Hi Pavithran,
2009/8/2 pavithran <pavithran.s@???>:
> Yes I am suggesting someone to use a proprietary software in a linux
> list but I am afraid that there is no *viable* FOSS alternative :(
>
Untrue. MythTV, Boxee and XBMC are all (for the most part) FOSS
alternatives to Windows Media Centre.
> This is because of many reasons :
> * Bad Hardware vendors who don't write free drivers .
So vote with your feet and buy hardware that _is_ supported. There is
a lot of it about. Also worth noting that Linux based systems support
_more_ hardware out of the box than _any_ other operating system,
including Windows, OSX and BSD (and BeOS, Haiku, OS/2...).
> *Many proprietary video formats
I'd be interested to know exactly which proprietary video formats the
FOSS media player VLC can't play. With VLC and MPlayer I don't think
I've yet come across a format they wont play.
I think you'll find that FOSS also supports way more codecs than most
proprietary solutions. Windows for example doesn't support
OGG/Theora/Vorbis, DIVX or H.264 out of the box. Most Linux distros
these days can install codecs very easily.
> *lack of video standards ( Yes MPEG is a ISO standard but mp3,divx thrive )
There are many standards for video compression, and (as outlined
above) they pretty much all work on Linux. Which ones don't?
Cheers,
Al.
