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Multi-Platform Video Codec Seeks New Home
We started our journey as an
open-source
project contest in response to DivX, before
DivX networks came into
being. Due to a variety of issues (not the least of which was our
main investor pulling out and funding having to come out of my own
pocket), we mutated into a closed-source project that we intended to
distribute ourselves through the help of a third party. We finished
product development almost a year ago and have a really great
portable video codec that runs on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows.
The problem we've run into is that with the economy being as it is,
our candidates for distribution assistance have also all dried up.
We've considered just GPL'ing it and seeing what the open-source
community could do with it, but don't have anyone to oversee changes
and official versions, not to mention from the looks of the DivX 4.0
project, there don't seem to be a lot of people interested in (or
with the knowledge to) work on video codecs.
More or less, we've got a bunch of very well written CodeWarrior
projects that need to find a new home as we don't really have the
expertise or financing to sell it or even give it away. So, I'm
interested in knowing if anyone has any suggestions for what to do
with the project, or interest in taking it over (those with
experience with this kind of thing)."
If seriously interested, you can contact Eric using the mailto link at the beginning of this article.
I'll be getting in touch with you. Don't GPL it, that would be silly. If you guys made the darn thing with the intention of earning money, you should darn well get some money for it!
What's the deal with ogg-tarkin? Is it making progress? Is it going to be good when it's done?
Liberty.
Isn't that where our favoriate things like fetch came from?
If you're codec is patent free, the people over at the ogg multimedia project would be bigtime interested. They've got the audio portion (vorbis) well along but they're still aways away from having their video portion (tarkin) completed. Head over here for more info
Maybe the Ogg Tarkin crew would be interested. I know they've talked about integrating VP3 and I'm sure any ideas or code that could be used from this codec would help the project.
You can email it to me, dude.
"And like that
...making a presentation and taking it to various movie houses for thier online trailers? It may be hard to get them to think about switching from Quick Time, but if you can give a good quality video, with a smaller download, and multi-os support, some of the smaller movie houses may consider it.
Also, what about companies that are working on video colaboration. Generally they have in house codecs that they write, but they are not always targeted for multiple os's.
Zro
I'll give you $20 - think about it
while its true that most people hare happy with the DivX codec at the moment, if a few people started to use your codec, and it proved to have better audio/video qualityand not as much loss as DivX does, while still keeping the filesizes nice and small, it could take off in a big way.
You should see how it does as closed-source first if that was your plan in the beginning, and open it up later if you decide its not doing as well as you wanted it to.
I'm anispeptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulation.
I reckon you should just have it open-source and let the community do the rest, with a little bit of advertising on your part you could have a good contender to the DivX codec... well it all depends on what you codec can do.
:P hehe
I have always wanted one that cuts down on the size of the video without losing any sound or picture quality.
So make it open-source as I quote from a film called AntiTrust -- "Code belongs to the world" or something like that
There are tons of open multimedia projects such as Gstreamer which could benefit from such a codec, assuming it's entirely patent free and unencumbered by copyright liabilities... Depending on how good it is, this could be great for OS...
Erik has got it all backward; he ignores the laws of supply/demand, so I'll try to explain why:
Technology is the application of knowledge to pratical issues when there is a demand to fullfill. Thus, demand for a certain technology is created when applied knowledge can be applied to improve things.
Eric on the other hand, created a videocodec first, and now he doesn't know what to do with it. The competition are all fullfulling a niche (Mpeg is technology for DVDs, DivX is technology to decrease file-size for piracy purposes (and other stuff that nobody cares about:)
Therefore, it's not that surprising that he is having problems with the finances. Any thechnology has to be used for something.
IMHO, that's what drives all opensource projects: there is demand for software to fullfull certain purposes, (eg Gimp grokks with graphics), and that's where this project has _fundimentally_ failed. It's tough to drive a project that has no goal!
So basically you just used Ask Slashdot to market a product or further your career.
Just kidding, everyone does that.
------
Let me give you the lowdown
Would it be possible to show us the quality of this codec somehow? Maybe start with uncompressed video, and have the DivX, VP3, etc. people all compress it down to a specific bitrate, and you do the same. Then once it's compressed down to that bitrate you could decompress it(since we don't have a decoder...), thus letting the general public see the quality of your codec.
Would that work? Because there are a lot of codecs, and unless you can show that this one is better than the others, I really don't see why people would be interested.
Whomp up a TV time shifting application and a linux distribution and sell CDs.
