Theora I Bistream Format Frozen

p80 writes "The Xiph foundation announced today that the 'Theora I bistream format is now frozen,' even though Beta 1 is not out yet and encourage people to try it as 'there's no reason to delay adopting a free alternative any more!' Mplayer and Xine both support Theora. For Windows users, Directshow filters for Ogg Vorbis, Speex, Theora and FLAC are available here. You can get test cases here and transcode Quicktime movies to theora on that page." This freeze, as an anonymous reader puts it, "means that all future versions will support the format as it is now. It will be interesting to see if there is as much uptake for this as there was for the Vorbis sound format."

Comments

Re:Fighting a losing battle

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Because of this, the ability to have free tools to work with is a big deal.

QuickTime is already free. Anybody who wants to can use it to create their media, using any number of high-quality industry-standard codecs.

Whatsa problem again?

As long as I have access to tools that aren't encumbered by patents, and I can do whatever the fuck I want with them. As long as Fraunhoffer or MS controls things, it means I can't be certain about what happens to my content tomarrow.

Yeah... except no. You've got the encoder. You've got the decoder. You're safe, I swear.

Fucking idiot.