Skip to main content

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: WMA might take over (Read 40200 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

WMA might take over

Reply #75
Quote
I admit I envy them for getting there. Wish the same could happen to me.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=281383"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I don't, since i don't subscribe to the philosophy of "win, no matter what".

WMA might take over

Reply #76
Quote
I don't, since i don't subscribe to the philosophy of "win, no matter what".
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=281388"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Corporate America is a tough world. Only the immoral survive. 

WMA might take over

Reply #77
Quote
Agreed. But I definitely won't blame Microsoft for wanting monopolies. That's called ambition, and it's one of the healthiest things a person or company can have, I guarantee you.

we can conclude then that hitler was a good person then! just a very ambitious one

Quote
When the ambition starts getting out of hand (that's obviously the case with MS), you can't really expect them to see Buddha dancing on their desktops and decide to give peace a chance. The government should step in and force them to take a cold shower. Now, where is the american government?

the problem is that most of the times, politics are worst than the monopolies themselves ... and bush is still trying to catch osama :|

Quote
Are they? I thought only situations where the consumer is prejudiced are actually illegal. In some situations, the government actually encourages monopolies (mergers, etc.) in order to create strong companies that can compete as multinationals.

very uncommon cases

Quote
Good luck proving Microsoft is prejudicing consumers. And good luck reading on law. Monopolies aren't necessarily illegal

monopolies are ilegal when they harm competition, not only customers.

Quote
Also, you have some bad misconceptions. I'm having a hard time finding an area where Sony has a monopoly. MiniDisc? heh.

i mean any company that has a monopoly would be bad, not that sony is ...

Quote
And the RIAA isn't a monopoly since it isn't a corporation. It's an association of big corporations, but since the individual members retain their financial, legal and determination independency, it can't be considered a syndication or trust.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=281386"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

we can argue that they are really a couple of companies that agreed on not competing with each other, have fixated prices, etc, so they are virtually a large monopoly corporation.

EDIT: i allways enjoy arguin with you, being by the forum, or by chat

WMA might take over

Reply #78
Quote
we can conclude then that hitler was a good person then! just a very ambitious one


Ambition has nothing to do with being good, dude. Where did you come out with that from?

I claimed ambition is healthy. The use you make with this ambition can be good or bad.

Quote
the problem is that most of the times, politics are worst than the monopolies themselves ... and bush is still trying to catch osama :|


Right. So you have a difficult situation, where everyone is to blame but there's nothing to be done

If there was a public outcry about Microsoft being a bad thing, the politics would be forced to take some action. The way it is now, they prefer to have Microsoft donating to their campaigns.

Quote
very uncommon cases


Boeing / McDonnel Douglas is the most famous one. But there have been several, specially in the banking arena.

Quote
monopolies are ilegal when they harm competition, not only customers.


But it's hard to link monopolies with competition harm. Microsoft can claim that the competition got bankrupt because they were doing a bad job or were unefficient, not because Microsoft was screwing them in the background. You see, the relation of causality is very hard to determine in that case.

Quote
i mean any company that has a monopoly would be bad, not that sony is ...


Ah, OK.

Quote
we can argue that they are really a couple of companies that agreed on not competing with each other, have fixated prices, etc, so they are virtually a large monopoly corporation.


Yes, a trust. But then the companies need to be blamed in group, and not blame the association, since it officially has no influence on its associates.

Quote
EDIT: i allways enjoy arguin with you, being by the forum, or by chat
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=281392"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


It's in the blood.

Brazilians vs. Argentinians...

WMA might take over

Reply #79
Quote
It's in the blood.
Brazilians vs. Argentinians...

... i just happened to be with a friend of mine that came to argentina, from san pablo from some days ... we would be going out tomorrow with her boyfriend an my wife

WMA might take over

Reply #80
Quote
hate the drug producers, hate the goverment for not stoping them [a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=281369"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


don't hate anyone as long as you've got a choice not to take it 

WMA might take over

Reply #81
Quote
If there was a public outcry about Microsoft being a bad thing, the politics would be forced to take some action. The way it is now, they prefer to have Microsoft donating to their campaigns.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=281398"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

afaik it wasn't a public outcry, but the EU council forced Microsoft to release a version of Windows without Windows Media Player and crap like those as it was an abuse of their monopoly to get support in the media player scene. or something like that. Like when they added IE by default to Windows, and they got sued as it was an unfare move in the fight against Netscape.

