Dirac: BBC Open Source Video Codec

NickFitz writes "Need To Know this week has a piece about Dirac, a BBC R&D project to produce a video codec, which has been released as an Open Source project. From BBCi: 'Dirac is a general-purpose video codec aimed at resolutions from QCIF (180x144) to HDTV (1920x1080) progressive or interlaced... Our algorithm seems to give a two-fold reduction in bit rate over MPEG-2 for high definition video (e.g. 1920x1080 pixels), its original target application. It has been further developed to optimise it for internet streaming resolutions.'"

Comments

Finally!!!

[WwWonka]

BBC Open Source Video Codec

Finally a codec to convert all the dry witty intelligent British TV humor over to bland cliche' stale American TV humor!

it's open source!

[g00bd0g]

Because it's open source and being developed/supported by one of the bigger distibuters of video content on the web!

Re:Duplicating work?

[Uzik2]

Theora doesn't have a working windows codec.
Windows is most of the marketplace.

Re:WOOO... NO MORE REAL PLAYER!!

[Telex4]

We can only hope!

Though FYI this was developed by their R&D team, which is, according to a bloke behind Dirac I spoke to at the recent Linux Expo in London, quite separate from other parts of BBC tech.

I asked him about their recent OGG trials, and he said that not only did he know nothing about it, his dept. didn't even play any part or have any influence. Crazy big corporations!

A bit wary

[bsd4me]

I would be a bit wary of a codec that claims to be all things to all people, ie supporting broadcast-quality HDTV and internet-quality video

Video codecs typically have ``sweet-spots'' for resolution and bitrate. The MPEG specs work well for higher bitrate video, and we have several codecs that work well for lower bitrate video.

Also, MPEG video quality can vary from encoder to encoder. The specs only define the bitstream, and the encoder can do what it wants. This is why there is a huge difference between the quality that Media Cleaner produces versus a multi-chip hardware encoder found in a cable plant.

MPEG4?

[cybermace5]

Why would they compare it to MPEG2? In order to impress me, you'll have to compare quality and bitrates with MPEG4.

REAL codecs

[GeneticFreek]

For those who don't like the Real player, you can get the codecs and use Media Player Classic on Windows.

Check out k-litecodecpack.com.

Wavelet Theory

[Cocodude]

I went to a day at the Research and Development facility with the BBC, and saw a demonstration of Dirac.

It does look quite impressive, and for those who are interested, I believe it works on wavelet theory. Lots of information on this is provided at http://www.wavelet.org/ but I believe its scalable frequency analysis enables significantly better compression than other codecs (typically DCT based?) out there.

I think.

BBC Archive

[enditallnow]

Did you ever consider that they intend to use this for their plans to put their archives online?

The poster stated that "It has been further developed to optimise it for internet streaming resolutions" which is one way for such a thing to be distributed. Have a look here. The register states that "The BBC's new media director, Ashley Highfield, said that a P2P network will allow the BBC to handle the volume of traffic it expects when the Internet Media Player (IMP) goes live. The IMP will enable users to download or stream content to their PC, laptop or palmtop computer."

If this is the case then Aunty Beeb is well underway to providing the tools we will need for accessing their archives.

-- Enditallnow

Patents

[Kjella]

The source is licence-free, but it is not patent free. Pay MPEG LA or it's illegal. For you and every other individual out there that might not matter, but the BBC couldn't use it without paying.

Kjella

Re:Duplicating work?

[dubiousdave]

I have a feeling the codec will not have a practical use for everyday computer users

I don't know about that. I'd be rather pleased if MythTV could record twice the HD content on the same hard drive space on my computer, or, for that matter, if TiVo were to use it for the same purpose.

Re:BBC = british government

[Cocodude]

Er, BBC != british government

It's on sourceforge, and is entirely open. Its licenses, as stated by sourceforge are: GNU General Public License (GPL), GNU Library or Lesser General Public License (LGPL), Mozilla Public License 1.1 (MPL 1.1), so you could hardly say it's 'owned' by the BBC, let alone the british government.

Cocodude

Duplicating work? Not really.

[Ride-My-Rocket]

Seems like a bit of a waste of license payers money when there already a several open source video codecs (eg. Ogg Theora, 3ivx). What does this offer that those don't?

Does the current work being done on Linux seem like a waste of time and money, when there are already several other operating systems (Windows, Macintosh, Unix) available? And don't try and use the argument "but those are closed source; open source is better!" argument -- in the end, it's just software people use, regardless of the licensing / development model.

Getting back on-topic: apparently it offers the BBC something that warrants the time, effort and money required to fund such an undertaking. At the very least, it's yet another example of big companies using open-source to reduce costs and/or fulfill their own specific needs, and can only encourage other companies to fund future OSS development efforts.

Re:Duplicating work?

[Mateito]

I'm waiting for the Scottish version.

Same great compression, but when you encode video with it, all the actors end up wearing kilts, speaking with incomprehensible accents and getting into bar fights.

Re:Another one?

[Daltorak]

Well, I suppose we could use Microsoft's Windows MediGeneral Protection Fault: Access Violation 0xc0000005 in WMPLAYER.EXE, Rebooting Now ...

Bah, stupid Windows, let's try Real Player inst[BUFFERING......]ead, I hear it's mu[BUFFERING.........]ch better than it used to b[BUFFERING.........]e!

Wavelet artifacts

[tepples]

Wavelet and DCT based codecs are alike in that they both quantize in the frequency domain and thus tend to have blurring and ringing artifacts. However, wavelet ringing looks more evenly spread-out than DCT ringing and doesn't coincide with a regular 8x8 pixel grid. Compare JPEG and JPEG2000 artifacts.

The BBC patented the codec

[geeklawyer]

I spoke to one of the BBC team demonstrating the codec at the London Linuxexpo. They said that the BBC had patented their codec although I was told that they have no real interest in patents. It was said to be a defensive patent whch they implied to me that they would not enforce, however the person I spoke to didnt know the details of the patent or its licencing scheme so it's a little unclear to me how this is going to work.

They also said that while they had no objection to paying licensing fee's per se, and that they did pay MS and Real, these were so inflexible in their licencing that scaling up operations was problematic. Their expressed hope was that with such a codec widely adopted they could massively scale up operations such as streaming without being crippled with licencing costs, or having the administrative burden of unwieldy licensing schemes.