New Open Video Codec From Xiph/On2

xercist writes: "Xiph.org, the bringers of the mighty Vorbis codec, have done it again. The patents on On2's VP3 video codec have been effectively neutered, and it is being released under the BSD license for all to enjoy. The combination of VP3 video and Vorbis audio (in an OGG bitstream, of course) will be called Theora, and will soon take over the world. The ETA to a 1.0 release is approximately one year. You can also read an interview with Emmett Plant (Xiph CEO) here. The official press release will be up tomorrow, so don't complain about lack of mention on xiph.org just yet."

Comments

very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[Savatte]

It's an uphill battle, that's for sure, and the DivX team is sure to come up with new features in a year. But does this open codec have a chance to overtake DivX? This could be another mp3/ogg debate, but more choices in video codecs is always better.

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[NanoGator]

"But does this open codec have a chance to overtake DivX?"

That depends on if they can keep the secret sauce away from DivX.

Is it possible under the BSD license they mentioned that they can keep the algorithms secret? *Interested in learning more about the BSD license.*

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[Goonie]

Is it possible under the BSD license they mentioned that they can keep the algorithms secret?

In a word, no. The Xfree project's license is a good example of a modern "BSD license".

Note that you can incorporate portions of the code into your proprietary product, which doesn't have to be released under the same license, and that you don't have to provide source. As far as the recipient of the software is concerned (who might go on to use sections of it in their own proprietary products), it is more liberal than the GPL.

Don't get confused, though, the developers, Xiph, still provide full source and thus the algorithms are completely public.

The reason the BSD license is chosen for this project is presumably the same reason the Vorbis libraries are BSD-licensed - so that VP3 support can be incorporated into proprietary software, which as I have posted elsewhere in this discussion is IMHO a good thing.

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[xeromist]

I think it is very possible. The reason ogg really hasn't taken a significant portion of the market away from mp3 is that mp3 is so well established. It is so quick and easy to make an mp3. It's very easy to come by software for making mp3s and you can rip and encode an entire album in less time than it takes to play it. Anyone can do it.

By comparison, DivX is widely used, but _not_ established. Here's why:
There are far fewer people making DivX movies than mp3s;
The software is slightly more difficult to come by;
Ripping takes longer because most DVD drives are slower than CD;
The raw video takes a lot of disk space;
Encoding takes a VERY long time compared to mp3.

Overall this means that those making DivX tend to be a few savvy users and it will be easy for those users to switch to a new standard. So that being the case it will only take a few people changing over to a new standard to affect a change. Of course these people will have to see that Xiph/On2's way of doing things is better, but if Xiph/On2 can prove that, I'd say they have a very good chance.

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[NanoGator]

Just wanted to thank you. :) It's easy for a Windows guy like me to not understand the difference between Open Source, GPL, and BSD licenses.

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[Com2Kid]

Heh, nice troll. (wait, that WAS a troll right? I mean you aren't that stupid? You do realize that you cannot compare Audio Codecs to Video Codecs any more then you can compare FM radio transmissions to Coax Video Transmissions?)

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[Joe Tie.]

I'd say it's got at least a fighting chance. I think enough people were annoyed by the DivX 5.x encoding software no longer being freeware in it's full featured version that there's been increased interest in xvid lately. And that might easily move over to interest in Theora as well.

The name recognition of divX could go for them either way I think. To this day, when talking to non tech people if I mention divX they think I'm talking about the dvd format at first. Heavy computer users might recognize DivX as simply being a video codec usable for anything wmv or real could be used for, but the average user tends to either think of it as Circuit City's failed product, or an evil hacker way to steal money from the movie industry, stolen from Microsoft. Theora will lack the automatic user base a divX release will have, but it might have an easier time gaining a foothold commercially.

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[xeromist]

I'm not comparing audio codecs to video codecs as technologies. I'm comparing usage. It might as well have been a comparison to car fuel usage, audio is just more convenient.

You don't have to agree with me, but I NEVER troll. I have more honor than that.

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[BlowCat]

Very simple. Set threshold to -1. Now we see following:

• First musical post! -1
• Penis hoooooo!! -1
• post for osama -1
• very nice but can it overtake DivX? +3

The trend is clear - the first on-topic message is moderated up regardless of how dumb it is. I don't have an exhaustive explanation, but I guess it has to do with the deluge of off-topic posts and the deficit of the moderation points. Having one point, 3 offtopic posts and one on-topic post, it's "cheaper" to moderate up the on-topic post than to give the idiots what they deserve.

That is no mod point deficit on kuro5hin, and that results in much better moderation. It's darn hard to stay near 5 points if everybody can rate you down. And it's a good thing IMHO.

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[Dwonis]

The Free Software Foundation publishes a good comparison of various licenses which you might be interested in reading if you are interested in the different types of source-available software licensing.

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[IronChef]

You left out the biggest issue, at least to my mind: Codec Confusion.

Do you use the old DiVX 3.11 alpha?

The divx.com releases, some of which you have to pay for?

Angel Potion codec?

And, if you read the boards, there is constant argument about which codec is better. "DivX.com is slower than 3.11a." Etc. Who the hell knows the truth?

In the end, it means you download a DiVX .avi file and half the time it doesn't seem to play, at least until you have done all the web searching to get all the codecs. I barely have time to watch clips much less hunt for codecs.

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[packeteer]

your point kind of touches on the "viral nature" of the GPL... personally i think the word viral is loaded and FUD but it KIND OF describes the GPL... dont get me wrong i release MY software under the GPL... anyway...

under BSD your software can be used by OTHER closed source programs... so if someone wants to create a closed player than supports your open codec thats fine...

under the GPL having closed source software use open code is a BIG no-no... so this is why people clal the GPL "viral" it spread to the work it is used in... essentially it forces you to be all open or leave it altogether... IMHO this a good thing but maybe not for ALL projects...

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[Tomble]

There is the point that, AFAIK, DivX and all variants of it, are MPEG-4 based; MPEG-4 has patents on it, and any implementation of it is supposed to pay a fee.

Now, to my knowledge it's not happened yet, but it could just be a matter of time before projects creaing free versions of DivX get crapped upon from a great height, clobbered by either a cease-and-desist letter, a lawsuit, or a very very big bill.

Oh, but that's surely not going to happen! Those industry types won't mind, will they? They'll leave nice little free software hackers alone! Well, that's what people thought about Unisys (wasn't it them?) and the patents involving GIFs (or part of them), but eventually they changed their minds, and proved RMS right by threatening to sue any website using GIFs created with free software. *

It may turn out that some company will turn up who will pay the fees to create DivX based software (er... I guess MS did this already??), but in most cases, well, they're going to be charging big money for the encoding side, aren't they? So that will be of less use for individuals wanting to make videos (or DVD rips, which let's face it, are going to make a difference), and as long as some of those people have a reason to use the Ogg/VP3 system to encode their stuff, that is going to make a difference. Any content in Ogg that anyone might want, is going to help.

Anyways, thats my 2.86 pence worth.
* -Admittedly, I haven't heard whether they actually went through with their threat and did sue anyone, but that doesn't mean they didn't.

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[Bungie]

In the end, it means you download a DiVX .avi file and half the time it doesn't seem to play, at least until you have done all the web searching to get all the codecs. I barely have time to watch clips much less hunt for codecs.

There are some really good codec packs from DivX Digest. I have had a lot of success with these packs, I think right now I am running the BgBop Codec Pack and almost everything I run into has opened without any problems.

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Xvid. It seems to cope with almost everything and it's open.

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[nexex]

all of blizzards games from war3 on use divx, its not just for dvd ripping...it would be easy to put all your home movies into divx format.

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[Jafafa Hots]

it was compuserve (gifs)

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[Pathwalker]

Compuserve created the GIF format, but Unisys holds the patent on LZW (the compression used by GIF).

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[ozzimark]

This had better not become a completely biased argument. You are distorting the facts too much.
The software is easy as hell to get, just go to divx.com and download it.
Why do you think we compress the movie? So that it doesn't take up as much space? yeah, think of it this way: how many of us have wav's for all of their music instead of mp3, ogg, or aac?
The encoding takes longer because sound is a one dimensional data stream, while video is 3, the sound, and the 2 dimensions of the video.

The raw amount of data to compress is cubed, therefore making it take way longer, in addition to this, the codecs have to be really good, because we can see the artifacts in the video a lot better than the we can hear it in the audio, to counter this, the codec has 2 options;
1-more data per second, which increases the file size, but improves performance
2-compress the video better, which decreases the size and the performance

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[Lumpy]

close but no cigar...

Mp3 is the de-facto standard because of one reason... hardware compatability.

I have 2 portable mp3 players, my daughter has a boom-box that play's mp3's, both car's play mp3's from the deck, and the audiotrons in the house play them.

This is why mp3's are a standard.. Ripping a good mp3 is damned hard. you have to use really high quality encoders (lame is the ONLY one right now) know how to configure the settings, know how to configure a good normalizer that wont step on the vocalists nuts, and fix and problems in the raw cd audio.. (EAC+Lame= the best windows ripper, Grip+lame is it for linux!) this is why most mp3's on gnutella,imesh,open nap servers suck horribly.

mp3 wins because there is consumer hardware support, and more coming every day.... hell there is a simple chip that decode's and play's mp3's without effort.. a 1-st year electronics student can wire one up to a parallel port and play mp3's with near zero processor load on a 386...

if you could get Ogg on all these devices it would have taken off.. but it doesnt, and will not ever exist. so Ogg will stay as a footnote and fringe use only.

get Kenwood to make a car stereo that play's Ogg's and you have a chance..

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[Eil]

I don't think I agree.

