to LDAP to hinder interoperability with Active Directory.
        * Countless other things that anyone could find doing a few searches of Microsoft's history.

        There's a reason Microsoft's catch phrase is "Embrace. Extend. Extinguish." and it's sad that, like an abused spouse, people keep giving Microsoft another chance because, "They will do better this time."

        • Or 4, they think they can get away with screwing everyone else and taking control of a potentially very lucrative market, like they did with: * Internet Explorer and their custom implementations of HTML/CSS * Their custom windows-only version of Java * OpenXML and their subverting an entire standards body to get it ratified as a 'Standard' just so they could go after special government contracts requiring an open format, without having to give up control of the office suite space. * Custom extensions to LDAP to hinder interoperability with Active Directory. * Countless other things that anyone could find doing a few searches of Microsoft's history.

          There's a reason Microsoft's catch phrase is "Embrace. Extend. Extinguish." and it's sad that, like an abused spouse, people keep giving Microsoft another chance because, "They will do better this time."

          Thank you. Well said.

        • Many of those things involved using another standard and not complying with it.

          If Microsoft makes their own formats, that's called competition. Thankfully, IE is not ruler of the Internet any longer, and it's arguable that Windows isn't, either.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Smauler ( 915644 )

        What? Microsoft is preserving an alternative format

        Is this a typo? I'm not sure, since persevering doesn't fit in the sentence. Microsoft is preserving nothing. The article is about Microsoft persevering with alternative standards.

        Microsoft pushing formats is almost always a bad thing. The OOXML debacle is evidence of this - MS were pushing a shitty open format purely to compete with legitimate formats being proposed - they had no interest in it becoming a standard, they just wanted to protect Office,

      • 4. Microsoft gets to control CU-RTC-Web.

    • Microsoft Going Its Own Way On Audio/Video Specification

      And I too am going my own way. I almost never use Microsoft products, and intend to keep it that way. Bye bye, Microsoft.

    • this isn't a new trick.

      creating their own standard to shoot down the competing standard is microsoft's standard technique.

  • Are we supposed to be surprised by this?

  • Does anybody even care (Score:4, Funny)

    by Tough Love ( 215404 ) on Saturday January 19, 2013 @08:11PM (#42636083)

    Does anybody even care what Microsoft does these days? They even seem to fail at being evil, though they still try.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Billly Gates ( 198444 )

      Does anybody even care what Microsoft does these days? They even seem to fail at being evil, though they still try.

      Yep. IE is still the most popular browser in the world. g.statcounter.com may say otherwise but others such as netappliances say 55% of everyone on the net including tablet and phone users use Internet Explorer.

      Regardless you can't ignore it. If IE wont support it you can't use it PERIOD. Until IE gets below 5% marketshare no sane business will dare cut them off. IT would be like owning a restaurant and telling 1 out of 10 users to leave and go fuck themselves. You will be out of business fast.

      So this is a

      • IE is still the most popular browser in the world.

        No it isn't, it fell off that perch years ago. Nobody uses Microsoft's browser by choice. Face it, Microsoft's sun is setting. Don't let the chair hit you on the way out.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Billly Gates ( 198444 )

          IE is still the most popular browser in the world.

          No it isn't, it fell off that perch years ago. Nobody uses Microsoft's browser by choice. Face it, Microsoft's sun is setting. Don't let the chair hit you on the way out.

          I think statistics say otherwise [arstechnica.com]. Remember, most people do not hang out on slashdot and are into browsers. Ask any webmaster here who writes internet sites that average people or businesses use? They will say 50 to 60% still use IE. It still sets the standards if you want to be paid by anyone to attract users sadly.

          Remember these users are grandmas, 40 year old moms, accountants in the office with locked computers, redneck Joe Six Packs, and little kids at home whose teacher showed them that little blue e =

          • Hmmm... I am a gray-haired, 50+, joe sixpack redneck, and I don't use MickeySoft at all. I prefer to have control of my purchases (including 'puters), and I support truly open standards.

            Okay, I lied. Most nights, a six pack doesn't cut it for me. My native american name is "Ten Beers".

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Bert64 ( 520050 )

            Lots of IE users are people browsing from work, who have no choice as to what browser they can use...
            I see a significant difference in browser stats between a porn site (which you would assume has very few people browsing from work) and other sites with various content. I see IE users at ~15% on the pornsite (which places it third after firefox and chrome) but somewhere between 30 and 40 on other sites.

        • Sorry Bubba but I do use IE by choice. The 64bit on Win7-64 due to improved security and because the FF Devs gave out the excuse that there wasn't any 64bit plug-ins that mattered. WTF are they smoking as I want some of it. Seriously, Flash has be 64bit for 18+ months, thus their argument is bogus. Then they decided to completely stop work on the 64bit version of Firefox until we screamed load enough at them to get back to work. No, I use IE because Firefox stinks. For those area's where I need the add-on f

        • So how does the fact that "Nobody uses Microsoft's browser by choice" changes the fact that it is the most used browser in the world?

