[vsurfer]

FYI read this over at Macfixit forum from another article at CNET:

http://news.com.com/2100-1041-5166786.html

"Microsoft on every DVD? CNET reports that an industry standards group has made a preliminary decision to include Microsoft's video compression technology in a next-generation DVD format, giving the company a key boost in the digital media arena. "The steering committee for the DVD Forum on Friday announced provisional approval for Microsoft's VC-9 and two other video technologies--H.264 and MPEG-2--as mandatory for the HD-DVD video specification for playback devices. VC-9 is the reference title for the underlying video decoding technology within Windows Media Video 9. The approval is subject to several conditions, including an update in 60 days of licensing terms and conditions."

I'm not a DVD illuminati, but I didn't notice a post here on this since August.

[Ken_F2]

Evidently, the DVD Forum compared HDTV quality at identical bit rates with both MPEG4 H.264 and Microsoft's WindowsMedia 9, and WM9 won every test by a comfortable margin.

The HD-DVD standard is shaping up to include WM9, H.264, and at least one lossless audio codec, along with MPEG-2, Dolby Digital, and DTS for backwards compatibility with current DVDs and equipment.

For more discussion on this topic, including comments from the VP of Microsoft's Windows Media division, who was present for the vote, see this thread.

[dtriska]

Originally posted by vsurfer:
I'm not a DVD illuminati, but I didn't notice a post here on this since August.

That's because the posting was done over here.