Corona, er, Windows Media 9 finally here...

Well, at least the beta versions of the player, encoder and SDK. This one is a bit late getting into the blog because I was moving last week and got buried in an avalanche of e-mails and things to do. I am finally digging out.

Anyhow, Microsoft finally launched its much and long hyped Windows Media Series 9 tools last week in beta form. For the enterprise, the highlights are the improved video and audio quality and the new Fast Streaming technology that is said to eliminate the need for buffering when a broadband or better connection is in use. I've only seen a demonstration in an environment unlike the Internet, but if it works, this could be a big notch in Microsoft's belt. No one else is doing it yet. One caveat: While Windows Media 9 is backwards compatible with previous players, the newest player needs to be used and the content must be streamed from a Windows .Net Server.

On the codec side, Microsoft is claiming a 20% improvement over the previous Windows Media release. Most of the improvements seem to be targeted at the higher bandwidth speeds for those that want to watch high quality movies on their PC.

Windows XP and home users will get the most benefit out of the latest release. XP users will be treated to a "loseless" audio compression system for playing back CD-quality audio at a lower bandwidth and up to eight channels of surround sound. The new player client also features CD burning capabilities for audio and data CDs. Non-XP users will get a subset of the new features, but will be able to take advantage of the new audio and video codecs.

The beta signals the end of another round of updates from all the major streaming players. Real Networks and Quicktime both lauched their latest wares this past summer. The battle is particularly tight between Microsoft and Real, each having similar usage numbers among home and work users. According to the June 2002 numbers from comScore Media Metrix, there are slightly more unique home users using Real (a shade over 30 million each for both), while Microsoft has the slim lead in work users (both having just over 13 million unique users.)