You mention that now that DivX 4.0 is out, no one cares anymore. Does your codec outperform DivX4.0 in terms of bitrate, quality, and/or performance? If the answer to all the questions is no, then perhaps it would be best to let it die. If the answer is "not now, but with work it could be..." and you want to stop working, you may want to first fish around for interested companies, and as a last resort give it to the Ogg group as something they could hammer into being Tarkin. I guess if you really don't care about the code anymore but really don't want to let it die, you could pass it on to the Ogg people anyway and they can decide for themselves whether the code is worthwhile or at least salvagable. If it isn't, then they can kill it instead of you :)
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Are you asking how to make money from it, or how to donate it to the open source community?
How competetive is it? DivX/MPEG-4 even if patent encumbered is now available in an open source version from the ffmpeg project, and there are other open source CODECs available that are competetive to or even better than DivX such as VP3 or the amazing CU30.
If your CODEC can compete with the alternatives then it would probably be instantly adapted by the Ogg Tarkin paroject which is looking to deliver an open source CODEC but so far is really only at the research stage.
If your CODEC csn't compete head-in with the state of the art, then maybe you're better off looking to embed it in an application (e.g. a cross platform ICQ video conference helper) where the utility outweighs anything else.
If this is what you call "cross-platform", then it is no wonder that people pulled investment money out of your company and left you ultimately failing.
;P
Cross-platform means it works on one or more platforms, not necessarily mean every platform. Nothing can be run on every platform as it couldn't run on my brainfuck-only OS
That's helpful in getting it known, which is worth rather a lot.
The codec would not in that form be usable outside of the context of freely-redistributable software. Someone who wants to integrate it into their cool, but proprietary viewer would find that they can't, at least not with the GPL-licensed version.
That can't represents the place where they can look for their revenues.
It's not obvious that there can possibly be interest in it without there being some sort of release; the company hasn't money to spend on renting Times Square to show the world they've got a K001 Product.
Releasing under something like the GPL may be the only way to get it into use, and to get any return from it.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
This is insane and shows everything that was wrong with the way VC money was being invested in recent times. What did you expect to happen - that the problems of having no way to turn a profit or even see any income would have solved themselves by the time you had developed the code?
Having had 2 previous companies attempt the same thing (and Im assuming there was more to it than just a simple renaming) this also indicates that things may not have been very well planned - youve clearly failed twice already.
Best of luck finding a way to make use of your product, and hopefully youll think a bit more before going for attempt 4!
I checked out the website, but it seems mostly incomplete. I am particularly interested in comparisons with Sorenson on Mac OS.
/. community (if not IT purchasers at large) is primarly concerned with the quality of the codec. Can existing codecs be beaten across the board when they seem to be optimized for different platforms?
Sadly in today's world success in a venture like this depends largely on marketing, but I think the
Now pimp the hell out of the GPL version and everyone that whines about how they can't use it in their closed source products, point them to your web page explaining how to contact you/your company for commercial licensing terms. Also perhaps consider a joint distribution agreement up front with some commercial video tool providers whereby you will develop plug ins, etc. I gather your point is this might be hard in this climate. Also consider getting pr0n distributors to use it. No, I'm not kidding. Honestly, people download pr0n from usenet, etc. If there is pr0n out there in your video format, people will get players for it. This will eventually convince commercial users that your format is worthwhile. There are plenty of Linux/Mac pr0n viewing folks out there, so you definitely will find some rapid fans if you take this tactic.
Anyway, this is my advice for a bootstrapped marketing technique that you might find effective. I make no promises, but it sounds like you don't have much to lose if you are posting to Ask Slashdot for marketing advice (hint: lots of
Lovely placeholders, but wouldn't it make more sense to have actual screenshots of the codec in action? The web page is totally devoid of any useful information.
Yet another video codec. Does anyone really care?
READY.
#
If you don't truly outperform other codecs, you probably won't make money with it. Codec performance is very tricky to measure, with everyone using the codec wanting something slightly different (compression speed, decompression CPU load, image quality, motion quality, etc).
One option is to provide the compressor/decompressor for free and then offer a higher quality version of the compressor for sale. It's a tough market, though. If it's truly revolutionary, you could try selling it to Apple, Microsoft, or Real. You'll need some really good side-by-side comparisons with their current codecs and MPEG4 to get their attention, though.
Personally, I would love to see it open sourced.
Can we download a decompressor and see some demos?
If I were you (which I am patently not) I would not bother trying to sell a codec. I think there are many out there today and without some sort of corporate backing or a really compelling difference, you probably will not have much impact in a crowded marketplace. What would make more sense is developing a product that uses your codec, but provides a different sort of product or service. Maybe build a video confrencing system, or a monitoring and logging system. These ideas are off the top of my head, but you get my drift - add some sort of additional value, some application that makes your codec shine while solving a problem. Then you'll have a market and getting inverstors and customers will be a whole lots easier.
