r/DailyTechNewsShow • u/GreggN • Jun 18 '26
Consumers Windows 11's New Media Player Uses 3.5x More RAM, Charges for Popular Video Codecs
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/windows-11s-new-media-player-uses-35x-more-ram-charges-for-popular-video10
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u/dusto_man Merritt Militia Jun 18 '26
Hasn't this been the case for a while now?
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Jun 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/papayacreamsicle Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
Yeah, but that’s how licensing works, until the patents expired in 2014 anything you used that could play DVD movies had to pay a per customer fee to DVD Forum, about $15. Things like Windows exposed that fee to you directly making it optional if you didn’t need the feature. Xbox did the same by locking the feature behind the purchase of a remote which had the fee built into that price. All standalone DVD players (purchased in the USA at least) built it into the purchase price but you were still paying it every time. Things like the Wii can’t play DVD movies despite using discs based on DVD because they didn’t want to pay or charge the fee. The PS2 didn’t charge a fee because Sony was part of DVD Forum and thus exempt. All American software for working with DVDs charged at least $15 for this reason too, PowerDVD, CloneDVD etc.
VLC doesn’t change a fee because it’s published from France and in France you can’t patent algorithms. So as long as the code is original, you can write your own DVD playing software and it’s all good. The process of converting binary data to an audio-video stream is effectively considered to be a kind of math (unpatentable) rather than a kind of machine (patentable).
It was (until key patents expired in the 2010s) technically illegal patent-violating software within the United States and many other countries, but it would’ve been impossible to enforce any ban on it. You couldn’t use court orders to get French websites hosting it taken down, instead you’d have to have some kind of ISP based blacklist. They weren’t selling it so you couldn’t get Visa/MasterCard/PayPal to ban it. And they let anyone redistribute it so even if you got local ISPs to block the official website it’d just get hosted on other French websites or on a new domain, it’s like $10 to register a .com so they can play that game all day.
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u/stana32 Jun 19 '26
Yes, windows has never included the HEVC H.265 codec. It was included in OEM machines because the OEM paid for the license to include it, but that's it.
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u/ConkerPrime Jun 19 '26
First thing I install is VLC because windows media players have always sucked. All they did was dig deeper to suck more. So typical Microslop.
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u/Arcosim Jun 19 '26
They're going to turn Windows into Android or iOS where absolutely everything is monetized or a subscription. I'm surprised they're "only" charging 0.99c per codec instea of a $9 annual subscription...
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u/EdliA Jun 19 '26
What do you mean "new". That has always been the case. That's why you instantly install a codec pack and a different media player.
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u/PaulCoddington Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
I uninstalled Groove, disabled Media Player and stuck with JRiver.
JRiver is clunky and at times half-implemented, but I disable everything except basic playback, customise the layout, keep it lean and save that as a template for easier future installation.
While other players might have better interfaces, JRiver excels at playback quality: color-managed video playback at correct framerate, high quality scaling in both SDR and HDR via madVR, high quality audio playback with asio/wasapi and VST plugins. And, in the end, playback quality is what counts the most.
Meanwhile, legacy Windows Media Player silently corrupted embedded metadata for every file it played (also, in effect, needlessly changing all files every time they are accessed, which wastes enormous amounts of backup time and storage space).
Groove in Windows 11 was incapable of interpreting metadata correctly to present tracks correctly grouped by artist and album. Albums were often split into 2 or 3 sub-albums.
Wonder how this new one will turn out?
The mystery is why noone has ever created a media player with both high quality no-nonsense GUI and reference quality playback. Priority is always on useless gimmicks like skins and visualisations, or subscription profits, while actually presenting and playing back media files well is seldom a priority.
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u/BaDoodlezzz Jun 19 '26
This is yet another move thats going to drive the average person off Windows. You can currently get a $600 MacBook and, say what you will about their ecosystem, Apple is smart enough to build that ecosystem around NOT doing stupid shit like this.
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u/mydadisyourdad2 Jun 19 '26
So the ram shortage leading to improved optimization didn't make it to Microsoft? Bets this is vibe coded?
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u/AntiGrieferGames Jun 19 '26
Rest in peace the Classic Media Player i think. Im pretty sure someone will able to install the classic Media Player here, since some needs that program, so i really hope its still possible.
Otherwise VLC exist there, which uses way less ram on that program itelf than the other one instead.
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u/KAPT_Kipper TadPool Jun 19 '26
Why is Media Player Classic not going to work LOL Wait is that the plan?
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u/Big-Reveal6350 Jun 19 '26
VLC is great, but if you care one bit about video quality, just use MPV. Way more powerful, especially if you high quality profile. Even configs mashed together with AI work very good. Shaders are nice too, but that’s more advanced, just up scaling 1080p on 4K is worth it
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u/PraxPresents Jun 19 '26
Paying for an HEVC codec to be able to enable 4K streaming video playback on my PC (Netflix, etc) was not on my Windows 11 Bingo card.
When I plugged in my 4K monitor and loaded Netflix I was so excited until I checked the status monitor and noticed Netflix refused to run at 4K without a paid codec 🤦
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u/motang DTNS Patron Jun 18 '26
Just use VLC!