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Theora uses a BSD-style license.

http://www.theora.org/faq/#14

WebM also uses a BSD-style license.

http://www.webmproject.org/about/faq/#licensing

IMHO, if you are trying to make a standard for media encoding, it just makes sense for the reference code to be BSD-licensed. The point of GPL is to make sure that people can't lock users in to a proprietary code base, with no way to make changes; with a media format, the users can always grab their own copy of the reference code. (And a proprietary version that is incompatible with the reference code will be incompatible with the media standard. Users will shun it.)

Also, in the Star Wars universe, Daala is the protégé of Grand Moff Tarkin, who gave his name to Xiph.org's earlier experimental wavelet-based video codec effort, so the name makes perfect sense from a historical perspective as well.

How does this affect the Theora and Vorbis formats ..

and it is the only royalty free web video codec.

Except Theora. Though from what I've seen WebM has the edge in video quality.

No I'm not a Firefox developer, what does that have to do with everything? IE can't have WebGL or OGG/Theora codecs built-in because it's closed. The licenses don't allow that. Nothing ridiculous about it.

If it were just IE and Firefox, IE might play an important role, but there are many different browsers out there made by companies with many different interests, so IE isn't contributing significantly to the competition. Also they are constantly making closed-source addons like Silverlight and ActiveX which are negative contributions. So I'd say the browser market would be better off without them.

Q. What is the license for Theora?
Theora (and all associated technologies released by the Xiph.org Foundation) is released to the public via a BSD-style license. It is completely free for commercial or noncommercial use. That means that commercial developers may independently write Theora software which is compatible with the specification for no charge and without restrictions of any kind.

Source

I couldn't find the license of WebGL, but I'm quite sure it's something similar.

..and by "free" you mean that if Microsoft includes the theora codec with windows, then they also have to provide source code upon request... that whole GPL thing that Theora falls under...

If you were correct, and Theora were under GPL, Microsoft could trivially discharge this obligation simply by putting a Theora .tar.gz file (or .zip file if they prefer) on one of the many Microsoft web servers. Microsoft would not be obliged to share the entire source code for Windows.

But in fact Theora is released under the BSD license so Microsoft wouldn't even need to do that much.

..and lets suppose they included the theora codec in 2009.. well you know that the reference implementation has been changed multiple times since then, right?

What matters for Theora support is the Theora decoder, which has been finished for years. The Theora bitstream format has been frozen since 2004 and any decoder written since then can play Theora files.

It's true that the Theora project has made huge improvements to the encoder, but that has exactly zero impact on the cost to Microsoft of supporting Theora for playback in Windows.

steveha

..and by "free" you mean that if Microsoft includes the theora codec with windows, then they also have to provide source code upon request... that whole GPL thing that Theora falls under...

If you were correct, and Theora were under GPL, Microsoft could trivially discharge this obligation simply by putting a Theora .tar.gz file (or .zip file if they prefer) on one of the many Microsoft web servers. Microsoft would not be obliged to share the entire source code for Windows.

But in fact Theora is released under the BSD license so Microsoft wouldn't even need to do that much.

..and lets suppose they included the theora codec in 2009.. well you know that the reference implementation has been changed multiple times since then, right?

What matters for Theora support is the Theora decoder, which has been finished for years. The Theora bitstream format has been frozen since 2004 and any decoder written since then can play Theora files.

It's true that the Theora project has made huge improvements to the encoder, but that has exactly zero impact on the cost to Microsoft of supporting Theora for playback in Windows.

steveha

..and by "free" you mean that if Microsoft includes the theora codec with windows, then they also have to provide source code upon request... that whole GPL thing that Theora falls under...

Bzzt. Wrong answer, you're out. All xiph.org implementations are BSD-licensed.

..and lets suppose they included the theora codec in 2009.. well you know that the reference implementation has been changed multiple times since then, right? bug-fixes and all that?

So? Are you implying that Microsoft never released updates to its Office products after it submitted the ooxml specs to ISO?

how can anything in the reference be a bug? but hey... its not my project... I didnt call a beta a reference.. they did

Do you happen to know the difference between a reference implementation and a format specification?

..and by "free" you mean that if Microsoft includes the theora codec with windows, then they also have to provide source code upon request... that whole GPL thing that Theora falls under...

Bzzt. Wrong answer, you're out. All xiph.org implementations are BSD-licensed.

..and lets suppose they included the theora codec in 2009.. well you know that the reference implementation has been changed multiple times since then, right? bug-fixes and all that?

So? Are you implying that Microsoft never released updates to its Office products after it submitted the ooxml specs to ISO?

how can anything in the reference be a bug? but hey... its not my project... I didnt call a beta a reference.. they did

Do you happen to know the difference between a reference implementation and a format specification?

