Category: Windows Media

  • Play Windows Media files with QuickTime Player (free!)

    Today, two more signs of the forthcoming apocolypse. (1) Apple announces the first Macs with Intel Inside, as Steve rubs “man, can you believe how friggin’ **slooow** the PowerPC was?” salt into our collective wounds several times during the keynote. (Wouldn’t want to be [Kottke](http://www.kottke.org/06/01/letter-to-apple-support “Doh!”) right now…) (2) With somewhat less fanfare, Microsoft delivers…

  • Windows Media Encoder 9 users: Read Me

    If you do Windows Media Video 9 or Windows Media Audio 9 encoding, you **need** the Windows Media Format 9.5 SDK. Although it isn’t documented anywhere that I know of, the SDK includes these very important updates: * The new [Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile](http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/codecs/video.aspx#WindowsMediaVideo9AdvancedProfile “Learn more about the WMV9 AP codec”) video codec…

  • Next-gen DVD: There can be only one (standard)

    The DVD Forum has announced that they’ll be choosing the video codec for the next-generation, high-definition DVD standard (tentatively called HD-DVD) by March. Here are the four options in the running: AVC Also known as H.264, this is the next MPEG-4 video codec. It was created by The Joint Video Team (JVT), which is a…

  • "Mastering Compression" class

    My friend and streaming expert Ben Waggoner will be holding his next two 5-day Mastering Compression classes on June 30 and August 11. These classes are held on the Stanford University campus. They’re part of Stanford’s Digital Media Academy program, so you get Stanford Continuing Education credits for taking the class — that means that…

  • Movielink to support RealSystem and Windows Media, not MPEG-4

    Movielink has announced that it will use both RealSystem and Windows Media for it’s upcoming video-on-demand services. “We wanted as low a hurdle as possible for consumers to be able to get movies through the most widely distributed players, Microsoft and RealNetworks, and the most secure digital rights management technologies,” Ramos said. Note that they’re…

  • Windows Media Audio reverse-engineered

    Microsoft’s very-proprietary Windows Media Audio format has been reverse engineered as part of the FFmpeg project. Codecs from the FFmpeg project are licensed under the LGPL and are used by several other projects. Now, the only hitch to building Windows Media Audio-compatible players is Microsoft ASF-related patent, which I personally believe is invalid based on…

  • NHL/Microsoft deal sticks it to RealNetworks

    Microsoft and the National Hockey League have started a subscription service that will allow fans to search for and watch highlights from the 2002-2003 season. The service is $5 per month or $30 per season, and eventually fans will be able to watch entire games for an extra $3 per game. This deal is presumed…