Broadcasts in Windows Media only?

I am pleased that General Conference is being broadcast on the Internet. ^.^ This allows for an even greater viewing audience than was available via satellite TV.

According to the broadcast page on LDS.org, sessions can be viewed via byu.tv's live feed, or by a Windows Media audio stream. This seems like a good choice, as the software to play either can be freely downloaded on Windows or Mac.

I'm not using Windows or Mac, though. I'm using Linux! There are some cludgy workarounds I could implement, or I could buy the Windows Media codecs from shop.fluendo.com. I wonder if any other streaming audio solutions have been considered, though -- such as RealMedia, which is available on all three platforms? The number of Linux users is growing fast, especially via user-friendly distros such as Ubuntu and educational deployments such as the One Laptop Per Child program. It may be helpful to consider how the Church website will accomodate Linux-based visitors.

It does say that conference sessions are available for download in .mp3 format. I don't see a link to this on the conference page, however. Is that only for after the session is over? How can I access these .mp3 files?

I would be very pleased if I could listen to General Conference on my PC -- almost as pleased as if byu.tv offered a Linux-compatible player. ^.^ Many thanks in advance if anyone can help me out here!

We are constantly looking at various video formats to broadcast the conference in. You may want to check out this question / answer on our website. Also, the mp3 link is available after conference has concluded.

Tom

Many thanks!

It the Move Networks Media Player not compatible with Linux? That is what www.byu.tv uses. You have to go a special route to use the Windows Media Player.

I have been able to get streaming audio and video to work with Linux (RedHat and FC). I used a program called mplayer to use the Windows Media streams. It was fairly easy to setup and did require some .dll files for the proper codecs.

BYU has a page all setup for help with Linux: http://www.byutv.org/streaming/linux.asp

thedqs wrote:It the Move Networks Media Player not compatible with Linux? That is what www.byu.tv uses. You have to go a special route to use the Windows Media Player.

From the above-linked page:

"We're sorry, but only the following operating systems are supported at this time:

Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/Vista
(i386) Apple Macintosh OS X or later
(PPC) Apple Macintosh OS X or later

Please check back soon for support for other operating systems."

They said they were working on a Linux player back around June and/or September of 2006. Evidently, progress is not being made very rapidly.

The page at http://www.byutv.org/streaming/linux.asp appears to be helpful, but gmplayer on my fully updated (as of a few days ago) Mandriva 2007.0 system only plays sound and produces the following error message (manually typed, because cut-and-paste isn't available):

"Cannot find codec matching selected -vo and video format 0x33564D57."

It would be helpful if broadcasts could be sent in non-proprietary formats.

Interesting you could not get mplayer working. I just tried it again on a clean machine (FC6) and was able to watch and listen to BYUTV.

Here are my steps:
1. download mplayer source from http://www4.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releas ... c1.tar.bz2
2. download all-20061022.tar.bz2 codecs from http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/release ... 22.tar.bz2
3. bunzip2 both files
4. untar both files using -xf switches
5. made the directory /usr/local/lib/codecs (as root and make sure everyone has read and execute)
6. moved the contents of all-20061022 to /usr/local/lib/codecs
7. configured mplayer source and used the switch --enable-gui
8. make
9. as root: make install
10. (optional) download a skin and installed it to /usr/local/share/mplayer/skins/

Now, when I want to watch BYUTV, I use the command: mplayer mms://windowsmedia2.byu.edu/byutv

If you are having problems with this, check out the documentation that comes with mplayer. There are tons of other features that I didn't select.

Now if I can select something other than the small 160x120 video. My XP machine shows a 320x240 video.

Thanks. It's probably the codecs I would need to install.

What about Ogg Theora for video?

For example, the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC / laptop.org) provides Ogg Theora but doesn't include MP3 or other patent problems.

Several video players on many platforms offer Theora support. Even plugins/addons available for popular media players.

I should probably open a different thread ... what about audio instead of MP3 too?

Speex, FLAC and Ogg Vorbis are implementations that compare, are widely available, and don't have potential costs.