Theora's all BSD licensed. Encoder/decoder download (BSD licensed), FAQ describing the licensing status of the codec itself (BSD again!)

WebM is the same story.

Are you happy yet?

Theora's all BSD licensed. Encoder/decoder download (BSD licensed), FAQ describing the licensing status of the codec itself (BSD again!)

WebM is the same story.

Are you happy yet?

What the @#$ is with that? Xiph.Org's Theora Specification is easily the nicest codec standards document I've ever seen. It's completely, informative, and easy to write from. It's _far_ nicer than the hideously complex and expensive H.264 documentation.

Source

The Mozilla development team released Firefox 3.6, codenamed Namoroka, on 21 January 2010 after some anticipation; Firefox 3.5 was a step forward in features but two steps backward in performance. As a minor update, Namoroka was a chance to optimize the last release.

So, now that it's out, did it alleviate some of these problems? Well, let's find out by looking at what 3.6 offers over 3.5.

First and most visible is support for skins, called personas. Firefox developers have been tinkering with the XUL format and they cite its power. They also claim that it has been under-utilized, so personas were a "natural addition."

TraceMonkey received a performance boost, caching more bytecode in RAM using the new "Stored History Integration Table" system which dynamically stores each JavaScript routine as an object in memory in order to more quickly access it during execution.

Firefox's plugin system also received an overhaul, and now lets the user know when a plugin is incompatible. Mozilla also included support for full-screen Theora and WOFF, the Web Open Font File format, as well as additional but otherwise unspecified performance and security enhancements.

Overall, it's a nice list of bullet points for the bump from 3.5 to Nakamora, but the fact that performance wasn't a priority already points away from optimization and to new features. And the features are actually not new at all, but fixes for issues that should have been taken care of during the initial design stages or other numerous upgrades.

For instance, Firefox has been skinnable for years using XUL, and personas are just a hack to this system that allows the user to use bitmapped images as toolbar backgrounds. You are not mistaken if you just had a flashback to Internet Explorer 3.

These personas also slow the browser down, negating any advantage from the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine. One writer on the web even suggests that the TraceMonkey enhancements were done in anticipation of new-feature bloat. Talk about the tail wagging the fox!

Plugin incompatibility usually occurs when a plugin was written for an older version of the plugin system, which demands a question about the wisdom of upgrading the plugin system for Nakamoru the first place. But that's just how Firefox developers roll.

Now, if you're running an incompatible plugin, Firefox alerts you at startup and launches the plugin manager, a JavaScript-based app that contacts Firefox's plugin server and swaps all kinds of metadata in a frantic attempt to update your third party add-ons.

Several of the changes are plainly just developmental masturbation. For example, Theora is the least-used web video codec, with the penetration that the newer QuickTime X has. And WOFF is an open standard that Mozilla wants to support for political reasons that isn't actually in use anywhere.

So what exactly are Mozilla development managers doing?

If a private company with an opaque development model like Apple can apply the breaks and optimize an entire operating system, à la Leopard to Snow Leopard, why can't a public, transparent development team be bothered to do the same for something much less complex like a web browser?

http://bit.ly/9AvjLc:

The Mozilla development team released Firefox 3.6, codenamed Namoroka, on 21 January 2010 after some anticipation; Firefox 3.5 was a step forward in features but two steps backward in performance. As a minor update, Namoroka was a chance to optimize the last release.

So, now that it's out, did it alleviate some of these problems? Well, let's find out by looking at what 3.6 offers over 3.5.

First and most visible is support for skins, called personas. Firefox developers have been tinkering with the XUL format and they cite its power. They also claim that it has been under-utilized, so personas were a "natural addition."

TraceMonkey received a performance boost, caching more bytecode in RAM using the new "Stored History Integration Table" system which dynamically stores each JavaScript routine as an object in memory in order to more quickly access it during execution.

Firefox's plugin system also received an overhaul, and now lets the user know when a plugin is incompatible. Mozilla also included support for full-screen Theora and WOFF, the Web Open Font File format, as well as additional but otherwise unspecified performance and security enhancements.

Overall, it's a nice list of bullet points for the bump from 3.5 to Nakamora, but the fact that performance wasn't a priority already points away from optimization and to new features. And the features are actually not new at all, but fixes for issues that should have been taken care of during the initial design stages or other numerous upgrades.

For instance, Firefox has been skinnable for years using XUL, and personas are just a hack to this system that allows the user to use bitmapped images as toolbar backgrounds. You are not mistaken if you just had a flashback to Internet Explorer 3.

These personas also slow the browser down, negating any advantage from the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine. One writer on the web even suggests that the TraceMonkey enhancements were done in anticipation of new-feature bloat. Talk about the tail wagging the fox!

