Windows Media 9 in Digital Theaters 639
SpamJunkie writes "Feel like watching new releases in 7.1 surround sound with full digital video? It's coming, not with MPEG 4 but with Windows Media 9. Microsoft announced it is bringing Windows Media 9 to 177 screens in Landmark Theaters."
blue screen? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:blue screen? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:blue screen? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:blue screen? (Score:5, Funny)
If the problem persists please contact the theatre manager
Other potential hazards... (Score:5, Funny)
2. Projectionist plays an MP3 and it blasts out of the speaker.
3. Projectionist forgets to turn off Windows desktop sounds
and so on......
Re:Other potential hazards... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Other potential hazards... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Other potential hazards... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Other potential hazards... (Score:3)
Re:Other potential hazards... (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, because WMP can actually figure out how long a VBR MP3 is.
Oh wait, it can't. Darn. Maybe next decade!
Movie theater owner: How long is that movie?
Projectionist: WMP says it is 30 minutes long.
Movie theater owner: Really? That's great.
Next day, big sign outside: Now playing every hour "Lawrence of Arabia"!
Re:Other potential hazards... (Score:3, Funny)
A sense of humour, perhaps ?
Re:Other potential hazards... (Score:4, Insightful)
everthing old is new again (Score:2)
Argh. (Score:4, Insightful)
One more way for Microsoft to lock up artist works in their own file formats. How long before studios decide to release Windows only DVD's rather than bother reencoding the movies?
Why was this needed? Couldn't studios have just mastered the movies to DVD and either mailed them to theatures or allowed the theature to download the movie if they had the bandwidth? Damn it costs about $2 to burn and mail a DVD. They couldn't afford that? Then the theature could use a fairly standard DVD player hooked to their projector and audio system. If the movie won't fit on DVD then split it over several discs and allow the theature to rip the DVD to a harddrive and playback.
movies "crashing" (Score:3, Insightful)
shit happens in analog, too.
Re:Argh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Bullshit. Really. Apache is still beating IIS in market share and always has. The PS2 is still clobbering the X-Box. The PalmOS is still demolishing the PocketPC. WebTV has been toast for some time. Heck, the only places Microsoft *have* been successful are Windows (due to a desktop monopoly), Explorer (due to leveraging the previous monopoly to squash Netscape) and Office (due mostly to locked-in data formats). Outside of the narrowly-defined desktop realm, Microsoft is one vast litany of failures.
Re:Argh. (Score:3, Interesting)
I wouldn't care if it was a microsoft codec, as long as the specification was open or at the very least there were implementations for other operating systems.
Even earlier Microsoft codecs are de-facto open, they're open in that you can download Windows Media for Mac or any of a number of free players that are very cross-platform to access them. WM9 is Windows only, the Mac Windows Media player won't even play it (and this is deliberate MS policy, publically announced) and if anyone reverse engineers it t
Re:Argh. (Score:3, Interesting)
What's in a Color? (Score:2, Funny)
One more thing... (Score:5, Funny)
-Staff
Re:One more thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, with film, it'd be pretty cost prohibitive and difficult to smuggle out thousands of feet of film to get a screen quality transfer done to export to the middle east to run on hundreds of screens over there.
On the other hand, if it's in MPEG4, you just bring in a firewire hard drive, copy the movie over, and not only can you send it off to wherever to run on actual movie screens with no money going to the distributors and movie makers, but you have a perfect quality thing to do black market mass duplicated DVD's with the same quality as the ones the studios will eventually release in six months within days of the movie coming to the theatre - not to mention real nice DIVX versions on Kazzaa.
Yeah, they'd never go for it. Without DRM, you will never get digital movies on any large scale. Won't happen.
Re:One more thing... (Score:3, Funny)
Great quote... (Score:5, Funny)
Umm... shouldn't it go without saying that it's theatre quality if they're rolling it out?
Re:Great quote... (Score:2)
They're trying to set your expectations appropriately low.
Re:Great quote... (Score:2)
please excuse us while we reboot the theater... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:please excuse us while we reboot the theater... (Score:5, Funny)
if the theater is running windows for movies (Score:2, Funny)
Re:if the theater is running windows for movies (Score:2, Informative)
Re:if the theater is running windows for movies (Score:2)
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/17/212
Halo..8 stories high.
Which reminds me..I really need to go watch another omnimax movie, the everest one was the shit.