Serving these may save money too, due to less licensing costs.

FWIW: my desktop runs NetBSD and I can play the mp3 audios fine with mpg123 and play the wmv videos with mplayer plus the codecs. The selected video codec is: [wmv8] vfm: dshow (Windows Media Video 8). And the audio uses fmpeg (DivX audio v2 (FFmpeg)). I was unable to play the mp4 videos (but I didn't spend anytime trying to try to figure it out.)

See my [thread=685]post here[/thread] about statistics for this web site. I assume that the general public will hold true to these statistics. Many machines (especially running older versions of windows) do not have ogg decoders installed. Most people would not even know how to do that. So although I agree that having ogg available for audio / video would be cool, I'm not sure that the amount of work necessary to do this would justify it at this time. Of course, that is just my opinion.

Tom

Also you can suggest BYU to stream in OGG and then BYU would put the resources into the project to get BYU TV another venue of distribution.

I believe the OGG/Theora folks are working on a protocol to support peer-to-peer video streaming, somewhat like BitTorrent, except for video. Assuming permission was granted, this could be one way to distribute general conference. If the Church and BYU weren't interested in doing the work, perhaps the Church would grant permission for someone else to do it. With the new protocol, bandwidth wouldn't be as big an issue. Unfortunately, its currently all theoretical as the program doesn't yet exist.

Another possibility would be for someone with a satellite feed to stream the conference using an EC2 server and a more Linux friendly codec. If someone were to listen through the entire 8 hours at 56KBPS, the bandwidth would cost about $0.02. People could be asked to make a small donation to help offset costs. If the broadcast were sent as audio only, the cost would be about a third of that.

Anyway, I'm not sure its worth it; its just a thought.

Hello, everyone.

I've recently been using Ubuntu GNU/Linux as my primary OS for awhile now.

I too would like to watch archives of General Conference on my computer.

I understand that there are some work-arounds to allow Linux users to be able to view Windows Media and Quicktime content, but it some countries, these work-arounds could be illegal.

The mplayer plugin for Firefox may be installing proprietary codecs that may not have been licensed.

Bypassing the legal questions would be the better path.

The best option is for Church content to be encoded in the ogg format.

The ogg format is an open format. There are add-ons available for most of the popular operating systems (including Windows, Mac & Linux) and folks who don't have a ready made player with ogg could build one if they wanted to since the format is open.

The Church has Windows users install the Move Networks add on to their machines to watch content. This shows that the Church is not opposed to asking it's viewers to install software to see content. Is there much difference in asking viewers to install the ogg codecs?

The Church could provide General Conference content in the ogg format in addition to the current options. Conversely, the Church could simply provide content in the ogg format exclusively and have folks install the ogg codec. Perhaps a low-res and HD version of General Conference in the ogg format wolud be all that is needed for viewers around the world.

This issue will become more important as time moves on. I suspect more and more folks will be asking for the ability to view General Conference archives on their computer without having to install codecs whose legality may be questionable.

As an aside, using an open format could save the Church money in not having to pay fees to distribute content in proprietary formats.

Thank you for your time.

(No endorsement is intended by any mention of any brand names.)

I too use Linux at home. I don't even have any modern software from Redmond, Washington in my house. I use Mandriva, but Ubuntu is probably where I would go if I were to switch to anything else.

I would also like to see the Church use more open formats for their content. The situation has improved considerably in the past several years. I expect there will likely be gradual improvement into the future. However, I don't think we can realistically expect the Church to go fully to open formats until the lambs and lions are lying down together. Perhaps the pace of improvement will increase as open source software (Linux and other) gains popularity, but there are still too many people in Church IT and elsewhere who aren't even aware of the existence of operating systems from places other than Redmond. I don't know whether there is any truth to the rumors that the company in Redmond still uses leverage in their licensing to keep its customers from using alternative formats and such.

For the current situation, I am using the "free" version of Mandriva with (as far as I am aware) no proprietary codecs installed, and I just watched a bit of conference in the pre-9 WMV format without difficulty using mplayer. The version 9 WMV had caching problems that might be solved by downloading the file and playing it from local disk. For me, the MP4 had no audio.

