The Morons at Microsoft!

For those who may have noticed, Logitech and other cameras have stopped working on the 1607 W10 release. Why? Now ArsTechnica gives a great rendition.

The version 1607 frame server, however, only supports uncompressed data. Microsoft's rationale for this is that most applications receiving compressed data will have to immediately uncompress that data in order to actually manipulate it. With the new camera-sharing capability, this means that multiple applications could be performing the MJPEG-to-YUV or H.264-to-YUV conversion simultaneously. It's more efficient in this situation to simply read YUV data from the camera in the first place and skip those extra conversions. H.264 adds additional complexity: applications can negotiate specific compression parameters with the camera to alter the compression quality on the fly. This isn't an issue when an application has exclusive control of the camera but becomes a problem when two different applications try to use different parameters with the same camera.

They continue:

By preventing the use of the compressed formats, Microsoft avoided these issues. But it came at a great cost. Applications demanding or expecting support for MJPEG or H.264 data have stopped working. This could manifest in strange ways. I have a Logitech C920 camera, and I use it with Skype. Skype progressively enhances video quality; a connection may start out using a lower quality, and it'll then be upgraded as bandwidth and processor usage settle down. What I found was that an initial video call would connect, with the application using something like 640×480 YUV data. After a few seconds, however, Skype would try to upgrade the call to 720p or 1080p video. This should work, and in old versions of Windows, was seamless. But with the Anniversary Update it means switching from an uncompressed data stream to a compressed stream—and so it fails. The video just freezes after a few seconds of correct operation.

 Yes indeed, the folks in Seattle are totally clueless. H.264 is a compression technique used, you guess it, everywhere! For years! You think it would have made its way to Seattle. These folks are doomed! Doomed! If this keeps up we can all switch back to Windows 95, watch for the hourly reboot, and them load a Linux OS.

If there people worked for me they would be history! Along with the CEO who apparently does not give a damn about the customers!

We need a Harvard Business School Case Study on this one, now!