Plugin incompatibility usually occurs when a plugin was written for an older version of the plugin system, which demands a question about the wisdom of upgrading the plugin system for Nakamoru the first place. But that's just how Firefox developers roll.

Now, if you're running an incompatible plugin, Firefox alerts you at startup and launches the plugin manager, a JavaScript-based app that contacts Firefox's plugin server and swaps all kinds of metadata in a frantic attempt to update your third party add-ons.

Several of the changes are plainly just developmental masturbation. For example, Theora is the least-used web video codec, with the penetration that the newer QuickTime X has. And WOFF is an open standard that Mozilla wants to support for political reasons that isn't actually in use anywhere.

So what exactly are Mozilla development managers doing?

If a private company with an opaque development model like Apple can apply the breaks and optimize an entire operating system, à la Leopard to Snow Leopard, why can't a public, transparent development team be bothered to do the same for something much less complex like a web

Nonsense.

First of all, Microsoft does *not* have "nothing to worry about" with H.264. Just because it pays tribute (er, licenses patents) from one organization does *NOT* mean that it's protected from all other organizations. In fact, once you demonstrate that you're willing to pay to one organization, others will start to show up to get some money too. For an analogy, look at the history of the Vikings; once people started paying tribute, the odds of looting parties showing up INCREASED. And we don't have to just use analogies; look at the recent history of sound codecs, specifically MP3. Microsoft paid big$ tribute for MP3, but Alcatel-Lucent sued Microsoft and won a record-breaking $1.52 billion in damages via a jury verdict. Now it's true that Microsoft got lucky in that one; in the MP3 case, a judge reversed the jury, a highly unusual event. If a judge hadn't reversed it, Microsoft would have paid $1.52 billion in additional damages for something it had ALREADY PAID LICENSE FEES for. And even so, Microsoft spent a FORTUNE in court on MP3, a codec that it was already paying license fees for. So it appears that "licensed" codecs have a HIGHER risk, not a lower risk, historically speaking. Wikipedia has more about the MP3 patent stuff.

Second of all, there's already been a lot of money and research spent to make sure that Ogg Theora is free of patent issues. Few things in life are "conclusively proven"; let's use realistic measures. The evidence, in this case, is really strong that Ogg is safe. Strictly speaking, it's not that Ogg Theora is patent-free, it's that all known required patents have been released under and irrevocable free license. That is actually a stronger legal position than simply "not knowing of any patents"... here we have a granted patent, which is then released. The Ogg folks spent $ to do their own legal searches, too, something standards bodies emphatically do NOT do, giving you additional protection. Most companies that claim that "Ogg has unknown patent issues" are basically flinging FUD; it's mainly a protest claimed by companies who have a vested interest (a kickback) from the patent licenses. In particular, it's my understanding that Apple *makes* money from the H.264 patents. So unsurprisingly, Apple works to lock everyone else into the patents they partly control, and actively works to *prevent* the use of open standards for codecs. But you don't need to buy into that.

Sure, it's always possible that there are unknown submarine patents, but submarine patents are risk to all codecs, including H.264; that is not specifically a risk to Ogg Theora. Indeed, H.264 is MORE dangerous. Because H.264 was developed in an environment where patents were permitted (for shame, ISO), and there was no *requirement* for an external patent search (ISO doesn't require it), there was an incentive to patent everything, both by the participating parties and by external parties. There have been a number of court cases about MP3, but none about Vorbis, which shows that once you let patents into a standards process, things can get really bad.

Someday, someone may find a patent problem with Ogg Theora, but this is highly unlikely. In contrast, we have hideous patent problems with H.264, today. Why worry about Ogg, when there's a wolf already in tent? We need to dump H.264 (with its KNOWN problems) and switch to Ogg (which has NO known problems). First step: Get the browsers to support Ogg Theora. Then websites can more rationally use the format. It's better for Microsoft's customers: They can then easily use an open standard. It's also better for Microsoft: If more people use an open standard, they won't be as beholden to the H.264 licensors and will reduce the risk of me-too lawsuits like that of Alcatel-Lucent.

I agree but defining or limiting it to one codec is a fail.

Web browsers support a variety of open image formats. There's no particular reason why they can't support a variety of open video formats. Theora is ready for use now, Dirac will be ready in the future. If Google releases VP8 as an open format (as many expect they will) then at some point there will be at least three open video formats to choose from.

Theora I doubt will ever get hardware support. I could be wrong but I don't see it. Google's codec could if they created their own chip and made it part of Android but odds are they will not do that because they will have to support it on YouTube or look like fools if they don't. YouTube has already spent how much money support H.264 for the iPhone?

