divx, h264, and (maybe) mkv on Windows 7?
An interesting bit of news from the doom9 forums. Â As anyone who is testing the Windows 7 beta has discovered, and as the above photo shows, Microsoft is breaking with their tradition and including more codec support in the upcoming Windows bundle. Â Previous Windows versions did not even include MPEG-2 decoding, which proved to be quite mystifying to many users trying to watch a DVD in their computers for the first time. Â And, needless to say, Microsoft stayed far away from any of the more esoteric codecs, including the key MPEG-4 ASP implementations such as DivX and Xvid. Â
However, the beta of Windows 7 includes the ability to play back DivX, and Xvid, and even the next generation MPEG-4 AVC, better known as h.264. Â Why is this important? Â A couple things. Â First, if anybody needed further proof that VC-1 is essentially dead in the water, this is another nail in its coffin (to mix macabre metaphors). Â Secondly, and more importantly, it appears that Microsoft is jumping on the bandwagon of broad interoperability, allowing Windows users to play back a range of video formats right out of the box, something that will surely be a boon to less sophisticated users who just want to be able to watch something without having to even know what a codec is, much less a container format, audio stream, etc.
Even more intriguing is the news that Microsoft may be working on an implementation of the matroska container, or mkv for Windows 7 (according to madshi and haali on doom9). Â For the file-trading community, this is quite significant. Â H.264 has a ton of “legitimate” uses today, notably in higher quality Flash videos on YouTube and elsewhere. Â MKV however, is almost exclusively used currently by pirates, particularly those sharing HD video. Â Blu-Ray rips and high def TV captures are generally distributed as x264 encodes with AC3 audio in mkv containers (both 720p and 1080p), and while HD video content is still a small minority of what is shared relative to standard def video, it is growing and is likely to become the dominant format before long. Â Maybe Microsoft is just getting back at the movie studios that went with Blu-Ray instead of the MS-backed HD-DVD formats, but regardless, it would be good news if mkv support signaled that Microsoft was thinking about their users first, and video business strategies second.
MKV is a very flexible container (it can contain almost any kind of stream), which while it may be popular with “pirates”, it is also very popular with those who place and time shift for legitimate reasons (i.e. transcoding tv shows w/ chapters marking commercial breaks for a portable device) and archiving content in a way that many HTPC platforms support w/o having to breakout the keyboard & mouse.
Adding support for h.264 doesn’t mean VC-1 is dead. It just means that Windows users have another video format that works OOTB.
Microsoft seems to finally be getting serious about providing a quality media experience for normal people (not just the geeks). I don’t see how it is in anyway “getting back at the studios” for them to put their customers first.
andy, those are good points, and I was being somewhat tongue-in-cheek when I suggested Microsoft was taking revenge on the studios. That said, while there is of course nothing inherent in the MKV technology that makes it “pirate” tainted, the truth is that *right now* that is by far the largest use case for MKV. That’s all I meant. But we absolutely agree on your last point, that Microsoft being open to a wide range of video technologies is good for all users, and is definitely something to applaud.
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Since the RC 7100 build doesn't include MKV support it is pretty clear that Microsoft won't be delivering their own solution. We have released a Media Foundation MKV solution that enables Windows 7 to playback MKV files using the built-in system codecs. It also enables streaming of MKV files to PS3 (with transcoding unfortunately) and the Xbox 360 (in HD via Media Center Extender).
Check it out here: http://labs.divx.com/mkvwin7preview
– peskypescado, DivX Inc.
I'm just hoping that they include a tool to choose your 'preferred decoder' in Windows 7…. I'd really like to change my preferred decoders easily to see which one is 'lightest' on CPU resources.