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
I believe the site you want is here
Robotiq.com is heavily tested on animals
Some geeks also want to be able to buy food, support their cats, and go to an occasional movie with their wife, so it can't /all/ be for free.
Print it on t-shirts and sell the t-shirts.
Talk to the Pron industry.
We have a finished product, but don't quite know what to do with it
Have you thought about using it to encode and decode video. video codecs a can often be quite useful in that respect. Why not give it a try?
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
you could sell it to microsoft.
they win in that it is
1. less competition
2. borrow the technology
you win
1. you can swim in a lake full of cash
--donabal
Safety First Day?
Same here. I hate this kind of web sites.
It's a shame the site is choked up with flash bullshit. If the content is compelling why obfuscate it?
nohup rm -rf ~/. >& zen &
WTF? It blocks Netscape but not lynx or wget? And seriously, you'll have a lot easier time getting around the site with Netscape 4.7 than with lynx. Until they get around to adding Javascript support to lynx, that is...
the site isn't complete anyway. just some dumb flash thing and ahrd to read white text on a yellow background
"Cross-platform means it works on one or more platforms..."
By your definition, if a program runs at all then it's cross-platform.
Qt is available under GPL for X11/Unix and for commercial licensing for X11/Unix, MacOS and Windows. Anyone could actually port the X11/Unix version to Windows, but noone have, AFAIK.
Or release it under a BSD license like Ogg! The codec will get more widespread use, but it will be harder to make any money from it.
It'd also be helpful if you'd benchmark your codec's playback CPU load versus DivX and the other popular formats. While nowadays PCs can handle some heavy demands, lightweight decoders would still be desirable, especially for embedded applications, etc.
Funny should NOT max out at 4. I'll bet you're the miserable S.O.B. that mods my +5 Funnies down as Overrated. Just wait'll I get my Mod points on you. Grr.
:)
In order to get fast worldwide acceptance they better change the name from idea65 to idea69. ;-)
It would be more descriptive what way.
Everybody knows for what a video compression is mainly used for.
If we're going to use an algorithm encumbered by patents, we might as well use MPEG-4.
However if your CODEC is not covered by any patents, then please consider releasing it under a BSD or GPL license.
For information on why software patents are bad for free software, please visit The League for Programming Freedom
Was this the business plan?
Phase 1 - Develop new video codec
Phase 2 - Do some, uh, business stuff
Phase 3 - Make LOTS of money!
It's a hacked codec that doesn't work with macs. Not well, and in the case of the confusingly-named DivX 4, not at all. And there is still much room for improvement in all aspects of the codec. You have a real edge over most other codecs in that yours is cross platform - so your main competition is RealPlayer, VP3, and 3ivX for now. If you go commercial you have to beat both of them, if you're going open source you just have to do better than VP3 and 3ivX in at least one respect.
Of course if Quicktime ever officially goes Linux (I doubt WMP ever will) you'll have many more codecs to contend with. And you need to either promote it, or make it so incredibly good everyone switches. DivX sucks compared to newer open source and cross platform codecs but it's very popular because of the name.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Well, I went to the site using Netscape 4.75, and was subsequently bounced to webstandards.org, who informed me that I'm behind the times. I didn't even have a "Risk It And Continue Anyway" option.
Consequently I don't give a damn about your codec, and when I see "idea65" in the future, I'll equate it with immature thinking and poor business skills.
Well done. Let's hope you learn a little about marketing before you try to find capital.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
More pointedly, I would direct you to an Interview with L. Peter Deutsch which addresses the precise issues surrounding copyright assignment that you seem to think so daunting.
Ghostscript has been not finding them to be a problem for a lot of years now.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Open source *and* license it to software companies and make some money! Dual licensing muchacho, LGPL and whatever, get the picture?
Give it to me, and I'll convert my entire porno collection and send em over to ya! After all, that's what making video codecs is all about, right??
Berto
I send you this codec in order to have your advice.
Oh! 3iv1 3iv2, aasc abyr and aemi too! afli, aflc boy those are old! AMPG, ANIM, AP41 and you! Think of how your home videos will look, in ASV1, ASV2 or ASVX!! Mine look great, and I'm sure yours will too, with AUR2 or AURA!
And out of the A's and into the B's la da da do do do deeee! Bink, bt20, btcv bw10, boy those b's are short! Those B codec makers better get a move on! But onto the c's like the birds and the bees, cc12, cdvc, cfcc, cgdi, cham, cjpg, cpla, cram, cvid cwlt, cyuv, cyuy! Boy these things multiply fast! Makes me wonder, why the're called video codecs, and not WABBITS!
