Quote:
Originally Posted by bond
in the end in the vc1 case imho it would have been better for the industry, the end customer and propably even microsoft if ms would have pushed avc right from the start, using their os standing to push THEIR avc implementation and not some extra implementation of a different open standard
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Remember that VC-1 Simple and Main profiles predate H.264 both technically and for license terms. Microsoft (well before my time) went down the codec standard route before with MPEG-4 part 2, which turns out to be a profound disappointment across the industry - it didn't offer that much of a compression advantage over MPEG-2, and the protracted license agreement discussions scared off a lot of adoption. I was involved in many digital media projects that wouldn't even touch MPEG-4 in the late 90's to early 00's because there was going to be a "content fee" that hadn't been fully defined yet.
More germain to today, there are some real technical advantages to VC-1, particularly in decode complexity and ability to retain fine detail like film grain. Comparing a device like the iPod (H.264 baseline) and the Zune (VC-1 Main Profile), better decode complexity means power-constrained devices can use a superior profile, and deliver better quality at a given bitrate.
VC-1 was designed for HD and film content from the get-go, while H.264 only really became competitive in that arena relatively late with the addition of High Profile, created after VC-1 beat MPEG-2, and both beat H.264, in the initial DVD Forum HD tests.