Thus now we have Windows XP Reduced Media Edition now, which is the best version of XP so far as I recall.

WMA might take over

Reply #82
how come that people hold Microsoft responsible for all that DRM crap but let Apple get away with it? As far as I know, Apple sells much more DRM protected music files than Microsoft...besides that, MS just developed WMA but does not have a Music Store...Apple not just developed their DRM AAC implementation but is also selling that DRM crap in their music store...if there is a threat from any company it's rather Apple and not Microsoft...I'd say it's the RIAA though...
--alt-presets are there for a reason! These other switches DO NOT work better than it, trust me on this.
LAME + Joint Stereo doesn't destroy 'Stereo'

WMA might take over

Reply #83
IMHO for WMA to take over as the compression format of choice it would have to overcome major problems, one technical and the others political.

Technical:

WMA Pro has to be made the default choice of WMP as well as stores selling WMA downloads and portable players supporting WMA.


Political:

M$ have made a number of mistakes and made numerous annoyed customers by chosing to:
- Require DRM in prior versions of WMP on the CD you own
- Require user to contact M$ in case they wanted to play their ripped music from another computer
- Requiring unaware users to re-rip their CD's if they failed to joggle the licenses after a computer fresh install
- Stating the WMA std. 64 kbps was CD quality causing many users perform less than optimal rips of their CD's
- Providing inferior MP3 encoding even when purchasing MP3 plugins at $20

New users with no prior experience with WMA should not have a problem with any of the political issues. Furthermore newbies don't care about the difference between WMA std. and WMA pro. So M$ should have no problem becoming the preferred solutions of newbies. 

As for those wanting a high quality compression format M$ will have to overcome the technical issue. 

If they then add gapless playback to WMP they would become a stong contender for the preferred compression format.

WMA might take over

Reply #84
Quote
how come that people hold Microsoft responsible for all that DRM crap but let Apple get away with it?[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=281607"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Apple never set DRM as default on their ripping software...

WMA might take over

Reply #85
Quote
Quote
how come that people hold Microsoft responsible for all that DRM crap but let Apple get away with it?[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=281607"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Apple never set DRM as default on their ripping software...
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=281664"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

and apple is probaly using DRM because of the RIA presure, not because they think is good (AFAIK OSX doesn't have the orrendus XP's activation issues).

WMA might take over

Reply #86
Quote
how come that people hold Microsoft responsible for all that DRM crap but let Apple get away with it? As far as I know, Apple sells much more DRM protected music files than Microsoft...besides that, MS just developed WMA but does not have a Music Store...Apple not just developed their DRM AAC implementation but is also selling that DRM crap in their music store...if there is a threat from any company it's rather Apple and not Microsoft...I'd say it's the RIAA though...
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=281607"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


I think it's a very safe bet that without that "DRM crap" Apple wouldn't have the licenses to sell the music in the first place. 

I believe that MS owns the MSN music store.

 

WMA might take over

Reply #87
First of all, its spelled Microsoft. If that's too complicated please just say 'MS'. Anything else is akin to calling someone a poopy-head. Really childish.

I usually refrain from posting in threads such as this, but I'm seeing some idiotic comments from people whose opinions I (in some cases) value above my own. What does Hitler have to do with this conversation? Is Bill Gates rounding up developers of other platforms and putting them in gas chambers? I've known many drug dealers in my days and none of them have ever forced me to use anything. Some have actually lied and said they weren’t holding when they were!

The monopoly talk got old a long time ago. No one is forced to use Windows outside of the work environment (and the company you work for is responsible for that). When Microsoft develops a hard drive that cannot be formatted and forces ALL of the PC manufacturers to use this hard drive then there would be something to complain about. Bottom line? If you're an unhappy Windows user head over to DistroWatch and find something else.

How many users in this community actually use WMA? I would bet they would be in the minority. And even those users are not forced to do so. Blaming Microsoft because the average user doesn't bother to investigate the options is not a valid argument. Got screwed because Media Player DRMed your rips? Your fault! Your portable player only supports WMA? Your fault!