WM9 Is a good codec (Score:4, Informative)
Re:WM9 Is a good codec (Score:3, Informative)
I've played around with encoding HDTV to Xvid also and the consensus on all the hdtv forums is that Xvid is slightly inferior to wme9 in terms of quality and file size. Although the benfit with Xvid is you can use AC3 sound instead of microsoft's proprietary surround sound codec.
WMV9 is NOT MPEG-4 (Score:5, Informative)
Also, the difference is a lot bigger than 30%. It's more like 100% more for MPEG-2, with the gap increasing as data rates get lower.
Re:WM9 Is a good codec (Score:2, Insightful)
I can't think of a single codec thats resolution limited. DIVX, X-Vid, MPEG-2.. all are capable of any resolution you want to throw at them.
Digital movies have been around for a while, they are sent to the theaters on like 12 DVD's and played back on TI DLP projectors. You've probably unwittingly sat in one and couldn't tell the difference. :)
Odd... (Score:3, Insightful)
No I wont make the usual 'is that BSOD supposed to be in the middle of that film' type gag, but I do find this quite a weird move. MPEG has always been, in my opinion at least, one of the more superior video formats. VideoCD uses MPEG, and doesn't DVD?
Re:Odd... (Score:2)
The upside... (Score:2)
Cheers or jeers (Score:2, Insightful)
Woo. (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder if people will notice the subliminal "OBEY", "CONSUME" and "REPRODUCE" messages from MS..
Re:Woo. (Score:4, Funny)
If it was an GPL'd codec, I'd suggest the Communist subversion speech form Dr. Strangelove.
Re:Woo. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Woo. (Score:2)
(Yes Mr. Ridge. I will buy Duct Tape. I am in constant danger...)
Re:Woo. (Score:3, Funny)
Movie goers don't care... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Movie goers don't care... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey, isn't it ironic how hollywood sponsored DRM could cut their own throats?
Re:Movie goers don't care... (Score:2)
But Google are masters at the search engine now - everyone loves them, they have an (almost) clean image, and they are fast becoming sure fire IPO candidates even in this shaky
It's embedded in Microsoft's corporate culture (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, this is a company that is driven by conquests. They conquered the desktop. What now? You have to expand in order to keep your stock moving upward. It's never enough to stay big; you need to be bigger.
So as with Sidewalk, MSN, XBox, et. al., Microsoft is attacking Google and moving into the moviehouse business because to their way of thinking there is no other option.
For those of you who scoff at these latest attempts, remember that these guys have tremendously deep pockets. They can afford to pour money down a profitless hole for years, knowing that eventually they'll figure out how to market the product. Notice I said "market the product."
The best product doesn't always win. Microsoft's continued dominance is proof of that. Laugh at them all you want, but they're dangerous in almost any arena.
Lock in theaters...then home movies...then... (Score:2)
Piracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Piracy? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Piracy? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Piracy? (Score:2)
"Theater-Quality" experience... (Score:2)
Though I wonder if this is the same "-Quality" brand they used when describing 64kbps wma files as CD-Quality?
Quailty... (Score:2)
On the other hand, digital projection upgrade for theatres cost a fortune. Ihave to wonder if this WMP 'upgrade' at these theatres are gonan lock these guys into some future non fuctional system.
Choosing a propriatry format when there are equally good ones is almost always a bad idea. But as we all now, some slick salesman walks in and talk to some business school graduate management who still ha
Re:Quailty... (Score:2)
That just means they were overly compressed.
So... (Score:2)
Re:So... (Score:2)
Re:So... (Score:2)
scripsit dnaumov:
Um, I already boycott most new movies because they suck. Not much will change :/
WM9 *is* MPEG-4 (Score:5, Informative)
Did you try to play WM9 with a ref MPEG4 decoder? (Score:3, Informative)
The I- and P- frame concept are extremely old and in use in almost every video codec out there. They took some good ideas from MPEG4, but have been going in their own direction ever since.
Kjella
Screensavers on the silver screen!!! (Score:2)
Independent film distribution (Score:5, Interesting)
This could be a great boon to the independent film "industry!" As they mention in the article, the costs of getting your movie out to distributers would be much much lower...no more copying and mailing huge film reels to each theater (but no more spliced-in single frames of porn either :-( ). Of course, this would only be the case if the encoding software were similarly inexpensive, and with MS cuddling up to Hollywood for DRM, I don't see this happening.