If I am informed correctly, at least for mp3, the legal issues are with the encoding end. If that is correct, open source software for mp3 playback would be clear of any legal issues. Hopefully, the same would also be true of other formats, that the encoding method is what the patents protect, leaving the file format itself and playback methods in the clear.

I think I recall reading that Move Networks (for BYU TV over the net) said they would be doing a Linux version, so there may be hope in that direction, too.

rmrichesjr wrote:...but there are still too many people in Church IT and elsewhere who aren't even aware of the existence of operating systems from places other than Redmond.

I highly doubt that. That is not the impression I got at all over a year ago when they held the Tech Talks here in UT.

I think many of you could benefit from some sort of online Tech Talk.

mkmurray wrote:I highly doubt that. That is not the impression I got at all over a year ago when they held the Tech Talks here in UT.

I think many of you could benefit from some sort of online Tech Talk.

I would be very pleased to stand corrected on my earlier impression.

I would also be very pleased to listen to an online tech talk. I don't believe I have seen them available, but I would be happy to be shown wrong on that point, too.

Is there a reason some broadcasts don't have mp3 option? For example, Funeral Services for President Gordon B. Hinckley don't have mp3, and the audio of the scriptures *used* to be mp3, along with the option to download fill books in one click, but now they are .awx.

Jesse Smith wrote:Is there a reason some broadcasts don't have mp3 option? For example, Funeral Services for President Gordon B. Hinckley don't have mp3, and the audio of the scriptures *used* to be mp3, along with the option to download fill books in one click, but now they are .awx.

I still see the scriptures in MP3 format. From lds.org home page, go to Gospel Library, then Media Formats, then Audio, then The Scriptures. I had downloaded NT and the triple combo some months ago. I see the OT is now available. I'm downloading the ZIP file as I type this, so I haven't unpacked the ZIP file, but the individual chapters have the "mp3" extension.

There does seem to be some inconsistency here on what things show up in what formats, I thought the idea was to make things available in the most common formats that people used.

Typically, most people use mp3, some use .wma, and right now the standard for video is .wmv or .flv (youtube.com) format.

But yes, the President Hinckley funeral was only in wma, I got my mp3 version from KSL.

The other one that was not made available in mp3 was the Scouting broadcast last year. In fact there is no audio-only file for that one, it was all video, and only a pdf for the transcript.

For wma audio files, I get around this by using a 300kb software item known as 'Free WMA to MP3 converter', just search Google on that to find it.

Virtually all media players will play mp3 files, iPods however won't play wma files, and Microsoft Zunes won't play Apple AAC files, I know of very few media players that play ogg or other side formats. Even Sony abandoned its 'Atrac3' format it appears.

Found some audio files on the Broadcast Archives page that are in a format that most people don't have the players to use anymore.

The file extension is .mms, and it's being used still for some older, about 2000 stuff, like the 'Six B's ' fireside (November 12, 2000). My system, a Win2000 machine, doesn't even have the required player for it, although it is a Windows Media file apparently.

Those need to be updated to mp3 also. Found these a week after the last posting in this thread, which was mine as well.

There are open source audio programs that can handle a large number of formats, including older formats. For example, the "sox" audio package can even convert between various formats. A quick check on a major search engine appears to show sox and/or other packages may be able to read .mms format. If you would like to post or send me an example URL, I'll try to find something that can read it.

Here is one, there are a couple of others that have similar files.

'Six B's' fireside.
mms://stream.lds.org/sf/2002/nov/12/english16.asf

Another one that is in .wma format but apparently not prepared to download.

175th Anniversary...Aaronic Priesthood.
mms://stream.lds.org/pra/2004/May/16/pra2004may16english16.wma

JamesAnderson wrote:Here is one, there are a couple of others that have similar files.

'Six B's' fireside.
mms://stream.lds.org/sf/2002/nov/12/english16.asf

Another one that is in .wma format but apparently not prepared to download.

