Why am I not excited by this?
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| caitlyn Jun 05, 2009 1:21 AM EDT |
Look, I'm all for media players and streaming media on netbooks. That's great. Does it have to be this crappy and proprietary apps? Don't we have enough FOSS apps that handle what Real Player handles? |
| tracyanne Jun 05, 2009 1:46 AM EDT |
Why is it that a Proprietary media play is somehow required to make Linux better? |
| klhrevolution Jun 05, 2009 1:51 AM EDT |
Well, real player never did open up to gnu/linux the way I had hoped. Of course the helix player could be used instead of realplayer. Either way it's good that companies are starting to focus on gnu/linux |
| cabreh Jun 05, 2009 2:25 AM EDT |
Personally I would rather support Real and not have them disappear. That would leave only ... Microsoft Media Player. Would you rather see that as the established Internet one and only standard? |
| Sander_Marechal Jun 05, 2009 3:02 AM EDT |
cabreh: I'd rather see an open standard used so that the player doesn't matter anymore. Luckily HTML5 and Ogg support will be going a long way to fixing that. |
| tuxtom Jun 05, 2009 3:20 AM EDT |
Super Duper!!!!! Now I can watch movies while I'm surfing with Netscape dialed into my AOL account on my shiny new 486DX4-100 running Windows 95 !!! |
| cabreh Jun 06, 2009 9:17 AM EDT |
Sander I would agree. However, Ogg has been out a long time. It's free to use and for some reason the web world outside of Open enthusiasts is ignoring it. It's like they believe that free is evil or something. So, if my choice is Real or MS formats, I'll support Real. |
| caitlyn Jun 06, 2009 9:24 AM EDT |
Actually FLAC, which is open, is definitely gaining in mindshare and popularity. As storage on portable music players increases we may see it moving onto those machines as well. |
| Sander_Marechal Jun 08, 2009 3:07 AM EDT |
cabreh: Making something free and open isn't enough to convince most people to use it. Only a small subset of people (like us) care about that. In order for Ogg to gain popularity it must have something significantly better. And that's what is coming to Ogg Theora now. Ogg Vorbis will always be a hard sell to people. For most people MP3 is already free because the OS vendor payed for it. Also, MP3 is the lingua franca for music. It's the defacto standard. Caitlyn is right about FLAC though. The reason it is gaining is because FLAC is much, much better quality than Ogg Vorbis or MP3. Ogg Theora has a good future because there is no defacto standard for web video. Everybody uses a different format and different players. The thing that will make Ogg Theora atractive is that it will work anywhere. Everyone will have it (hopefully) and web developers don't have to muck about with offering 4-5 different formats and embed multiple players on their website. Just a small HTML snippet and an URL to a video and it will "just work". |
| hkwint Jun 08, 2009 9:48 AM EDT |
Those who know Fluendo will probably assume - like I do - the deal with Real is not about a 'player' but about providing codecs for Linux netbooks in a legal way. In my opinion, we should be thankful for that because the codecs are a legal minefield stopping distro's like Ubuntu, Debian etc. by providing these codecs by default. That's the reason they can't provide an environment where multimedia works out of the box. Smaller distro's such as Sabayon and Mint don't give about them software patents & licenses, but if they became more important distro's I guess that might change. Until now however, "100% surel legally"* installing codecs is a bit hard. If Real & Fluendo can change that, more power to them. Yes, it probably will have the crappy frontend called 'Realplayer' to use those codecs as well. The one that's hardmasked in Gentoo for more than a year or so because it causes security holes; meaning I deleted it a year ago and haven't needed it since. But it's less ammo for Microsoft & MPEG-LA to shoot at multimedia on Linux. Of course, in a world without network effects and the horrible list provided at http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/menc-feat-enc-libavcode... and in a world where patent claims weren't outrageous, companies didn't threaten each other with IP and where free standards would prosper, all of this wouldn't be an issue. But nowadays it is, and I guess we have to live with it. *The point about installing av-codecs on Linux is that it's often unclear if it's `00% legal or not, if you are granted a license for non-commercial use, etc. Most patents pertaining to the video codecs have not be proven to be valid in first place, let alone tested in court. Sometimes the patent-holders promised not to go after free software, but those are only promises. |
| tuxchick Jun 08, 2009 10:14 AM EDT |
I'm sure most users are unimpressed by the conflicting, implausible legalities surrounding multimedia codecs. Though I agree that having them legally re-distributable is a good things. RealPlayer is a nasty bog of spyware and bugs. If we have Fluendo, why do we need RealPlayer? |
| jacog Jun 08, 2009 11:47 AM EDT |
I do wish Fluendo were a tad less spendy though. It's not a huge hunk of cash, no... but certainly more than one would expect to pay for media codecs. |
| caitlyn Jun 08, 2009 12:22 PM EDT |
A number of vendors now include Fluendo on their preloaded Linux systems. I believe Dell does, for example. It becomes part of the price of the hardware and the issue of codecs becomes a non-issue for the average user. That's a better solution that RealPlayer. |
| jdixon Jun 08, 2009 12:36 PM EDT |
> I believe Dell does, for example. They did on my Mini 9 purchased back in April, yes. |
| hkwint Jun 08, 2009 6:15 PM EDT |
Quoting:If we have Fluendo, why do we need RealPlayer? You and I don't. But I won't use Fluendo either because I don't believe in enforceability on my continent of the patents that surround all the video-formats in the first place. People who return their netbook if it doesn't come with familiar crap - such as RealPlayer - and who are afraid if something is called 'VLC' instead of 'WMP'; that seems to be the issue I guess. The idea is simple: If people return their netbook because it doesn't contain the crap they're used to, supply the crap they're used to'. It sounds so brilliantly simple it might as well work. Only taking VLC and putting the RealPlayer logo on it would work as well and would be cheaper because only trademarks and not copyright and patents are involved, but hey, Real-devs have to eat as well, don't they? |
| gus3 Jun 08, 2009 7:17 PM EDT |
Quoting:'If people return their netbook because it doesn't contain the crap they're used to, supply the crap they're used to'.The problem with that is that the crap they're used to, is a tool in the hands of bad guys. When the crap allows the bad guys to turn the machine into a zombie attack vector, I have a problem with it. |
| hkwint Jun 08, 2009 7:38 PM EDT |
Quoting:When the crap allows the bad guys to turn the machine into a zombie attack vector, I have a problem with it. Of course, but it seems most people rather have something familiar that turns their machine into a zombie attack vector (nice word btw) than VLC; so give it to them. |
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