For one thing, MP3 hardware came along fairly late in the game. I mean, what company in their right mind is going to develop hardware for a codec that isn't yet a de facto standard. Answer: none. MP3 players like the Rio came along well after everyone was already using MP3. The MP3-playing boomboxes and car stereos have only been around for the past couple of years, while I clearly remember swapping MP3s on FTP sites in '96. (And I am by no means an early adopter.)

As far as audio quality goes, I am not a fan of MP3 or any other lossless codec for that matter. I've been using an analog sythesizer program called ReBirth. Some of the songs you can download and play on this synth are just awesome. I decided I'd like to save some of the songs to MP3 but on the first run, the file sounded like absolute shit.

So I thought to myself, okay I'll get LAME. I read some webpages about options to LAME that will supposedly give you a "CD-quality MP3". Tried those options and the MP3 still sounded like shit. Even at the highest frequency and bitrate, MP3 was not up to the challenge of encoding a complex mix of analog waveforms and drum machine samples.

Next I decided to try Ogg. Slashbots seem to like it, but when I went looking for the actual software all I could find were a binary Win32 encoder and Winamp plugin. So much for being a great open standard. Maybe people aren't using it because there isn't any software available for it...

My last resort was some kind of lossless audio compression being developed in Linux. Can't remember the name. It took an eon to encode an 11-minute song and only resulted in about 40% compression. That's better than what bzip2 would give, but still too high to keep around on a hard disk.

I ended up burning the ReBirth songs to CD. They sound great.

Re:very nice but can it overtake DivX?

[Com2Kid]

::sighs::

The comparison was invalid because:

Usage differs based upon the product. You mine as well complain that an OIL WELL drill is not as user friendly as popular MP3 codecs for all the good it will do you.

(can you see the discrepancy there?)

The usability sucks for video compressors because they are MORE COMPLEX. And in order to get good results with a MORE COMPLEX subject matter, a MORE COMPLEX interface is needed.

ALL video encoders suck. Period. I mean have you actually checked out the competition? heh. There ARE 1 step MPEG4 encoders out there (FlaskMPEG comes to mind) with a big red shiny Push Me button, but they generate as crappy results as one step encoders for any other type of video. Ick.

The reason that nobody bothers with those 1 step video encoders is the same reason that you do not see tons of tutorials online about how to use the Xing MP3 encoder;

who wants to write about a shitty product that produces shitty results? Heh.

But beyond that (crap results == crap results) your comparison is completely invalid, you cannot, I repeat cannot make the comparison that you did and draw ANY valid logical conclusions from it.

Now if you had compared it to a Quicktime Encoder or a Real Video encoder, then you MAY have had something, but you cannot compare across subject matters for the purpose of proving of validating an argument. For explaining an argument, sure, but NOT for validating or drawing proofs from.

(I used to get yelled at all the time online for doing that, now I see why, it is indeed annoying, LOL!)

How exactly...

[Anonymous Coward]

... do you "neuter" a patent?

Re:How exactly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Neuter as in disable. Neutering a male dog effectively disables the dog from doing what it is intended to do in life ie. procreate.

Re:How exactly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Go for it, just make sure you wear a radiation suit. Toxic spooge != good.

Re:How exactly...

[Servo5678]

How exactly do you "neuter" a patent?

With snippy scissors and a cold, cold heart.

"Hold still, little patent, this will only hurt for a second..."

Re:How exactly...

[Aceticon]

You cut it's balls.

Gee - how obvious does one need to be around her ...

PS: In some latin languages "patent" has the feminine gender (in latin languages there is no "it"), so the ball cuting methaphor wouldn't work ...

Re:How exactly...

[Anonymous Coward]

But cutting out its dangling participles.

How long until windows users can check it out?

[RyanFenton]

Approximately how long until there's a windows version of a player, and some demos to check out? It'll be interesting to see how well the quality turns out once the algorithm is put into action.

:^)

Ryan Fenton

Re:How long until windows users can check it out?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you just need a windows codec. that window player or other player can use the codec and play the shit.

Re:How long until windows users can check it out?

[jsprat]

Not long at all... Follow the on2 link, then under products select "open source pvr solution", there's a recorder/player available there for Windows. Or go there directly here.

On the main On2 page, they have links to the codecs.

VP3 and quality

[Vardamir]

Does anyone know how vp3 compares to other codecs that are already here or emerging, namely MPEG3 and DivX? Ogg is obviously making headway in the technical area of being the best lossy audio codec, and if vp3 can do the same, then hopefully this will give Free Software an edge in the media areas.

One problem here though; I suggest someone adapt the VP3 code to a GPL license, ortherwise Microsoft, Apple, or any other company could simply take VP3 and make it Free Software's worst enemy by not releasing specs on the derivative audio codec. Observe: we are just now beginning to see Sorenson codecs that are open source.

Re:VP3 and quality

[Webmonger]

Usually, I'm a GPL supporter, but I can understand the reasoning behind using BSD here.

They're trying to establish a new video standard, which isn't easy. So they want to encourage the maximum number of developers to participate. A BSD license will do that.

It's questionable whether someone would spend the effort to take the codec, improve it significantly, and make it proprietary. In any case, such a proprietary version would probably not catch on.

Remember, there are no effective patents in this case, so the Sorenson problem would seem not to apply.

And Xiph now has a track record of actually maintaining their code, making it better, not pulling funny tricks.

Oh, I (or you) can make this new code GPL today. Just download it, change the license at the top, and post it. But what would be the point of that? There'd still be the BSD version, and it would be better-maintained.

Re:VP3 and quality

[xercist]

It needs work, but I believe with time, Theora will begin to kick mpeg-4's ass all around - in video quality as well as audio quality (with vorbis, it obviously already does win in audio quality).

As far as licensing - no, it's been BSD'ed and there's no turning back. Vorbis is also BSD'ed and so far there have been no problems with evil companies stealing it and trying to close everything up.


Ogg is obviously making headway in the technical area of being the best lossy audio codec


I think you mean vorbis :)
*sigh* everyone seems to be so easily confused by these.

Re:VP3 and quality

[Kwikymart]

The GPL would be counterproductive to this new video codec just as it was to the Ogg Vorbis sound codec. They want to make it a standard and do a good job of it, not produce the codec and get only projects producing open source players to use it.

Re:VP3 and quality

[Anonymous Coward]

Ogg is obviously making headway in the technical area of being the best lossy audio codec

You're a few years out of date. Ogg was making headway toward becoming the best lossy audio codec a few years ago. Now, they're simply the best, and are only making headway toward becoming uncatchable.

Re:VP3 and quality

[mdarksbane]

I've used VP3 quite a bit, since DivX hasn't released a mac encoder yet. In my tests (recording on a Tibook G4 667) it encodes more slowly than Sorenson 3 or Apple's Mpeg4 codec, but the quality is very comparable, even better in high-motion scenes.

Mpeg4 and Sorenson 3, even at bit rates nearly half those of an Mpeg-2 DVD stream, still produce pixellation artifacts in very high-motion scenes. VP3, at any bitrate over 30Kps, does not. While it is not as sharp as the other codecs at high bit rates, I found it to be very superior at lower ones.

My only complaint is that, for some reason, any movie encoded at full size (640 by 480) would, not matter what the bitrate, barely play back at all. even though full 30 fps video plays back without difficulty on my G4. It wasn't a case of a few dropped frames, but a total stall down to 4 fps.

Anyway, for high-quality, low-bitrate video, it's the best codec I've had the opportunity to use personally in terms of quality and playback/ kbps. I'm sure that the newest DivX surpasses it, but I won't be able to play around with that codec until they release a mac encoder. VP3's quality is comparable to the DivX movies I have downloaded, though.

With some development, it could be a very competitive offering.

Re:VP3 and quality

[snol]

As far as video quality, vp3 is a good bit behind the better mpeg4 variants such as divx and xvid according to this codec comparison, and this one also seems to be saying that vp4 isn't up to their level either. Both articles are focused on dvd-ripping, which involves resolutions typically from 400 to 700 (horizontal) at around 0.15 to 0.4 bits per pixel, so as to fit an hour-plus movie onto a 700mb cdr at a decent resolution. If vp3 and vp4 weren't designed to be optimal in these ranges then the comparison might be fair, but in general it seems like mpeg4 is the better bet if any halfway decent bitrate (500+ kilobits per second) is available. Of course, the patent-free nature of the xiph codec is what'll be attractive about it.

Re:VP3 and quality

[90XDoubleSide]

I don't want to be down on Vorbis, it's much better than MP3 and it's patent free, but it certainly doesn't kick AAC's ass; AAC can go around 30% smaller than a Vorbis file with the same quality. (based on qualatitive evaluation of things I've encoded; I can get a 128k Vorbis to sound as good as a 196k MP3, whereas I can get a 96k AAC to sound as good as the 196k MP3, if not better.)

Re:VP3 and quality

[Anonymous Coward]

AAC is great, if you have an input stream that is optimised for 5.1 Otherwise you may as well just go with a VBR Vorbis and be done with it.

Re:VP3 and quality

[Anonymous Coward]

...Apple will steal...NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD...

Yeah, a company like Apple would never use something like BSD.

When Steve Jobs was still running Next (ca?), they didn't make changes to a GPL compiler to add Obj C support and then tried not to release the changes back, either.

No no, Steve Jobs would never mess with anything Open Source!

Re:VP3 and quality

[Anonymous Coward]

they are giving away they're VP3. Since you liked the quality of it, you should go their website and check out the video that is encoded with VP5.
Beta quality video, for sure. No pixels at all, and that includes full screen presentation.