175th Anniversary...Aaronic Priesthood.
mms://stream.lds.org/pra/2004/May/16/pra2004may16english16.wma

Those are too easy.

First, a bit of analysis of the URLs. The "mms:" at the beginning of the URL is the protocol, not the type of file. FTP, HTTP, SMTP, NTP, and NNTP are other protocols. FTP and HTTP can each be used to transfer a huge range of types of files. One peculiarity of the MMS protocol is it is apparently intended for real-time playing, not downloading. However, there are ways to work around that minor difficulty.

The open source mplayer program (the first program I tried) handled both URLs just fine. With the right command-line options (which I don't remember off the top of my head), mplayer can save the decoded audio to disk as a .wav file. There's a GUI front end for mplayer, called gmplayer. If the mplayer program won't work on your operating system, you could try booting a Live-CD Linux that has mplayer, save the .wav file to disk or thumb drive, then use that file with your OS.

Please inform if you need additional help listening to those files.

Like other posters, I use Linux at home. I also use Linux at the office. I would like to add my comments regarding the Church using the ogm/ogg formats.

If the church sent out media streams in the ogm and/or ogg formats, then that would allow users of Windows, Mac, Solaris, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Linux, BeOS, OS/2, etc. to view and/or listen to conference. (Based on http://www.vorbis.com/software/) Streaming in the ogg format is a reality now and not merely a theoretical possibility. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theora#Streaming) This can be used with Windows' media player. (See http://www.vorbis.com/setup_windows/)

"Although Ogg hasn't reached anywhere near the ubiquity of the MPEG standards (e.g.: MP3 / MP4), as of 2006, it is commonly used to encode free content (such as free music, multimedia on Wikimedia projects and Creative Commons files) and has started to be supported by a significant minority of digital audio players. Also supporting the Ogg format have been many popular video game engines, including Doom 3, Unreal Tournament 2004, Halo: Combat Evolved, Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, Myst IV: Revelation, Stepmania, Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, Lineage 2, Vendetta Online, Battlefield 2 and the Grand Theft Auto engines. The more popular Vorbis codec has built-in support on many software players, and extensions are available for nearly all the rest. Other codecs are less well supported, although extensions are often available." (Quote taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogg)

I understand in the past that disk space and cost were issues with streaming conference in both windows media and Real Audio formats. (Based on previous personal communications with the Church)

Almost universally speaking, the ogm and ogg formats take less space and bandwidth for better quality than the currently-used MP3 formats. (Based on http://vorbis.com/faq/#_fan and http://vorbis.com/faq/#_quality)

If the church is required to pay royalties because they are currently distributing the MP3 format, then it would also free up dollars for the church. (Based on http://vorbis.com/faq/#flic and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3 and http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/software.html)

Other posters (mzundel for example) commented on using mplayer to allow his FC6 Linux computer to play files. These 10 steps are possibly outside the reach of most people who want to be able to just view/list to Conference/. The root problem is that this solution--mplayer--is not illegal in Hungary where it is distributed. However, in the USA because of the combination of the DMCA ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Mi ... yright_Act) as well as patents, it IS illegal (See "Until the key patents expire, unlicensed encoders and players could be infringing in countries where the patents are valid. . . . the majority of home users not knowing or not caring about the patents' controversy and often not considering such legal issues . . ." at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3 as well as many other web sites) to use the software in the USA. If we claim to obey, honor, and sustain the law, then this is not the answer.

If the church is building its own player, then why build one that ONLY works for your Windows users and which is required to be installed by the user? If the user is required to install something, then why not, then, allow this player to play the ogm and ogg streams--royalty free? Likewise, why not, then, ask the users to install the Windows media player plugin to play the ogm and ogg streams?

The ogm and ogg formats have more capabilities (such as chapters (i.e. Individual speakers) and metadata (i.e. Title of talks)) for the Church to take advantage of as per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison ... er_formats

tomw and others: When you say in your above post "We are constantly looking at various video formats to broadcast the conference in" then considering the above fundamental common denominators, I must admit I wonder if their is an honest desire to look into this format. The benefits to using the ogg/ogm format should be more seriously considered. More details about this ogg/ogm format can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogg_Media as well as many other sources.

