Ogg Theora Alpha 2 Released

An anonymouse reader writes "After almost seven months, another alpha release of Ogg Theora is finally out. Still not production ready, but it's certainly showing some progress." The world needs a free video codec. Looking forward to seeing where this one goes.

Comments

release

[frieked]

Yeah, it was supposed to go beta 2-3 months ago...:
Ogg Theora was scheduled to go Beta (that means the bitstream is locked down, and all features are represented) in March of 2003. Obviously, that's slipped. Alpha 2 is going to be released shortly; but please remember that until Beta, there is no promise that files you encode will be supported in the final release.

But when will Theora be done you ask?

From the site: We nominally expect to be finished by the end of 2003. VP3 is a very mature video codec, so most of our effort is going into the Theora project.

Re:Theora?

[meringuoid]

Oops, careless of me: I should RTFFAQ before posting silly questions :-)

Q: Why the name 'Theora?'

A: Like other Xiph.org Foundation codec 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.

XviD?

[Kopasape]

"The world needs a free video codec."!?

What about XviD?

"XviD is Free Software (licensed under the GNU GPL), open to all contributions, its only aim is to stick to standard compliance."

http://www.xvid.org

Re:XviD?

[powerlord]

Yes, the XviD software is freely available, however it is an implimentation of the MPEG-4 standard which may/may not be patent encumbered.

The true legal status of XviD is currently grey (not that this would currently stop me from using it).

Theora is specifically "Free" both in terms of code availability, AND in terms of not being Patent encumbered. A fine idea to have, although I'm not expecting any great shakes in immediate adoption.

Remember all the hubabaloo surrounding L.A.M.E. http://lame.sourceforge.net/ sepcifically #5 on the technical FAQ.

5. Does LAME use any MP3 patented technology?

LAME, as the name says, is *not* an encoder. LAME is a development
project which uses the open source model to improve MP3 technology.
Many people believe that compiling this code and distributing an
encoder which uses this code would violate some patents (in the US,
Europe and Japan). However, *only* a patent lawyer is qualified to
make this determination. The LAME project tries to avoid all these
legal issues by only releasing source code, much like the ISO
distributes MP3 "demonstration" source code. Source code is
considered as speech, which may contain descriptions of patented
technology. Descriptions of patents are in the public
domain.

Several companies plan on releasing encoders based on LAME, and
they intend to obtain all the appropriate patent licenses. At least
one company is now shipping a fully licensed version of LAME with
their portable MP3 player.

Note that under German Patent Law, Â11(1) a patent doesn't cover
private acts with non-industrial purposes. Probably interesting for
developers is that a patent doesn't cover acts with experimental
purposes, that aim at the object of the patented invention (Â11(2)).

They aren't sure and its legally grey. For the private individual to play nd tinker with it is probably okay, but not for corporations or other non-personal (or money making) projects. Its nice to have a non-patent encumbered alternative, wether we ever have to use it or not.

Re:Benefits?

[dmaxwell]

The formats you mention are patent encumbered and full access to the official specs (MPEG4) are under fee and NDA. Yeah, you can use 'em and and even code implementations but those implementations exist under a shadow. Divx is basically MPEG4. Free implementations are legally gray at best.

The benefits are primarily legal. Ogg codecs are intended to be fully legal to implement and use freely.

Release notes, a warning, and a mirror

[cultobill]

First, allow me to whore a bit...

---start whoring---
[ June 9, 2003 - Theora alpha 2 release ]

The libtheora reference implementation has reached its 'alpha 2' milestone. A lot of bugs have been fixed and new features added, including all the planned changes to the bitsteams format.

This is more of an internal milestone than a public release, but we are making a source tarball available for convenience. Nevertheless we recommend using the cvs version if possible. This release also requires cvs libogg and libvorbis to compile; you might try the cvs nightly tarball if you don't already have these checked out. You will need to build and install the 'ogg' and 'vorbis' modules.
---end whoring---

Note that it's not a user release, but a developer release.

Finally, here is a mirror, to help out with their bandwidth costs.

Re:Another one out there

[TheRaven64]

"The world needs a free video codec."
And what is xvid... swiss cheese?

No, XviD is an implementation of MPEG-4, which is encumbered by patents. The code for XviD is free, but you can't compile and run it without a license since it uses patented algorithms, and you can't get licenses on an individual basis.

Re:Excuse me?

[spinkham]

The implementation is free, the codec algorithm is not.
To actually use it, you legally have to pay money to patent holders.
Theora is totally free and patent unencumbered(as far as we know so far anyway ;-)

Re:Part of a live ISO PVR?

[brunes69]

You want real time encoding, live guide features, ability to pause live tv, automated recordings, a unified enironment for MAME, DivX, DVD, MP3, Slideshows, and web browsing? What about the ability to control and schedule recodings via a web interface? Or the ability to edit recorded programs on the fly to remove commercials etc? What about automated DVD / DivX description info from IMDB as soon as you load it up to play? Oh, plus picture in pucture, and the ability to distribute the encoding load across as many machines as you want..

Look no further than MythTV. It's only been in development for a year and it has all this and more. IMO this is the most under-celebrated open source project there is. Its amazing, makes Windows Media Center look like a hunk of garbage.

Re:xvid

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't cost money, but it's still using a patented algorithm and you can't legally use it without a license.

Re:OGG

[Sunnan]

It's been done at least once. I'm looking forward to more hardware-based players since I don't like the battery-eating of software+ARM players.