So— whats the straight dope? Do the Xiph DS filters just need to be updated to obey some new API rules? Is Microsoft pulling some shenanigans?

Codec packs break playback. That’s gooooooooooooooooooood one.

How many video formats Windows can decode on itself? Wait, what you say, none*?

Also, it’s horrible news – Microsoft is trying to pull exactly what it did with web browsers and internet in general to video viewing. Except, with internet browsers, you’re at least allowed to install Firefox/Opera and use it as your default browser. With video files in WMP 12 (and every application that depends on it for video playback) – tough luck.

Those thundering cunts at Redmont cannot be even arsed to add multicore support to *their* very own wmv decoders and they should be allowed to force universal AVC decoder (or xvid/divx) on the world?!

*except for mpeg2 and wmv…

This is your opinion, but I doubt it reflects most users’.

I have never been a big fan of codec packs, always advised users to install FFDShow + Haali splitter, that’s all. With those you can decode most formats.

We all understand why Microsoft is doing that, but the result is the same as the integration of Internet explorer into the OS : force its own products to be used, even if this is for good reason. For Internet explorer, it was because most APIs were shared between the web browser and Windows. Here this is to avoid unstability.

But for both the result is that it will kill the concurrence. WMP and WMC remain by far the most used media players or media centers, here is the point.

So if we take DivX networks or CoreCodec for example who live on their licenses, this new approach will cause economical damages to those two.

To conclude, the blaming part is that Microsoft locked a portion of the registry for its own codecs only, this cannot be modified in any way (except hacking).

What should have been done is a sort of configuration tool which associates a media type (xvid, h264,…) to a decoder, as Microsoft did with default applications configuration (web browser, mail client…).
This solution is far more cleaner and avoids the mix with the filters merit and the playback break.

With the WMP codecs protected no longer can these codec packs over-ride decoding duties for natively supported formats and cause WMP,WMC or Windows itself to crash from that. Third parties can still tie in their codec into WMP (no-one ever bothers).

It’s basically a balancing act do you allow a small group of people who use a third party codec with Windows media player & media center to continue or annoy them by ensuring windows and media player deliver a more stable experience.

That is the only way to fight the codec packs because the people who promote them only tend to have half a clue and wont stop.

Microsoft made the right decision as far as I’m concerned, as most people who know better that players like MPC-HC or VLC have the codecs integrated into them and do not require such packs. The only sore point is that Microsoft need to keep the codecs for WMP/WMC updated in terms of compatibility as that will soften the blow for those power users who used WMP/WMC.

Codecs not natively supports by WMP/WMC are not affected.

MS wrote some pages about their history:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/press/dmtimeline.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/winhistorydesktop.mspx

Also:
Codecs were introduced in 16bit Windows with Video-for-Windows in the MS-Video Compression Manager.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms713492(VS.85).aspx

Unfortunately MS

not that anyone’s interested in using these or anything:
- internet streaming from your own PC built right in
- play to other media devices

from some wierd tech blog:
“Though WMP12 is very similar to WMP11, it’s nonetheless a very compelling advance. Rather than ignoring the success of iTunes and the use of non-Microsoft video formats, Microsoft has acknowledged this reality and decided to make WMP work as well as it can with them. This attitude represents a hugely refreshing change from the software giant’s past behavior, and WMP is greatly improved as a result. The situation is similar to that with the Windows Live Essentials, where interoperability is a key long-term objective. This is good for consumers, and it will prove to be good for Microsoft. Long may it continue.”