WMV: You Are Dead To Me

[Jason Dunn]

I response to my post about <a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=71427">the cruel world of video editing</a>, Digital Media Thoughts reader BugDude10 asked me a question, and I thought my response might make for some good front page discussion on the subject.<br /><br /><i>"Jason: I think this is the second or third time you've mentioned .WMV being "abandoned" by Microsoft -- is this some formal development from MS, or is it just your interpretation that crappy support from MS means that they've given up on it? (It seems like the apps I use still have .WMV as an option, but they're not this year's versions, so I might be a bit behind the curve on this development.)"</i><br /><br />Just looking at history. The 9 Series products came out in 2002 - that's five years ago. They haven't released anything new since then - the professional encoder doesn't really count because it's more focused on VC1 - and they've let for WMV format languish. Formats like DivX and Xvid have flourished, h.264 is now mainstream. There are all sorts of fantastic tools for encoding content to those formats - WMV encoding is always an afterthought. Sure, there are some dedicated tools for Pocket PCs created by Pocket PC developers, but look at all the mainstrem rippers out there: CloneDVD Mobile, Intervideo iVideoToGo, Nero Recode - most lack WMV encoding support, or if they have it, it's shoddy at best. <br /><!><br />You wouldn't believe the lengths I've gone to over the years to encourage developers to add WMV support - and I've heard story after story about how hard it is to implement WMV support because the Windows Media Enoder is such a buggy piece of software. Where's the wicked easy drag and drop transcoding tool like Divx has? <br /><br />Where are the useful profiles for modern devices (Zune, Windows Mobile 6 smartphones, etc.) in Windows Movie Maker to make it easier for us to output compliant WMV files? Why isn't there a way to specify a custom WMV export profile in Windows Movie Maker? I've tried creating custom profiles in Windows Media Encoder and exporting them, but it's an exercise in frustration every time. I've tried using my contacts at Microsoft to get some movement on this issue, but it's like a ghost town over there - their digital media devision has all but vanished as far as I can tell.<br /><br />All the momentum is behind h.264 and Divx/Xvid. The devices, the software tools, the players, etc. WMV is an afterthought, and it's all because Microsoft stopped caring about the format. Even the programs that do come with WMV export support are using profiles from 2002.<br /><br />This is a <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/02/the-clicker-dear-microsoft-help-me-help-you/">great article from last year</a> that sums up my feelings nicely. Since the author wrote that in 2006, Microsoft has added h.264 support to the Xbox, and Divx is rumoured to be coming next. The Zune now supports h.264 and MPEG4 natively. The writing is on the wall: these teams know that WMV support isn't enough, because it's just too damn hard to get content, and find content, in WMV format.<br /><br />WMV as a codec is solid. The support from Microsoft for it is not. I've given up on WMV.

[Jeremy Charette]

It appears that Microsoft abandoned WMV because there wasn't enough money to be made in licensing. They took the core of the WMV codec and used it to launch VC-1, which is being used in Blu-Ray and HD DVD discs. That's a potential cash cow for MS.

Me? I'm turning my Vista Media Center into a DVD server, and ripping all my movies into h.264. Visually I can't tell the difference, and I'll be able to get several hundred movies on my 750 GB hard drive with no trouble at all.

[RichL]

H.264 is the new mp3. It works on my Windows PC, it works on my Macbook Pro. It works on my Xbox 360, it works on my iPod. My choice for video encoding is a no-brainer.

[Jason Dunn]

Me? I'm turning my Vista Media Center into a DVD server, and ripping all my movies into h.264.

Yeah, I've been thinking exactly the same thing. What program are you using for the h.264 encoding? You're putting it on the 750 GB drive and using the Xbox to play 'em?

[Jason Dunn]

H.264 is the new mp3. It works on my Windows PC, it works on my Macbook Pro. It works on my Xbox 360, it works on my iPod.

I just wish it worked on Windows without any third party software - maybe Windows Media Player 12 will include h.264 playback.

[Outlaw94]

I would like to know what you are using to convert your DVDs to this format. I always have problems finding a nice bit rate that gives me a good quality file without being enormous in size. It's a lot of trial and error for me.

Maybe a how-to article?

Hint hint

[benwaggoner]

Hey, Ben Waggoner here (Technology Evangelist on the Microsoft codec team).

It's inaccurate to state that we haven't done anything since WM9 launched.

On the authoring side, there's been
Format SDK 9.5 (2004)
Format SDK 11 (2006)
VC-1 Encoder SDK (2007)
Expression Encoder (2007)
All of which include a variety of quality and speed improvements that are backwards compatible with WMP 9 or later.

There's a new version of Windows Media Services coming in Server 2008 (currently in RC).

On the client side, we've had
Windows Media Player 10
Windows Media Player 11
Zune Player (two versions)
Several Media Center updates
New Media Center extenders
Great WMV support in Xbox and Zune
Silverlight

We've been supporting 3rd parties like Packet Video and Kinoma on geting WMV playback on non-Windows Mobile devices, and Telestream for Flip4Mac.

[Jeremy Charette]

Yeah, I've been thinking exactly the same thing. What program are you using for the h.264 encoding? You're putting it on the 750 GB drive and using the Xbox to play 'em?

I'm using handbrake. Then using "My Movies" to organize my DVD collection. The Xbox 360 sees the My Movies application in Media Center, and will play my movies natively. Does a FANTASTIC job of upscaling the h.264 to my TV's native 1080i resolution.

I'll try to post a how-to after a play with the process some more.

Still playing with encoding types and rates, trying to figure out where the sweet spot is, though I'm more focused on quality than file size. Still, I'm seeing compressed files between 1-2 GB for a 2 hour movie.

[Jason Dunn]

I'll try to post a how-to after a play with the process some more.

That would be great - Handbrake, like pretty much every other open source project I've seen, is quite confusing. I set up everything the way I thought made sense - using a preset as well - and it did nothing but bring up a command prompt window for two seconds, then it spit out some unknown file onto my desktop and said it was done.

Don't any of these talented programmers have friends that can help with them UI design? :?

[Jeremy Charette]

*beats head against wall*

Now I've forgotten the correct settings in Handbrake and the 360 won't open the files.

On top of that, My Movies is crashing Media Center.

:?

[Jason Dunn]

Whoa boy, this is a long one. I hope you'll take the time to read it all Ben. ;-)

Hey, Ben Waggoner here (Technology Evangelist on the Microsoft codec team).

Thanks for stopping in - sorry it's taken me a few days to get to this thread. I certainly wasn't expecting to have you stop in, but I welcome the opportunity to discuss this issue with you. I appreciate your input, but I don't think it invalidates my point - if anything, it only reinforces it. Let me explain...

On the authoring side, there's been
Format SDK 9.5 (2004)
Format SDK 11 (2006)
VC-1 Encoder SDK (2007)
Expression Encoder (2007)
All of which include a variety of quality and speed improvements that are backwards compatible with WMP 9 or later.

I'm a consumer. I'm a digital media enthusiast that has, for years, looked to Microsoft to provide easy and quick ways to get my content into WMV format. I'm not an encoding expert in terms of being able to use complex tools that expect me to understand anything more than the basics of bit rate and resolution. All the things you've listed are professional-level, or developer-focused improvements. I can't use SDKs. I can't use the Expression Encoder - I could stumble my way around Windows Media Encoder 9 and get the basics done with it, but I'm sure you'd agree it's anything but simple or straight-forward for anyone that isn't an encoding expert. To this day I still can't figure out how to create and export custom encoding profiles that I can use inside Windows Media Player - it's just not an easy process.

There's a new version of Windows Media Services coming in Server 2008 (currently in RC).

Again, no improvements for consumers in terms of getting their content into WMV.

On the client side, we've had
Windows Media Player 10
Windows Media Player 11
Zune Player (two versions)
Several Media Center updates
New Media Center extenders
Great WMV support in Xbox and Zune
Silverlight

You bet - lots of great devices that play back WMV. But that doesn't address the root problem of the consumer getting their content into WMV easily. That's really the root of my complaint.

Where's the WMV equivalent of the Divx Converter (http://www.divx.com/divx/windows/converter/)? Where's the tool that allows me to convert my video to WMV quickly and easily? Or, if you want to use Windows Movie Maker as the sole path for WMV creation, where are the profiles to support the Zune? Or Pocket PCs? Or Smartphones? A 640 x 480, 1 mbps profile just doesn't cut it in terms of covering portable devices. Relying on Windows Media Player 11 to transcode everything is just sloppy and a time suck. Windows Movie Maker could have been a great conduit for content transcoding if it had a dynamic, Internet-updatable profile function. New device comes out? Bam: release a profile so people can create WMV content for it. Instead we had a static list for years. Yes, a determined person could hunt down a custom profile created by someone else online and use if if they were technical enough, but it's not easy or intuitive.

Why doesn't Windows Movie Maker support custom encoding settings where I as a user can pick the resolution, aspect ration, and bit rate for my video? If I could do that some of this wouldn't be an issue for myself or for others. Was this kept out to cripple the product as a concession to third party video editing software developers?

Why doesn't it support encoding VOB files? Why did it take so many years to get DVR-MS support, and even now that's only in Vista? I will say that the addition of 1080p profiles for the Xbox is a welcome improvement, so clearly someone is partially paying attention to this scenario (though not enough IMO).

Let's face facts: DVD ripping software is incredibly popular. Legal or not, DVDs are a source of a great deal of content for consumers. When I travel, I don't lug 10 DVDs with me, I rip them and carry the files on my laptop hard drive. I'd never expect Microsoft to release a DVD ripper of their own, but why not support encoding of non-encrypted VOB files? Because Microsoft ignored this market, and never pursued the companies making DVD ripping software, the bulk of the products out there are focused on ripping to h.264 and Divx. I've practically begged the people at Slysoft, the ones who make the superb CloneDVD Mobile, to add WMV support - they've finally added it as an "experimental output". They, and developers of other applications, have told me that the WMV encoder is buggy and they've had real struggles getting WMV output into their products. Look at products from Pinnacle, Intervideo, and others: WMV is either missing or a second-class citizen.

h.264 and Divx have all the momentum because Microsoft abandoned WMV in the consumer space. The battle is over: the Xbox and Zune teams realize this, which is why they've added native h.264 and MPEG4 support to their products, and Divx is rumoured to be on the way. WMV has lots of promise, but it was badly mishandled. I can't tell you how many times over the years I've tried to use my MVP contacts to encourage various groups within Microsoft to make WMV support more of a priority. It never went anywhere because all the people I talked to seemed more focused on media encoding professionals then Joe Consumer.

Maybe that's what Microsoft wants: Joe Consumer using h.264, while Microsoft focuses on HD-DVD royalties from VC1. That seems to be the case to me...

We've been supporting 3rd parties like Packet Video and Kinoma on geting WMV playback on non-Windows Mobile devices, and Telestream for Flip4Mac.

Some of those Flip4Mac tools look better for consumer-level WMV encoding than what Microsoft offers it's own customers. Seems kind of sad, no?

[benwaggoner]

I'm a consumer. I'm a digital media enthusiast that has, for years, looked to Microsoft to provide easy and quick ways to get my content into WMV format. I'm not an encoding expert in terms of being able to use complex tools that expect me to understand anything more than the basics of bit rate and resolution. All the things you've listed are professional-level, or developer-focused improvements. I can't use SDKs. I can't use the Expression Encoder - I could stumble my way around Windows Media Encoder 9 and get the basics done with it, but I'm sure you'd agree it's anything but simple or straight-forward for anyone that isn't an encoding expert. To this day I still can't figure out how to create and export custom encoding profiles that I can use inside Windows Media Player - it's just not an easy process.

...

Where's the WMV equivalent of the Divx Converter (http://www.divx.com/divx/windows/converter/)? Where's the tool that allows me to convert my video to WMV quickly and easily? Or, if you want to use Windows Movie Maker as the sole path for WMV creation, where are the profiles to support the Zune? Or Pocket PCs? Or Smartphones? A 640 x 480, 1 mbps profile just doesn't cut it in terms of covering portable devices. Relying on Windows Media Player 11 to transcode everything is just sloppy and a time suck. Windows Movie Maker could have been a great conduit for content transcoding if it had a dynamic, Internet-updatable profile function. New device comes out? Bam: release a profile so people can create WMV content for it. Instead we had a static list for years. Yes, a determined person could hunt down a custom profile created by someone else online and use if if they were technical enough, but it's not easy or intuitive.
Ah, I see what you're getting at. We've got a good story for professionals (SDKs and Expression Encdoer) and automatic consumer scenarios (automatic transcoded tuned to a device), but you're really looking at something more "prosumer."

We don't really make anything like that, other than (arguably) Windows Media Encoder. Of course, since the SDK is available, you get 3rd parties making tools like TMPGEnc, Squeeze, ProCoder Express, and others targeting other scenarios.

Why doesn't Windows Movie Maker support custom encoding settings where I as a user can pick the resolution, aspect ration, and bit rate for my video? If I could do that some of this wouldn't be an issue for myself or for others. Was this kept out to cripple the product as a concession to third party video editing software developers?
Nope, just trying to keep things simple for consumers. We give the SDK out for free, so we don't need to enforce any tiering on the industry.

Why doesn't it support encoding VOB files? Why did it take so many years to get DVR-MS support, and even now that's only in Vista? I will say that the addition of 1080p profiles for the Xbox is a welcome improvement, so clearly someone is partially paying attention to this scenario (though not enough IMO).
There are lots of tools that can do .VOB or anything to WMV I see discussed on Doom9. Given Windows doesn't have a built in Dolby Digital decoder, it's not something we could do in a free product.

Lots of companies are legitmately using .VOB as souce for WMV encoding, like TotalVid. They're using Canopus ProCoder last I checked.

H.264 and Divx have all the momentum because Microsoft abandoned WMV in the consumer space. The battle is over: the Xbox and Zune teams realize this, which is why they've added native h.264 and MPEG4 support to their products, and Divx is rumoured to be on the way. WMV has lots of promise, but it was badly mishandled. I can't tell you how many times over the years I've tried to use my MVP contacts to encourage various groups within Microsoft to make WMV support more of a priority. It never went anywhere because all the people I talked to seemed more focused on media encoding professionals then Joe Consumer.
Well, bear in mind that we're not really against MPEG-4 (by "Divx" I assume you mean MPEG-4 part 2 in a .avi, not the actual .divx files) at Microsoft. WMV is a good format for a lot of stuff, but I don't consider adding support for those codecs to Xbox some kind of defeat.

The real sweet spots for Windows Media are for scenarios that go beyond just a file container for local playback. Stuff like streaming, real-time encoding, DRM, multicast for corporate use. Local file playback that's basically a more efficient version of MPEG-1 from a feature perspective doesn't really need Windows Media.

Maybe that's what Microsoft wants: Joe Consumer using h.264, while Microsoft focuses on HD-DVD royalties from VC1. That seems to be the case to me...
Well, we're part of the H.264 patent pool as well :).

Some of those Flip4Mac tools look better for consumer-level WMV encoding than what Microsoft offers it's own customers. Seems kind of sad, no?
We licenced source code to Telestream for Flip4Mac, distribute the software, and work with them on it in other ways, so I think of it as part of our efforts. I agree it's a nice way to integrate compression into the QuickTime API.

[Jason Dunn]

Ah, I see what you're getting at. We've got a good story for professionals (SDKs and Expression Encdoer) and automatic consumer scenarios (automatic transcoded tuned to a device), but you're really looking at something more "prosumer."

Yes, I think professionals are in a good place with WMV - the Expression stuff is fantastic, Silverlight is impressive. The consumer scenario though is weak, and I'd argue that what you consider to be "prosumer" (people wanting to have control over their video encoding) is really still a consumer level scenario. Prosumers are probably video editing hobbyists making some money here or there, and working with someone else's content - consumers are working with their own content and simply trying to get it onto their devices.

What's the last significant investment the Windows Media team made in the consumer space? Windows Movie Maker for Vista is all that comes to mind. As I pointed out last message, it's extremely limited (read: crippled) when it comes to output profiles.

We don't really make anything like that, other than (arguably) Windows Media Encoder. Of course, since the SDK is available, you get 3rd parties making tools like TMPGEnc, Squeeze, ProCoder Express, and others targeting other scenarios.

Squeeze: $499 USD
ProCoder Express: no longer offered, ProCoder 3 is $499 USD
TMPGEnc: $99 USD

Other than TMPGEnc, I'd say those other examples fall firmly into the professional category. I remember one of the Zune team members saying that TMPGEnc was the solution to the fact that the Zune software wouldn't transcode DVR-MS files, AVI files, etc. - and most of the community wasn't very supportive of having to go out and spend $99 to get basic functionality they had with Windows Media Player 11 and a PlaysForSure device. Yet if Windows Movie Maker had a Zune output profile, many of these concerns would have been fixed.

Nope, just trying to keep things simple for consumers.

I'm all for keeping things simple, but not when it's used as an excuse for not giving consumers the features they need. The first-gen Zune was a perfect example of this: it only supported WMV natively on the device, so consumers needed to get their content into that format - yes, the software would transcode MPEG4 content to WMV, but that's slow and the quality usually sucks.

There's more Divx (in AVI container form) than pretty much anything else, yet the Zune software wouldn't work with AVI content (unless you did a registry hack). So you had this device (the Zune) ready and willing for WMV content, yet no Windows Movie Maker profile to output that content in. Telling consumers to spend an hour outputting a 640 x 480 1 mbps file then waiting another hour for the Zune software to convert it to 320 x 240. That's just a bad user experience when all the person wants is to take their content and go.

Well, bear in mind that we're not really against MPEG-4 (by "Divx" I assume you mean MPEG-4 part 2 in a .avi, not the actual .divx files) at Microsoft. WMV is a good format for a lot of stuff, but I don't consider adding support for those codecs to Xbox some kind of defeat.

Well, it's either a begrudging acceptance or a complete lack of awareness about what types of formats consumers are using now. Either way it's taken a very long time, and multiple generations (in the case of the Zune) to acknowledge that WMV support simply isn't enough.

As you can tell, there's a common theme in my posts: I believe that many consumers use Windows Movie Maker as a transcoding engine because it's free, and included in Windows by default. I find myself using it quite a bit now under Vista because it's fast and easy. But the brick wall that people owning Zunes, Windows Mobile devices, and many other WMV-capable devices run smack into is the fact that there's no profile support for their devices.

I'm convinced that if Windows Movie Maker had better profile support for mobile devices, and custom profile support, it would alleviate many of these frustrations for myself and the communities I represent (both here and at Zune Thoughts). It would be a great win for Microsoft to be able to say "Sure, if you want to create content for our devices, use Windows Movie Maker. Problem solved." This party tools could handle the DVD ripping, VOB importing, Flash video importing, etc.

So who on the Windows Movie Maker team makes this call? Who's the person that controls which profiles are included, and the process to add new ones? Can we take this offline and get a conference call set up? I'd really like to not have this same conversation two years from now. ;-)

[Jason Dunn]

I forgot to add another profile that Windows Movie Maker needs: a YouTube export profile. Yes, a knowledgeable user could specify the file size as 99 MB and the software will take care of the rest, but many YouTube users don't understand the limitations that YouTube has. The competition here is the Mac, and the best out-of-box solution is who wins - Microsoft has stepped up with Vista and Live services, trying to compete with iLife, but the apps have to continue to evolve and improve - and the customer won't wait five years for you to release a new OS just to get a new version of the app.