If anyone is to blame for people being locked in to Windows I would have to say it's the third-party software developers that are responsible for it. The majority of the kick-ass software is only available for Windows (see VirtualDub, etc.). I could be a hard ass and say that's our faulty too, we should learn how to program, but I know I could not make anything anywhere near those 'killer apps'!

To make a long story short... there are always options. ALWAYS! No one has ever come to my house and said "You are trying too many distros! Knock it off and re-install Windows!" I have Windows 2000 on one of my desktops and Windows XP on my laptop. I tried wma and decided against it. Does that mean I don't have any music on my computer? Of course I do, because I am free to choose.

One more thing before I get off my soapbox... Waiting for your Uncle Sam to step in is pointless. If they wont protect you from the tobacco companies you should know that you are on your own! If they thought Microsoft was that bad for you they would put any extra tax on it and say 'don't use it'.
--
Eric

WMA might take over

Reply #88
Quote
First of all, its spelled Microsoft. If that's too complicated please just say 'MS'. Anything else is akin to calling someone a poopy-head. Really childish.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=282158"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Some people on this forum seems to be sensitive to the M$ acronym for Microsoft.

I enjoy using the M$ acronym for Microsoft as a negative to underline the fact that they muscle their competition and that they are more focused on making money than providing proper guidance to users.

All big companies are in the game to make $$$, but some tend to enlighten their customers and to compete by superior products, rather than marketing and company buy outs.

As I notice the M$ name calling may take away some of the other points I'm trying to make I will consider to refrain from using it.


Quote
How many users in this community actually use WMA? I would bet they would be in the minority. And even those users are not forced to do so. Blaming Microsoft because the average user doesn't bother to investigate the options is not a valid argument. Got screwed because Media Player DRMed your rips? Your fault! Your portable player only supports WMA? Your fault!
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=282158"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Personally I couldn't care less how many uses WMA. I tested it before deciding which encoder to use and was horrified by the sound, so I choose NOT to use WMA.

However as I pointed out, if MS wants to become the preferred audio compression format they have to overcome both technical and political issues.

What do you think newbies will think about MS when they discover MS have screwed them?

I would be suprised if they just said, "to bad, my fault, I could just have chosen not to beleive in MS and made another choice. What the heck, this is a good opportunity to rip my entire CD collection again".

WMA might take over

Reply #89
Quote
Some people on this forum seems to be sensitive to the M$ acronym for Microsoft.


People are not sensitive to saying "M$". I am not at least. You can call Bill Gates satan for all that I care. But it's damn childish neverthless, for sure.

Quote
What do you think newbies will think about MS when they discover MS have screwed them?[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=282198"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


They will be righteously infuriated. Or they will never notice Microsoft screwed them. Anyway, it's up to them to hate microsoft for that. Microsoft didn't screw me with WMA, so I don't think I have the right to hate them.

WMA might take over

Reply #90
>(AFAIK OSX doesn't have the orrendus XP's activation issues).

That is because you have to buy an Apple computer to run it, the potential pirates almost don't exist (those with older machines which will not run later versions well).

WMA might take over

Reply #91
Quote
Microsoft didn't screw me with WMA, so I don't think I have the right to hate them.[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=282200"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

But they did screw you, and everyone else.  We still don't have the ability to purchase music online with the fidelity and selection you have at an ordinary music store.  There's no technical reason why buying music online should still be inferior to brick-and-mortar.  Why are these our only choices?

1) A decent, standard format at an iffy bitrate with proprietary DRM that only works on one DAP (Apple)
2) A crummy, proprietary format at an iffy bitrate with proprietary DRM that doesn't work on the most popular DAP (WMA from other vendors)
3) An illegal outfit like allofmp3.com
4) Download illegally from p2p, IRC, usenet, etc. and get who-knows-what
5) Going to the store to buy a CD and ripping it to the format of your choice and doing whatever you want with it

This is not a choice:
6) Buying music online in a high-quality format of your choice that you can use how you want

The current situation punishes innovation and punishes consumers.  WMA, in all its crappiness, contributes to this stupid logjam.
I am *expanding!*  It is so much *squishy* to *smell* you!  *Campers* are the best!  I have *anticipation* and then what?  Better parties in *the middle* for sure.
http://www.phong.org/

WMA might take over

Reply #92
Quote
>(AFAIK OSX doesn't have the orrendus XP's activation issues).

