Talk:Windows Media Video

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Contents 1 Compatibility 2 Rephrase intelectual property sentence 3 MS Research 4 Buffering 5 Propietary or not 6 Criticisms 7 Format or Codec? 8 It sucks.. 9 Timeframe

[edit] Compatibility

If I was to put a WMV on a DVD-r, would i be able to watch it on a DVD player?

Forget It!

[edit] Rephrase intelectual property sentence

"When encapsulated in ASF file format, WMV can support digital rights management facilities intended to protect intellectual property rights."

Shouldnt it be "copyright" instead of intellectual property which is a broad term that covers many other things such as patents, etc?

Neither should be used. The claim that DRM protects anything is contentious and therefore not NPOV. Wonderstruck 06:34, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MS Research

The article has a lot of speculation about the origin of WMV. From my own sources inside MS, I believe a lot of this technology came from Rico Malvar's research group.

[edit] Buffering

WMV sucks, it buffers all the time. So you play, and then its pauses and you have to wait for it to buffer, it sucks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Frap (talk • contribs) 15:56, 10 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Propietary or not

According to M. Holitscher, an Open Source expert at Microsoft Switzerland, SMPTE 421M (VC-1) is an international video Standard and the WMV9 codec the standard-conform implementation of VC-1 by Microsoft. He says that even though an open standard, WMV9 is not open source and hence still propietary, because implementers using VC-1 are required to pay licensing fees to the SMTE and the MPEG LA, who hold patents on the format. He also says Microsoft is happy to grant licences for specific purposes, but I havn't been able to find licence agreements e.g. allowing bundling the codec with a free Linux distribution. Apparently Microsoft has granted licences for the proprietary Linux systems Linspire and Turbolinux. I have therefore corrected the article slightly.

Funnily enough, the Videolan Client (VLC, a free open source video player) seems to contain the WMV8 codec which according to this article is more proprietary than WMV9. However it can't play most WMV files, just some of them. --Theosch 20:20, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticisms

Utterly extraordinary that there is no criticism section in this article. Windows Media Video (and Windows Media Player) are heavily criticised on the web. Look it up.

[edit] Format or Codec?

I don't think this article should be defining WMV as a format and including information about MS MPEG-4 codecs. They were never considered a part of the WMV codec series, so what's the point? An ASF file with an MS MPEG-4 codec shouldn't even carry a .wmv extension so it's difficult to even argue that a "WMV file" can carry non-WMV codecs. Sure, it can, but it's an intentional misnomer in that case. I vote that references to MS MPEG-4 codecs be removed from the article.

[edit] It sucks..

Most of the wmv video doesn't work in my computer. It says buffer-over-follow.. and sometimes it says virus!!! It works under linux much more better and it proves that Microsoft is stupid enough that they are not able to manage their own technology.. So please do not create any technology.. For the sake of universe, for the sake of human being .. PLEASE!!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.12.136.186 (talk) 13:36, 8 February 2007 (UTC).

Secondly, when I choose time frame from middle of the video it doesnt show.. In any case you should start from begining.... Also what is this buffering thing???... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.12.136.186 (talk) 14:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC).

Sometimes I am getting funny mails with attached videos in wmv format. then happyly I open the mail, and start to read and open the attached video, then praying to god by wishing the video to be run.. After sometime it says Virus Alert!!! W. T. F. is that!!!!!! I will make this page overflow by writing entries for each my disappointment!.. MS is equal to "Virus Framework".. MS users is equal to "Virus cleaner stupids".. Thanks.. I couldnt watch my video but I wrote this essay.. It made me really relaxed..

[edit] Timeframe

This article mentions almost nothing about the timeframe of this file format. When was it first released? When did it gain significant usage? If and when did it overcome competing formats? Etc. Anybody know this stuff? 72.73.208.64 07:04, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe we would teeter off into OR really quickly here. The first version of WMP that I see "supporting" WMV was the version 6.2 beta (6.2 became 6.4) from April 1999. But WMV is just a subset of ASF, so WMP5.2 would have been able to play WMV fine, dating back to May 1998. And ASF was first brought to "official" market with NetShow Player 1.0 back in December 1996. (This ignores the alpha DirectShow filter, ActiveMovie Stream, and also the NetShow Player 1.0 beta.) So you would need to define "first release". I don't think there has been any great tracking of the rise and fall of formats - that would certainly be fascinating if unreliable data. Preppy 23:20, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I'd define the "first release" as when the format was officially supported, which according to you would be WMP 6.2 from April 99. In any case though, I think the article would be much improved if some of what you said above was included in the currently scant history area. It's a shame that nobody tracks format usages; It hit me recently that nearly every video file I download now is a WMV, but 5 years ago AVIs and MPGs appeared to be dominant. That realization is actually why I was reading the article in the first place. 72.73.208.64 17:08, 18 February 2007 (UTC)