Monday, October 23, 2006
Windows Vista Offers Crippled HD Support
Posted by Jason Dunn in "ARTICLE" @ 06:32 PM
"Windows Vista is already behind in its support of digital video cameras and the product hasn't shipped yet. Sean Alexander and Furrygoat, two Microsoft employees, are both drooling over the new Sony HDR-SR1 which records 1080i HD direct to a hard drive on the camcorder. I don't blame them - it's a hot looking camera with great features. The camera won't work with the Vista version of Windows Movie Maker. One of the key features of the Vista version of Windows Movie Maker is supposed to be HD support. The supported HD in Sony HDR-SR1 is AVCHD, which uses H.264 MPEG-4 compression to keep file sizes down, giving you 2 hours of recording on the 30GB hard drive. AVCHD is not compatible with Windows Movie Maker because Microsoft is electing not to support AVC out-of-the-box. If this were limited to one camcorder, I'd say no big deal. But it's not one camcorder; it's many camcorders from many manufacturers. Sony, Hitachi and Panasonic are all planning to offer camcorders with the AVCHD format. My Sanyo Xacti uses a different kind of MPEG-4 compression to offer 720p HD, also incompatible with Windows Movie Maker."
This was news to me - I don't have an HD camera yet, so this hasn't been on my radar, but Jake raises some very interesting points. He's absolutely right that if Microsoft wants to sell the Ultimate version of Windows Vista with a version of Windows Movie Maker that support HD cameras, they need to figure out a way to support all HD cameras. What surprises me most though is that these camera manufacturers don't include a driver CD with the appropriate codec on it - when you buy a DVD player, it invariably comes with DVD playback software (which has an MPEG2 codec) because the core use of the product requires it. The scenario is a very broken one with HD camera manufacturers selling a product that won't function properly on a Windows box. Then again, is someone buying an expensive HD camera really going to use Windows Media Player to edit the video footage? Weigh in - what are your thoughts on this issue?
This was news to me - I don't have an HD camera yet, so this hasn't been on my radar, but Jake raises some very interesting points. He's absolutely right that if Microsoft wants to sell the Ultimate version of Windows Vista with a version of Windows Movie Maker that support HD cameras, they need to figure out a way to support all HD cameras. What surprises me most though is that these camera manufacturers don't include a driver CD with the appropriate codec on it - when you buy a DVD player, it invariably comes with DVD playback software (which has an MPEG2 codec) because the core use of the product requires it. The scenario is a very broken one with HD camera manufacturers selling a product that won't function properly on a Windows box. Then again, is someone buying an expensive HD camera really going to use Windows Media Player to edit the video footage? Weigh in - what are your thoughts on this issue?