Re:VP3 and quality

[sffubs]

Looking on doom9.org, it seems that vp3 is lagging somewhat behind the major (all MPEG-4) players in the video encoding world - namely DivX 3.11 (the M$ hack), DivX 5 (the legally re-written version), and XviD (an open source alternative to DivX based on the same opendivx source). For the moment I suggest that people who want to use _any_ lossy video codec should consider XviD first, as it gives comparable to or better results than DivX 5, and is (I believe) fully gpl'd. However, there may be a problem with the long-term standing of XviD, as it is an MPEG-4 codec, and hence may run into difficulty with patents and licensing. -s

Re:VP3 and quality

[Anonymous Coward]

the conparison on doom9.org isnt just for VP3 but the configuration of it can be modific the quality a lot,example: quick compres bust the compresion speed and reduces the quality, if activate my machine compres more tan 10fps but in the case of deactivate it my machin only can compres up to 4fps, in the other hand the size of the non quick compress file ant the same configuration is a around 5% smaller and looks better.

Theora?

[SpamJunkie]

Xiph needs to realise they don't know how to name things. A good name is part of marketting. It doesn't matter if you and all your geek buddies can talk about Ogg Vorbis without feeling akward if all the other kids think it sounds like Klingon. Is it any surprise DivX is so widely used when the name was basically stolen off a product that had commercial marketting?

VP3 is a great name. Most people can even imagine what it stands for - video mp3 - which they would be very comfortable talking about. Why change it?

Re:Theora?

[xercist]

Like all Xiph projects such as Vorbis or Tarkin, Theora is named after a fictional character. Theora Jones was the name of Edison Carter's 'controller' on the television series Max Headroom. She was played by Amanda Pays.

Re:Theora?

[ActiveSX]

Oh, come on, Xiph is great at marketing! I mean, how could you forget Moaning Goat Meter?

Re:Theora?

[evilviper]

Xiph needs to realise they don't know how to name things.
---
Is it any surprise DivX is so widely used when the name was basically stolen off a product that had commercial marketting?

Ah, yes. Criticizm of a name-and a suggestion to steal a name from a commercial product, from someone that calls themselves: SpamJunkie

Re:Theora?

[edwdig]

At least Theora is pronouncable, instead of just a mix of letters and numbers. I don't think there's anything inherently cool sounding to the name MP3. The cool factor got associated with it after people found out about them.

Re:Theora?

[Anonymous Coward]

The cool factor was applied because, goddamnit, MP3's were cool. Squishing a raw wav file by a factor of 10 or more?? Gimme!

Even if Random User doesn't even understand that, they can certainly understand that CD + MP3 + burner = 100+ tracks on one CD.

You're right, the name wasn't catchy at all... the tech was cool because it did something useful and observable. Ogg may be an improvement on MP3, but it's an incremental improvement, so it's never going to catch the 'cool' factor to the extent MP3 did.

i.e. which of these is more cool (from the point of view of someone who doesn't give a toss about free formats and compression statistics)?

1) Instead of 12 raw audio tracks, I can fit 100 mp3s!

2) Instead of 100 mp3s, I can fit 124 OGGs!

Note: approximate numbers! If you only listen to 3 minute songs, OF COURSE you can fit more than 100 mp3's on one cd.

Re:Theora?

[Sycraft-fu]

The orignal poster's comment still stands: They do a horrable job naming their products. You have no idea how many of my firends have thought I was joking when I told them I was making Ogg files.

Remember, most of the world is not made of geeks.

Re:Theora?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they have really sucky names. Theora, Tharkin and Ogg is horrible. What's next Mon-chi-chi, Pokémon and Garbage Pail Kids?

Re:Theora?

[Anonymous Coward]

Other names may include Bender, Zoidberg, NIbbler, Leela and Fry.

Re:Theora?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but there is a trend (Rule or law is too strong a term, I'm not a marketeer so I wouldn't know for sure), that products and projects with two or three syllable names do well. MP3 is three syllables. Ogg is one. Theora is three. OpenBeOS is more than three (Which is why they are changing their name, I guess). Slashdot is three. DivX.com is more than 3, while DivX is two, so DivX (3.11a) wins.

Sadly, "Ogg Vorbis" is more than three; although "Vorbis" is two. So start calling it just "Vorbis" and it might stand a chance!

Re:Theora?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ogg is one syllable. But "Ogg Vorbis" is three. Hmm.

Slashdot is three. Huh?

Intuitively, two is perfect. Your examples support this.

Re:Theora?

[Anonymous Coward]

Theora means "illumination" in Hebrew.

Re:Theora?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're being very silly. He never suggested anything other than not changing the name "VP3".

Re:Theora?

[gidds]

It wasn't originally a series; the title character, backstory, and the character of Theora first appeared in a UK film. But of course once the US TV executives got hold of it they erased the original from people's memories...

Re:Theora?

[gidds]

It wasn't originally a series; the title character, backstory, and the character of Theora first appeared in a UK film. But of course once the US TV executives got hold of it they erased the original from people's memories...

Still not a rival.

[Qender]

There's no information that leads me to believe it will rival the quality or compression of Mpeg-4. If it were as easy as trying would not realnetworks and quicktime have already made equivalant codecs?

Change?

[c0dedude]

will we trade .vp3 instead of .mp3?

Re:Change?

[xercist]

No. the bistream is OGG. vp3 is just the video codec, and vorbis just the audio. The correct extention for the files will be the same as plain vorbis -- .ogg

Re:Change?

[kwan3217]

grep "xercist" /dev/random ...you'll find me in there someday :)

now that is a truly interesting waste of computer time...

Re:Change?

[Anonymous Coward]

the current videos which use the ogg multimedia container instead of avi generally use the .ogm extension. although alot of people still use .avi so the llamas don't get confused.

Re:Change?

[nutshell42]

Which is simply stupid as windows (what most ppl use) still determines the file-type by the extension.

I don't want to open my video-files with winamp neither do I want to listen mp3s with bsplayer

There's a good reason that the current implementation to include video-streams in .ogg-files uses the extension .ogm

Porn films

[rodgerd]

We all know that porn site's choice of encoders dictates the success of media formats!

Re:Porn films

[Lenolium]

Bah, shows how much you know. What happened to Vivo? it was the favorite of the porn formats, and is now gone. (Most of slashdot will cheer along with me, that this horible format is gone)

Re:Porn films

[Anonymous Coward]

And, I haven't seen a lot of porn sites using DivX, although movies encoded by users are a different story.

I mean, uh... atleast, that's what I heard from a ... friend. Yeah, that's it.

Re:Porn films

[brooks_talley]

Porn sites' choices of video codecs are based more on installed base and ease of use than technical merit or licensing costs (remember, a decent porn site is profitable and can afford to spend money to make money). Far better to pay for a solution that your clients will be able to use than try to get away with a free solution that will do nothing but cause support headaches and (the bane of adult sites) chargebacks from dissatisfied customers.

Anything that involves a download and/or installation is bad news. People don't trust downloads from porn sites (though, to the best of my knowledge, there's never been a case where a porn site used a download for nefarious purposes). Beyond that, as we all know, some percentage of installations fail for one reason or another. If you have to supply even a link to a third party download, people will blame you if it doesn't work.

For these reasons, Windows Media is clearly winning the battle for porn site content, measured by new clips produced.

Real probably still has an overall lead in clips available for legacy reasons, but nobody is producing new porn in Real format. It comes back to support and chargebacks: Real tries so hard to trick people into the "free 14 day trial, $9.95/month" player that it generates no end of customer support headaches ("You said if I paid $29.95 a month I'd get free video... and now I have to pay another $9.95 a month for the player! You bastard porn sites are all the same! Lying, cheating scum! Why can't you operate like normal, ethical businesses?").

Not that I'd know anything about that industry.

Cheers
-b

Re:Porn films

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they should optimize the codec for flesh tones and the kind of motion that occurs in porn films. Anyone willing to work on this?

Re:Porn films

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like that program that people downloaded that dialed a foreign country and ran up huge phones bills for them? All for the sake of "free porn?"

Re:Porn films

[Dwonis]

remember, a decent porn site is profitable and can afford to spend money to make money) [Emphasis added]

Now that's an oxymoron if I've ever read one!

Re:Porn films

[Pastis]

> "a decent porn site..."

indecent seems a more appropriate word when it comes to porn ;)

Re:Porn films

[Pastis]

sorry duplicate.
next time I read the other comments before posting.

Re:Porn films

[brooks_talley]

Oh, come off it. There are plenty of decent porn sites. Like most industries that have bad reputations, it's the small number of sleazy ones that give the industry a bad name.

A good place to look for respectable porn sites is: www.janesguide.com. (I have no affiliation with Jane's Guide)

Cheers -b

Re:Porn films

[brooks_talley]

Vivo went away because it was a pain in the butt for everyone involved. I hated it, too. I'm not sure what your point is -- of course vivo went away, with the advent of two (three, if you count quicktime) video formats that are superior, streamable, and installed on almost every PC out there. Vivo was an interim solution in the early days, and porn sites as well as mainstream sites abandoned it when something better came along.

Cheers
-b

Re:Porn films

[WotanKhan]

*whoosh* Thats not a plane going over your head.

""There are plenty of decent porn sites""

Perhaps, I think its the decent ones giving the good ones a bad name ;).

Re:Porn films

[23_Elders]

The other reason for the WMV format is it provides a Digital Rights Management solution. Alot of people are interested in selling internet videos under a "rental" model.

Also, in my experience, there is some hype over the whole DivX phenomenon, but I dont think it is going anywhere. The quality of MPEG4 at low bitrates just isn't good enough. Maybe if DVD players start coming with MPEG4 decoders in them...

