[mythtv-users] MythstreamTV (and mythweb) question

[chris at cpr.homelinux.net]

On Fri, Aug 25, 2006 at 11:37:40PM -0400, Michael T. Dean wrote:
> The file formats haven't changed.  If the files are in MPEG format, now, 
> they were in MPEG format before--they just happened to have a name that 
> ended with .nuv.  Any OS that wasn't designed to require file metadata 
> to be encoded into a filename doesn't care.  And the OS that does 
> require special filenames has a facility for changing the application 
> associated with an extension.

Let me rephrase the comment, then: using an url that specifies a 
proprietary protocol to stream a standard file-type to a platform 
that could otherwise easily play that file-type doesn't make any 
sense unless you're intentionally trying to be incompatible.  
That's a fool's game.  I'm as much a Linux zealot as anyone else, 
but there's little to be gained by making things harder for Windows 
users.  It's commonly accepted that Linux is a viable and even 
preferable choice for the server, but they're NOT going to dump 
their desktop OS just so they can watch MythTV.  MythTV *could* 
have been a "killer app" like Samba or Apache but by not providing 
a Windows frontend and being intentionally incompatible with IE/WMP 
we've basically created a market for crap like Microsoft's 
"PlaysForSure" standard and products like the D-Link Media Player 
(http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=318).  For all the whining on 
Slashdot about the thin edge of the DRM wedge we're not doing much 
to provide an alternative.