Multi-Platform Video Codec Seeks New Home

Eric Smith asks: "I own a next-generation video codec development company, idea65 (covered on Slashdot as our previous incarnations Opencodex, and Flashingyellow). We have a finished product, but don't quite know what to do with it, and we're looking for someone (or some company) interested in taking it over." Here's the chance for some of you out there looking for a good cause, to contribute something. Loads of people (me, included) would love a good cross-platform video codec.

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.

Comments

Oxymorons abound...

[SumDeusExMachina]

We finished product development almost a year ago and have a really great portable video codec that runs on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows.

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. You are leaving great media platforms like BeOS out in the cold, not to mention virtually all of the *BSDs. And what about IRIX? Solaris? AIX? Last I heard, they had quite a market share among commercial UNIX platforms.

Thus, I think that the best direction that your project could possibly take would be to GPL all of your work. Regardless of whether people muck it up with their own ill-advised "improvements", there will always be the original code available to anyone interested, so that others may port it to other platforms. Otherwise, all you have is another Quicktime: Good codec, absolutely worthless for cross-platform viewing.

Re:The problem is...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure the "business plan" goes like this:

1. Write closed-source codec (just what the world need another one of).

2. Find that you're not able to make money on it.

3. Pretend you're thinking of making it open source so that your slashdot submission gets accepted.

4. Get tons of free exposure; hope that some sucker buys it from you as a result. Who cares if it'll probably be closed source afterwards?

Fortunately, I bet that there aren't any such suckers out there.

Vanilla Ice speaks tha truth again

You can...

[dedicke]

...stick it up your ass!