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Never is a long time. Did you know Theora is based on VP3? Eventually they probably would have done the same thing, just not so soon.

If a video codec installer told you to reboot, contact the developer immediately and tell him to take that out of the installer.

You do not need to reboot to use newly-installed QuickTime codecs.

You just need to relaunch any running QuickTime applications.

MOD PARENT UP!

I don't know if Adam's Platform has been discussed on Slashdot before, but it was one of those classic "we can compress video 100x tighter than MPEG and decompress it realtime on a 286!" type claims. Good to see them getting spanked, as described in that report to the Australian Stock Exchange..

Juicy highlights:

• after uninstalling the APT codec and rebooting, the APT video files mysteriously still played!
• The team that evaluated the codec found that it had "what looked like the exact characteristics of VP3"
• Adam Clark claimed he wrote the codec using ResEdit! LOL!

I haven't tried Theora yet, but I tried On2's VP3 codec (on which Theora is based), and it performed very well against the MPEG-4 codecs, I really liked it.

Theora doesn't have a working windows codec.

Sorry, I maybe wrong, but what about this?

The nullsoft video format which by the way is embedded in winamp uses it...

Nullsoft's NSV, an encapsulation format currently using MP3 and VP3, and it is of course being supported by Winamp

Nullsoft's own channels, e.g. Radiohead Videos (500kbps) are using VP5 for video, so I guess this will be the future...

Rutroo...doesn't the On2 VP3 codec use DCT compression, too? (see its faq) This could doom OGG Theora...until 2004, at least

Actually, I just use VP3. MPEG4 patents suck!

With all these Divx players coming out, I hope that there will still be a market for OGG/Theora (which, if you aren't already in the loop, is essentially VP3 video plus Vorbis audio in a new file format that is MUCH more flexible than AVI) when it's released.

"The Slashdot crowd has access to lots and lots and lots of bandwidth, unlike most of the rest of the world. As such, the ~200K streaming rate they're talking about is all most people can sustain right now."

Yes, but this doesn't have to mean bad quality. Take a look at the VP3 codec (that's being wrapped into OGG as we speak) at 200k/sec, and you'll see you can get really close to NTSC quality with 200k/sec. And that's full screen, widescreen will look even better because there's less vertical picture information to compress.

...has been rolled into Theora, as is said at both sites.

from vp3.com:
NOTE TO ALL VP3 DEVELOPERS:
Monday, September 9, 2002 -- Starting today, all source code development and maintenance for the VP3 open source codec has moved to a new home: www.theora.org. Piloted by the open-source wunderkids at xiph.org who brought you Vorbis audio, Theora heralds a new era of open and license-free multimedia.

from theora.org:
What is Theora? Theora will be a video codec that builds upon On2's VP3 codec.

So, in case anyone was wondering (like I just was), there you go.

Actually, it just looks like they created a new streaming file format, which is good, because avi has some serious flaws, and .qt/.mov isn't really supported by anyone but Apple.

However, the codec is just plain-old VP3 which you yourself can get the source for: www.vp3.com, which also happens to be what OGG Targus is going to be based on.

One thing has become very clear in the Linux world over the last couple of years since the dot com bubble burst. Open Source/Free Software is here to stay, and half-way proprietary solutions won't be accepted by the wider community.

For example, Macromedia have been supplying a Linux Flash client for years, yet it has failed to validify the Flash format as an open standard. It has become a "necessary evil" for sites that feel the need to look 'interactive', but has had minimal market penetration beyond that.

I don't think that releasing a binary-only QuickTime codec would solve any real problems: Firstly, it wouldn't be distributed with some of the most popular distributions like Debian and Mandrake for philosophical reasons as well as technical reasons -- without source code, there's no way to know that the codec will still work in 2 years or that it'll be made available for new architectures, or that bugs will be promptly fixed. NVidia's proprietary graphics drivers for XFree86 have, for example, backfired in many ways. Far from soliciting support from the community, their consistent failure to release specifications for their hardware has irked and frustrated the wider Linux community (not just the Free Software zealots) to the extent that the Tainting monitor had to be added to the kernel just to track bug reports from users of buggy proprietary kernel modules.

I'd say that the future lies with open video codecs like VP3 from On2 Technologies, who've announced that they'll be working with the community to ensure that their next release is LGPL'd and their patents made available in the public domain. This is the kind of codec that should become the de-facto standard on the Web -- not some binary-only QuickTime Sorenson codec that was withheld for years and released begrudgingly. A few years ago, Linux users were quick to praise and embrace vendors of proprietary software who supported Linux, but now, I think the community is big enough to look at the bigger picture and support open standards like VP3 and Ogg that will ensure a more accessible and independent future for Web content in the future.

Tarkin won't be finished for a while yet. Vp3 is LGPL and here now.

According to the VP3 homepage the source is already available.

How do they stay in buisness? Re-licensing it for money?
Read this: The power of this codec has been validated by the fact that it has been licensed by both RealNetworks and Apple for their internet video players.

They do license it right now. They might get in to trouble with this though, since they can't forbid anybody to use the LGPL'ed version or make them pay for it once it is released to the public. So they might get a lot of support from the OSS community, wich will improve their software, but likely not their income...

I'd be careful with these people and wait for a real Open Source codec like Ogg Tarkin to mature, or contact On2 to get them to fix their license or, alternatively, to remove the "Open Source" references from their site.

From what I recall, there was some discussion about the on2's vp# formats in terms of how free they are. As I remember, there were some limitations and restrictions on using the format (one had to do with keeping all encoders file-compatible with the standard.) and I think they charge for commercial uses of vp4 and vp5 or something....

Does anyone with more experience analysing legalese know how VP3.2 license stands up as "free/open" software?