Perhaps, this will provide the impetus to upgrade to digital projection equipment on which someone will implement an open codec...
The screen (Score:2)
Sure this sounds all peachy on the outside, but is this quality really due to the film and not the projector?
Great if we start getting digital films, but unless they make 30 foot plasma screens, I really don't expect to see much of a difference.
New business model for Theaters - not just movies (Score:4, Insightful)
With digital projection, why not rent out a movie theater for a super bowl party? maybe we'll start seeing Monday night independent film festivals in suburban theaters? In theory, digital projection could open up all kinds of new possibilities for the theater industry.
Bluescreen (Score:2)
Oh wait, I forgot to post as Anonymous Coward.
Lower cost to consumer? (Score:2, Interesting)
Variety.com Article (Score:4, Informative)
And for those who hate trial subscriptions, here's the full text:
Landmark going digital
All auditoriums nationwide to be outfitted with d-cinema
By CARL DIORIO [variety.com]
Arthouse giant Landmark Theaters will today announce plans to outfit its entire 177-screen circuit for digital cinema and a related effort to deal directly with filmmakers lacking distribution for their low-budget digital video features.
The d-cinema initiative involves a joint venture with Microsoft and L.A.-based Digital Cinema Solutions. Terms weren't available, but it's believed the unique three-way relationship will shave Landmark's costs to a fraction of the usual $100,000-plus per screen to install most d-cinema systems.
All auditoriums in Landmark's 53 theaters, located in 20 markets nationwide, will be outfitted with d-cinema playback systems based on Microsoft's Windows Media 9 Series. DCS will select digital projectors from a variety of manufacturers.
The Windows Media systems are substantially less expensive than other systems, because they essentially represent off-the-shelf technology, officials said. The playback systems will be married to relatively inexpensive digital projectors, because the smaller size of its screens requires less illumination to project an image of acceptable resolution.
Landmark chief Paul Richardson said he doesn't expect a lot of immediate interest from specialty distribs in converting their primary releases for digital distribution. But he believes they may be more inclined to acquire niche pics shot in digital video than previously.
"There's a whole bunch of product that doesn't get picked up at the film festivals because people don't believe it's worth the cost to invest the money to make a master print, which can cost $50,0000-$60,000," Richardson said. "But for $6,000-$8,000, you can encode the film for digital (to) play our circuit, and I think some distributors will be interested in doing that."
Landmark and its joint venture partners will also ante up the encoding costs for some number of pics, he said. "We're not going to bid on films against the guys in the business," the Landmark CEO said, noting he won't be personally prowling any film markets.
"The films we're going to package are maybe a year old and haven't gotten picked up yet," he explained. "Those people are in contact with us all the time."
In the past, Landmark's steered such filmmakers to various indie distribs but now will deal with them more directly in some instances. Richardson said he's not sure how many such pics the joint venture partners themselves will distribute, nor have they identified a likely first release to run through the digital circuit.
"We're starting out on an adventure here, and we really don't have a road map," he acknowledged. "We have a huge opportunity, but we're just not exactly sure where that opportunity is going to evidence itself."
Landmark aims to outfit all of its screens for digital projection by December. "We're starting on the smaller auditoriums first, because that's where these pictures will play," Richardson said.
Landmark and Microsoft previously collaborated on a small number of digital installations in connection with the BMW Films digital shorts series. For that series, which features BMW autos in several digitally produced action shorts, DCS installed d-cinema systems in a couple dozen theaters, including several Landmark sites.
Landmark also used Microsoft-outfitted auditoriums to exhib Artisan's recent music docu "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" in nine locations.
Re:Variety.com Article (Score:2)
Christ, that puts it in perspective.
In other words, this is so that local people can put together films and have them shown by bringing them on CD, rather than striking a print; imagine seeing some of your favourites from ifilm.com, for example, on the (relatively) big screen.
Attack of the Killer Virus! (Score:3, Funny)
Monopoly aids branding (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Monopoly aids branding (Score:2)
Perhaps that is part of the M$ plan and would fit perfectly into their pattern of creating a partnership, building on it, then burning their partner.
This would get WinMedia into theaters and, once it's established and M$ has a lock on Digital Restrictions Management, when a new movie comes out, they can control distribution. You could go pay $10 to see a movie in the theater, or wait a week, and pay $5 to download it and watch it on your computer or TV.
