If the world had already decided on H.264 then Frank wouldn't feel the need to talk it up like this before it's even released. The fact of the matter is that this battle is far from being settled. Remember, 5% of PeeCees are shipped with windows media player (ok that will be less thanks to the EU - and no thanks to DoJ). M$ is also making inroads into people's living rooms with windows media PeeCees, not to mention the deals they are setting (have set) up with various US cable TV providers. There's a lot of support for going the MPEG way, but lets not be fooled into thinking we've seen the last of Windows Media.

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correction: 95%

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When you consider "in terms of broadcast, H.264 has already been adopted by Europe’s DVB, the top 6 Japanese broadcasters, and is under final consideration in the US’s ATSC. The ITU-T has chosen H.264 for its H.241 videoconferencing specification. And in the mobile arena, H.264 has been adopted by the 3GPP (for GSM) organization and is under final consideration with the 3GPP2 (for CDMA2000) organization." I think the world HAS already decided.
[source: http://www.apple.com/mpeg4/h264faq.html]

Frank feels the need to talk it up for two reasons. First, Apple has spent a lot of money in R&D on JOINT development of this codec. And second, but probably more important to the Tiger release, it will be the first OS to support it. And I don't mean just having an application that supports it. ANY application on the OS will be able to take advantage of it.

95% of PeeCees may be shipped with Windows Media Player, but if "we have distributed over 300 million copies of QuickTime 6 and we distribute 400,000 copies a day", I'd say it's approaching a pretty equal marketshare. Besides, the majority of people prefer to watch video on their TVs and their DVD players. The fact that they are making "inroads" on media centers or making deals on the infrastructure side, may help them get a head start or even gain a foothold but there are many more problems they face over an openly developed codec.

For one, licensing. Almost a dozen separate companies have staken claim to the use of their patents in Microsoft's WM9/VC9 codec. And "since Microsoft has never acknowledged any other technology suppliers in its literature on VC 9, it is unlikely that it is currently paying royalties on its current distribution. But it will need to. MPEG 2 for instance has a flat rate royalty of $2.50 on each copy, while MPEG 4/H.264 is free up to 100,000 units, then costs 20 cents per unit, falling to 10 cents a unit, capped at $3.5m per year, rising with inflation."
[source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/24/ms_codec_patents/]

Lastly, Windows Media is not simply a codec. The lure of paying to use it over an open standard is that it would be paired with Microsoft's DRM protection. But apparently, not even the WM10 DRM can be hacked. I don't think that would give a lot of distributors confidence.
[source: http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000900029916/]

I don't mean to come off sounding like a zealot, I'm just trying to convey the facts behind the issue.

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[correction]
But apparently even the WM10 DRM can be hacked.

don't know how that "not" got in there.

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