Windows Media 9 Continues to Make Progress

Microsoft’s Windows Media 9 platform is going from strength to strength – it’s being adopted by more broadcasters, it’s being incorporated in more players and MS are making more refinements to the platform codecs for High Definition media.

Microsoft are watching the platform’s popularity in the film and television world and are building on this by partnering with media companies to develop its range of functions. Work with Adobe, CineForm and BOXX Technologies has demonstrated WM9’s multi-stream High Definition capabilities, and companies like USDTV have adopted 9 as their broadcast format.

It’s not just all broadcast work either — Sonic solutions are introducing DVD Producer WMV HD Edition for producing High Definition DVDs later this year.

Microsoft is also submitting an update to its WM9 compression codec to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers

Tandberg Television are currently demonstrating their EN5920 encoding platform – the only hardware encoding solution for WM9 available. Companies like NTL Broadcast and Swisscom’s Bluewin are trialling the EN5920 to provide real-time encoding and decoding of WM9 streams to domestic digital TV customers.

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