Re:Porn films

[horza]

People don't trust downloads from porn sites (though, to the best of my knowledge, there's never been a case where a porn site used a download for nefarious purposes).

I remember reading about the old trick where a porn site would ask you to download a special image viewer (for enhanced 'viewing'), which would then turn off the sound on your modem, disconnect, and then reconnect to the Internet via a premium rate line in Hong Kong. People got scammed significant amounts of money afaicr.

Phillip.

How can it compete?

[Drogo Knotwise]

With the majority of people still using Windows, the DOJ having sold out to Microsoft, allowing them to continue to bundle Windows Media Player with Windows, and the remaining states' lawsuit still a way off from achieving any real results, so it seems, it seems hard for any other media suite to gain mainstream acceptance as a standard. Even if the states get Media Player out of new WinXP releases, there are still many, many people with Media Player on their computers, many of whom don't care enough to download another program. It looks like it's going to be an uphill battle...

Re:How can it compete?

[GoatPigSheep]

If they make a windows codec version available it will run just fine with media player, just like how divx does.

Re:How can it compete?

[asqui]

Well, the idea is that eventually Media Player will have support for all these great Xiph codecs, just like it now has support for DivX.

Re:How can it compete?

[Anonymous Coward]

If there are files people want badly enough in this format, then people will download the codecs/players/whatever that is necessary. See DivX.

Re:How can it compete?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're looking at it from the wrong side.

Whether most peolpe have players, is irrelevant. What matters is what codec you encode your content to. Then if someone wants to play your stuff, they'll either download a player, or they'll do without.

Even if you're not a content producer, and you're just encoding DVDs to your fileserver so that you don't have to keep track of the shiny disks, you'll still be able to use this. It doesn't matter what the 'dozers are doing, until one of them comes over to your house, checks out how easy your life is, and says he wants in.

Enough people do that, and then the mainstream will want in.

Re:How can it compete?

[Anonymous Coward]

And one for that RealOne monstrosity? Its pretty simple-ish to do.

Technically correct, but leagally not so true.

In order to get access to the Real Development Kit (with headers needed to write your plug in) you essentially have to promise that you won't do anything with it that doesn't further the (perceived) interests of the Real Overlords.

Re:How can it compete?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need to make a special "windows media plugin" in order for it to use codecs you have installed. WMP even though it's by MS doesn't prevent you from using whatever codecs you want. If it did, nobody would be able to use divx through it.

Nor does it prevent you from using a third party player to play videos using codecs you have installed. So I see no uphill battle other than people deciding whether to encode with this or divx, or any other codec.

excellent!

[Bobzibub]

What the headline implies is that On2 is not helping out. This is incorrect.

"On2 will sponsor work done by the Xiph.org Foundation to combine those projects, plus On2's already open-sourced VpVision personal video recorder, into a product they believe will provide serious, free competition to the increasingly expensive MPEG-4 royalty fees." --from NewsForge

Hats off to On2!
-b


PS. Currently listening to Oggs and ripping them too. tres nice.

just like they do now?

[/dev/trash]

and will soon take over the world.

I don't mean to be negative but....how many people download oggs? or use oggs in their RIO's?

Re:just like they do now?

[sffubs]

I think quite a lot of people download oggs, but you are right; there is not enough hardware support.

However, you might find the situation with video codecs is slightly different, since although DivX is the most popular currently available codec, it hasn't taken the world by storm in quite the same way as mp3; there are still heated arguments as to just which codec should be used.

Therefore I believe their vp3 video has the capacity to become more mainstream than ogg is.

-s

Re:just like they do now?

[Anonymous Coward]

how many people download oggs?

Not many. Pirates don't care about copyright, so why should they care about patents? And they don't care about quality, they care about having a large mp3z/warez collection. Downloading is irrelevant.

oggs? or use oggs in their RIO's?

Nobody. They held out for Zauruses, or are still holding out.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Just a note...

[jmd!]

Before anyone praises "On2 Technologies" too much, you should be aware of their product line. VP3 is their old leftovers. They've since improved it and release VP4, and recently made more improvments and released the VP5 codec. They've been giving VP3 away for some time, as more of a demo of what their newer technologies can do better.

While it's better then nothing, (we certainly need an open video codec), but On2 isn't exactly fully on the Open Source wagon.

Just a few facts for those who didn't and won't bother to read the background and articles.

Re:Just a note...

[Anonymous Coward]

gee, you sure are ungrateful.

Re:Just a note...

[RAMMS EIN]

Still, the beauty of open source is that anyone can take the source and improve it, often faster than closed-source products. Since there is probably a hurd of people out there who both like OSS and know something about video codec design, the possibility exists that Theora catches up with other offerings. If at least Xiph gets a clue and releases specs, which IMHO is more important than releasing code. I have been waitin for a good Free video codec for a while (thought about designing one, but I'm a total nitwit there). This may not be the latest and greatest, but it seems a good tart. See also Alladin/GhostScript. Thanks, On2!

---
Conversation, n.:
A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath
is called the listener.

Re:Just a note...

[Dwonis]

True, but so what? When id released the Doom, Quake and Quake II engines as GPL (thanks John!), nobody complained. Just look at what the QuakeForge project has done with it.

Re:Just a note...

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll never be as good as QuakeIII, which is fine, but it kind of invalidates your point.

Re:Just a note...

[benwaggoner]

Not entirely true.

VP4 was a set top box codec. It was never released in any form for computer-based playback.

VP5 hasn't yet been released. I don't know what On2's plans are with it.

Re:Just a note...

[FooBarWidget]

Then how do you explain that Doom9.org used VP4 in their second codec comparison?
http://www.doom9.org/codec2.htm

Pass the crack pipe

[MisterBlister]

This will take over the world?

Sort of how OGG took over the MP3 world? Not likely. Its nice to have an optional patent-unencumbered method for video & audio sharing, but anyone who thinks this will be anything more than a tiny niche product living in the shadow of MPEG4/WMV really needs to get out of his mom's basement more.

Re:Pass the crack pipe

[Anonymous Coward]

You fool. Mom's basement is where everything important is. Ogg did take over the world; all the music I listen to is decoded from Ogg.

If you don't think Ogg took over the world, it is probably because you are a follower.

Re:Pass the crack pipe

[TheSync]

Sort of how OGG took over the MP3 world?

Yeah, all those people blatently breaking copyright laws trading MP3s are really going to be upset about breaking patent laws...

Re:Pass the crack pipe

[rtaylor]

OGG has taken over a ton of MP3 markets. The most obvious is music / audio included with a ton of games.

Re:Pass the crack pipe

[MisterBlister]

Though your game example is true, that's hardly a "ton" of usage. Its peanuts compared to widespread mp3 usage, and only like that to avoid the $3k/title license required to use mp3.

This video format may be used in games for the same reason, but its not going to be used for the majority of video on line, nowhere close.

Hardly 'taking over the world'.

Re:Pass the crack pipe

[rtaylor]

I think this is another case of what we see more often isn't necessarily what is.

Most USians (Americans in the USA) believe their primary import source is Korea, Taiwan, etc. due to the labels on a number of products they see on a regular basis.

It's simply the #1 source of imported consumer good -- but certainly no where near others in $ value.

Not ment for home use :-/

[Squarewav]

from the requirements page:
Microsoft Windows ® NT, 2000, XP
Pentium III 800 Mhz recommended
20 GB system drive
256 MB RAM
A/V rated hard disk (able to sustain at least 20 Megabyte data throughput, using a stripe or raid) - disk size depends on how much uncompressed video storage you need. Preferably a separate drive from system drive.
64 bit PCI slot
ViewGraphics VideoPump 701 capture card with SDI input
Graphics card - at least 16-bit
Sound card with either speakers or headphones
Serial port for attaching hardware key

--
who has a 64 bit pci slot in a home pc, much less a hard drive that's a/v quality
the quality looks better then divx but if most people cant even use the encoder I do not see it lasting long

Re:Not ment for home use :-/

[Sloppy]

Heh.

Those 386s are too expensive. I can only see them being used for servers.

Doom requires more CPU than anyone has.

Color video hardware is too expensive. Besides, everyone knows that monochrome monitors are clearer.

4 gigabyte limit!? Hah! Like anyone will ever buy a hard disk that big!

The Genesis sequence looks pretty cool, but you can only make stuff like that on multimillion dollar machines.

Home networking? Get real. These 3Com cards cost $300 apiece, and most home people don't know how to lay out RG58AU cable anyway. You should see how this one numbskull hooked up his terminator. Home networking, no way.

640k should be enough for anyone.

Re:Not ment for home use :-/

[hyphz]

"Serial port for attaching hardware key"!?!?!?

Images of an open source 'build your own dongle' electronics project.... ;)

Re:Not ment for home use :-/

[Robert The Coward]

Wrong the first Hard Drive Size Limit was Dos Prior to 4.0 which was 33 Megs. If have no idea about other os's

Re:Not ment for home use :-/

[roybadami]

Wrong the first Hard Drive Size Limit was Dos Prior to 4.0 which was 33 Megs. If have no idea about other os's

If we're being picky, there was a filesystem limit of 32MB. I remember having a PS/2 on my desk running DOS 3.x partitioned as C:, D:, E:, F:, G:, H:, I: and J:, each on the same disk and (all but the last) 32MB.

It doesn't matter...

