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.)

Comments

Re:New codec?

[Eric Smith]

Agreed! Imagine if there were several patented forms of written language, and you were required to buy special licensed reading glasses that decoded your book. You'd need different glasses for each publisher, and you would not be allowed to make your own glasses, nor to publish your own books without licensing a special publishing system. The idea sounds so outrageously unreasonable that no one would be willing to put up with it, yet this is exactly what Microsoft, Apple, Real, and the media companies are doing to us with digital media.

Everyone should read Stallman's essay The Right to Read. When I first saw it, I thought it was so implausible that there was no need to worry about it. But since then I've observed much of the groundwork for this dystopia being laid. It is absolutely vital that consumers be educated to reject commercial technologies that take away their rights (including fair use), and instead prefer free and open technologies such as Dirac (assuming that it doesn't run into patent problems).

Any connection to their archival project?

[ejito]

BBC to Put Entire Radio & TV Archive Online

Spam Vikings await.

Would YOU solve the Dirac equation?

[Anonymous Coward]

(This is an excerpt from the book 'Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!' and is for everyone here who has, or hasn't, heard of Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, the namesake of this new codec. It also conveniently fits in with the two articles about Japan that made their way onto Slashdot today.)

While in Kyoto I tried to learn Japanese with a vengeance. I worked much harder at it, and got to a point where I could go around in taxis and do things. I took lessons from a Japanese man every day for an hour.

One day he was teaching me the word for "see." "All right," he said. "You want to say, 'May I see your garden?' What do you say?"

I made up a sentence with the word that I had just learned.

"No, no!" he said. "When you say to someone, 'Would you like to see my garden?' you use the first 'see.' But when you want to see someone else's garden, you must use another 'see,' which is more polite."

"Would you like to glance at my lousy garden?" is essentially what you're saying in the first case, but when you want to look at the other fella's garden, you have to say something like "May I observe your gorgeous garden?" So there's two different words you have to use.

Then he gave me another one: "You go to a temple and you want to look at the gardens ..."

I made up a sentence, this time with the polite "see."

"No, no!" he said. "In the temple, the gardens are much more elegant. So you have to say something that would be equivalent to 'May I hang my eyes on your most exquisite gardens?'"

Three or four different words for one idea, because when I'm doing it, it's miserable; when you're doing it, it's elegant.

I was learning Japanese mainly for technical things, so I decided to check if this same problem existed among the scientists.

At the institute the next day, I said to the guys in the office, "How would I say in Japanese, 'I solve the Dirac equation'?"

They said such-and-so.

"OK. Now I want to say, 'Would you solve the Dirac equation?' -- how do I say that?"

"Well, you have to use a different word for 'solve,'" they say.

"Why?" I protested. "When I solve it, I do the same damn thing as when you solve it!"

"Well, yes, but it's a different word -- it's more polite."

I gave up. I decided that wasn't the language for me, and stopped learning Japanese.