Is MPEG4 Dead? Someone Thinks So...

[Jason Dunn]

http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=8605&page=2&c=7

"In addition to offering lower quality, MPEG-4 also sports the obligation to pay royalties, not only on encoders and decoders, but also on content. Given that decoders for the other three have always been free, it's doubtful that this costs more, looks worse "value proposition" will win many takers in the streaming media space. This leaves appliances like DVD players, cell phones, and PDAs as the last hope for MPEG-4, but Moore's Law will prove its undoing. Specifically, in the past, these devices were driven by single-purpose chips that could only be prudently designed and manufactured for a single, well-supported standard.

Today, many of these devices are built around general purpose digital signal processors (DSPs) that can support multiple compression technologies. Since these chips aren't locked into a specific technology, this lessens the importance of standards in the technology decision. Finally, it's hard to minimize the importance of the DVD Forum's provisional approval for Microsoft's VC-9 technology, essentially Windows Media Video 9, along with two other technologies, H.264 and MPEG-2, as mandatory on next-generation playback devices."

This is a power play in the strongest sense - Microsoft knows that the key to establishing format dominance is to make the file format free, but making money licensing it to hardware vendors. At least I think that's what they're doing.

[Jason Dunn]

http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=8605&page=2&c=7

"In addition to offering lower quality, MPEG-4 also sports the obligation to pay royalties, not only on encoders and decoders, but also on content. Given that decoders for the other three have always been free, it's doubtful that this costs more, looks worse "value proposition" will win many takers in the streaming media space. This leaves appliances like DVD players, cell phones, and PDAs as the last hope for MPEG-4, but Moore's Law will prove its undoing. Specifically, in the past, these devices were driven by single-purpose chips that could only be prudently designed and manufactured for a single, well-supported standard.

Today, many of these devices are built around general purpose digital signal processors (DSPs) that can support multiple compression technologies. Since these chips aren't locked into a specific technology, this lessens the importance of standards in the technology decision. Finally, it's hard to minimize the importance of the DVD Forum's provisional approval for Microsoft's VC-9 technology, essentially Windows Media Video 9, along with two other technologies, H.264 and MPEG-2, as mandatory on next-generation playback devices."

This is a power play in the strongest sense - Microsoft knows that the key to establishing format dominance is to make the file format free, but making money licensing it to hardware vendors. At least I think that's what they're doing.

[James Fee]

I've followed this whole MPEG-4 fiasco with interest, mostly due to my hope of a great new video format, but as with the author of that story, I'm thinking the format is dead. Hell, Apple cares more about its Quicktime and AAC formats than promoting the technology its built upon. They fought so hard to get the MPEG-4 standard and then, poof, ignore it. They only use it for marketing their two formats (QT and AAC) to make people think they are a bigger standard than they are.

The only issue I have with the article (and its a big issue) is the lack of mention of DivX. I feel this format will explode in the next year and leave Microsoft in the dust. The amount of support that I've seen for it from hardware vendors amazes me. By leaving out DivX, the author leaves me wondering if he really knows what he is talking about. :drinking:

[popabawa]

From the article;

MPEG-4 offers lower quality than any of them.

Wha? That's kinda like saying "AMD-based computers are slow". It's meaningless. Unless you look at specifics you have no comparison.

As far as I'm concerned DivX IS MPEG-4 and is a format that will do nothing but grow.

Iain.

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by cageyjames

The only issue I have with the article (and its a big issue) is the lack of mention of DivX. I feel this format will explode in the next year and leave Microsoft in the dust. The amount of support that I've seen for it from hardware vendors amazes me....

My perception is that DivX is a hacker/hobbyist format - DivX is not an industry player. The hardware support is about the same as WMV at this point - I've only seen/heard of a few players for each. In fact, KISS, the company who makes a DivX player, is also releasing a WMV player. DivX might be the #1 format for illegal movie sharing, but beyond that, I don't think it has a long-term future...

[Felix Torres]

Dunno, its way too early in the game to be burying anything...
And too early to be annointing any winners.

And, there are multiple ways of implementing MPEG4 tech; obviously APPLE's sucks rivets and most of the japanese implementations (Panasonic, et all) have also left a lot to desire, but that doesn't mean that an implementation can't be found that will deliver quality performance. Early MPEG implemtations were useless and non-competitive with Intel's Indeo, remember?

The problem, as the articles points out is performance plus cost; with MPEG being the property of 20 separate companies, each trying to make money off it, they need to squeeze every last penny out of the royalties as possible. Which has led to the royalties on content, not just the codec.

That has not set well with content-providers.
And as the DAT-wars prove; no content-no product.
(That's what's holding DiVX back, after all.)

And it is here that MPEG has a tough row to hoe; its primary competitor, Windows Media, is the sole property of one company. *And* a company that has other ways to monetize their IP investment, mostly software licensing and sales. So MS has no need to charge royalties on the content itself *and* can get by with a 4cent royalty on the decoder vs something like 18 cents on MPEG4.

