When will Windows Media 9 File Format supported for Firestore

[Ron Gladney]

I would like to see Microsoft Windows Media Series 9 as a new File Format. Is that a possibility in the near future, in terms of adding it to the other video file formats?

Most people have Windows as their PC of choice and already use Windows Media Player. It would make it so much easier to go from DV to Windows Media 9 File Format, if the existings Firestore Models would support it.

Better yet, Bill Gates would most likely be encouraged to give a couple of million to the R&D Department to push that effort. The applicable use would be limitless.

[Rob Lohman]

I'm not sure why you would want this, need it or why the
"applicable use would be limitless":

1) I can't imagine editing in WM9 would be that easy/fast

2) It is of no use to store higher bitrates or higher resolutions since th stream coming from the camera is still SD @ 25 mbps (unless you are using the new HDV camera, but you still are limited by that camera's original compression/resolution)

3) WM9 which is a good compression algorithm is very very processor intensive both in playing back and compressing. So this means the device would need a way way faster CPU with much more memory and complexity and thus probably becoming very very expensive

4) Due to the heavy compression algorithm you will loose a lot of CPU time doing decompression instead of the effects or transition rendering for your movie and thus introducing longer render times

5) It would probably only work good on a PC in the first place and only in certain NLE's. I can't imagine AVID or FCP supporting this.

I basically can't list any pro's at all for this technique. Now if a
camera was recording native in this with a much higher quality
then DV then it might be something feasible, but even that would
probably be too costly.

[Ron Gladney]

Actually, Microsoft is already striking up deals with Hollywood and Disney to produce Movies in the Windows Media 9 Format.

As for as editing your work, that can be done with the FREE Windows Media Encoder that Microsoft provides on its website.

For those of use that produce Multimedia Content with Academic use on the College and University levels, it would be ideal. Most academic environments are using PCs verses MACs, although I know that MACs are better.

In terms of cost, most organizations are not going to spend the extra money and effort to support MAC when there is already a huge Windows environment. Plus, Microsoft gives you the software for FREE.

Your point is well taken, but I still think it should be used as a native format for anyone that plans on submitting their work on the Internet to be used with Internet Explorer, since Microsoft products finally has a great intergration umong its products.

By the way, Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects 6.0 support it already.

[Rob Lohman]

I know those products support it, but I doubt it will be as fast
as working in DV.

" Microsoft is already striking up deals with Hollywood and Disney to produce Movies in the Windows Media 9 Format "

That's for delivery. I've not said one word about delivery formats,
I was (and so were you, right?) only talking about in what format
it is originating and what you are editing.

" As for as editing your work, that can be done with the FREE Windows Media Encoder that Microsoft provides on its website "

The WME is for encoding for delivery, not for editing. It might
help in editing, but that's not the primary goal of the software.

Why would you need to spend extra to support the Mac? You can
get QuickTime player + codecs for free to encode the video with
Sorenson codec (great codec) in QuickTime. Plays both on PC
and Mac. We did so on our Lady X project.

Ofcourse WM9 is a very good distribution format for the web. But
why not simple encode it to that when you are doing with the
editing? Most NLE's support exporting to WM9 without any
problems.

Then do a second export to QuickTime, place both up on your
website and you have the whole world covert in the two most
used formats. If you want to get really fancy you can offer an
additional MPEG1 and/or MPEG2 export with RealPlayer as well
and no-one could ever complain.

Things like ProCoder can even do all of this encoding in one
process for you. Just load the source DV file and tell it to create
an MPEG1, MPEG2, QuickTime Sorenson, WM9, AVI DiVX and
I do believe even a RealPlayer file and it will turn all of those
out in one go.

We have a standard now that everybody basically in any editor
can read. Why would you want to introduce something that is
only usuable in the Windows market and thus create barriers
to interoperate between eachother is beyond me.