But D's come along, DIV2 and DIV4 and DIV5, with venerable DIVX short behind. DMB1, DMB2, DSVD, DUCK, DVAN, DVSD, DVE2, DVX1, DVX2, DVX3, DXTN, DXTC, and no more D's do we have! And the E's are short, because normal people don't start video codecs with vowels, ETV1, ETV2, ETVC are all that survive.
Only 3 F's, because F stands for Flunk, FLJP, FRWA, FRWD are fun! Oh my! GLZW, GPEG, GWLT from Microsoft? But videoconferencing still lives H260 goes plop, followed by H261, and H262, H263, H264, H265, H266, H267, H268, But finally everyone knows H269! HFYU, HMCR, and HMRR round out the H's!
(Egad, am I done yet!)
Not hardly buddy! There's I263, IAN, ICLB, IGOR, IJPG, ILVC, ILVR, IPDV, IR21, IV30, IV31, IV32, IV33, IV34, IV35, IV36, IV37, IV38, IV39, IV40, IV41, IV42, IV43, IV44, IV45, IV46, IV47, IV48, IV49, and IV50 rounds out Intel's evil contribution! But wait! There's more! Call now and you'll receive this free JBYR, JPGL, KMVC, and LEAD, LJPG.
Not to worry, M is here! Here are all the ways Micro$oft can fuck a standard! M263, M261, MP42, MP43, MP4S, MPG4, MRLE, MSVC Oh my! I like MJPG, cause my marvel uses it, but Matrox also has MTX1, MTX2, MTX3, MTX4, MTX5, MTX6, MTX7, MTX8, MTX9! More M's! mJPG is not the same as MJPG? MCAM, MC12, MPEG, MRCA, MWV1, nAVI, NTN1, NVS0, NVS1, NVS2, NVS3, NVS4, NVS5, NVT0, NVT1, NVT2, NVT3, NTT4, NVT5, PDVC, PGVV, PIM1, PIM2, PIMJ, PVEZ, PVMM, PVW2, qpeg, QPEG, RGBT, RLE, RT21, rv20, rv30, RVX, s422, SDCC, SFMC, SMSC, SMSD, smsv, SPIG, SQZ2, SV10, STVA, STVB, STVC...oh god I'm getting bored...STVX, STVY, SVQ1, TLMS, TLST, TM20, TM2X, TMIC, TMOT, TR20 TSCC, TV10, TY2C, TY2N, TY0N, UCOD, ULTI, V261, VCR1, VCR2, VDOM, VDOW, VDTZ, VGPX, VIFP, VIDS, VIVO, VIXL, VLV1, VP30, VP31, VX1k, VX2K, VXSP, WBVC, WHAM, WINX, WJPG, WNV1, x263, XLV0, XMPG, XXAN, Y41P....almost there! Y8, YC12, YUV8, YUV2, YUYV, ZLIB, ZPEG!
And that ends my really bad song. But wait! Thre's more! Those are only the ones with FOURCC definitions! That doesn't include file types! There's MPEG-PS, AVI, Quicktime, and the venerable Microsoft format heist asf.
I think the statement "I developed a new video codec!" should be punishable by death.
--Bob
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
Really, your site does not accept the cross platform corperate browser (Communicator), don't expect sponsorship from the technical community.
We have a finished product, but don't quite know what to do with it.
;-)
Not to be (overly) sarcastic, but maybe you should have thought of that before spending first your investors money and then your own? Isnt it a little late for that now?
Just a thought!
I started using OpenDivx and OggVorbis wrapped in Quicktime several weeks ago. The performance is equivalent to Microsoft Divx and everything else because they're all based on MPEG-4. The advantage is my movie collection doesn't depend on the financial outlook of a company. Send me to hell for not supporting Microsoft standards but that's the reality.
Since all the current economy codecs are based on the same MPEG-4 syntax there isn't much reason to support another one just because OpenCodex or FlashingYellow or idea65 needs financial help.
...the original version was less than 16k compiled and out-performed DivX and was patent and copyright free.
Be sure to protect your ideas by either patenting them yourself or just by publicising them. As long as you have not yet publicised the codec and shown "prior art", someone else may beat you to it and patent the idea!
Then the project would surely be dead - so get it out in the light!
