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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.
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
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.
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.
Well, if you intent to get some money with it GPLing shouldn't ruin the plan. If somebody wants to use this codec commercially they probably sell closed source program with it and cannot therefore use codec without purchasing different license. GPL doesn't restrict from releasing product under another product simultaneously. One could even claim that GPL version would be a full-featured demo to sell codec.
If the codec does something revolutional like not using DCT and interpolation between keyframes then not to GPL it may be a good idea because ideas aren't restricted by copyright. Without money you cannot patent it and that would be only yet another hated software patent anyway.
Whether or not the use of GPLed codec would be legal in Windows or MacOS is another question. Most programs in these platforms are closed and cannot therefore link with GPLed code. Strictly interpreted this means that you cannot use GPLed codec in say for example WMP. On the other hand WMP may be claimed to be part of OS and GPL allows linking with OS libraries...
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Spelling and grammar mistakes left as an exercise for the reader.
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
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