On Thursday 09 August 2007, James Knott wrote: > Tero Pesonen wrote: > > On Thursday 09 August 2007, Fergus Wilde wrote: > >> he proprietary video formats issue is one for the lawyers, not Linux > >> people. These formats don't play back because copyright and patent > >> owners or abusers will not allow free access to them and have > >> threatened and bullied, and even prosecuted, people trying simply to > >> view files using open source systems. > >> > >> This distinction is extremely important. Badger your government > >> about it, not those working on Linux multimedia, who have shown time > >> and again that they can easily overcome any technical issues when > >> not threatened by corporations and their legal teams. > > > > I do understand this. I'm not blaming people working on opensource > > multimedia -- they are the people who make it possible for me to view > > these videos! The problem is, that an average user coming from > > Windows does not (based on my experience) know anything about the > > whys and hows relating to video codecs on opensource platforms. If > > things won't just work out of the box or with the install of a media > > player, the said things become an issue. Most people have never even > > heard of video codecs in their life. They just start Windows > > Mediaplayer or whatever and open the video file, or as is often the > > case, the video source or file automatically opens the correct > > player. > > > > On Linux I've always had to manually find and install the codecs. I > > don't know if the latest SUSE has changed that, or what is the case > > on Ubuntu or others popular now. It is no problem at all to me. It > > could be a problem to many others though. > > FWIW, a friend has an IBM ThinkPad, that came loaded with Windows 98. > A couple of years ago, she upgraded to XP and found she could no longer > play video DVDs. After some checking, we found that she has to buy the > necessary software, from a web site that's very irritating and > difficult to navigate through. She decided against providing her > credit card info and went without DVD video playback. Another issue is > when you install such things, you often get a load of crapware along > with it. So, it is not always so easy for Windows users either.
interesting. This was new to me. Regards, Tero Pesonen -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
