Windows 7: Release Candidate 1 Preview
by Ryan Smith and Gary Key on May 5, 2009 11:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Windows Media : New Codecs, New Looks, New Features
One of the more annoying aspects of setting up a new Windows computer is how little media Windows can play right out of the box. With Vista Home Premium there is support for MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video, MP3 and AC3 audio, and Windows Media Audio and Video. What has been lacking however is support for more modern video codecs such as MPEG-4 ASP and H.264, along with AAC audio and the container formats these use. This has put Windows well behind most Linux distributions, which include media players capable of playing everything under the sun, and even Mac OS X which includes full H.264/AAC/MP4 support through QuickTime.
With Windows 7 that’s all changing. Windows 7 includes codecs for all the above-mentioned formats and their containers, along with AAC+ (commonly used for streaming audio). This gives Windows 7 the ability to play most common media formats, notably the old standard of Xvid/DivX (MPEG-4 ASP) encoded video inside of an AVI container, and the new standard of H.264 inside of an MP4 container. At this point the only relatively common things Windows 7 can’t read are Matroska containers (which usually contain H.264 video and AC3 audio), DivX3 video, and anything OGG (sorry guys).
The new decoders are available as DirectShow, DirectX Media Object, and Media Foundation codecs, allowing new and old programs alike to access them. This includes both Microsoft applications like Windows Media Center, and 3rd party applications like Media Player Classic Home Cinema. Oh, and did we mention that the MPEG-2 and H.264 decoders are multi-threaded and DXVA accelerated?
Windows Media Player playing a 30Mb H.264 clip entirely in software without breaking a sweat
In our informal testing thus far, once we installed a Matroska splitter we have been unable to find anything that Windows Media Player can’t play. It even manages to play newer QuickTime MOV files, as a result of the MP4 container being based off of the MOV container. The performance of the codecs looks good too. Since the H.264 codec is multi-threaded, it had no issue playing back our 30Mb 1080P test clip even without DXVA acceleration - this clip tends to kill most software codecs. For MPEG-4 ASP, we need to investigate the quality a bit more. It's looking like the Microsoft codecs don't have any post-processing features, which wouldn't surprise us but would put it behind DivX/Xvid in quality.
This brings us to Windows Media Player, which is up to version 12 as of Windows 7. There are few GUI changes to speak of, but the same cannot be said for features. With the aforementioned new codecs, WMP gains the ability to read more shared libraries than just WMP’s; in particular iTunes libraries are now supported, with the exception of songs protected with FairPlay DRM.
Microsoft has also taken a page out of the playbook of media streaming applications like Simplify Media, with the addition of internet streaming capabilities. Currently this requires a Windows Live ID for authentication/security purposes, and only WMP12 works as a client. We know that Windows 7 includes some basic audio/video transcoding features as part of the Media Foundation, and presumably WMP12 is using these features to serve up media. We haven’t had a chance to test this specific feature yet, so we’ll have to get back to it with the final version of Windows 7.
WMP Internet Streaming Configuration
Meanwhile Windows Media Center (7MC), Microsoft’s 10ft UI for HTPC use, has received a much bigger overhaul for Windows 7. The GUI has been given a minor reworking (it’s best described as more Zune-like) but it’s the guts that make all the difference. With the addition of H.264 support to Windows 7, 7MC is now suitable for TV reception in more environments besides North American cable and OTA TV. We’ve previously mentioned DirecTV as a likely addition in the future, and this would also extend to services like IPTV and Freeview, both of which are starting to use H.264.
Windows Media Center 7 UI
ClearQAM support is also officially in for 7MC, which means users of the HDHomeRun and other ClearQAM-capable tuners can now pull in unencrypted cable TV networks and watch them on 7MC.
Finally, as we mentioned previously Microsoft has added some transcode abilities to Windows 7 via the Media Foundation Transcode interface. There’s nothing here that will knock your socks off, but via MFT Windows 7 can encode material into a format suitable for mobile devices – that being H.264 video and AAC audio inside of an MP4 container. With mobile devices being the focus of this feature, it should come as no surprise that the H.264 encoder is fairly limited in scope. It can do Baseline profile at SD resolutions up to 1.5Mbps, which is good enough for mobile devices but is not any kind of competition for x264 or other full-feature H.264 encoders.
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Bmadd - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
I see the graphs, i see the new features and i honestly cant be the only person who doesn't want to change from my Vista x64 install? Can i? i got a dual core and 4gig of ram, a dash of tweaks and moving the pagefile and everything loads within a second of running. I personally dont see how going from vista to 7 for me can be a thought when there gonna give me the only thing i care for in 7 and thats DirectX11 and the new aero features. Thanks MSSazar - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
Why not?It's free to use and try. If you don't like it, go back.
I have switched both my HTPC and my main rig to Windows 7 simply because it is a more efficient way for me to work. The homegroups sharing features is miles better than the old, archaic sharing method and the new Media Center interface is fantastic.
Also, Windows 7 loaded up all the drivers I needed by default, including both of my Hauppauge TV Tuner drivers and it just worked.
I see a lot of naysayers nit-picking, which is fine. However, I have yet to see anyone point out anything meaningful that should disuade people from either using Vista or Windows 7.