That is because you have to buy an Apple computer to run it, the potential pirates almost don't exist (those with older machines which will not run later versions well).
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=282210"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

almost the same can be said about XP ... you can't buy a tier one machine without windows ...

WMA might take over

Reply #93
Quote
Why are these our only choices?

[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=282229"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Because the record companies controls what choices we will have for purchasing music.

MS has nothing to do with the limited choices you list. WMA allows higher bit rates than the Napster 128 kbps. MusicMatch used 160 kbps and other stores could chose to go higher.

Another sad story is the lack of a common DRM standard and audio format that would allow you to exercise your fair rights of use of downloaded music across computer platforms and what have you.

WMA might take over

Reply #94
Quote
Why are these our only choices?


Well, I don't even have a choice. Modern commodities such as "Onlime Music Stores" still didn't arrive here at the tropics

Quote
MS has nothing to do with the limited choices you list.[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=282232"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Exactly.

That's my point for the whole thread. Microsoft is despicable, but when we're talking about DRM and crappy online stores, you should hate RIAA, not Microsoft.

WMA might take over

Reply #95
Quote
That's my point for the whole thread. Microsoft is despicable, but when we're talking about DRM and crappy online stores, you should hate RIAA, not Microsoft.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=282264"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

correct. i hate:

1) RIA/MPA for being so much greedy.
2) MICROSOFT for being so much greedy.

WMA might take over

Reply #96
Some companies already beleive that WMA has taken over the world:

From interview with CEO Chris Gorog of Napster:

Quote
Many analysts believe that the online music marketplace won’t truly flourish until a lot of the digital handcuffs that are placed on consumers today are removed. What’s your view of what needs to change in the world of DRM?

If you had asked me a year ago, I would have said that the DRM landscape is a mess and needs to be cleaned up. But I’m feeling much more positive about where we are right now.

I think this is a Windows Media Audio world. I don’t think there’s any question about that. WMA already dominates MP3 players globally. Even in the United States with flash memory players, the WMA format dominates the set-top box, and digital media adapter technologies — enormous corporations like Comcast, Sky, SBC, Murdoch’s operations, are all designing their entry into the living room with digital media based on the Microsoft platform. So I think there’s zero question that Windows Media Audio will be the prevailing technology for all platforms, hardware and software. That’s why we’ve built our foundational technology around WMA.

I think the WMA DRM now is actually very good. In terms of digital handcuffs, right now with the Napster subscription you can download your content to three PCs and three MP3 players, which we think is very liberal. You can have one in your office, one in your home office, one down the hall in your kids’ room. That’s a lot of value for $10 or $14.95 a month. If you want to burn a track to CD, that’s 99 cents. So I think we’re getting to a very good place.


My underlining.

Engadget interview with CEO Chris Gorog of Napster

WMA might take over

Reply #97
well ... it is what they sell ... ask apple

WMA might take over

Reply #98
Quote
This is not a choice:
6) Buying music online in a high-quality format of your choice that you can use how you want
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=282229"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


It is. You can buy lossless albums from allofmp3 right now. Whether it is legal or not is another issue. If only the majors were that clued up.

WMA might take over

Reply #99
Well, I have been sitting quietly reading everyone's opinions for some time.  The quote from Chris Gorog of Napster has pushed me over the edge.  "WMA already dominates MP3 players globally."  Aside from my computer I have three portable music players:  A memory based uint, hard disk, and MP3 CD.  None of these will play WMA (protected or not).  The format that dominates MP3 players is MP3.  When one considers the pervasivness of the Apple iPod, who could possibly believe Mr. Gorog?

At this point in time, I am reminded of the first and second rule of marketing.  Number one:  Give the consumers what they want.  Number two: If you don't have what they want, make them want what you have.  Microsoft should make WMA desirable by making it the best choice, not the only choice.