[LighthouseJ]

Apparently the Ogg/Vorbis people didn't listen in their economics class, specifically the part about competition. At least the poster didn't, saying that Ogg/Vorbis video+audio codecs are going to take over the earth. The problem is that to make it in any business, you gotta be the first out of the gate. The DivX codec itself was out before Ogg/Vorbis was even an idea. It could be said Ogg/Vorbis is superior to DivX and possibly an mp3 codec, I personally have not thoroughly inspected the two, so for the sake of argument, I'll say this creation is superior. People can say all they want about how much better Ogg/Vorbis is, but that's not going to want anyone to encode movies to that codec and erase the DivX version, and not encode using DivX anymore.

To the point, DivX got there first, sorry Ogg/Vorbis, you're too late. Find something else to do. Yeah, it sucks, but them's the breaks, kid.

Re:It doesn't matter...

[Anonymous Coward]

Things overtake other things all the time. CD's over tapes over records. All that's important is bringing new features.

Did you know that many DivX movies have their audio encoded with Ogg Vorbis? Ogg Vorbis can support multi-channel sound beyond just stereo (something mp3 can not). If enough people are interested in this feature, and many seem to be, then you have success. Ogg Vorbis is also being used by many game developers because of the lack of fees associated with it. If they have a video format like that, too, I'm sure they'll use it.

Re:It doesn't matter...

[LighthouseJ]

This is true, but you're talking about improving technology which is different.

I'm talking about the same competing technology. If Ogg Vorbis can demonstrate that computer users need a feature that DivX/mp3 cannot provide, then they'll switch. But the bulk computer users only use stereo, rendering multi-channel sound just about dead in the water.

The only way Ogg/Vorbis can not die out is to show the public that they have something significant that DivX/mp3 does not.

Servers will dictate pace of development

[Fastball]

The ETA to a 1.0 release is approximately one year.

Unfortunately, I find this a little optimistic. I've been waiting on Icecast 2 with Vorbis streaming for a long time, and I'm still waiting. (Redirect "build from CVS" replies to /dev/null)

It's my experience that you have to be able to serve/stream this stuff for it to really take off. Sure you can download your pr0n AVIs, MPEGs, ASFs, and WMVs, but where the Ogg and open source movement can make headway is against the streaming servers, namely RealServer.

Don't get me wrong, I think the end results will be good, but they, like most open source projects, will be slow to develop.

Unlikely

[Goonie]

Microsoft and Apple already have plenty of proprietary video and audio codecs, some of which are de facto standards, so if they incorporate an incompatible hack of "VP3" that's bad luck, but doesn't actually makes things any worse.

If it's GPL'd, the above isn't possible. However, it's also much more difficult to incorporate unhacked VP3 support into their players and encoders, because they have to write their own code rather than just using the available library. That is bad, because we (the free software using community) *want* them to add VP3 support to their proprietary players. Let me repeat that - VP3 support in proprietary software is a good thing.

Why, you may ask? Because if it is available in the software that everybody uses (which, sadly, at this point is still proprietary software), it might become a de facto standard, become the standard format web video clips, for instance, are encoded in, and thus free software users are no longer second-class citizens when it comes to video codecs. Additionally, it makes the ultimate migration of Windows users over to free desktops that much easier.

I believe even RMS has agreed, on occasion, that the BSD license can be appropriate if it helps free file formats become the standard.

Re:Unlikely

[alfaiomega]

If it's GPL'd, the above isn't possible. However, it's also much more difficult to incorporate unhacked VP3 support into their players and encoders, because they have to write their own code rather than just using the available library.

What about the LGPL, The GNU Lesser General Public License? I'm not trolling, I would really like to know the disadvantages of releasing Ogg libraries under the LGPL. I thought that the LGPL would be ideal for such things like Ogg Vorbis and other Ogg libs (like it is for SDL which is used by lots of proprietary projects, for example) and I'm curious why BSD/X11 type licence was chosen over the LGPL.

Re:Unlikely

[james_underscore]

I think RMS's view would be use the LGPL.

This would mean that the libraries could be included in proprietary software, *but* MS couldn't take the library and add in DRM, etc, at the request of Hollywood. Of course, Microsoft can still fiddle with the library if its LGPL, but they have to release their changes, so the free players could support MS's altered or crippled codec if necessary.

With a BSD license, any closed-source company (especially MS, because they have a monopoly on internet browsers and media players), could hijack the codec and turn it into another RealAudio (if everyone has Windows Media Player, which refuses to play un-crippled vp3's, all the media providers on the web will have to use the proprietary version of the codec and we're back to square one). BSD is not a free software license and I would never deliberately contribute code to a BSD project.

Re:Unlikely

[David_W]

BSD is not a free software license and I would never deliberately contribute code to a BSD project.

The GNU folks, who coined the term (I think), would tend to disagree with you.

D'OH

[Squarewav]

was looking at the page for VP5
never mind
nothing more to see here

Shhh!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just to make the MPAA folks think it's not a threat! In reality, you can encode using an old 286/12 with an MFM drive, a Sound Blaster original and a Hercules Monochrome video card.

But what about more than 2-channel audio?

[Sgs-Cruz]

I'm still waiting for any audio codec that lets me encode more than 2 channels. I just read the Vorbis FAQ and can see nothing there. This could be one way that they could get an advantage over DIVX or MPEG-4... they could be the only file format to include options for, say, 6.1 discrete channels of downloadable, streamable, audio. More and more computers have surround sounds now. Thoughts?

Re:But what about more than 2-channel audio?

[Cheetah86]

AC3 can support up to 6 channels, which is the same as 5.1.

Re:But what about more than 2-channel audio?

[uhoreg]

Read the last question of the FAQ. "Vorbis does currently support greater than two channels; the default multichannel mapping in the 1.0 release supports up to 255 simultaneous channels." (Mmm. 255 channels.)

Re:But what about more than 2-channel audio?

[tangent3]

Currently it is possible to transcode multi channel DVD audio to multi channel Ogg Vorbis.

Re:But what about more than 2-channel audio?

[sffubs]

Indeed it is possible, but ogg vorbis lacks the channel linking that is necessary to make it really work well as a 6ch format.

-s

another xiph open standard?

[joe_bruin]

they havn't gotten around to polishing vorbis yet, where do they get the time to work on a video codec? will this be the same maneuver as the ogg format?

"look, it's free and open. well, unless you want the specs, which don't exist, so you have to use our source. want an integerized implementation (for your rio)? well, since you don't have the specs, we'll be glad to sell you one."

this is why ogg is not in hardware yet. this is why there arn't alternate implementations (LAME ogg, anyone?).

i'd love to see a free, open video codec. mpeg royalties suck ass. but my patience with xiph is running short.

eat more chicken!

Re:another xiph open standard?

[RAMMS EIN]

I agree with that. The priority should be on releasing the specs. The open-source model is great, but without specs it's headed nowhere. Once the specs are available, developers around the Net can join in and improve both the specs and the implementation. Until then, we have to sit and wait until the Big Bad Businesses invent something that obsoletes our lovely open standard, or patent some of the techniques it uses. Come on, Xiph! Theora NOW!

---
``The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from; furthermore if you do not like any of them, you can just wait for next year's model.''
-- Prof. Andrew S. Tanenbaum

GPL? BSD? What's the matter

[koali]

Is that really important if the implementation is GPL'ed or BSD? If the format and codec is sufficiently documented, I don't see why is that an issue.

Actually, I see that BSD license might have a slight edge, but not much.

Oh, great.

[WasterDave]

So I take it they gave up on Tarkin then?

FWIW there's a (getting old) codec comparison on Doom9 (http://www.doom9.org/codecs2.htm#test1). VP3 comes out *really* badly.

Dave

Re:Oh, great.

[uhoreg]

Nope. Read the interview. Just a bit above the middle of the page.

Re:Oh, great.

[Forkenhoppen]

Is that a codec limitation, though, or is it an encoder problem? This, of course, is the big question, because if it's just the encoder, that can always be improved.

Re:Oh, great.

[WasterDave]

Ah yeah, right you are ... I should learn to read properly.

But (putting my trolling hat on) doesn't the continued development of a "so bleeding edge it's off the knife" tarkin mean run contrary to Xiph's aim of establishing open source de-facto standards?

Dave

Re:Oh, great.

[Anonymous Coward]

Tarkin was never meant to be on the bleeding edge, the main aim was always for it to be free of IP claims.

LGPL bad for embedded devices

[Straker Skunk]

Embedded devices often use the equivalent of statically-linked binaries, i.e. ROM images. The LGPL requires that you allow the user to swap out the LGPL'ed part [of a larger proprietary solution] as desired. If you distribute software which is inseparable (to the user) from LGPL'ed code, then the entirety of that software must itself be under the (L)GPL---which would allow any user with a binary to ask for source to your stuff.

The BSD/X11 licenses, since they allow outright proprietarization of their covered code, naturally don't present this difficulty. (FYI, the SDL is well-served by the LGPL as---to my knowledge---the project is not targetting the kind of embedded systems where this would come up.)

You gotta love On2 Tech.

[evilviper]

You've just got to love any company that makes a movie called To Kill a Lawyer.

How to help make it popular...

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

Finally! A formal statement that specs will finally be written for video+vorbis in .ogg

From what little I've seen, VP3 is, overall, not as "good" as the various MPEG4 variants out now, but is a little better (in terms of quality and lack of "artifacts") than the "windows media" implementation [at least, from the one review I looked through].

The important thing from my perspective is that VP3/Vorbis in Ogg will give us a completely "free" way to offer videos...which brings me to my point.

There ARE some "public domain" videos out there. Not just obscure "indy" things but actual commercial movies, cartoons, shows, and so on that matured into the public domain when their owner didn't renew them (back when that was required).