Accelerated playback of Theora is already available:

http://www.schleef.org/blog/2009/11/11/theora-on-ti-c64x-dsp-and-omap3/

Millions of devices already have the capability to accelerate Theora playback. They just need the software. Fennec (Firefox for mobile) supports Theora playback on the Nokia N810 and N900:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/mobile/

And Fennec is coming to Android:

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/reviews/2010/02/hands-on-and-under-the-hood-ars-tests-firefox-on-android.ars

Mozilla will happily support VP8 in Firefox if Google releases it as an open format.

Tnen you have Microsoft. They have not said they will support the video tag at all! My guess is that fantasize that SilverLight will be the new standard.

IE is always a problem. Fortunately you can work around it with Cortado, a Java based Theora player:

http://www.theora.org/cortado/

Or with a Silverlight based Theora player:

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/02/nuanti-brings-html5-and-ogg-theora-video-to-silverlight.ars

Neither is ideal, but for the time being it's the best you can do in IE. I think IE will support HTML5 video eventually. It's more a question of "when" than "if".

Mozilla, for good reasons (IMHO), is not willing to support H.264, but that seems to be the direction YouTube is heading. But as good and open as Theora is, I think don't believe there is any hardware with a Theora accelerator (yet?).

You can make use of the DSP that's used for H.264 acceleration and use it for Theora acceleration or any other similar workload. That's what's been done here:

http://www.schleef.org/blog/20...-c64x-dsp-and-omap3/

As mentioned in the post, that work is broadly applicable to Nokia's N series of phones, the Motorola Droid, and the Palm Pre. There are millions of devices in the field today which are capable of accelerated Theora playback. All they need is the software.

See also Christopher Blizzard's post on the importance of open formats to the future of the web:

http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/webl...anding-with-the-web/

In the comments Christopher Montgomery from Xiph.org, the foundation behind Theora, says:

"As for the chicken/egg problem of hardware support, several big commercial groups are already scrambling to get over it, partly because full Theora support in hardware is so much simpler than full h264 support. It’s a tiny fraction of the complexity. You practically get that many transistors for free in the today’s average cardboard cereal box. Can’t say more– NDAs. But that’s OK, it will be reality or not soon enough."

As you say, Microsoft's lack of HTML5 support will probably be a problem for some time. Fortunately, it can be worked around with Cortado or Highgate media suite's Theora for Silverlight

So because you can use it via Silverlight, you say that you can use Theora in Safari and IE? Well, by that standard, you'd have to say that h.264 is just as well supported, because you can use it in Firefox via Flash or Quicktime.

No, you've missed the point. I say that Safari and IE could implement native support for Theora should they choose to do so. In contrast, Firefox can never implement native support for H.264 because of the licencing issues involved. The lack of barriers to implementing support for Theora is the greatest appeal of Theora. This freedom isn't only relevant to software that the decodes the video. It's just a relevant to software for production and encoding of the video.

The fact that you can use the Cortado Java applet or a Silverlight applet to display the video in browsers that either don't support the codec out of the box (like Safari) or browsers that don't even support the video tag (like IE) is, one would hope, only a short term workaround.

A short description of what Theora actually *is* (a free and open video compression format) might have been useful to state in the article summary...

I think you just don't know what "public domain" means. It means there is no owner, no one can exert property rights in it, there's no legal way to exclude anyone from using it.

From the Wikipedia article:

The public domain can be defined in contrast to several forms of intellectual property; the public domain in contrast to copyrighted works is different from the public domain in contrast to trademarks or patented works.

Here's the problem: You were talking specifically about documentation, which would imply "public domain" as contrast to copyrighted works. And patenting an invention is specifically designed to ensure that all of the work behind it -- designs, schematics, papers, everything -- is released into the public domain.

I don't know that there is a way to release a patentable concept into the public domain, other than ensuring that it's patented by someone who won't abuse the patent.

I also think you don't really understand software patents, especially how Microsoft (and its ilk) use them to interfere with others competing with them, or even with interoperating with them.

Actually, I've been following the whole TomTom VFAT thing, not to mention the current issue with h.264 patents -- where essentially neither Apple nor Google will implement patent-less video formats, yet no other browser makers care to spend the money on licenses for h.264.

Covenants not to sue are transient. You'd have to sue them to enforce it, which makes it useless to small operations.

Or you simply violate their patent and dare them to break that covenant. When they come sue you, you have legal grounds to call them on it -- not to mention loads of bad press for them.

For that matter, take Theora:

On2, which owns patents that apply to the technical foundations of Theora, granted an unrevocable free license regarding those patents.

How is that better than a covenant not to sue? How is it different?

Except that all the MPEG specs do contain many patented aspects. Which is the whole drive behind projects like Theora.