I'll bet that's their plan --
sounds (Score:2)
Good for indie films (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm looking forward to see how this works at Austin's Dobie Theater. At South by Southwest 2002 and 2003, lots of the festival films were screened using digital projection, and I thought it worked pretty well, with the biggest problem being the limited resolution of the DV source.
You mean the BSOD? (Score:2)
Is all from MS so bad? I do wonder... (Score:2, Interesting)
Sure, the company is evil, but now in this case it seems to me that they really "invented" quite a good thing, and why not use their product?
Of course, yeah, we can wait a few months till there is an OSS alternative, but hey, they were first.
I think many people should think over their opinion, because there are just too many stereotypes concerning Microsoft. Most people don't think, because "everything that comes from Microsoft is bad."
They certa
Licenses (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Licenses (Score:3, Funny)
DT
If you're at NAB, come see it for yourself (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm on a panel at the National Association of Broadcasters Convention this weekend, as part of their Broadcast Engineering track.
http://www.nab.org/conventions/nab2003/sessiond
I'll be demoing content in a variety of HD formats: RealVideo 9, Windows Media 9, MPEG-4 Simple, MPEG-2 MPEG-4 Advanced Simple, and ACT-L3. It's amazing what you can do with 1280x720 24 fps at 4 Mbits/sec these days.
From the field: hard part is projector, not codec (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone is focusing on the codec being the quality limitation, but that's not true. In fact, the projector is the biggest deal. There are plenty of modern codecs that can give you visually lossless quality if you throw enough bits at them. The issue with codecs is getting compression efficiency up so that transmission and storage is cheaper, and keeping decode complexity down so you don't need to have expensive hardware in the projector. The WM9 system is pretty much a high end (but not the highest end) Dell workstation, strapped to a cart with XLR audio out, a control pad, and a big data projector on the top. All off the shelf parts, which makes implementation cheap, and upgrading the computer very cheap. But those are nice things to have, but not strictly required for digital projection.
But we could do the same thing with MPEG-4, or other formats. WM9 has a more mature DRM solution and some other advantages, but it is absolutely possible to use another format.
The big limit is in having a projector that is bright enough to fill the room, with a dark black, and high resolution. Moore's law gives us improvements in compression faster than we get improvements in projection, so the big photon cannon will be the true limit on quality for a while.
Don't be the stereotypical Slashdot jackhole (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Ha Ha, jackhole... (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft today: "Hey kid! Over here. Try this stuff. The first hit is free!"
Slashdot posting 5 years from now: "I run a small studio. I'm not happy about the new Microsoft media licensing either, especially the royalty-per-view terms. But we've invested so much in Microsoft software, equipment and training that we just can't afford to switch. We've decided to suck up and pay. Plus, with the exclusive deal Microsoft has with all the theater chains, we just can't use any other format. It's industry standard. I wish there was another viable solution, but this is the only game in town."
Re:Ha Ha, jackhole... (Score:5, Insightful)
Gads, but I wish I had a mod point handy. This is precisely the problem, and I can't understand why it keeps being dismissed as ``Microsoft bashing.'' (Usually by people who have a Score:3 post who, at some point lament ``I'm sure I'll be modded to Hell for saying this, but...'')
The progression is obvious and has been seen a number of times already: Microsoft behaves in a seemingly generous manner (in this case, setting up low-cost digital projection systems so smaller film producers have a shot at distribution; previously, it was giving away a web browser), gets a whole lot of people using one of their proprietary formats, manages to lock out other formats thereby, and then starts jacking up licensing fees once they're the only game in town.
``And you fall for it every single time.''
--Angelus
Re:Let's give a collective... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Let's give a collective... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Let's give a collective... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Let's give a collective... (Score:5, Informative)
I guess you also never watched a DVD? That video is compressed with a lossy compression scheme, yet it still looks good. Why? Variable compression. Someone just didn't pop a tape into a tape player, hit play, then click the record button on a computer. There are actually people that go through and master these things over a period of weeks or months to make the video stream as small as possible while trying to make it as quality as possible. There are also all sorts of measurement and analysis tools applied to it along the way to remove scratches from the film transfer, and to make multiple streams of audio (for foreign languages, commentary tracks, and I've even seen some DVDs that not only support the AC3 digital surround, but will have a Dolby Prologic encoded stream.)