Valden, I like your thoughts about using ogg. You do a good job of identifying some significant advantages for both the Church and individuals.

Regarding the MP3 patents, I can't quote chapter and verse, but I have read in a few places that the owners of the patents have stated they won't enforce the patents against users of players or decoders.

If I understand correctly, Firefox 3.5 supports ogg/vorbis and ogg/theora audio and video natively, meaning we won't even have to hassle with installing the Flash plugin for that content.

Yes, Mozilla 3.5 and above supports ogg/vorbis and ogg/theora audio and video natively. The Windows media player does not support this natively but needs only one plugin.

This is how things are currently setup.
* For users to watch streaming General Conference in video, the user needs three programs: Windows media player, MoveMediaPlayer, and Adobe Flash.
* For users to listen to streaming General Conference in audio, the user needs one program: Windows media player.
* For users to watch archived General Conference in video, the user needs one or two programs: Windows media player and to get the higher-quality an MP4 plugin is needed.
* For users to listen to archived General Conference in audio, the user needs one program: Windows media player.

Contrast the current setup to the OGG proposal.
* For users to watch streaming General Conference in video, the user needs one program: Mozilla.
* For users to listen to streaming General Conference in audio, the user needs one program: Mozilla.
* For users to watch archived General Conference in video, the user needs one program: Mozilla.
* For users to listen to archived General Conference in audio, the user needs one program: Mozilla.

Instead the Church advertises on the main conference broadcast page its limits by saying "Please note that the Move plug-in will work on IE6, IE7, Firefox (Mac and PC), and Safari (on Mac) browsers with a broadband Internet connection. Currently the Safari web browser in Mac OS X Snow Leopard is only supported in 32 bit mode." The OGG solution would work with a wider audience for users having Windows, Mac, Solaris, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Linux, BeOS, OS/2, etc. with whatever player the user wants to use on each of these operating systems.

From a maintenance standpoint, the Church spends money and time configuring equipment and uses more bandwidth and disk space for mp3, wmv, mp4, and asf formats. It could use the OGG solution for streaming and archiving taking up less bandwidth and disk space while obtaining a higher-quality video and audio. The "How to Listen" web page instructions could also be simplified for the users to simply suggest using Mozilla version 3.5 or higher--not additions stuff required!

Other professionals are currently streaming and archiving the OGG format as can be seen at http://dir.xiph.org and many other places.

If you consider these thoughts with my other comments on February 3rd, does the OGG format make more sense? Would this not benefit all involved--especially the intended audience?

I have to admit, I don't understand the current position. Help me understand your position.

P.S. I am in no way affiliated with the OGG format groups. I just see the clear advantage of using the OGG format.

Valden wrote:This is how things are currently setup.
* For users to watch streaming General Conference in video, the user needs three programs: Windows media player, MoveMediaPlayer, and Adobe Flash.
* For users to listen to streaming General Conference in audio, the user needs one program: Windows media player.
* For users to watch archived General Conference in video, the user needs one or two programs: Windows media player and to get the higher-quality an MP4 plugin is needed.
* For users to listen to archived General Conference in audio, the user needs one program: Windows media player.


Contrast the current setup to the OGG proposal.
* For users to watch streaming General Conference in video, the user needs one program: Mozilla.
* For users to listen to streaming General Conference in audio, the user needs one program: Mozilla.
* For users to watch archived General Conference in video, the user needs one program: Mozilla.
* For users to listen to archived General Conference in audio, the user needs one program: Mozilla.

As a Windows user, I'd only need to add MoveMediaPlayer and MP4 plugin if those features are desired. I already have WMP and Flash.

To use OGG, I'd have to install another browser. This carries far more "political" issues as well as a larger footprint.

If I understand you, you mention two concerns: Larger footprint and politics.