Again you fail at the simplest of things. Where would one expect to find a specification for a free format? Probably under "Documentation", right? And what would you know it is in fact there: http://www.theora.org/doc/. But even if there weren't that wouldn't even matter, since there is a BSD licensed reference implementation of the decoder which would do well enough as a specification.

Now as for that hardware thing -- no, Theora does not and probably will never have hardware decoding support and that is a reasonable reason for excluding it from being a requirement for the HTML5 standard. As are the bandwidth issues; Youtube is bleeding enough money already.

But what I do not get is why you suddenly get all defensive. Did Xiph.org kick your dog or what?

I am not affiliated with Xiph.org in any way what so ever. I just happen to be able to read what it says on their webpage loud and clear. Something that you seem to fail at.

The reference implementations of Ogg Theora and Vorbis are both BSD licensed as you can see here and here.

Stop spreading lies and misconceptions, you dumb twat.

Could you point me to a hardware implementation of the decoder? Could you point me to a reference spec? The fact of the matter is that h264 is already entrenched with hardware decoding support on a number of devices meaning that OGG format would have to be done in software which would reduce the battery life of devices that had h264 hardware decoding.

Stop spreading lies and misconceptions, you dumb twat.

To be perfectly clear, it's h264 that's a patent lawsuit magnet. Theora makes the patent lawsuit problem go away because there are no patents to worry about..

Really?

The Theora FAQ says that it is based on patented technology but that that a licensing deal permits free use. That's all well and good for the parts that are in that/those patent(s). What concerns me is the features section of the Theora wiki lists things that are also in other standards or are variants thereof.

A patent is usually meant to cover a single "invention" but I suspect that a video coding scheme would have scope for multiple different inventions. I'd be worried some of those may already be patented

Schmoopy Ahead of ED-209 In Objective WKRP Quality
Posted by tomzyk on Thu May 08, '09 10:41 AM
from the whats-the-whozits-huh dept.
[ Media ] [ Technology ] somebody writes
"Bliggerblah hackers have been hard at work improving the Schmoopy codec over the past year, with the latest versions gaining on and passing ED-209 in objective WKRP quality measurements. From the update: 'Amusingly, it also shows test versions of Quasimodo pulling ahead of ED-209 in terms of objective quality as bitrate increases. It's important to note that WKRP is an objective measure that does not exactly represent perceived quality, and PSNR measurements have always been especially kind to Schmoopy. This is also data from a single clip. That said, it's clear that the gap in the fundamental infrastructure has closed substantially before the task of detailed subjective tuning has begun in earnest.' Momentum is building with a major Open Video Conference in June, the impending launch of Firefox 3.5 and excitement about wider adoption in a top-4 web site. It's looking like free video codecs may pose a serious threat to the ED-209 bait-and-switch plan to start charging millions for internet streaming of ED-209 in 2010."

yeah. so um... this article has something to do with "video codecs". gotcha. And I only got that after reading the article multiple times and bolding some of those keywords in there.

Shouldn't an "article summary" at least summarize what the hell it's talking about? Even a simple "[an open video codec]" inserted right after the initial mention of "Theora" would have done wonders to the layman's comprehension of it, thus preventing my head from asploding in trying to understand this gibberish. Maybe we could even add in some more useful links to the summary to make it easier on us folks that aren't in-the-know? (H.264 Theora PSNR etc...)

Or is this too much to ask?

(Yes, I know... "Welcome to Slashdot!" and "You must be new here.")

From the summary:
everything I have heard about Theora is that it is technically inferior to many other video codecs.

I am not an expert on video codecs, but here is my understanding of the situation.

Theora is a relatively undeveloped technology in comparison with the industry standards of MPEG2 or MPEG4. There are relatively few developers working on it. Overall they have done a pretty good job of defining a standard, but they are still working on improving the encoder. The encoding format is now frozen, which means you can write a decoder and expect it to be able to decode any future Theora bitstream; but the encoders are still being improved. The earliest Theora encoders were pretty terrible, but newer ones have gotten better, to the point where Theora is now more efficient than MPEG2. ("More efficient" meaning encoding the same video at the same quality in fewer bits, or encoding better quality in the same number of bits.) MPEG4 is currently more efficient than Theora, but not free.

There is plenty of room for a clever encoder to reduce the bitstream with video. As a trivial example, suppose we are encoding a scene where a car is driving from left to right. A brain-dead encoder could simply notice that the car pixels have changed, and encode them all over again; a smarter encoder could detect that the next frame looks very much like the previous frame, except that certain pixels have slid over a bit, and instead of re-encoding every changed pixel, the clever encoder can encode "these pixels are like those older pixels, except slid to the right by X amount". It's not easy to write an encoder that can do an optimal job of figuring out the most efficient way to represent the changes between several frames of video. Many more man-years have been spent on proprietary MPEG encoders compared to the time spent on Theora so far.