Plus, MS has been quite diligent in getting the codec implemented; at the chip level, the system level, and, of course at the software level, their home turf.

Against it is the usual AMB handwringing about how they want to take over the world...

Main question will come down to this: how many companies will cut their nose to spite their face and leave vast amounts of money on the table so as *not* to help MS make a buck or ten? We're talking money comparable to the total of the DVD-sales, DVD-rental, PAY-PER-VIEW, camcorder, cable, and satellite-broadcasting industries, *combined*.

That there will be *some* is a given.
They all have their own axe to grind and their own form of MS-angst.
But, will they be enough to torpedo Windows Media?
Hard to tell.
The train is at the station and starting to pull away.

Early returns suggests MS has found a camp of followers in the asian DVD market where the ability to encode a High-def movie on a red-laser DVD player means $100 DVD-players with high-definition playback capabilities *soon*, and among digital theatre operators of the art-house variety. The Terminator 2 and BMW movies make a pretty compelling case for HD Windows Media and Microsoft's DRM tech seems to be robust enough to satisfy the studios.
Which is how MS got on the sort list for the HD DVD spec.

Of course, it'll be a cold day you-know-where when SONY goes for a not-invented-here solution, so there's still Blu-ray to deal with.

Like I said, its early in the game...

As for DiVX, well, the tech is workable and it does a good job of rendering ED onto CD media, but they have focused way too much on getting DVD-quality onto CDs, which is what the hobbyists and pirates wanted, and not enough looking at the horizon for the *big* market to come: HD, which requires a whole new infrastructure. In other words, the finish-line got moved a few miles south on them.

MS, it now is clear, was aiming to displace MPEG from the *whole* food chain all along, hence their dealings with chip vendors *and* content providers.

For the near-term it looks pretty much like an *exact* replay of the VHS vs Beta vs laser disk wars of the 70s-80s, with MPEG4/Blu-ray in the role of Beta (Sony support and all!) and DiVX in the role of the Pioneer laserdisk, with good tech but limited market reach outside enthusiasts.

The real wildcard in the deck is Windows Media on red laser and I think that will swing the pendulum to MS. SONY thinks so too, hence their rush to get a cheap blu-ray disk spec out there (paper disks?) to get the blu-ray prices competitive with Windows Media on red-laser, which should start to make a splash this fall if all the announcements actually lead to *cheap* shipping products.

Bottom line: no, MPEG4 isn't dead.
But its not exactly alive and kicking, either.

[Jason Dunn]

Great analysis Felix! Fascinating to read. :-)

[James Fee]

Originally Posted by Jason Dunn

DivX might be the #1 format for illegal movie sharing, but beyond that, I don't think it has a long-term future...

That is quite shortsighted Jason. DivX is no longer a format that hackers use. For one, JVC is releasing a DVD player that supports DivX, the WSJ reported a couple months ago that GE Medical Systems chose DivX for their Medical Imaging Devices, and Sony Pictures has released trailers on their site using the DivX codec. The plain facts are that DivX has better compression than MPEG-2 and looks so much better than Quicktime or WMV9. The same WSJ article that talked about GE Medical Systems, mentioned that movie studios were interested in DivX to release their movies (with DRM of course). DivX is the video format of the future and igoring it shows the person writing the article either doesn't follow the industry as a whole, or has an ulterior motive to push a microsoft technology.

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by cageyjames

DivX is the video format of the future and igoring it shows the person writing the article either doesn't follow the industry as a whole, or has an ulterior motive to push a microsoft technology.

Let's compare notes in a few years. ;-) DivX is a video format. Windows Media is a platform. They're very different beasts, but we'll see which one eats the other.

[Felix Torres]

Originally Posted by Jason Dunn

Let's compare notes in a few years. ;-) DivX is a video format. Windows Media is a platform. They're very different beasts, but we'll see which one eats the other.

Wow!
Thems fightin' words!
Will be be seeing a duel afterschool?
Say...artillery pieces at 50 paces? :twisted:

Nice thought though; yes Windows Media *is* a platform.
I'll have to remember that.
*Everything* MS builds is a platform.
Just look at how they made a platform out of the old e-mail reader!

They are at heart a tools and platforms company, after all...

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by Felix Torres

Nice thought though; yes Windows Media *is* a platform. I'll have to remember that. *Everything* MS builds is a platform. Just look at how they made a platform out of the old e-mail reader! They are at heart a tools and platforms company, after all...

Yup. To really understand Microsoft and how they think, you need to think in terms of platforms. Microsoft has failed or achieved mediocre successes where they've released "products". But when they focus on platforms, end to end solutions, they tend to win those long term, pitched battle.

I have to hand to DivX - they've done amazingly well for themselves - but I believe the future of digital video formats will rest on DRM-equipped platforms, not just a killer codec (and I don't dispute that the DivX codec rocks).