It is true that users have to install software in either case. The difference is a mere three megabytes--that which would fit on two old floppy diskettes.
1) Firefox = 7.70 Meg download
2a) Adobe Flash player = 3.76 Meg download
2b) MoviePlayer = 1.00 Med download
With hard drive space today, I don't think a "larger footprint" is the reason--especially if you add the size of the MP4 plugin option under Windows.

So, does that leave politics? If so, then what would one need to do to overcome this obstacle? :rolleyes:

Anyone else: Are their any other reasons?

Valden wrote:So, does that leave politics? If so, then what would one need to do to overcome this obstacle? :rolleyes:

Convincing people like me that I have to download a specific browser to get LDS content. Installing a plug-in is one thing, but browser choice tends to invoke strong personal preferences.

I do not believe that there will ever be a consensus on which browser is "the" browser to use, so I think the Church ought to make their video media available on as many browsers as reasonable. Reasonable may mean the most popular two or three browsers, or it may mean many more.

I am often in situations where I have no control over the browser I am required to use, yet I still have the opportunity to watch video media during my down time.

I would be very disappointed if the Church were to say, for example, that they will feed video that only could be viewed in a Mozilla browser, when I had to use IE, through no fault of my own, and then could not view the video.

lajackson wrote:I would be very disappointed if the Church were to say, for example, that they will feed video that only could be viewed in a Mozilla browser, when I had to use IE, through no fault of my own, and then could not view the video.

And this is understandably how folks with Linux must feel, frustrated that their only reasonable solution might be to buy a Windows OS or an Apple computer. However, it all may just come down to the fact that the Church is trying to hit the largest target platform and set of browser(s). Windows with IE or Firefox must make up the lion share's of use cases.

RussellHltn: Thank you for the honest feedback. Maybe I failed to make my point clear because I focused too much on Firefox. Understand that with OGG you don't have to even use a browser to view and/or listen.

With the way it is done now, the users have limited choices of what options they can use. If OGG format is streamed/archived, then the user's choices are greatly multiplied as to what they can use. Yes, as you say, let them use the familiar software they want to use, whether that is
1) Internet Explorer + Windows Media Player + Adobe Flash Player + Move Media Player + Codec
2) Firefox only
3) Safari + mplayer + Codec
4) Opera + Dragon Player + Codec
5) Google Chrome + Kaffeine + Codec
6) Avant + VLC
7) etc., etc., etc.

Currently, the user's options are very limited.

I hope this allows you to see the point better. The discussion is not over the user's personal browser preference but the *format* the audio/video content is streamed/stored in.

lajackson: You bring up valid points. End users can continue to use Internet Explorer with Windows media player with the OGG audio/video format. If the Church decided to stream in OGG, then a user could use any of the options in the list above, whether that is Internet Explorer + Windows Media player, or Mozilla only, or . . . etc.

mkmurray: Very possible indeed--especially considering tomw's comment in this thread on September 24th, 2007. If the Church is trying to hit the largest target platform and set of browser(s), then the OGG suggestion would accomplish that goal. The current decision to exclude services to the Windows and Mac users only would widen to include users of Windows, Mac, Solaris, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Linux, BeOS, OS/2, and other platforms!!! This discussion is not only about the Linux users.

However, if I am to believe http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp or http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php then Internet Explorer is either no longer the dominate browser being used or declining quickly. However, I begin to digress, as the discussion head topic is "Broadcaasts in Windows Media only."

Valden, I like your very good points. I, too, plan to keep my fingers crossed for increased content availability in more open formats. I hope there are more than a few of us who would be willing to contribute to a community development project if such an opportunity comes up. That, and/or that Move Networks might some day allow/enable use of their player with other operating systems.

Fortunately, most of the time, the "Additional Video Streams" have worked for me with my Linux systems at home--except for the most recent Christmas Devotional when the servers were very unstable.

We don't know for sure how the church chooses how it does things. I'm sure some of the major principles is to reach the largest audience, while making it the simplest experience for the largest group of computer-illiterate users. Then there's the whole issue of performance and bandwidth requirements for a smooth user experience.

I believe the church also uses a vendor to do the actual streaming. Finding a good vendor, and the demands that that vendor's other customers place on them may be the deciding factor.

