Thread: WMV9 (VC-1) delayed as SMPTE Standard, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC touted as superior

http://www.eet.com/article/printable...axonomyID=4217

A paragraph from the article at the EE times web site:

Originally Posted by Richard Mavrogeanes, founder and chief technology officer of VBrick Systems Inc

"VC-1 may be interesting at some point in the future, but [our] members have shown that [H.264/MPEG-4] AVC is technically superior," said Richard Mavrogeanes, founder and chief technology officer of VBrick Systems Inc., and a board member of the MPEG Industry Forum and the Internet Streaming Media Alliance. ISMA advocates a multivendor, interoperable standard, "because that moves the industry ahead," he added.

Hmmm I thought WM9 was supposed to be superior, why does it not surprise me that a member of the MPEG industry would tout MPEG4? What I don't understand is, can't Voom implement WM9 (or MPEG4) regardless?

Actually, it is generally agreed that WM9 is slightly better than H.264 for HD content. The best prrof is that both the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are adopting WM9 in addition to H.264.

Seriously, we've been speculating a buyout because we suspect that something is going on between E* and V*. However, it's possible that it is not about a buyout. It may be simply that E* and V* are partnering to offer HD locals in major US markets using MVDDS (Am I missing something, where did the edit icon go??)

I'm hoping that Voom stays away from WM9 and Microsoft in general.

Except for very, very few cases like Dell, partnering with Microsoft results in
the stagnation, strangulation and eventual death of companies and their products.
SGI, Sega, WebTV and many others got sucked in by the promise of a profitable
partnership but ended up losing it's intellectual property and converting previously
promising devices into crash-prone, seldom updated doorstops.

The last thing I want is for Microsoft to somehow box us in a corner and engineer
some requirement that Voom owners will need a Windows box to get "full value"
from Voom's offerings.

Supporting H264 will help insure not only interoperability with Windows, but
will play nice with the Mac and Linux too.

Partnering with M$ is like visiting Jurassic Park:
"Ooh, aah, that's how it always starts, and then later the running and screaming!"

Originally Posted by billr

I'm hoping that Voom stays away from WM9 and Microsoft in general.

WMV9 is not really a software. Like H.264, it is just an algorithm. And just because Microsoft owns more patents in it than it does in H.264, doesn't make this codec better or worse. It sounds as if you think supporting WMV9 means putting Windows or some other Microsoft software into the box This is not the case! The box can still run Linux, don't worry!

VOOM is doing the right thing, IMO: working on supporting both standards, so that the decision which one to use could be made later, or even on a channel-by-channel basis.

I personally don't care who owns what, if it can be offered to consumers without an increase in price, and increase PQ and channels, I'm all for it.. pick the best one and roll with it.

Technically, H.264 implements a bit more than VC-1. But because of that H.264 is a bit costlier (i.e., computing-wise) to implement than VC-1. Also, because of the same reason, H.264 has more room for encoder improvements in the future (as with MPEG-2).

Initially, VC-1 showed better detailed texture performance than H.264. Since then, H.264 has improved the texture encoding issue, so the quality is about the same at the moment.

Hong.

Originally Posted by billr

I'm hoping that Voom stays away from WM9 and Microsoft in general.

Except for very, very few cases like Dell, partnering with Microsoft results in
the stagnation, strangulation and eventual death of companies and their products.
SGI, Sega, WebTV and many others got sucked in by the promise of a profitable
partnership but ended up losing it's intellectual property and converting previously
promising devices into crash-prone, seldom updated doorstops.

The last thing I want is for Microsoft to somehow box us in a corner and engineer
some requirement that Voom owners will need a Windows box to get "full value"
from Voom's offerings.

Supporting H264 will help insure not only interoperability with Windows, but
will play nice with the Mac and Linux too.

Partnering with M$ is like visiting Jurassic Park:
"Ooh, aah, that's how it always starts, and then later the running and screaming!"

I agree totally. Stay away from Microsoft.