Windows Media 9 Series reviewed: the most stunning audio and video technology available on any computer platform.

Inderdaad. Tegen dat het geen beta meer is zal het ongelooflijk zijn:

Windows Media Video 9 Professional – WMV 9 Professional features software-only High-Definition (Hi-Def, 1080p) video playback on PCs for the first time. Before WMV 9 Pro, analysts predicted that Hi-Def quality video playback on PCs would require expensive new hardware components and new networking and storage technologies. No more: WMV 9 Pro delivers 1920 x 1080 (1080p) resolution video, which is about six times the resolution of today’s DVD movies. And this content can be rendered and played back on mid-range Pentium 4 hardware, using just software.  Microsoft demonstrated various Hi-Def-quality movies at the reviewers workshop, including clips from theatrical releases such as The Mummy Returns and Disney’s Dinosaurs, which, yes, far surpassed any movie theatre experience audiences had watching these movies.

Another interesting use of WMV 9 is its slightly lower quality 720p resolution (1280 x 720) movie delivery with 5.1 discrete channels of surround sound (we’ll hit the audio part of this in just a bit, below). Content creators can fit two such movies on a single DVD, significantly expanding the amount of content that can be delivered per disc. And the resulting movies, of course, are of even higher quality than the DVD movies you see today. Amazing? Yes, I think so.