As rmrichesjr suggested, I would encourage the person(s) in the official position to consider the above points. . . . maybe a community development project.

I know their are others outside this forum with this same desire. I also know one does not need to be a technical person to receive an OGG stream on their computer.

I'm sure on this official lds.org site their is someone who knows the correct person(s) to contact regarding this issue. Who is in the "official position" that can assist with this issue?

It seems to me that the main reason that content providers choose proprietary formats for streaming is to make it more difficult for streaming to become downloading. Since the church also supports downloading General Conference videos this "advantage" of proprietary formats is not important in this format decision; however, the choices of other content providers may be involved in the church decision as to which formats to use.

A legitimate disadvantage of the open codecs suggested in this thread is that they require more processing power to decode and hardware acceleration is not available (Apple's primary argument against them in the HTML 5 codec debate). Of course most PC's in current use could handle the load and the current solution does not work for mobile devices so switching codecs would not be likely to negatively impact any current users (except having to install the same things that new users have to install).

robartsd: Thank you for your comments.

Your second comment regarding OGG requiring more processing power to decode I did not know about. Again, thank you.

Providers can stream in multiple formats*. Providers try to satisfy the client's (in this case the Church) requests. I'm curious if the Church has looked into any other streaming format other than the Windows/Macintosh-only solution.

* An example is the the radio station http://www.dradio.de/wir/ogg which streams in Flash, WMP, WMP, OGG, and MP3 formats.

An interesting artical on ZDNet: Microsoft fires back at critics of its HTML5 strategy

The gist of it is that the new video standard appears to be H.264.

iPhone, iPad and others already use it. It's endorced by both Microsoft and Apple. YouTube will stream a H.264 version as needed.

On the third page, you'll find

The Free Software Foundation insists that the Ogg formats are “designed to be completely free of patents.” But as my UK-based colleague Mary Branscombe pointed out in a comment on that post, “If only confident claims that patents don’t apply were enough to ensure that patents don’t apply…”

FUD? Yes. But viewpoint appears quite accurate IMO, and may be enough to keep those with large net worth away from such a format.

<Sigh>

Realize that the ZDNet article is talking about H.264 and not OGG. It mentions the concerns of patents within the H.264 standard. It also provides the specific example of what can happen by intentionally or unintentionally using other's patents as Microsoft found out when it lost its appeal of an August district court decision that awarded i4i Inc. $200 million and slapped Microsoft with an injunction on selling Word in its current form ( http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/188986.asp ).

It can be truly stated that patent wars in many areas (not just multimedia) are going to be a messy part of our future. Recent court filings and prominent trends can already attest to this. I believe Mary Branscombe's statement referred to submarine patents. Submarine patents could stay "under water" for long periods until they "emerged" and surprised the relevant market ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_patent ) and then charge BIG money for their use.

As was clearly identified in the same ZDNet article, "The fear among those who don’t trust Apple, Microsoft, or MPEG LA is that after five years of low royalty payments, the consortium will spring a trap in 2016, jacking rates sky-high and forcing licensees to pay or stop playing." Recent examples of this ACTUALLY happening are GIF ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_I ... nge_Format and http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gif.html ), FAT32 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAT32#FAT32 and http://www.zdnet.com/blog/perlow/micros ... nisys/9594 ), and others.

However, by the Church providing the OGG format as another alternative to their current situation, it is my opinion that this will move the Church from one area that seems to be a liability with less options over to another area that is less-likely to be a liability with more options. By the Church including the OGG format, it will also allow BOTH the Church and their listeners to have more leeway to consider alternatives solutions in codecs/media formats/media players if or when their is a need. The need for alternatives might be legal, it might be more cost-effective, it might be time saving, and it might be personal preference.

The premise of Mary Branscombe's statement was to identify the meaning of the word "free" to mean freedom (as in speech) from those that would like to take away our freedoms. Like Mary Branscombe's comment, I hope you realize the "free" I am speaking about is freedom (as in free agency or as in free will or as in "liberating").