          Also I use it by choice and know many people who do too.

          • The reasons are many to use IE:

            1. A few uses microsofts brower since they work at microsoft and are forced too.
            2. Other uses it because their company forces them
            3. Some because they are forced to use them for some webb sites they use.
            4. Other uses it because they don't know better.
            5. Some dont really surf the web so they don't bother to download a great browser.
            6. Some are masochists.

            IE users fall into one or more of these six categories.

    • Does anybody even care what Microsoft does these days? They even seem to fail at being evil, though they still try.

      Microsoft is akin to Dr Evil kidnapping Mitt Romney only to find out not only will the Republicans not pay the million dollars for his return but his own family won't. Trying to force a standard now is the same as trying to capture the water supply in a bucket full of holes. Apples pulls it off only because the axis of evil, iDevices/iTunes, that the world spins on. Every time Microsoft has tried to do similar things it's failed. Microsoft said software rules the world and Apple said it was hardware. In the

  • Business as usual for Microsoft... (Score:4, Informative)

    by SmoothTom ( 455688 ) <Tomas@TiJiL.org> on Saturday January 19, 2013 @08:14PM (#42636101) Homepage

    Microsoft has followed this path from the beginning with standards: Adopt, adapt, expand and control.

    Always adding something "extra" so that other software that actually follows the standard doesn't work quite right with stuff built to Microsoft's "standard" so that the stuff built to actually follow the world standard looks inferior. :(
    --Tomas

    • Well, to be fair, ATM it's Microsoft trying to convince others to adopt and adapt to its proposed standard. There's every reason to be suspicious of MS's motives, but the company has released some technologies that have gained wide deployment and yet have not resulted in a botnet of lawsuits against developers companies attempting to write their own implementations. MS might be trying to turn its FAT filesystems into a cash cow, but the RTF spec is free for anyone to use.

      • Noone really uses FAT - everyone uses VFAT and Microsoft require alla companies who uses VFAT to pay them for a license.

        That way noone can do a free software version of it.

        It's their way to stop free software.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Bert64 ( 520050 )

          The problem is even worse with exFAT...
          There are plenty of perfectly capable and open filesystems, most of which are much better than fat/exfat and some designed specifically for flash storage among other things...
          And yet the world is forced to use an inferior and patent encumbered filesystem because MS refuse to support anything else.

  • This is pretty crazy...
    Microsoft owns Skype. Skype's technology is half of the Opus codec. Opus is what WebRTC is supposed to use. So why isn't Microsoft all over this?

    • Re:This is pretty crazy... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Eirenarch ( 1099517 ) on Saturday January 19, 2013 @10:27PM (#42636681)

      According to some articles I've read it is very hard to port the Skype protocol (or other protocols) to WebRTC because WebRTC is relatively high level. MS's proposal is for a lower level API that would allow different protocols to be implemented over it including Skype. They argue that higher level API would be provided through libraries.

  • Maybe this is the reason (Score:3, Informative)

    by Bruce Perens ( 3872 ) <bruce@perens.com> on Saturday January 19, 2013 @08:26PM (#42636187) Homepage Journal
    WebRTC has Opus, the Open Source audio codec that can outperform MP3 and pretty much any audio codec*. It does seem that the proprietary OS industry will do anything they can to stop open codecs from being net standards.

    * Anything but FLAC and Codec2 (because FLAC doesn't compress and Codec2 is voice-only and ultra-low-bandwidth).

    • Re:Maybe this is the reason (Score:5, Informative)

      by stms ( 1132653 ) on Saturday January 19, 2013 @08:49PM (#42636313)

      FLAC does compress it just uses lossless compression.

    • WebRTC has Opus, the Open Source audio codec that can outperform MP3 and pretty much any audio codec*.

      Hmm... I'd like to see solid evidence of this. Outperforming mp3 isn't difficult, obviously; but I had a hard time finding evidence it's been compared against anything but lower bit rate (e.g. 64kbps) AAC, for example. I'd like to see comparisons with both at 128 or higher, if this is really one codec to rule them all, so to speak, as seems to be the claim [octasic.com].

      In some ways the chatter around this seems similar to what went on with WebM. Being open source carries a lot of weight with people here on Slashdot, und

    • Re:Maybe this is the reason (Score:5, Informative)

      by yourlord ( 473099 ) on Sunday January 20, 2013 @01:16AM (#42637309) Homepage

      Bruce, Microsoft contributed the SILK codec used in Skype to the Opus project and released any related patents royalty free. I would have a hard time trusting MS if they told me the sky was blue, but they basically made the low bitrate capability of Opus legally doable.