It is not clear to me how much room for further improvement there might be. Can Theora ever approach MPEG4 for efficiency? My guess is that there are patented technologies in MPEG4 which allow for more efficiency than is possible with Theora, but I don't know to what degree. Note that the Theora guys are saying that Theora is in the same class with MPEG4.

Given that MPEG2 is considered adequate for many purposes, it seems to me that Theora should be adequate for many purposes, and it's free. I have high-speed Internet and I would love it if Youtube and such sites offered Theora video in addition to Flash; the Flash player seems to leak memory a lot and I wish I didn't need it.

I wonder if we will start to see Theora-encoded video cutscenes in video games, just as we have seen Vorbis-encoded audio in video games?

If I got anything wrong in the above, please correct me.

steveha

If you toss out the concern over "safe patents", then by definition Moonlight is a safe alternative. It, and it's native AV codecs have probably as many patents as MPEG* and is probably just as safe. Why not spend your time working on getting Moonlight up to Silverlight 2? I mean hell, ffmpeg can handle Silverlight 2 codecs if compiled right, so I'd say it is a safe bet!

If you want to make this Stallman/FSFApproved Open-Source(tm) Free-Software(tm), then you can't just toss out the "patents are okay if I think they are safe". Thus you are stuck with Vorbis/Theora, and even then you might not get the Stallman Seal of Approval as Theora is based on VP3, which has a patent on it. Regardless of certification, neither have a way to be embedded Youtube style in a webpage.

PS: If it isn't Stallman/FSF Approved Open-Source(tm) Free-Software(tm), then I promise you that it will be a Slashdot story with just as many comments bitching about "Obama is not Open". Thus you *have no choice* but to use Vorbis/Theora, and I am only assuming that is Stallman Approved(tm). Dont like it? Welcome to open source politics.

Sorry to inform you, but your definition of "open" isn't in line with the RMS/FSF party line. Pretty much MPEG* has all kinds of patents that would exclude it from use. Theora and Vorbis are the only video/audio codecs that would most likely pass the RMS/FSF smell test.

You still need a way to either offer a second stream or embed the Vorbis/Theora stream into a browser. And you would have to require Windows and most likely Mac users to install both codecs.

As far as 'open enough', the only truly open video format that I'm aware of is Ogg Theora. As someone else mentioned, MPEG anything is patent encumbered.

Might want to tell that to various HOAs.

Sure will. HOAs are an abomination.

There's nothing wrong with copyright

There is plenty wrong with copyright. As it exists now, it retards, rather than promotes, progress in the useful arts and sciences.

there's nothing wrong with contracts

That depends entirely on the specifics on the contract. A contract can be ruled unconscionable.

Like it or not, to run a program you must make a copy of it; the EULA gives you a license to copy the program from a hard disk to memory to run.. sorry, that's the precident.

Sorry, but you're wrong: "it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided...that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine."

Have fun funding that video encoding software yourself then.

Uh, you have heard of Thoeora, right?

No, but Theora and Dirac are. Theora is from the Xiph open source community (the same people that do cdparanoia, FLAC, Speex, and Vorbis). The FSF has recommended its use along with Vorbis audio for some time now. Dirac is from the BBC.

Exactly, or better yet, use those decoders to transcode content into open ones and distribute them in that format. Distribute MP3 collections in OGG, and convert video to, well, sadly the best unfettered video codec right now that you can actually use seems to be Theora, because Dirac is still being implemented into players and such, and Snow is still in development last I heard. I think the only encoder available for Dirac is something that's pretty difficult to use.

It would be nice if YouTube supported in-browser Theora once Firefox 3.1 is released. It would also be nice if Theora were a good enough codec for that to be practical for them.

My worry is, "is it any good"? I've had a quick glance through the specification and it appears to lack some rather useful features of, say, H.264 such as *4x4 blocks *bidirectional prediction and *arithmetic encoding. If this means the quality/bit goes down by a big margin, would you really want to be waiting or paying (3G or PAYG broadband) for longer download times and/or worse quality?

Both CAN co-exist. The issue lies in the installer IMHO, which doesn't give the user that much needed choice to further customize the install. This applies to most popular distros, if not all. I'm not trying to troll here, so allow me to explain.

Say you have two desktops setup and one user wants a purist-type environment and the other is game for anything (ie. close-sourced binary drivers, apps, codecs, etc.). All you need is ONE installer CD that gives a user the choice of which kind of system they would like to install. Each choice will install the OS as usual, but even go as far as tailoring the repositories to ensure that the wishes of the users are met.

