XGL and the future of X Windows

[Ivan Avery Frey]

There are other formats here:
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2006/Feb-07-1.html

Ivan.


James Knott wrote:
> 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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