There's a whole mess of them available on LSVideo (which appears to be undergoing a redesign, but offered and will apparently continue to offer a wide variety of public-domain [i.e. you can legally make copies for all of your friends if you want] videos) and RetroFilms. Retrofilms even offers a number of Disney (!) cartoons that slipped through their iron grasp into mature public-domain works. MOST of them are rather old, but many are well known (Metropolis [not the new Anime', the classic silent film], for example, and the classic "Nosferatu"...and, I believe, the insipid [in my opinion] but well known "It's a Wonderful Life".)And, of course, there's a whole mess of interesting and/or bizarre and/or educational things in the Prelinger Archives Movies Online.

So....as soon as encoding software becomes available [I suspect ffmpeg and/or MPlayer will be set up to handle it pretty quickly after the initial source code and specs become available, if their recent development speed is any indication] I plan to go through the surprising number of videos that I own that turn out to be Public Domain, encode them into "Theora"-type files, and try making them available peer-to-peer.

At the very least, there are bound to be enough "oddball" videos available in the public domain that making them available in this format, combined with the fact that neither the "content" nor the file format, nor the video codec, nor the audio codec will be legally prohibited from distribution, they could easily become encountered often enough to promote the format to the point that, though it may never actually overtake proprietary formats, it'll pretty much "need" to be supported by any piece of multimedia software and playback unit that intends to bill itself as handling a lot of different formats...

I yearn for the day when my DVD playback unit can handle "Theora" videos and "Ogg/Vorbis" sound in addition to the .mp3's it already does...

Get cracking on that spec, Xiph!!!!!

(P.S. - Are there already IRC channels devoted to serving legal, public-domain videos?...)

Re:How to help make it popular...

[taleman]

Correct link for Retrofilms is
http://www.retrofilm.com/

10 Years After

[KillerKane]

Isn't just Alvin Lee anymore. So we may finally have an OSS version of something that's been around for over a decade. Quicktime, I mean. Good, great. But in the real world, nobody cares. In the real world, first counts. First by ten years counts a lot. We'd all like to see OSS be a real contender, if for no other reason than to keep the big boys on their toes, but c'mon. If you think this means anything to anyone outside of a small circle of ubergeeks, you're kidding yourselves.

Maybe it's just me, but I think OSS is never really going to matter until they do it first, not second, and certainly not 10 years after. Real innovation, not catch-up. There are a lot of bright people in OSS, why are they always following, never leading? Seriously.

Re:10 Years After

[vidarh]

Most people don't care who was first. They care about whats going on now. They don't care if open source was first, second or hundreth with a good codec. They care whether there are good codecs available for their OS, whether open source or not.

They care whether they can play that new cool video clip that all their friends are talking about.

After all, how many people give a damn that Walkman is a Sony trademark, and stick to Sony because they were first?

Re:10 Years After

[hyphz]

Exactly. Most people don't care about much other than ability to play stuff. (The Walkman example doesn't fit, because all walkman-equivalents play the same format.)

The codec that gets there first will be able to play more stuff. It be able to play the stuff that was produced at the time when there was no codec available, and it will be better established and more likely to be selected by content producers.

Consumers only care about whether or not a technology is new. When they first hear that they can watch a video over the web, they'll go "Wow!" and happily download their QT player. But once they've had that for a while, they won't any more. And when they see content coded in Theora, they'll say "what a pain in the ass to have to get yet another player". Content producers know this and don't use new players.

Why isn't Open Source software ever the one that breaks the mold? Because the main motivation for working on Open Source software tends to be "to drag down the big boys". If there's no big boys there, there's no real interest in working on a project that may not (probably won't) take off. And if it did, OSS would still be screwed, because the GPL covers only code, not ideas; any truly new idea in OSS could be copied by a commercial firm (provided they didn't reuse any source), who could inevitably develop it faster as they can reward their programmers. I don't know if anyone has attempted to put a GNU-style "viral OSS" license on a *patent* yet...

Also the viral license hurts OSS in media players; they are seen as having no effective copy protection, and a little spin by lawyers can make it look like the license virus will force the encoded media into open source.

Re:10 Years After

[vidarh]

You miss the point. This wasn't about which codec wins, but about whether or not it's a problem for open source whether or not open source OS's provide something first. Of course having something everyone else doesn't have is an advantage. But is it still an advantage after the difference is erased?

I claim that it usually isn't, since the typical consumer couldn't care less, and usually won't even know or remmber, who were first.

My example of the Sony Walkman is a valid one: How many consumers buy Sony Walkmans because they were first? Most consumers won't even know they were first, nor know that Walkman refers to a trademarked Sony product, not to the type of product itself. Same for Roller bladers vs. inline skates, and a number of other products.

The thing is, except for geeks, nobody cares whether or not open source OS's or Windows or MacOS or whatever had a codec first.

What matters to ordinary consumers is what is available now, today, when someone sends them a video clip and they want to watch it.

Yes, it would be beneficial for open source to lead the way in many ways. But is it critical? I'd say no. What is important is to support something as soon as it gains widespread usage, not as soon as it is available.

To comment on your claim that open source software isn't ever the one that breaks the mold, I'd say you are doubly wrong. First and foremost, open source software has broken the mold time and time again. If it hadn't been for most of the internet protocols implemented as open source, for instance, the evolution of the internet would have had to wait much longer to achieve a size large enough for commercial vendors to be interested.

That's your first error. The second is related: OSS can easily be first, because many OSS programmers are motivated by whats cool and interesting to work on, not what can or will pay of economically. So while a company needs to justify it's development expenses to its board and shareholders, OSS developers can get straight to work and develop a solution.

Yes, in the long run somebody could reimplement the ideas as proprietary software. But who cares? As much as I despise Microsoft, I'd think it was great if they supported Ogg in their products, for instance, as that would make it much more likely that Ogg would gain widespread use.

Re:10 Years After

[hyphz]

>You miss the point. This wasn't about which
> codec wins, but about whether or not it's a
> problem for open source whether or not open
> source OS's provide something first. Of course
> having something everyone else doesn't have is
> an advantage. But is it still an advantage
> after the difference is erased? I claim that
> it usually isn't, since the typical consumer
> couldn't care less, and usually won't even know
> or remmber, who were first.

No. The typical consumer, however, probably BOUGHT the product that was first with the new features - because those features were a selling point at the time. If another product catches up with the features, that still gives the consumer no reason to buy it. It has to catch up and add new features to be interesting - and it has to catch up and add new features in the same timescale in which the leaders will just be adding new features.

> My example of the Sony Walkman is a valid one:
> How many consumers buy Sony Walkmans because
> they were first? Most consumers won't even know
> they were first, nor know that Walkman refers
> to a trademarked Sony product, not to the type
> of product itself.

When the Panasonic Walkmans came out, the consumers who'd already bought their Sony ones didn't rush out and buy the Panasonic ones too.
Yes, alright, *nowadays* it doesn't matter, but that's because Walkmans are old tech.

>The thing is, except for geeks, nobody cares
> whether or not open source OS's or Windows or
> MacOS or whatever had a codec first.

THAT's true, but only because except for geeks nobody uses open source OS's.

>What matters to ordinary consumers is what is
> available now, today, when someone sends them a
> video clip and they want to watch it.

Right. And now, today, they already have their QuickTime, Real, and WMV players installed. They don't have their Theora players installed. Why? Because QuickTime, Real, and WMV got there earlier. This isn't difficult.

>Yes, it would be beneficial for open source to
> lead the way in many ways. But is it critical?
> I'd say no. What is important is to support
> something as soon as it gains widespread usage,
> not as soon as it is available.

No! When it gains widespread usage, everyone already HAS it. You've then got to persuade people to switch. That's going to be pretty tough when you're competing against a company with a product already in widespread usage.

>To comment on your claim that open source
> software isn't ever the one that breaks the
> mold, I'd say you are doubly wrong. First and
> foremost, open source software has broken the
> mold time and time again. If it hadn't been for
> most of the internet protocols implemented as
> open source, for instance, the evolution of the
> internet would have had to wait much longer to
> achieve a size large enough for commercial
> vendors to be interested.

Ummm... I don't think TCP/IP was open source *when it was INVENTED*, was it?

> That's your first error. The second is related:
> OSS can easily be first, because many OSS
> programmers are motivated by whats cool and
> interesting to work on,

"What's cool." Exactly. If you want to be first, you can't wait for things to already be cool. Once it's cool, it's known, and you're too late. You have to find it yourself and make it cool.

>Yes, in the long run somebody could reimplement
> the ideas as proprietary software. But who
> cares? As much as I despise Microsoft, I'd
> think it was great if they supported Ogg in
> their products, for instance, as that would
> make it much more likely that Ogg would gain
> widespread use.

Yes. Until MS threw a rights management system into Vorbis, to make it incompatable with the open source players. You couldn't use their code because it's proprietary, and you couldn't even make the open source version compatible because doing so would violate the DMCA.

Re:10 Years After

[roybadami]

THAT's true, but only because except for geeks nobody uses open source OS's

At home, that may be true. But lots of businesses use open source OS's.

But the real point (as mentioned by other posters) is nothing to do with support for open source OS's. It's the fact that (to my knowledge) there are no free or cheap streaming video servers. Which means you can't just use this technology because it's useful, you have to actually make money out of it to justify the costs of the encoding and streaming server softwarwe.

I'd love to be able to set up a streaming video server so that remote users who don't have access to an H.321 ISDN video conferencing system can see the COO is company meetings, rather than just listen in via the audio conference bureau. But this project just falls in the "wouldn't it be nice if..." category. I don't think we could justify spending money on RealServer, given how infrequently it would be used, so I'm really looking for something like an Icecast/Theora combination. Too bad it's still a year off...

Bla bla bla No numbers! c'mon people.

