WMA DVD player in Q1 2004?

  • Thread starter Thread starter J. Daniel Smith
  • Start date Start date
Added that one too. Interesting developments.
--
PapaJohn
www.papajohn.org


J. Daniel Smith said:
In the same vein: http://www.wired.com/news/gizmos/0,1452,60675,00.html

"Microsoft...submitted WMV to the Society of Motion Picture Television
Engineers as a standards candidate... [...] All that's needed is for
someone to build a regular DVD player that can decode the WMV
format...Samsung says it will have one out by January..."
Dan

http://rss.com.com/2100-1025_3-5085986.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=news

"...Microsoft...has no products that support its video technology on store
shelves. The first such device is expected from Samsung in the first quarter
of 2004..."

Dan
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
http://rss.com.com/2100-1025_3-5085986.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=news

"...Microsoft...has no products that support its video technology on
store shelves. The first such device is expected from Samsung in the
first quarter of 2004..."
Click to expand...

It's interesting that this comment is almost a sidebar in an article about
DivX.

The reason that there's been a DivX player on the market in Europe since
the beginning of this year, is that there's an obvious market - people have
a lot of DivX content that they would like to be able to watch on their
TVs. (Movies downwloaded from P2P networks). I'd consider paying
EUR100/USD100 for a DivX capable DVD player if I came across one in the
christmas sales, even though I have a perfectly capable DVD player already.
I don't think I'd bite at a WMV capable player for the same price, because
the only content it would enable me to watch is stuff that I've copied off
my camera, and guess what? I can already view that on my TV, I don't need
to buy a new DVD player for that. What I want to do with my "home movies"
is share them with my friends and family, and I can't see them going out
and spending money just so that they can see my "home movies".

This is one area where "content is king", and I keep asking myself, where's
the content that will get people to spend money on a WMV player?

Are you going to buy a new DVD player so that you can watch someone elses
"Home Movies"?

The only thing that might spark a new market for WMV would be a "TiVO type"
application that would record something for me off the TV card in my PC,
and burn it to a CD so that I can watch it later. Will Microsoft facilitate
something like that, or will it just piss off the networks so much that MS
backs off? I haven't come across any DivX tools that do this (I haven't
really looked), but without some way of getting content out there that
people actually want to watch, it's hard to see how WMV will sell.


"Windows Media costs more than DivX, and it requires a lot more computing
overhead, which makes it more difficult to design chipsets to support it,"
Doherty said
 
Good points. I don't have any DivX data, but I suppose you're right that
there is a large amount (at least compared to WMA) of DivX content (legal or
otherwise).

Of course, I'd spend $100 on a new WMV DVD player so that I can *finally*
play WMM2 CDs on my TV; but that's clearly going to be the exception.

The new release of Windows XP Media Center Edition has some TiVo-like
features:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/evaluation/overviews/enjoy.asp, I
wonder if WMV is used for recording TV shows? And I wonder how easy it is
to transfer Media Center recorded content to a DVD for use in a stand-alone
DVD player.

Dan
 
Here are the answers to my questions about Windows Media Center 2004:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/evaluation/faq.asp
-----
Q. What file format does Media Center record in?
A. Media Center uses a new file format called DVR-MS. DVR-MS is an MPEG-2
file...

Q. Does Windows Movie Maker support the Media Center file format?
A. Windows Movie Maker does not support DVR-MS files at this time.

Q. Can I record DVDs to watch using a dedicated DVD player?
A. Yes. The current version of Sonic MyDVD Plus (v. 4.04) supports the
recording of Media Center's recorded TV content onto DVDs that can be
watched on standard DVD players. [...] Microsoft expects other third-party
software manufacturers to add support for DVR-MS files to their products...
-----

This is lame - if WMV is so great, why aren't they using that instead a new
DVR-MS format. And given that a third-party product (is MyDVD included?) is
used to create a DVD, I'm guessing that it's not a straight-forward process
that can be done with just the remote.

Dan

J. Daniel Smith said:
Good points. I don't have any DivX data, but I suppose you're right that
there is a large amount (at least compared to WMA) of DivX content (legal or
otherwise).

Of course, I'd spend $100 on a new WMV DVD player so that I can *finally*
play WMM2 CDs on my TV; but that's clearly going to be the exception.

The new release of Windows XP Media Center Edition has some TiVo-like
features:
Click to expand...
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/evaluation/overviews/enjoy.asp, I
 
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