Although the following is a bit off-topic, it's related to the 'popular' GNU/Linux distros in general. Another pertinent question to be asked during the installation would be if the user is new to GNU/Linux. If so, it would be great to have a nice demo (using Theora perhaps?) to show new users how to use their newly installed OS and explain how the open source community has worked hard to bring a viable alternative to their desktop. It's certainly possible that the lack of such a demo has driven away new users because a LiveCD shows them a familiar looking desktop, but then leaves them with a 'now what?' look on their face. Perhaps the likes of Canonical can take the lead on this and provide a high quality demo on the basics of using Ubuntu, in addition to their other offerings (Kubuntu, etc)? I think that would at least extend the initial 'test-drive' period for new users. Just my $0.02 of course...

Comments, suggestions and rants welcome... Karma's a bitch! LOL!

Xiph.org's Ogg Theora. There's your goddamn answer closed source zealots!

http://www.theora.org/

If you're thinking about On2 with regards to this, they won't. While VP3 (which Vorbis is based on) may be patented by On2, they have given an irrevocable free licence for anyone to use those patents for any purpose. Even if On2 suddenly turned nasty, they couldn't do anything.

Of course there is still the possibility of submarine patents that, despite their best efforts, neither Xiph.org no On2 have spotted, but what format doesn't come with that risk?

You are correct in saying Ogg is not a codec. But when you compare Theora to VC-1, you must not have been reading the license terms of VC-1 properly. VC-1 is riddled by patents and there are royalites to pay when you use it: http://www.mpegla.com/pid/vc1/ . There is no such thing as royalties to pay for Theora. Also, the only patent on Theora were ones owned by On2 Technologies, who donated their VP3 codec as the *basis* technology for Theora and kindly granted an unrevocable free license regarding those patents: http://www.theora.org/benefits/. As for quality - yes, Theora is a generation behind in compression technology and H.264 is much better quality at lower bitrates. Again - have you read the license conditions? Theora is simply the only open codec standard (as to the definition of Open Standard by Buce Perens: http://perens.com/OpenStandards/Definition.html) with a usable implementation. Mind you, I would watch out for the BBC's Dirac codec http://dirac.sourceforge.net/ which is based on Wavelet technology and is thus opening a whole new space of new video codec developments and improvements - a space H.264 didn't enter. And Dirac is an open standard.

Apart from it not supporting DRM, ogg has only advantages - it's equal or superior to most other codecs (the widely used mp3 and wma are inferior) and it's open-source w/o patents restrictions...

Seriously, does anyone have an explanation for that?

Ogg isn't a codec. It's a container format. Vorbis is the audio codec in question, and Theora is the video codec in question.

Theora was created using proprietary code and patented techniques developed by On2 and used in their VP3 codec, adapted to fit inside an Ogg container. There are tools to let you convert existing VP3 streams into Ogg streams.

The Xiph.org foundation negotiated free access for all to those patented technology before adapting and adopting it. From the Theora FAQ:

Yes, some portions of the VP3 codec are covered by patents. However, the Xiph.org Foundation has negotiated an irrevocable free license to the VP3 codec for any purpose imaginable on behalf of the public. It is legal to use VP3 in any way you see fit (unless, of course, you're doing something illegal with it in your particular jurisdiction). You are free to download VP3, use it free of charge, implement it in a for-sale product, implement it in a free product, make changes to the source and distribute those changes, or print the source code out and wallpaper your spare room with it.

The paper from Nokia seems to revolve around the fact that it doesn't support DRM from what I can see.

Fully documentable nothin'! Theora and Vorbis are fully documented. If you can't figure out how to make your own implementation from the docs and/or by studying one of the many existing implementations out there, you need to turn in your geek card and just forget about developing software.

Proprietary would imply that independent implementations cannot be made or cannot be made easily without violating patents or reverse engineering or whatever. Vorbis and Theora are nothing of the sort -- they are fully open and unencumbered.

Not entirely sure what you mean by co-opting other peoples' code. That's BS.

It's called dual-licensing, and in the case of Qt it's a two-way process. Open source projects get a hell of a lot out of Qt that would take them years to write themselves as well as significant resources, and using Qt gives Trolltech a lot of publicity and testing.

Well, in the examples I gave, there was ProjectMayo, which started off as a dual licensed open source effort to create MP4 compression for the people. Then it got closed before a release, and turned into DivX. People who worked on it were pissed. Thus Xvid was created, with a name that implied opposition to DivX, and the people who set up the scheme made a fortune putting DivX on devices like the DVD player behind me. There were also efforts to incorporate video support into the Ogg project through Theora and have distance from intellectual property difficulties with the MPEG group and Microsoft, but they never really made any ground because DivX got the corporate seal of approval and filled the gap.