Awww that is so sad, but I will give your 'codec' a new home if need be. A warm loving home and family awaits. Is it toilet-trained and fully innoculated?
mogorific carpentry experiments
weird. about, oh, 90% of the replies here are either rude, completely useless (this one likely included), or "funny" (mostly rude too). the messages with the highest scores are the most useless. the 3 or 4 i found here that actually had suggestions were only scored 2 or 3, while one of the most asshole-like posts i've read here in a while is scored 4 - wtf? if this is gonna turn into yet another i'm-15-and-learned-to-spell-fuck-today sites, i'm outta here. there's something to be said for maturity. not that there's anything wrong with being funny, but the line between prick and comedian is thin, and too many people here are crossing it.
Dammit, I meant to post that anonymously!
Okay, earlier you were talking about 'thinking about GPL'ing it' and having trouble 'giving it away'.....
...but you can't give it away because you can't pay lawyers to help you give it away?
Something fundamentally wrong with that....
At any rate, if you're sincere and not just fishing for investors, I'll add my metaphorical voice to those suggesting contacting the Ogg people over at xiph.org, who I'm sure would LOVE to have a " very light and highly portable [...] patent and copyright free" set of code to use with the Ogg Tarkin project...if you REALLY want to see it get out into the world...
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
I tried to check out your web site but was re-directed to a site that admonished me for running a browser that wasn't 100% compatable with "standards". I guess you're more interested in forcing people to run a "standardized" browser than you are in finding a distributor for your product.
I know that there is no law against bad management and your web site has convinced me to totally ignore your company. Good idea or not, your management seems to have other agendas.
Unfortunately I was unable to view the page in my linux browser (sending me to a page to teach me about standards..) then after downloading an activex pane each page there is no content. Too bad since you have all these people looking. In particular comparing it right against Sorenson and WMP with nothing behind your words makes you wonder if you want to touch something like this out of the blue.
Anybody who could help is going to need more subtantial information, for example what you think are the pros/cons of the software as compared to competitors in your space, to help with diligence. GPL might be one way to do it, and people might love you for it, but it will very likely hurt your chances on liscensing or selling it outright at this stage and getting your money back.
In particular a number of companies that are likely to listen are here in Japan but GPL is not something they want, unless maybe you already have a big team building it through GPL. They know tech and make quick decisions if everything is clear and up front, that's your challenge.
Reading this whole thread really explains why I don't post on Slashdot anymore. It's continually an uphill battle, and it seems a lot of the really interesting comments get trampled over. Yeah I know, moderating has it's limits. But I've found that when it's not biased, it's prone to putting marks on specific trends rather than trying to be neutral.
First of all, thanks to (mostly) everyone here for being so rude. I thought there was at least a tiny wee bit of respect left. Mr. Eric Smith was simply asking for help. In no way did he insult anybody. By the looks of it, most of the posters here NEVER READ HIS LETTER!
The other thing that really baffles me is the fact that some people openly slam this guy for wanting to offer something FREE. If you don't want it, there is no need to spoil it for the rest of us!!! You've had enough video codecs? Fine! Now let us video-crunching lovers be!
Also, there is something to be said about the right to earn a living. Most likely Mr. Eric Smith has a life to live; he's a programmer and he needs somehow to put some butter on his bread. If you read the comments included on this topic (some of them getting high marks), it's as if it was shameful or "wrong" to ask to be remunerated for a job done (either directly or indirectly). Now let me see what you do for a living and let me complain you're getting paid too much!
Last but not least, I've participated very often in the past to these forums and I noticed a few things about moderation. This is not an exact science but I think my comments are worthwhile nevertheless.
- Most humorous comments get extra points just because they are funny. It depends not if they are offtopic, rude or plain ill-written.
- Comments that repeat conventional wisdoms are more likely to get good scores. Comments that challenge these conventional wisdoms usually get shot down or ignored.
- Comments that lack all sense of civility or basic savoir-vivre rarely get moderated. Let us not forget that on internet, it is easier to say things we would not say if our real name was attached. This is not about censorship. It's about learning how to say our opinions without being a jack-***.
- Comments are easily and often written down as redundant when they contain very valuable bits of information.
So what does this all have to do with Mr. Eric Smith's new codec? I might be wrong but I am convinced that this whole thread would have been much more enjoyable if some complete morons weren't writing articles they know have all the necessary "tweaks" in order to get high marks. It's as if it was better to get a "5" than to write something really intelligent! Also, if I was Mr. Smith (which I am not), I would seriously reconsider my idea about putting my codec under GPL; seeing the large proportion of ungrateful and sour users out there I would sell the damn thing to the highest bidder and hope in turn whoever gets it slams anybody even interested in criticizing it. Sadly it seems it's true that the less you pay for something, the less you respect it.
And maybe this open source community is not as open minded as it claims to be. Let's hope it can prove us wrong.