RE: xPLRioNet and asf/asx files

["Tony Tofts" <tony@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> Here's one I listen to on time delay. I dump the file to a CF
> chip and listen on my PDA hooked up to my car stereo during commutes.
>
> http://www.kenradio.com/audio/aug17.asx
>

Hi Mike,

Although we _can_ add support for asf/asx to xplrionet, we can't.

Unfortunately Microsoft hold a copyright patent on the ASF format that
means
(under their terms and conditions):

A) you cannot decode an ASF stream from any software other their asf
drivers

This wouldn't be a problem, since xplrionet would use their drivers to
decode the stream, however:

B) Microsoft does not allow transcoding from their ASF drivers to any other
format

This is the killer blow as it means we cannot transcode the output to wav
and then to mp3.

The following extract is from linuxtoday.com:

Microsoft patents the ASF media file format and stops the author of
VirtualDub, a GPLed video capture and processing program for Windows, from
supporting ASF since he reverse-engineered the ASF file spec. The
consequences are numerous: Third parties cannot develop their own tools to
decode ASF or convert ASF to other formats, and if ASF becomes the dominate
media format on the Internet (due to Microsoft's proprietary but
high-quality MPEG4 codec and strong marketing), Microsoft gains de facto
technical control over the creation and distribution of digital media. And
if patenting file formats becomes a common practice, it can have a chilling
effect on free software development since the reading/writing of data in
popular formats (say, Microsoft Word files or MPEG4 video) would be
prohibited, unless one uses designated drivers."

"...We're not talking about a codec problem here. Microsoft claims
patent
protection on the file format. Remember these implications the next time
you
consider ASF for your content:"

"A broken ASF file not accepted by the Microsoft parser would be lost;
the
patent would prevent anyone from writing a byte-level tool to recover the
ASF file. A third-party Linux player wouldn't be legal, since there would
be
no way to legally extract the file data, even if third-party video and
audio
decoders were available. Attempting to transcode a compressed ASF to
another
format would be impossible with any Microsoft-licensed tools, even if you
have the permission of the copyright owner, or even if you are the
copyright
owner, because the Windows Media Format SDK license requires programs to
actively block this action. For instance, Microsoft compelled Nullsoft to
disable DSP plugin support in WinAmp with Windows Media Audio content
because the DSP interface could be used to transcode, even though DSP
plugins normally just process the audio."

Sorry, but unless the situation does/has changed then asf will not be
supported.

Regards
Tony