MS X box DVD software selected, but why?

[Thundrchez]

Perhaps this should be in the general hw/sw forum, but it is more of a rant than anything useful so I'll post it in tsb.

Microsoft has selected to use Ravisent's soft-DVD software for the X box. See the article for more info http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...e.1002.bgif.ni

On the suface that seems OK. Over the months they have made various announcements as to who is going to be providing cpus, video, ram, hds, etc, for the X box. Ravisent is the same company that provides the Matrox G400 prebundled soft-DVD decoding, and it does a good job IMHO.

But what strikes me as odd is that Microsoft is primarily a software company. Why in the world do they need to get a third party company to provide the software for DVD playback? Are they admitting incompetence in this area? This is the same company that provides Windows Media Player 7, so I would think that they at least have a clue regarding decoding an mpeg stream into audio & video. What gives?

[fds]

Microsoft has never been keen on reinventing the wheel. If what they need already exists and they are in good relations with the company, they'll just simply license what's already working well, sometimes buying out the whole company.

Check the About box of any Microsoft product and see just how much of it is licensed code.

Ravisent is clearly following Microsoft's standards as closely as possible. Which of the three main software players use Windows Installer? CinePlayer. Which is using DirectShow exclusively? CinePlayer. Which was the first to get Windows 2000 certified? CinePlayer.

I think this one was a no brainer. Ravisent also has experience in the hardware decoding market. The only thing which surprises me is why would they go the software route on the Xbox.

[Wombat]

Well, they need some software to handle the DVD. And if you have a machine that as almost indistinguishable from a home PC, why not?

[DosFreak]

In computers the less hardware the better. The X-box will have plenty of processing power so it should be just fine.

Quickview-Licensed
Defrag-Licensed
Imager-Licensed
Hyperterminal-Licensed

[Jorden]

Maybe it's because Ravisent software does WITHOUT an update every DAY of the WEEK, whereas MS thrives on that

Isn't the X-Box not-upgradable? The C64 /Amiga of it's time? We load everything from ROM? Hard to upgrade the software there, especially when it's got a million bugs in

Jord.

[agallag]

From IE5.5 sp1:

Based on NCSA Mosaic. NCSA Mosaic(TM); was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Distributed under a licensing agreement with Spyglass, Inc.
Contains security software licensed from RSA Data Security Inc.
Portions of this software are based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group.
Contains SOCKS client software licensed from Hummingbird Communications Ltd.
Contains ASN.1 software licensed from Open Systems Solutions, Inc.
Multimedia software components, including Indeo(R); video, Indeo(R) audio, and Web Design Effects are provided by Intel Corp.
Unix version contains software licensed from Mainsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1998-1999 Mainsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Mainsoft is a trademark of Mainsoft Corporation.

That's some serious licensing...

------------------
Andrew
Carpe Cerevisi

[Rags]

5.01 has the same info there

Rags