[tcc]

I read the discussions here, the interresting subject is the licensing, the FUD subject is how it will take over and so on.

First, before even talking about taking over Divx, please point me to a site that has a codec study, not on the theorical, not on lame useless "tom's hardware" numbers, but on a scientific or scientific-like approach with proper setup and testing.

Nothing like an example to clear things up:

Codec usage, yes it can crunch more than divx for "similar" quality that is "similar" to DVD, which is "similar" to uncompressed video... heh. no, this is totally wrong, what I want to see is uncompressed video, original sequence, then compress Divx with best quality at X bitrate, do the same with that new codec, try at least 3 different kind of video that are abusing codecs differently: High contrast (black and white with sharp edges being the most evil), smooth colors (4:1:1 DV videos can show some serious color bending when you look at it closely, for example) so how is the color bending affecting each codecs?, and finally, motion, low speed, high speed, repeat with the last two example and make all the different mix, and then try different bitrates, then check the results, if they are similar, zoom in, check the pixelization, I don't want just words or lame tests with no numbers, I want a half-decent scientific approach, I wish I had time to make such a thing like I did before with mpeg/mjpg/mpeg4 V1.

Of course we all know that you don't have to be the best to win, there are other factors to consider as well, but in my case, QUALITY will make me switch from a codec to another for my video presentation, so far, I still use DIVX for video-only movies, a good optimized MJPEG codec for software playback of home-made multimedia cd-roms on PC only (divx needs too much cpu juice that I require for other realtime tasks on my video display software for slower machines), and I just wish I would find that perfect codec that wouldn't look like thrash when I display the colors and motion on a plasma screen.

I will jump on anything new if it does the job better than what I have right now, but please, don't just say it's so much better because of [blabla], say actual facts and numbers, it will be very interresting to read.

Re:Bla bla bla No numbers! c'mon people.

[forgoil]

I agree with this. Who cares if you can send it by pigeon and get full frame rate, or if it is free or not (free for me is that I personally don't have to pay, I care little for the source). What matters is quality.

I am looking forward to Tarkin, but this VP3 business is just one more damn format that I have to somehow get support for on my computer. I wasn't to happy when DivX 5.0 came, and this is much the same (without the price tag of the pro version, at least not yet).

If there comes along something with higer quality that I can use, I will choose that. If there are two that are equal, I will choose the free one. If there is an SVCD version and an DivX version, I go for SVCD every day.

I agree with the above and think that there need to be published a few serious comparisons before we can agree on if this is a good or a bad thing (looks like a bad thing right now).

Re:Bla bla bla No numbers! c'mon people.

[roybadami]

First, before even talking about taking over Divx, please point me to a site that has a codec study, not on the theorical, not on lame useless "tom's hardware" numbers, but on a scientific or scientific-like approach with proper setup and testing.

It depends what you want to do. If you have a need to encode and stream stuff -- rather than just view it, and you need it to be legal, then there's very little out there that's affordable (for non-commercial purposes), let alone free.

Note that DivX is not legal to use for most purposes, unless you licence the MPEG-4 patents.

So for those people who need an affordable, legal encoder and streaming server, there is currently nothing available to them. For them, Theora will be a big deal.

If you're lucky enough to have several products to choose from the obviously you will choose then best product. But please realize that Theora is important, even if it's not as good as some of the alternatives, because those alternatives aren't available to everyone.

I will jump on anything new if it does the job better than what I have right now

And I will jump on anything new that gives me a solution to a problem that there is currently no decent, affordable solution to right now.

If you're particular requirements can already be solved by some existing solution, then obviously Theora will have much less of an impact on you.

Re:Bla bla bla No numbers! c'mon people.

[roybadami]

I agree with this. Who cares if you can send it by pigeon and get full frame rate, or if it is free or not (free for me is that I personally don't have to pay, I care little for the source). What matters is quality

Surely that depends on just how much the non-free alternative costs you.

If it's a choice of using Theora/Icecast for free, or paying thousands of dollars for RealServer, surely you may be prepared to compromise on quality, even if you do have thousands of dollars in the bank?

YHBT

[Anonymous Coward]

You have been trolled, friend.

MPEG-3? (MPEG taxonomy)

[benwaggoner]

There was no MPEG-3. That was the working name for the original high definition MPEG format. However, they decided that they could implement HD with extensions to MPEG-2. Thus, MPEG-2 is used in HDTV, and there is no MPEG-3.

MPEG-4 is the new video/audio/streaming/etcetera standard.

http://mpeg.telecomitalialab.com/standards/mpeg- 4/ mpeg-4.htm

There are no MPEG-5 or MPEG-6

MPEG-7 is a forthcoming media metadata format. It doesn't include video compression technology. You'd still use MPEG-4 codecs within MPEG-7, or even use non MPEG codecs.

(The official link is broken right now)

No MPEG-8 through MPEG-20, at least not yet.

MPEG-21 is a multimedia authoring and delivery format. It's in very early stages, but think more like a competitor to Flash MX, writ large. We're some years from seeing products based on it.

http://mpeg.telecomitalialab.com/standards/mpeg- 21 / peg-21.htm

What file format for Theora?

[benwaggoner]

From reading the announcement, I don't have much idea what file format this is going to use. .ogg as I understand it is really designed as an audio codec/format; I'm not sure how easy it would be to add video samples to it, usefully.

If they're looking to still pick a format, I hope they do QuickTime. QuickTime's file format itself is open and documented, and there are a number of open source projects to implement it. As of QT6, QuickTime itself now has native support for VBR audio encoding, which makes it easier to do an Ogg encoder inside QT (VBR decode has been in there since 4.1).

http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/quicktime/qt de vdocs/PDF/QTFileFormat.pdf

With QuickTime support, one immediately inherits a wide installed base of players, and lots of functionality. For example, real time streaming support is availble via the open source Darwin Streaming Server. The codecs just need to have a native packetizer added.

The nice thing about implementing Theora as a QuickTime file would mean folks would have the option of using high-end QuickTime encoding apps like Cleaner for encoding, and generally letting the files work well in both the closed and open source universes.

VP3 is of course already implemented in QuickTime so doing this would mainly be a matter of finishing the Ogg port as a QuickTime codec:

http://qtcomponents.sourceforge.net/

Re:What file format for Theora?

[ianezz]

.ogg as I understand it is really designed as an audio codec/format

Read better: Ogg is designed to be a generic container for audio/video streams, exactly as Quicktime. The audio codec part is Vorbis, which is shipped inside an Ogg file, hence the full names "Ogg Vorbis".

I don't know why they choose to implement a new container instead of using Quicktime, but probably they have their reasons.

Re:What file format for Theora?

[pldms]

I don't know why they choose to implement a new container instead of using Quicktime, but probably they have their reasons.

Hmm. I wondered about this, and found this on the dev list.

From what I read the substanitve reason seems to be potential IPR problems (Apple's clause is vague, but worrying), rather than technical issues.

hth

Re:What file format for Theora?

[inquis]

You seem to be confused as to what ogg really is. Blame part of this confusion on Microsoft, who would lead you to believe that because a file has the extention .ogg and plays audio when you run it that it's an audio file.

The ogg format is a stream format, much like the avi format (published by Microsoft) is. Ogg's primary advantage is flexibility: you can embed practically anything into an ogg stream (video, audio, subtitle streams, whatever) that your player can interpret at the other end. Furthermore, the stream is fault-tolerant and should play even if damaged or incomplete.

(The ogg audio file you're thinking of is actually a vorbis audio stream multiplexed into an ogg.)

Probably the best place on the web right now to learn about video codecs and stream formats is doom9. You will also find that in the forums they are doing active research concerning a new stream format called mcf (well, actually an old stream format, I think it was specified before ogg) and a way to burn raw mcf streams to a CD a la VCD.

Doom9 also performs codec comparisons every time a company / individual / group thinks that they've produced the Latest and Greatest video codec. VP3 was obselete many months ago when it was being compared to div3 and even wmv8, both of which are suboptimal when compared head-to-head these days with div5 and xvid.

Another thing to keep in mind is that VP3's patent-unencombered state is a two-edged sword: while you don't have to worry about maybe having to pay MPEG4 license fees, you also don't have a chance in hell of being playable on any next-generation DVD player. Sure, if you're a game manufacturer and you're looking for a video and audio codec to use in in-game movies, you'll probably use an ogg file with a VP3 video stream and a vorbis audio stream; however, if you're producing video of your son's first steps that you want to throw into your grandfather's new DVD player, you'll be doing it in some variety of MPEG4.

-inq

Re:What file format for Theora?

[benwaggoner]

Interesting link. However, he says that he hasn't looked at the file format since 1996! Lots of useful additions since then. Perhaps the most relevant to this discussion was the addition of the hint track, which provides a way to turn existing files into real-time streamable files via RTP/RTSP. Ideally, you'll have a native packetizer for loss recovery, but it'll even work on older files.

Since we already have the open-source Darwin Streaming Server that can use hint tracks, this could make real time streaming an almost free win for this format.

And, of course, full VBR support for both audio and video are included in the current version.

Re:What file format for Theora?