Re:Let's give a collective... (Score:3, Interesting)
Because bandwidth costs money aaand. . . .
We are talking about resolutions MUCH higher than that. Picture transferring 50 gigabytes VS transferring 40 gigabytes. Now imagine that difference times the hundreds if not thousands of theaters across the nation that would be receiving just that one film in digital format. Multiple this by an even l
Crank up the bitrate. (Score:3, Interesting)
That said, it's possible to have high-bitrate (but still compressed) video that looks good on the big screen.
Try watching some 1080i HDTV content. (Like CSI or CSI: Miami). This will look pretty good on the big screen. Especially if you use a "studio master" bitstream, which is often at 40+ megabits/sec as opposed to the 19.2 Mbps of ATSC HD.
Now take that further, and use a better codec, like MPEG-4. With MPEG-4 at 1080p resolutio
Re:If this isn't abuse of a monopoly... (Score:2)
So you saw Phantom Menace too?
Re:If this isn't abuse of a monopoly... (Score:2)
Thanks.
Re:Did they hype it? (Score:2)
Re:Did they hype it? (Score:2)
Ah ok. My bad. I'd never seen the bluescreen on XP so I figured they'd taken it out... I guess the setting is the real reason why. :)
My Computer -> Properties -> Advanced Tab -> "Startup & Recovery" Settings
neurostarRe:who's gonna pay to watch a BSOD ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Given a static, known platform, I'll bet they can make it reliable. One of the biggest challenges for operating sytem reliability is that in the typical PC or server, the OS vendor has to try and make allowances for combinations of hardware and software that they have never even thought of. In this scenario, as long as the boxes are dedicated for the purpose of displaying digital video I'm sure they can figure out how to overcome any
Re:who's gonna pay to watch a BSOD ? (Score:2)
On standardized hardware, sure - it's the same reason Apple software only runs on their own hardware.
Even on non-standard hardware, WMP is plenty stable - my XP box hasn't crashed in months, and I watch DivX movies quite often in WMP.
I noticed several anoying bugs, one of them the shor lived battery
How's a short-lived battery Microsoft's fault? They didn't make that color LCD suck power like a vacuum cleaner, HP did.
owners of to
Re:who's gonna pay to watch a BSOD ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows has been running for years in many display kiosks around town and info-screens at the airport. You know it's Windows, because NT will pop up every now and then with a bluish happy little screen. But these things are left on all of the time, all day. If all a machine had to do was boot, display a WM9 file, and reboot, XP should be fine.
Honestly, I'd expect fewer people will be dissappointed with the projection than with the content when the next digitally-projected Star Wars comes out.
Re:who's gonna pay to watch a BSOD ? (Score:2)
I used to have a home-brew PVR based on Windows Media 7. The computer had a TV Tuner card that was set up with Snapstream (www.snapstream.com) to capture shows and encode them with WM7 in real time. I also had it hooked up to a TV so I could watch the videos when they were done encoding.
The system had an average up-time of around 2 months before needing a reboot, usually because the sound card gave up for whatever reason. Every we
Standards (Score:2, Informative)
Re:DRM crawling its way as much as it can (Score:2, Informative)
Here [theora.org].
Re:Unconditional Microsoft Hate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it is. I'm going to be putting together a computer for my sister soon. I'll give you two guesses to tell me what operating systems she can choose from, and I'll give you one guess as to which operating system is the only one she really can choose. Here's a hint: she doesn't have the money for a Mac. I'd also give you a guess about her word processor, but it isn't worth it.
I don't have to fuck about for hours installing this and that, having the right hardware...
I say the same things about Solaris and Mac OS X relative to Windows.
The movie goer does not care how the movie is projected, how it gets to the cinema, or whatever.
I'd bet there will be a two-minute preview hammering into the minds of the audience how great WM9-based movies are. I'd also not be suprised if there are borderline-subliminal messages in that preview to gain even better penetration.
Re:Unconditional Microsoft Hate? (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, it is.
Actually, it isn't. The fact that you think the (many) alternatives are too expensive doesn't negate the fact that they exist, and that alone is enough to rebut the accusation that Microsoft is a "monopoly." Does Canjet have an airline monopoly in Canada? I always fly with Canjet. I can't afford to fly with Air Canada, so I guess by your definition, CanJet is a monopoly in Canada. Whatever.
I'd bet there will be a two-minute preview hammerin