      As for those who are posting their scepticism about the opus codec's quality, the IETF standardised Opus as RFC 6716 and is making it a mandatory to implement codec for WebRTC based on it's proven performance at every applicable bitrate.

      For quality comparison info:
      http://opus-codec.org/comparison/ [opus-codec.org]

      RFC 6716:
      http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716 [ietf.org]

  • the company will make sure that WebRTC may not be as close to real standardization as its proponents might argue.

    There, fixed it for you.

  • Annoyingly, they're correct... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As it stands, WebRTC sucks. I was hoping to utilise it in a current R&D project, but even FF and Chrome have different implementations of it to the extent tha it fails at what it's supposed to do. As such, it's in danger of becoming another mutant web standard that simply isn't, just like HTML5 video...

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I've been balls deep in WebRTC server-side implementation for 2 months, and oh my god THE HORROR. I'll try to keep this short.

      A bunch of telephony stalwarts were brought together to come up with some standards for interoperable, extendable, browser-based real-time media communications. To achieve this aim, they've taken several dozen existing standards & RFCs, and extended / contorted / selectively ignored / creatively implemented them such that they've inherited two decades of digital telephony industr

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Locutus ( 9039 )
      probably very much like HTML5 video since it was corporate greed which fractured the HTML5 video standard and allowed so many differing implementations. IIRC, Microsoft would not accept anything but the ability to use their own codecs so the spec didn't get cleaned up and it was allowed to be a mess.

      Surely Microsoft was involved in the WebRTC spec but then again, for 20 something years they have opposed open standards and felt doing it their own way, and usually a Windows-only way, was how they played. This

      • The ability to use differing codecs is how you allow a standard set in stone to remain relevant for longer than 30 seconds. As for HTML5 video, I'm not sure what you issue is with it, but our websites use it just fine.

        Do you think it was stupid of the HTML spec to allow the img tag to use more than just .bmp? I for one am glad it allows .gif, .jpg, and .png as well. Each of those have their own strengths, and we use different formats depending on which format gives us the best experience. I don't see ho

  • "We think their standard is crap, so let's make our own"

    "But, how will it work?"

    "Lots of security holes. compatible with IE only, and make damn well sure that they can't remove it from the OS."

    Great job, Microsoft, add another junk program that takes up our precious CPU.

  • hedging bets (Score:2, Insightful)

    by nadaou ( 535365 )

    Microsoft believes that working on its proposal can shed light on how to solve certain problems such as handling changes in network bandwidth or keeping cellular and Wi-Fi connections open in parallel to allow easy failover from one to the other.

    ... and then patent the method before someone else does ...

  • So now not only will there be separate internets (Score:3)

    by kawabago ( 551139 ) on Saturday January 19, 2013 @09:33PM (#42636493)
    Now not only will we have separate internets for each country, so governments can decide what their people can see, but each company will have it's own proprietary browsers for their particular chunk of the internet. That is absolutely stupid, classic Microsoft! Can we change the name Steve to Wrong Way Ballmer since he keeps going the opposite direction as everyone else, invariably to Microsoft's chagrin?

  • Multi-Media on the Web is FUCKED (Score:5, Interesting)

    by l0ungeb0y ( 442022 ) on Saturday January 19, 2013 @10:01PM (#42636597) Homepage Journal

    In the post Flash era we are taking HUGE steps back. In-browser support for Video Codecs are neither here nor there, where we quite literally have to encode to two or even three standards. But, at least we have Wowza that can stream to various standards and Codecs. Audio is no better, with Google and Apple are using the Web Audio API while Firefox is committed to the Audio Data API, which has NOTHING in common with the Webkit standard. And the built in audio player on the Android Browser? WHAT. A. FUCKING. JOKE. And of course Apple's "HTTP Live Streaming" is NOT at all suited for actual Live Streaming. The latency is terrible!

    And then we have Real Time Communication, an area that Flash excelled at with and RTMP and AMF, as well as various servers such as FMS, Wowza and SmartFox capable of facilitating chat rooms, multi-player games, even MMORPGs.

    Getting data and devices streaming FROM THE BROWSER just isn't there. The support is incomplete, undecided and very much in flux. We are quite literally still a few years out from a standard and usable platform across browsers. And now we have Microsoft wading in to offer what will surely be a typical Proprietary Solution only available to Microsoft Partners and Licensees.

    Frankly, this rush to kill Flash has been a self-centered money grab to try to take away the video market from Adobe and HAS FUCKED the users, leaving them with a broken internet and competing standards.

