Mplayer Adds Sorenson v3 To the Linux Roster
prmths writes "mplayer now plays sorenson V3! This is the last major format that was unplayable under linux and it has now been conquered!
They also added the 2xsai algorithm for video scaling. This will let you increase the resolution of non-photo-like videos (anime/cartoons) by 2 times -- it's not a blurring algorithm -- 2xsai actually guesses edges and fills in the pixels."
Actually similar types of things are done for audio resampling. You use different algorithms to guess at what the new samples should be. It sounds much better than just duplicating the old data.
Actually it's much more akin to the texture anti-aliasing done by graphics cards, but still.
This is the last major format that was unplayable under linux and it has now been conquered!
Codeweavers have been willing to sell you a product that allows Quicktime playback for ages. The only real advantages the new mplayer code offers are it being integrated into a more generic media player, and it being free as in beer. You're still stuffed on non-x86 platforms.