Why do companies continuously re-invent the wheel? Is it ego-driven? Personally, it just makes life more annoying. In a perfect world, there would be 3 media types. MP3, for lossy audio, FLAC, for lossless audio and MPEG4 would cover video. Instead , media formats are pushed by some group with an agenda. Sure, they all make claims of superiority and being higher quality, but that’s not what’s driving them. Do we really need WMA, WMV, MOV, OGG, MKV and the list goes on… So what’s the advantage to all these formats? Oh yea, it’s that they come with obnoxious proprietary players that ***** people to install and bog down there systems with obnoxiousware. What’s more annoying than sitting down in front of your PC to watch some porn and stumble through codecs and players that need to be installed first. The answer here is a standard that can be agreed upon across the industry. Why is that so hard? OK… I’m done bitchin’ Your opinions are welcome...
Annoying Media Formats - My Beef
- Thread starter extremeb
- Start date
I'm no techy - I'm an anti-monopolist businessman, so my instinct is to say that more competition is better. That written, I DO believe that disallowing convenient conversion provides a means to hurt the consumer. Still, can anyone expect Apple or whoever to give up their pseudo-competitive advantage?
it's not ego-driven, but profit-driven. if your format becomes the standard then you can charge others licensing fees to use it. witness betamax vs VHS, or bluray vs HD-DVD. it's the same with everything else, and i can tell you one thing: i never ever join sites that offer their videos in quicktime format. if you use QT then you don't get my money, it's that simple. QT is worse than most spyware, and you couldn't even watch anything in fullscreen until v7.4 or so. then again it is an apple product so a certain amount of retardation is to be expected...
btw, if you need to watch something but absolutely cannot find codecs for it, just use this tool to convert it:
Premium Link Upgrade
it's free, fast, and even has presets for cellphones built-in, so you can get jasmin st claire to go hahahaha
btw, if you need to watch something but absolutely cannot find codecs for it, just use this tool to convert it:
Premium Link Upgrade
it's free, fast, and even has presets for cellphones built-in, so you can get jasmin st claire to go hahahaha
Almost as annoying as the different formats themselves are the countless updates that programs have. If I try watching the same movie twice, I have to install 20 updates each time I open the player. :crash:
I'd go even one better and say it's control driven...witness Microshaft creating WMV and WMA solely to concentrate control in their own hands.
S
sputnikgirl
Guest
I **** wmv and wma. Those are the formats I got viruses from, when I had my old computer.
I have nothing against competition, companies could offer their own versions of media players for said "standard" That keeps competition alive and gets rid of the confusion for consumers.
Hang on a sec here... the analogy you are using is not right. Just because we settle on VHS over Beta doesn't mean Toshiba and Sony and JVC and 100 other companies charge licensing now. They're players all conform to the standard VHS or DVD or Bluray or whatever. My point is why can't the industry as a whole settle on a standard MPEG4 format (for example) for video, then the third parties could all make their cute little players to meet that standard.
And please don't get me started on
ukey:Apple cuz that's a novel I'd write.
Aces&Jacks
Retired Mod
I wouldn't say that it's necessarily ego driven or profit driven. The key to the common person enjoying audio & video (av) on their computer is the ability of guys that are smarter than most of us to compress the raw data from the av source sufficiently so that it can be either stored on your local machine or streamed over the internet while still maintaining enough quality so that it is viewable. Just like other compression methods, such as zip and rar or jpg and gif, there are different ways that have been developed by different people to achieve what they think are the best results. If you put all the time and money into developing something, you're unlikely to use someone else's technology, especially if you think yours is better. In some cases, even when you know yours is not the best.
Aces&Jacks
Retired Mod
Sounds like not wanting to waste the time, money and effort put in to creating something, that although may not be the best, is still a viable option...to me. Especially when it doesn't make sense supporting your competition by using their products.
Ok...agreed, but would you agree with it being a control issue then. Whoever controls the format will clearly benefit (profit) the most.
Aces&Jacks
Retired Mod
Now you've come full circle. The reason why it's not such a bad thing having so many format options is that no single company controls what we use to view videos on our computers.
Hang on a sec here... the analogy you are using is not right. Just because we settle on VHS over Beta doesn't mean Toshiba and Sony and JVC and 100 other companies charge licensing now. They're players all conform to the standard VHS or DVD or Bluray or whatever. My point is why can't the industry as a whole settle on a standard MPEG4 format (for example) for video, then the third parties could all make their cute little players to meet that standard.
And please don't get me started on
but they DO charge licensing fees... that is the reason why they developed the formats in the first place.
I've been a techy guy for a long time, so I don't have issues with multiple formats and installing add ons or codecs. It's the average joe that isn't really computer saavy that suffers here. How many times have you sent your buddy a clip and he can't view it and doesn't have the know how on what to do with it? maybe that's really my beef here...
Mmk, not to argue or anything, I do also believe in some form of competition, but not 10 different formats for the same general purpose. 2 I could live with. Perhaps even 3. But when it comes down to having to download players specifically just to play one format of video, thats where I say no.
Yeah, and as we've seen with VHS, without competition, you eventually get eaten alive, business-wise.
Something like iTunes from MagnaVox? I'm sorry - again, I'm no techy - I don't get how a company can release their own version of the "standard" if the standard becomes proprietary.
My point is why can't the industry as a whole settle on a standard MPEG4 format (for example) for video, then the third parties could all make their cute little players to meet that standard.
And please don't get me started on
Industries may close wagons around a format IF they believe consumers will continue buying. Consumers will do that only with an easy-to-use standard, which is why Apple wins this game a lot, I feel.
Whatever else they've done Apple can never turn me away since they virtually made film editing on the amateur level possible with iMovie, then improved it with FinalCut. Since 1997, I feel like I'm in the 70's, what with the combination of Sony and/or Canon cameras with Apple software.
I'm biased - sorry.
Amen.
Most of business history has shown that when the driver for the industry becomes selling, not innovating, controlling costs means we'd go from 10 or however many formats down to a few. Mostly, this happens, I think, because consumers become habitual. Once we get a dominant format, the others will need to overspend to reposition themselves, which will eventually become impossible for a few formats.