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More On The BBC's Codec 'Dirac'
TioHoltzman writes "El Reg is reporting about a new codec that is built on top of wavelet technology and seems to offer performance that is "roughly in line with the Video Codec 9" from Microsoft. The project has been released as open source on SourceForge. This looks like it might be really interesting." (Previously mentioned a few weeks back.)
Call me a zealot, but I think things are better off open source, doubly so in the case of codecs. I mean, it's a media encapsulation. If a codec is open, then the potential for cross-platform success is much better. Potential for profit may go down, but I'm talking innovation, not wallets.
Only the purest of souls seek enlightenment. Everyone else just wants power.
But the BBC isn't the government - it's public service broadcasting at its best (though it's not as good as it might be, since it feels the need to justify the license fee by playing the ratings game and filling the schedule with mindless drivel). The BBC has been at the forefront of broadcast engineering development since the 1920s, and I'm happy to see them contributing to the world once more.
And the top rate of income tax over here isn't 50%, it's 40% - I wish it was 50% for high earners, then perhaps they'd have less disposable income to push house prices beyond the reach of the rest of us.
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
Most of them patent's will be in the US. So they don't matter. No offence to our american cousins on the 'dot, but you so often hear about "this is illegal under the DMCA" or "The've been granted a pantent from the USPO for this" or "The RIAA will come and take your first-born for this" or "The FBI will be busting down your door under the Patriot Act right about now...". It doesn't matter if they have got 'rights' under the DMCA for something because for 96% of humanity, the DMCA is a piece of meaningless toilet paper. No offence to our american friends, as I said, but as this is from the BBC, it only matters what's been done here in the UK. Until that un-democratic european nightmare inflicts more total garbage legislation onto us in the form of software patents and we get our very own version of corporate fascism. Then we'll all be stuffed.
Looks interesting though. I think a lot of people ignore or marginalise the beed, when they've come out with a hell of a lot of innovation in their time. Let's hope this is one of the 'biggies' that they're responsible for.
Firstly, the BBC is a much, much, MUCH bigger mass marketing machine in the UK than Microsoft will ever be. This codec is being paid for by every household in the UK that owns a TV set, because we're the ones who pay close to US$200/year for a license which goes directly to the BBC. The BBC are open sourcing it, but the archive project everybody is talking about will only be available to the UK audience for free, and post-Hutton might not happen at all (it was a Greg Dyke baby). So, let's see - if it does happen, the entire BBC back catalogue being made freely available in this format to the entire UK and you think this format will fail? Quite frankly, what planet are you on?
Secondly, IE "won" the browser wars because it was the best browser. It still is. The reason? Developers still code to the IE "spec", not W3C. In addition it's page loading/rendering speed and start-up is much faster than Mozilla. Simple fact, live with it. Mozilla is exactly what OSS is not supposed to be, particularly on Unix - it's 100% bloatware. Even on my 'nix boxes I have IE running under WINE because it's better.
Your last two paragraphs completely miss the point of the codec. The BBC is not releasing this for Linux users. They're creating an open format that they still control. They want us to put the time and effort into making it perfect so that everybody can share it. This has always been the way the BBC has worked from technical innovation through to it's creative stance - it gets the people who pay for it, involved in it. They do not care if the implementation makes Linux more viable - they will take any codec work and deploy it for the UK masses on windows. If they decide to release that particular build of it to you for free, be grateful.
Mark my words, within five years DIRAC will be bigger than MP3 is now.