Btw, for me, the biggest selling feature, beyond the vastly improved 10 foot interface in MCE, was Aero Peak. Can't go back to Vista now without that functionality :)
Bmadd - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
Well i have never really used gadgets, widgets and such. There not for me like myspace and twitter aren't for me. I would hate to change to win7 after setting me vista install up so nicely only to not like it and have to spend time getting it back to the sleak thing it is at the moment.Perhaps i will download the RC and just keep it there till Win7 is released and drivers are all sweet, install RC on a new hard drive and go from there but i am fair to pleased with my current vista install to consider changing
papapapapapapapababy - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
not a single feature that i want or even care about. how about a good competent fast image viewer? more drm? giant icons? no classic ui? terrible. just give me a smaller, faster, stronger and more efficient xp or gtfo ms.TonkaTuff - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
Microsoft should count themselves very lucky that Apple remains uninterested in being the OS for everyone and restrict themselves to the premium OS and hardware market.Yeah Snookie Im sure apple holds themseves back from over 90% of the O/S market based on there morals and lack of interest in making more money. What kind of deranged fanboy are you? Comments like the one above show how brainwashed some of you looney tunes are becoming.
It really is scary and you should seek professional help.
A comment in the article really hit the nail on the head,
MANY PEOPLE SAY THEY HATE VISTA BUT FEW CAN ACTUALLY SAY WHAT THEY HATE ABOUT IT.
Yeah Vista had issues when it first was released, it was a major step from the XP O/S but that was 2 bloody years ago. Ive been running Vista on my Gaming rig and my Work Laptop and a server/seed box and in 12 months I havnt had 1 crash that was the O/S's fault, Not one crash, not one BSOD, probably 4 or 5 freeze ups that had to be end tasked in 12 months on 3 systems numbering well over a 1000 hours of use, not even XP could claim to be that stable.
Like any O/S it has its annoyances, they all do (yes snookie even your precious mac).
Do I expect Win7 to be much different from Vista? No not really, I expect it will be a dressed up and refined version of Vista.
Why would Microshaft do such a thing, they just want more money, why not release it as a service pack for Vista?
BECAUSE THEY HAD TO CHANGE THE NAME AND MAKE IT OUT TO BE DIFFERENT FROM VISTA BACAUSE OF ALL THE LEMMINGS OUT THERE THAT HATE VISTA BUT DONT KNOW WHY THEY HATE IT!!!!!!!!!!!
End of rant.......Snookie you sir are a sychotic applemac fanboi, get help for god sake.
squeezee - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
Microsoft has said to developers (at PDC at least) that Direct2D and DirectWrite along with the rest of DirectX 11 functionality will be available on windows Vista.fendell - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
Has anyone tested Windows 7 and Ventrilo (any version) over some time?It's the only thing that keeps me on 64bit XP at the moment, because ventrilo has this weird behaviour on windows 7 where it suddenly doesnt recieve data for 2-5 minutes, then suddenly gets everything at once, this is veery frustrating and in fact raidbreaking in wow ;)
nycromes - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
I have also used Windows 7 RC for WoW raiding and have had no major issues. Ensure you are running it as an administrator. I had a few issues before doing that, but none like you are describing. I am using a USB microphone and a standard soundcard speaker combination with no issue.vectorm12 - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
I use ventrilo for wow a couple of times per week, at times for hours without any issues on build 7077x64(correct me if I'm wrong, found on piratebay.org btw). However I do use a USB connected wireless Microsoft headset(looks like the 360 one but grey) which might have some impact as it works like a second soundcard.snookie - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
If you think XP is the best OS ever then you haven't used very many. It is archaic."The biggest news is that the Ultimate/Business/Home Premium schism has been resolved with Windows 7."
This is a pretty amazing statement seeing as how it took a further paragraph to partly but not fully describe what all the versions are for.
The Start Menu remains a horrible user interface designed by committee. Just awful.
Windows 7! Now with even more DRM!!!
UAC is an attempt to place responsibility for security too much on the user which is why it was so intrusive. A certain amount of user action is reasonable but UAC went far beyond that.
WTF, why does IE 8 take up so much space with its headers? Seriously Microsoft do you have no idea at all about usability? Slapping a ribbon interface on a simple text processor is just dumb.
Mail, Calendar, and Movie Maker might as well have been removed because they suck. But their removal points out even more how Microsoft needs its own version of iLife.
ISO implementation is so Microsoft. Half-ass as usual.
Why does Windows 7 need a disk defragmenter in 2009? No other modern OS does.
Virtual Windows XP? Is this a joke? Probably won't run on older machines which is where it is needed most and even more headaches for desktop admins for configuration and administration.
Why would you do performance testing on an SSD drive which very few desktop boxes have these days?
Looks like Windows 7 will suck on laptops as much as Vista does. Not good news since so many notebooks are sold these days.
My recommendation to Corporations is that for the 95% of users who need basic functionality they replace Windows entirely with a locked down Linux of some form. Many that I have worked with are considering this very thing and I have no doubt the Windows 7 will hasten this decision. XP requires far too intensive support ( yes i know your handbuilt game tower never has to be rebooted with XP, sure it doesn't).
Microsoft should count themselves very lucky that Apple remains uninterested in being the OS for everyone and restrict themselves to the premium OS and hardware market and that an unrestricted Linux desktop is still to complicated for most users. more and more companies are providing their high end IT Architects and Developers with Macs and they are happily snapping them up. I have seen this at Cisco, Oracle, Motorola, and may others. When Visual Studio using .NET developers would rather use a VM on OS X t do their development there is something very wrong and I'm seeing a lot of that.
The authors really do not understand the relationship between development tools, threads, the kernel, and processor usage.