    The hype of HTML5 has been years coming, with Steve Jobs and legions of techies on slashdot and other sites calling for the death of Flash.
    Yet here we are, years out and we don't have anywhere near what we had with Multi-Media and Real Time Communication in 2005 with Flash.

    How anyone can sit here and look at the current state of affairs and not see it as a monumental clusterfuck that is HOLDING BACK the progress and innovation we were promised with HTML5 is beyond me.

    • "How anyone can sit here and look at the current state of affairs and not see it as a monumental clusterfuck that is HOLDING BACK the progress and innovation we were promised with HTML5 is beyond me."

      If you're going to rant about taking a huge step backward, look no further than media streaming. Media streaming, where every time you want to watch the SAME video you have to download it again, wastes bandwidth, a much more precious resource than the 32GB micro-SD card you slip into your smartphone, much less

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )

        If you don't have the bandwidth to stream, you don't have the bandwidth to instantly watch a video unless you want to proactively keep an archive of everything you could possibly want to watch. And if you do have the bandwidth, who cares? Most the effort is in laying down fat enough pipes on the last mile, sure you add a little more traffic to the aggregate at your ISP's central but really that's pretty marginal. They still have to maintain the line and all the other tools no matter how much data flows thro

    • And of course Apple's "HTTP Live Streaming" is NOT at all suited for actual Live Streaming. The latency is terrible!

      Huh? Unless the latency is somewhere beyond 60 seconds (which doesn't seem likely), it's fine. Otherwise you're fundamentally misunderstanding what Apple HTTP Live Streaming is for. It's aimed at broadcast live events one way (such as a TV channel), NOT real time video chat or conferencing.

      Stuff like Facetime is NOT Apple HTTP Live Streaming, because again, according to TFM that's not what HTTP Live Streaming is for.

    • And now we have Microsoft wading in to offer what will surely be a typical Proprietary Solution only available to Microsoft Partners and Licensees.

      Did you even RTFS? It's so proprietary it was submitted [interopera...ridges.com] to W3C for consideration.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by BZ ( 40346 )

      Mozilla is actively implementing the Web Audio API, for what it's worth.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by epyT-R ( 613989 )

      The fact is flash sucked at all those things because:
      1. It's bloated, it's slow, it's buggy as hell. It's so bad that browsers now have a plugin-wrapper to prevent it from crashing the entire browser.
      2. It's closed, so it can't easily be ported to other platforms.. basically, flashterbated sites are only going to work well on windows, poorly on linux and mac, and not at all on anything else. Useless.. might as well just distribute OS specific binaries and be done with it..

      I'm glad flash is dying. It's st

  • The REAL reason? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ilsaloving ( 1534307 ) on Saturday January 19, 2013 @10:12PM (#42636627)

    How about the REAL reason Microsoft went their own way?

    Because they want to control the plan form so that if they successfully gain traction, they can start locking everyone else out. Just like they do with everything else.

  • WebRTC isn't just for browsers, but ATAs [obihai.com] is well.

  • Plugin vs. built-in (Score:3)

    by sunderland56 ( 621843 ) on Saturday January 19, 2013 @11:29PM (#42636919)

    Why should *any* codec at all be built in?

    Make them ALL plugins. For really popular formats, just ship the plugin with the browser by default. Browsers are bloated enough as they are - trim the binary down to the minimum possible, and only load the plugins when they are needed. This also forces the browser developer to optimize the codec plugin path well enough to stream live video, instead of optimizing the builtins and leaving the plugin ones with half-baked support.

    It would also allow users to remove support for formats they don't like/want/need. Apple fans could delete everything except aac, Microsofties could delete everything except their own. RMS could delete all the non-'Free' ones.

    • It would also allow users to remove support for formats they don't like/want/need. Apple fans could delete everything except aac, Microsofties could delete everything except their own. RMS could delete all the non-'Free' ones.

      The point of standards is to enable interoperability - precisely the thing that's missing in your "perfect world" as described, by design.

  • You mean to say that Microsoft is not adopting an existing specification but designing it's own proprietary one? Get outta here! I don't believe it!

    Like they haven't done that before. :P

  • Oh come now! If you really want a standard to take hold, you'll need a much catchier name..

    How about, "Plays For Sure II: This time we really mean it!*

    * until some soon to be announced EOL date.

  • So MS will be publishing their own standard. What will happen?

    1. Looking at VBscript and Silverlight/Moonlight, it will essentially fail - alternatives exist (Javascript, Flash) that are equally viable and more widely supported.

    2. Some idiots will use MS-only tech ANYWAY, breaking support for anything but the Windows platform and alienating a substantial user base.

    3. If the spec is open (looking at dot net), some open source group will produce their own version to permit interoperability with other p

  • connection? I think so.

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