XGL and the future of X Windows

[James Knott]

Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> On Sat, 18 Feb 2006, James Knott wrote:
> 
>> Well, I have installed xvid, which got me absolutely nothing.  As for
>> "xvid" being in the URL, that means absolutely nothing to someone, such
>> as myself, who has no interest whatsoever in multimedia, except as a
>> tool to play files.  I am only a MM user, who's not interested in having
>> to track down the latest codec etc.  If it doesn't play with what I've
>> got or can easily add, I'm not interested.  There are many MM formats
>> that play well in SUSE, right out of the box or in Windows.  Why should
>> this file be so difficult for someone who has no interest in MM stuff to
>> play?  What's wrong with the existing formats that already play on my
>> systems?
> 
> 
> The only widespread video compression formats that compress
> significantly better than MPEG are DivX, Mpeg4, XviD, Theora, and
> Real, Microsoft, and Apple formats.  Of these, only XviD and
> Theora are not patented AND can be replayed using Free Software.
> Of these two, Theora is significantly harder to get played on
> non-Linux systems.  That leaves you with XviD.  It's nothing new
> either, it has been in use as a Free alternative to DivX for a
> few years...
> 
> If you are not happy that it doesn't play on your operating
> system, the right to talk about it (other than asking for advice)
> is your operating system's bugtracking system or video
> publisher's one (and those happen to be very near in this case).
> None of them follow TLUG mailing list I believe.

My point is that while Xvid may be technically better, there are
widespread formats that do work on most computers.  If someone wants
their video to be watched, they should chose a format that most people
will have, not necessarily the latest and greatest.  I am not someone
who's interested in multimedia technology.  I simply want to watch
certain items and have no desire to have to worry about various formats.
  Many, if not most computer users fall into that catagory.  Perhaps
someday, Xvid will be common place, but when I visited that site, I
didn't see anything that indicated an easy install for a casual user.
For example, I have no problem compiling packages and have done so many
times.  However, When I do so, I prefer to use checkinstall, so that I
can build an RPM, which can then be built once and then managed by Yast.
 Well, Xvid won't work with checkinstall.  This means that I had to use
make install and I can no longer use Yast to manage that package.  While
I am very technically oriented and can do such things, many other users
cannot.  And as I mentioned, if a MM format requires going to extra
lengths, then I'm not likely to watch anything produced in that format,
because MM stuff is way at the bottom of my list of priorities.

If you want something to be widely used, use a format that's widely
used.  As far as I can tell Xvid doesn't make it yet.




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