[toliman]

On the subject of container formats, i can say (from my own opinion) quicktime is not the answer. it's not even a choice. just having Playback of a format does not mean it is a viable container format, content creation still needs to be available to anyone on any OS platform. and it has to be independent of any ties to codecs, regardless of ownership. AFAIK Apple has no intention on creating a non-proprietary format for anything, and surprise, surprise, corporate and public interests are negated in most of the available container formats. on one hand, you can name the popular formats for container files, simply because the industry is dominated by popular, working, defined standards that do not accomodate competing products, standards, or allow for these standards to change. i.e. MPEG-4 has a container format -- it's not being used yet. .MP4 is one proposed extension. The ISO MPEG-4 compliance is in flux, so yes it's available and no, there is no standard mpeg-4 hardware or a defintive specification or software to take advantage of it for all OS's. Possibly, in time, MPEG-4 might take the reign as the dominant container format, a streaming, storage content format like VOB has become for DVD, with multiple video streams, multiple audio streams, menus, chapters and interactive content. Till then, it's in flux. the established standard Microsoft's AVI file format, has come into competition, from OGM and OGG, new container formats, OGM being a imposed continer for ogg audio and video content to bypass restrictions of the AVI container. MPEG is another container format solely for MPEG audio and video, MCF is an emerging (read: in development) container format designed for RAW MODE2 writing, to encode alternative formats such as MPEG-4 (and all of it's "estranged-cousin" video codecs, such as VP3/4/5, divx3/4/5, xvid, MS mpeg4/1/2/3, quicktime 6 & 3/4, etc. and audio, from MPEG1/2/4 audio, OGG audio, VBR audio, AAC/AC3/DTS audio, WAV audio, etc.) using the older, established MPEG1/2 VCD/SVCD style formats to store data in the 'raw' 2352 byte sectors rather than the 2048 byte sectors used for data. both ogm and mcf have drawbacks, but there is a definite direction and progressive need to having a new, unique container format that isn't proprietary. while the mac platform has nice video editing suites, those without macintosh hardware are completely and utterly devoid of editing features on their alternate OS counterparts. AFAIK, there are no editors for quicktime content on other platforms that are freely available for evaluation or testing, other than to purchase. speculating that it will be created in the future is still just wildly gesticulating at hot air, and calling it "opportunity" having to export content from one container to another format to edit content is not a container format, it's a proprietary, locked container format, a subtle difference. while a proprietary container format can be useful, it is entirely without merit if it can only be stored or streamed on one OS, like Microsoft's Active Streaming File format. if Theora wants to be an established standard, i would think it be best for xiph/ogg to choose and use a TLE such as ogm, or ogv/ogg/oga (for brevity's sake) and to add more features for useful, standardised usage (i.e. combining audio/video into streaming file formats with FECC / multicast / etc, writing audio/video to 'mpeg' style file containers with 2352 byte MCF 'packet' formatting, etc). If theora can be developed and released with software to make content with the idea of becoming an open version of MPEG-4 without the prorietary nature, then it will do quite well in competition. if it looks good, sounds better, and fits more content per GB than MPEG2, it might beat divx's current de-facto hold on the video compression field.

Re:What file format for Theora?

[Anonymous Coward]

>MPEG-4 has a container format -- it's not being used yet.

Of course you're too busy flaming apple to recall that the mp4 container
is based on the quicktime wrapper, or to recall that divx 5.0 creates MP4
files.

(free clue: quicktime is well documented [wrapper spec is at
developer.apple.com] and non-proprietary [go look the word up at
dictionary.com] and was almost used as the ogg wrapper format).

Re:What file format for Theora?

[roybadami]

Another thing to keep in mind is that VP3's patent-unencombered state is a two-edged sword: while you don't have to worry about maybe having to pay MPEG4 license fees, you also don't have a chance in hell of being playable on any next-generation DVD player.

Why not? MP3 support in DVD players came about directly as a result of consumer demand, and the Chinese/Taiwanese manufacturers were happy to oblige. The big Western and Japanese manufacturers then followed suit -- and this is depsite the RIAA's dislike for the format.

Why do you think anything different would happen with Theora? If enough people want it, a manufacturer will realize that it will buy them sales to put it in their product. And with Theora, it won't even cost them anything

Theora reference

[cacktrot]

I hope the Ogg team is really geeky and the name is a reference to Amanda Pays' character in Max Headroom, Theora Jones, Edison Carter's controller.

Here's the cart, where's the horse?

[RadioheadKid]

C'mon are they serious, I'm glad xiph.org has gotten their hands on this codec, but writing a competitive video codec is much harder than writing a competitive audio codec. Video compression research is moving very quickly and I really don't think xiph.org is equipped to compete in this market, how many people do they have working for them, five? With Monty being the only one working on the core of vorbis. Sure On2 says they will help out, but as some posters have said earlier, it seems like On2 is just passing out the left-overs.

I think before they even compress on frame of video, vorbis 1.0 with spec. should be out the door. That's just my opinion, and as the replies will say, it's open source don't complain help out!

Video codec research might be moving rapidly

[Anonymous Coward]

But video codec standardization is moving at a snails pace and still decreasing in speed.

Clich�s Away

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had a dime for every time Emmett Plant used a cliché in his interview....

I'd have a least $1.30...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Vorbis

[Salsaman]

I know Tarkin was from Star Wars, but who was Vorbis then ?

Re:Vorbis

[Anonymous Coward]

A priest in one of Terry Prachett's best novels, "Small Gods"

yay! Buzz words!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yipee! Horay!

tarkin

[akb]

Tarkin was the name of one of the early kings of Rome, so its not fictional.

How to give it a chance to become popular

[Anonymous Coward]

1 - Make it decently stable.

2 - Encode a good number of movies/videoclips with it and release them to p2p networks (porn stuff will help a lot)

3 - Release -now- the player and the encoder in a userfriendly format. No CVS trees, builds or config files to edit (in Linux too).

Tell me this ain't funny....

[Anonymous Coward]

"As you know, Ballmer and these guys run around and turn red and virtually have strokes every day when people say there's some other competitive Open Source initiative."

Audio vs Video - Re:Porn films

[snilloc]

For streaming video, there needs to be a way (either from the server or the client end) to tell the 'puter which is more important to the currently playing file, the audio layer or the video layer.

For pr0n, I don't care how much the audio flakes out, I want the video as good as possible.

But if I'm watching a stream of Prez GWBush, the video is basically wasting my bandwidth and CPU cycles. I want the audio, damn it. The vid can take a back seat.

Re:Audio vs Video - Re:Porn films

[Anonymous Coward]

So what do you do when you watch that pr0n film starring Prez GWBush?

The FSF does not use (pure) GPL in cases like this

[Per Abrahamsen]

when they are trying to establish a new free format in competition with existing formats, they use licenses with fewer restrictions.

Examples: libz, the compression format use by gzip and png, which were up against compress and gif. Guile, the GNU scripting and extension language, which were up against TCL.
.

Theora?

[Sinistar2k]

What happened to Tarkin? Time to go visit the ol' Xiph site... I must have missed something...

Codec comparison

[FooBarWidget]

A while ago, Doom9 has released two codec comparisons:
http://www.doom9.org/codecs.htm
htt p://www.doom9.org/codecs2.htm

VP3 is being mentioned in the first comparison, but has been left out in the second because it's quality is almost the worst of all other codecs (next to WMV 8, which is the worst of all).

VP3 is nice, but it has to improve it's quality and speed significantly in order to convince people.

Oops, wrong link

[FooBarWidget]

The correct link to the second codec comparison is:
http://www.doom9.org/codec2.htm

What's actually new

[Julian Morrison]

...is the the deliberate agreement to weaken the patents that apply to VP3. With looming patents, VP3 was a GIF shakedown waiting to happe, and thus little more than a geek toy. Without, it becomes viable open source - and Xiph are well placed to nurture and popularize it.

magic trick

[i0lanthe]

Ogg is one
...
"Ogg Vorbis" is more than three; although "Vorbis" is two.

As you can see, I have nothing up my sleeve, and nothing in the hat; I place the e^Hogg in the hat and tap it with my wand and now --- but what's that in your ear? Aha! Nine of spades: is this your card?

Re:magic trick

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd better just put that into pseudo-math, for the slashdot readers who can't parse sarcasm.

Ogg = one
Vorbis = two

Ogg + Vorbis = more than three HOW?

Magic.

VP3 will be LGPL'd

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.vp3.com/

"License Announcement
3/27/02 - 14:00 EST Future versions of VP3 will be released under the LGPL (the Gnu Lesser General Public License, AKA the Library GPL). This decision was made to further our goals of supporting the open-source community as fully as possible, and to encourage increased adoption, contribution to, and distribution of the technology."

Because it's finally useful

[xiphmont]

Open Source's strength is in making commodity software, the software people actually *need* and *care about*, free and open... part of the infrastructure of democracy if you will. There was no truly free audio before Vorbis, because only about six users in the world had computers that could play decent audio in 1993 (when the work on Ogg began). And by decent, I don't mean FM synth or mono 22kHz.

Similarly, there was no need for Open Source video until now because... no one used computer video in any great numbers until now. Yes, yes, Quicktime has been around for a while. I'm personally not excited about the 80x60 black and white 4 frames per second stuff from 1990, and neither is anyone else.

Real and Apple pushed proprietary standards at a time when it was not at all clear that many people cared about 'multimedia', and those that did could afford to shell out big money, or buy into a single vendor. That time is quickly passing. I use both audio and video on my own boxen every day, and Mom in Ohio is likely only a few years behind me on that front, so it's time to get ready.

(Nor was Quicktime 'first', you've simply forgotten its predecessors. That has nothing to do with my point above.)

Monty
xiph.org

TruVideo a better codec for low bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been playing with TruVideo (www.truvideo.com) and it's very impressive; mostly geared toward wireless applications. Does nicely on an IPaq at 5kbps for video (and 8kbps for audio, 13 total); much better than MPEG4 at low (less than 50-100kbps) bandwidths. I think they have a few downloadable players, though none for Java yet. It appears that most people are looking at broadband, 64Kbps and up, but the real action and difficulty is on wireless, especially since no one will be delivering 64kbps in real life any time soon.