Then there's MySQL, which was made a platform on the basis of open source good will, and is now making quiet efforts to cut off enterprise level tools from non-paying customers. Which is a real boon to those who those who all these years thought they were working towards the lofty goal of enterprise quality tools free for all.

That's what I mean by co-opting other peoples code.

proprietary shit

the path of the righteous is http://www.theora.org/

May I suggest the un-patent-encumbered Theora instead?

I know what I'm talking about, as I'd like to support MPEG-4 audio in Ogg Frog - MPEG-4 is also known as AAC, the Apple iTunes "native" format. I've researched it, and I can't support it because I live in the US, which recognizes software patents.

Use Ogg Theora! It's a free and open spec.

I guess we're supposed to ignore all the people who have been using Ogg Vorbis+Theora feeds for years (many listed on the Ogg Theora website and instead give in to an argument based on a version name and vague goals of "readiness", or for another overmoderated post in this thread, market presence built on violating the law. We're not supposed to advocate for people using unencumbered FLOSS software to do this job across platforms in a non-discriminatory way. Even according to the open source argument which dismisses social solidarity out of hand (something governments ought not do), discouraging use seems particularly unwise.

If by "OGM codec" you mean Theora I think the answer is yes, H.264 is still vastly superior in terms of a visual quality to size trade off. When people see a Flash video they expect it to play instantaneously so bandwidth matters.

First of all, Theora is a codec; Ogg and AVI are containers. ("MPEG-4" includes both.) Second, Theora and Ogg are "more open" because they're not patented. The MPEG-4 tools you're citing either license the patents or are illegal.

In fact, not only are Xiph technologies (including Theora and Ogg) not patented, but they also use a BSD-like license for the reference implementation:

Q. What is the license for Theora?

Theora (and all associated technologies released by the Xiph.org Foundation) is released to the public via a BSD-style license. It is completely free for commercial or noncommercial use. That means that commercial developers may independently write Theora software which is compatible with the specification for no charge and without restrictions of any kind.

We can't blame Average Joe. If they (and their ISPs!) didn't hear about Jabber, it is somehow Jabber's fault.

I really wonder if all ISPs know about Jabber.

I wonder why Jabber community doesn't work with Tipic corp. (http://www.tipic.com ) to implement video/audio chat to jabber? Because they are closed source? Well, their server and client are closed source but they are using open standards.

Look what it says:

Tipic Voip/audio implementation is based on the following Open Source projects:

- http://iaxclient.sf.net/ Basic VOIP stack. Tipic added video, wideband audio and support for echo cancellation.
- http://www.speex.org/ Default audio Codec. Tipic sponsored the echo cancellation improvements.
- http://www.theora.org/ Default Video Codec.
- http://www.libsdl.org/ Video visualizzation in TipicIM.

So, they managed to make a open standards based video chat. Problem is, the geek community sees videochat as "lame". Well, average people LOVE it.

I wonder how many people congratulated them for implementing such a thing on Jabber?

I bet that Average Joe would use Jabber if it performs much better on video chat. That is the "geek vs average user" thing hurting open standards as usual.

Who used Mozilla while it was a total geek thing? How many average, non techie people use Firefox because it performs better and promises more security than IE?

Remember people blamed average Joe not using Mozilla giant instead of IE. Who's fault was that than?

Look to another example. Gizmo project is completely open source, not coded by guys who coded Kazaa and completely open standards based. It has many non techie, non geek users. Do you think they are impressed by GPL, RMS and open standards? No, Gizmo sounds better than Skype, that is all :)

Hopefully someone will re-encode the film in a format that will give more people the opportunity to enjoy it without legal encumberances.

Novell has made a couple of choices which don't display a clear committment to formats one can play with FLOSS.

Recently they started an audio show distributed online and this show is encoded exclusively in MP3 format. I wrote to them suggesting that they upload a WAV or FLAC file to archive.org and let archive.org make derivative files in a variety of formats including Ogg Vorbis, thus simultaneously offloading bandwidth and hosting resources while allowing people to hear their show without necessarily giving up their software freedom.

Now their "narrated screencam" is distributed exclusively in RealMedia format, for which there is no FLOSS player. This doesn't have to be this way—one could distribute the same movie in Ogg Theora+Ogg Vorbis format as well as their (apparently) preferred non-free format.

By contrast the Fedora project, York Student television (including Fluendo's Java player; I don't yet know if this will work with the Free Java software, but it's a handy way to point someone to a URL and let them watch the show) and a number of others distribute audio in Ogg Vorbis and movies with audio in Ogg Theora+Vorbis one can play on any platform using Free Software. There are even plugins for proprietary players to play these files (like illiminable's Windows Media player software).