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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.
So... who's Theora? I know Vorbis was head torturer of the Omnian Inquisition in Small Gods, but I don't know a Theora...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
I can't figure out whether or not it would be good for the Ogg codecs (Vorbis and Theora) to be supplied as standard on loads more media devices.
:(
Part of me says "Yay - supply it on everything"
whilst another part (probably somewhere in the brain bit) says "if these things gain a wide use too fast, the RIAA will bully their way into making them illegal somehow"
I'm NOT schizophrenic BTW
Well, with the amount of time they're taking I would certainly hope it would be as good ;)
But seriously though, they have this to say on the subject: As the Ogg Vorbis format has gained acceptance, components have become available to play Ogg files on practically all of the major media players. We expect a similar if not superior level of support for Ogg Theora.
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
-Xenocrates
Isn't mpeg open source/standard? Sure, mpg is big, and not good quality. What about divx (;? Really, i'm not sure how much better this new video is supposed to be, other than being "open source." Can someone explain why this is going to be so much better? Mod me down, but mod up the replies!
from the license
Under section 8 of the GNU General Public License, the copyright
holders of XVID explicitly forbid distribution in the following
countries:
- Japan
- United States of America
I agree, one of the most underrated projects out there :)
...) -- what I think would be better (for many people, not all) is a simple schedule / record / pause / playback system. Maybe something which, if these things were all beers, could be called "MythTV Lite."
However, no, I'm just imagining something much simpler. MythTV is complicated to set up (which makes sense, considering it's a complex, full-featured thing
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
The RIAA cannot make tools like codec's illegal. It would be like outlawing screwdrivers because they might get used to hotwire a car. While technically true, there are far too many legitimate uses for the tool.
Ogg Vorbis is used in mainstream games like Unreal. There is no reason to expect the game industry wouldn't go with Ogg Theora for video as well. As long as it's stable and performs well, why would game developers opt for non-portable proprietary solutions?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The RIAA cannot make tools like codec's illegal. It would be like outlawing screwdrivers because they might get used to hotwire a car. While technically true, there are far too many legitimate uses for the tool.
While quite true, the discount with which cartels like the RIAA and MPAA can purchase our ostensibly "elected" officials is appalling. The bottom line, the could outlaw just about anything they like, as they have already done so with security reporting and many forms of reverse engineering through the DMCA, which the aforementioned cartels are now trying to encode into international law, thereby making any legislative reform impossible.
As for legitimate uses, the most interesting one for me, personally, is the ability to create and distribute my own videos in a free and unencumbered format, using free software, to anyone anywhere. Blender animations, shorts, even home made feature length films are an exciting possibility, not to mention of course the ubiquitous home videos of mom, pop, and the kids.
The MPAA fears the loss of the cartel by independent artists. In a few short years we'll be able to generate LOTR quality movies on our home computers, and likely there will be free software available (e.g. blender plugins like 'Make Human' and other enhancements, povray, etc.) that will be available as well. Any talented write with a good script will be able to get together with a few friends and make a movie to shame anything from Hollywood and potentially market it direct via the internet.
Goodbye media cartel.
Which of course is the real reason the MPAA (and the RIAA, within their context vis-a-vis mp3) are so hysterical. It isn't about the illegal copying, which has been going on since the days of the cassette tape, it is about controlling artists' access to their marketplace, and our political "leadership" (I use the term very, very loosely) is complicit and likely quite knowledgable in this. Why else would the FCC be so eager to allow further consolidation of an already oligopolistic media? Because it is easier to apply pressure and suppress dissent with only a few players than it is with a few thousand (as was the case 20 years ago) or a few million (as will be the case if the Internet and independent media are ever permitted to realize their potential).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Prices for commodity goods aren't set by the cost of manufacturing those goods. Prices for commodity goods are set by what the market will bear.
Sorry, but you're wrong. In a great many cases, competition drives the price down to cost+1, or even below cost, if there's another means to recoup losses... for example, phones are a loss leader, and it's easier to add features to a loss leader if the loss is less. If the cost of adding the feature is too high, it just doesn't happen at all.
It's free now. You need a license only to make and distribute an encoding or decoding device.
Wrong again. MP4 is NOT free. You pay to encode, you pay to decode, you pay for devices, you pay to distribute content. Read the docs over at MPEG-LA.
Where a profit is available to be made, somebody will go out and make it.
Exactly. Requiring payment of licenses to outside parties raises costs, and reduces profit. The profit line hit's zero, the device is never made.
Prices for these things are completely disconnected from video format patents.
So, you're saying that increasing the cost of the product for the manufacturer does not increase the cost of the product for the consumer. Care to substantiate that?
You've typed a great deal, but you don't seem to have any intelligent arguments (no offense). Perhaps you should think of some before you reply next time?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Actually, the corporate world, especially European companies, are looking to MPEG-4 as their future format of choice. The cable industry has already agreed to switch to MPEG-4 for digital cable (in the vague future). MPEG-4 is becoming the standard format for cell phones via 3GPP.
A lot of this has to do with maturity. You can actually buy interoperable, commerical MPEG-4 solutions from a variety of vendors today. Also, MPEG-4 supports real-time streaming over lossy networks. And it has profiles for everything from cell phones to HD. There's at least 100x more work into MPEG-4 than Theora.
Of course, Microsoft's Windows Media 9 is even farther along in maturity in many ways, and certainly has strong technical advantages over MPEG-4 if Windows 98 or higher is the exclusive playback platform. It has better compression efficinecy, and much better scalability over real-world consumer internet access.
It really depends on what you're trying to accomplish.
My video compression blog
If you want a cool utility to index and search metadata from ogg vorbis files (and other files), try Scopeware Vision.
we'll certainly be moving away from MPEG-2 when we move to HD DVD
Good point. I hope Theora 1.0 is finalized before HD DVD players become common, so there is some hope that all the HD DVD players will play Theora discs too.
Apple picked AAC-LC instead, even though they have to pay a fee, as part of their general support of MPEG-4.
Why, do you suppose? I'd guess two reasons:
0) They need to pay anyway, for QuickTime, and the added expense on top of that was considered small;
1) They liked the DRM options for AAC-LC.
Personally, I doubt Theora will get a lot of uptake by corporations. Its openness advantages are unlikely to overcome its disadvantages in maturity.
I'll be content if it just gets included onto lots of players. I don't feel a need to crush and destroy the other formats, but I would like to see a completely free format supported by all the popular players. If nothing else, it will keep the license terms reasonable among the non-free codecs. (I wonder if Apple threatened to use Vorbis for their music sales, to get a better licensing deal on AAC?)
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely