Good News On Two Open-Codec Fronts

davidu writes: "The Fraunhofer Institute in Germany (makers of the mp3 codec) licensed the divx ;-) video codec for future use. This is good for users because the codec is open source and is now on its way to becoming a standard. For those who don't know, this is unrelated to the failed Circuit City program, hence the smiley. ;-)" On the audio side of things, Mike Hicks writes: "Saw this on LWN's Daily Updates. Kenwood has come up with a car audio playing system that understands the Ogg Vorbis compression format, the Music Keg. Me want.. Time to start digging for spare change in the couch ..." Update: 02/05 03:24 GMT by T : Two clarifications below put a slight damper on each of these, though the overall news is still good.

Vince Busam from Phatnoise writes: "The author of the mp3newswire article goofed big time! Nowhere does it state that the Keg plays Ogg files, only the desktop software. Ogg will be supported when free ARM libraries are available. The author is further incorrect when he mentions the Kenwood X959 plays MPEG video files on the tiny OLE display. I have no idea where he got that idea." And reader Guspaz points out: "OpenDivX is indeed opensourced, but it is not the same as DivX 4, which was what was liscenced (And is what people download to use)."

Comments

yeah!

[alph0ns3]

Good news in a long time! I hope the "joe somebody" will use it too! No more wmv/mp3!!!

Really? That's interesting

[The Cat]

Last time we checked the DivX site, it said there were licensing fees due if we used DivX commercially.

Re:The MusicKeg does not play Ogg Vorbis at this t

[ikeleib]

No, It doesn't.

Fraunhofer IIS != Fraunhofer IGD

[zetzet]

Hi,

the Fraunhofer Institute that licensed the
DIVX Coces (IGD) is not the same Institute
that developed mp3 (IIS).

All Fraunhofer Institutes are under one
umbrella, but they are _very_ independent, some
like each other, some not.

And yes, i know a lot about them, 'cause
i worked at Fraunhofer IIS ;-)

Bye,

Jürgen

DivX is NOT open source

[fluor2]

Okay. I know this will be slashdotted, but please read this guide: http://www.doom9.org/codecs.htm

THIS IS TRUE
1. DivX ;-) (=v4.0)is just compatible with this old format.
2. DivX is NOT open source.
3. OpenDivX is open source, but it sucks nowadays.
4. The http://www.xvid.org is the best open-source video. And actually it's no need to licence Divx.com since xvid is free.

DivX correction..

[Junta]

Sure, OpenDivX is open, but that's dead. Seems that they opened DivX for a while, milked open source for all they felt they could, and then losed and is taking it further commercially, trying to get a patent and probably getting together with Fraunhoffer because they lack the resources to take it further.

It would be one thing if it was a good, closed from the beginning project. However, they essentially exploited open source developers whose work may soon be packaged for sale with no compensation whatsoever...

Of course, XVid (http://www.videocoding.de/) has branched the OpenDivx code since its death, but if the "creators" of OpenDivx get the patent, XVid could be shut out through this. In a sane world they couldn't possibly get a patent on this (since they really didn't build the codec themselves), but in this world...