W

The problem lies herein:

(e) Notwithstanding Sections 2.1 (a), (b), and (c) above, no license
is granted to You, under any intellectual property rights including patent
rights, to modify the code in such a way as to create or accept data that is
incompatible with data produced or accepted by the Original Code. By way of
example but not limitation, a Modification that adds support for other
compression data such as MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 would be permissible, but only if the
resulting Larger Work continues to support playback of VP3.2 data.
Modifications that provide only playback or encode support are also permissible.
However, a Modification that adds support for encoding or playback of any non-
VP3.2 compatible files or bitstreams without complementary support for VP3.2
encoding or playback would not be permissible, and no license is granted for
such Modification(s).

Basically, this is denying users the right to modify the source code to produce binaries that produce a stream incompatible with the original software. It may sound good to some, but I urge developers to think twice before releasing modifications or compiled versions of the VP3 codec because, even if unintended, a compiler bug or error in your modifications to the software could mean that the stream your modified VP3 codec produces is unintentionally incompatible with the VP3 specification, opening you to legal procedure from On2 Technologies, the proprietors of the codec.

The VP3 codec licensing terms are not only not Open Source, they are a threat to developers, contribuors and distributers of VP3 both in source code and compiled form. Please contact On2 Technologies and try to convince them to update their license to remove this dangerous clause, and spread the word to your friends!

quicktime sucks anyway with this sorenson shit - a codec you can smoke in a pipe...

Do you realize that sorenson is not the only codec that quicktime can use?

Personally, I've been using the open source vp3 codec for a lot of the videos I've encoded lately.
In my opinion, it beats the free version of sorenson at moderate bit rates, and as the source code is available, someone should be able to plug it into one of the Quicktime frameworks that run under [Free,Open,Net]BSD or Linux.

VP3 solves the problem. I would love to see VP3 in a TIVO, Open-Source (although definately bot free).

Apple has released the specs for almost every aspect of the Quicktime (.mov) standard. They rarely write their own codecs though.

The Sorenson codec is owned by Sorenson and Apple pays for it. If you want to get a legal player for a non-Win/Mac platform someone will either have to
1. reverse engineer the codec(legally questionable and hard)
2. write a wrapper that uses another OSs Code (crossover does this)
3. legally licence the code and release a player (anyone?)
4. actually get sorsen to let people have their source(or detailed specs) somehow.

the best thing to do is just start using a codec that already lets people have their source and is on par with the best VP3

My current fave is VP3. It was showcased a while back on Slashdot and the source is free. It fits all of my needs well (Small size, Small CPU usage(comparatively)).

http://www.vp3.com/

The source is free but you are not allowed to change it's ability to play VP3 files and a few other pretty restrictive things, but hey, they are good enough to let anyone have the source to port the codec to any system.

my prior fave was 3ivx. still a great codec but it is less open source. (although you can get it for almost any system and they are open to new ports)

Link fixed: [www.vp3.com/vp3/tar/vp32.tar.gz]

Insightfull my ass

BTW no need to register, just use http://guest:guest@www.vp3.com/vp3/vfw/software/in dex.shtml

http://cypherpunk:cypherpunk@www.vp3.com/vp3/tar/v p32.tar.gz

Lots of missed info for a project that whose source was released in early September. Good to see it finally got noticed by /.

-first source is available on vp3.com. You must register to download (hrm).

-Its license is MPL derived, with some restrictions on IP for their patents. Also derivatives must always be able to play VP3.

-Its streamable with QT hinting.

-only currently available for Win and Mac. Port to *nix should be easy since there is code for OS X.

-Apple and Real will be supporting it in their players

Lots of missed info for a project that whose source was released in early September. Good to see it finally got noticed by /.

-first source is available on vp3.com. You must register to download (hrm).

-Its license is MPL derived, with some restrictions on IP for their patents. Also derivatives must always be able to play VP3.

-Its streamable with QT hinting.

-only currently available for Win and Mac. Port to *nix should be easy since there is code for OS X.

-Apple and Real will be supporting it in their players

Uhh, yeah, it's pretty open source, in spite of what you may believe. Whoever modded this up obviously did about as much research as the poster.

It's available from their cvs server. Look at: this page for more info on browsing the CVS tree.

The real open source VP3 site

The VP3 open source license

The VP3 license claims to be MPL derived. Would be interesting to see if it still fits the open source criteria.

The real open source VP3 site

The VP3 open source license

The VP3 license claims to be MPL derived. Would be interesting to see if it still fits the open source criteria.

The page linked in the article is notably lacking in any resembling information on this codec. For more info try: On2's website

VP3 is an open source QuickTime video codec that some people claim rivals Sorenson in quality (I haven't tried it myself).

What do people think of the license for VP3. It has some weird provisions about derived software always being compatible with the original codec and some weird patent language.

VP3 is a codec that will be supported by Realplayer and Quicktime, the source was released a few months back.

What do people think of the license for VP3. It has some weird provisions about derived software always being compatible with the original codec and some weird patent language.

VP3 is a codec that will be supported by Realplayer and Quicktime, the source was released a few months back.

the problem is that most reporters use combi sat /POTS/ISDN and they hate technology

because it has to work anywhere say even on a rock outside kabul (sat)

that limits the bandwidth to 33.6 now you can do really well with open source codecs on 33.6

just recently :
On2 open source the VP3 video codec

On2 technologies have released their VP3 video codec to the open source
community. This provides the open source community with a high quality CPU
intensive codec to go with the real time CU30
codec which Cornell made available.

so it looks up its just putting a box togther that runs them which would not be all that hard if your box ran uclinux or plain linux (no porting involved yey)

so that what I think you should use

regards

john jones