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

Fighting a losing battle

[The_reformant]

I realise that free (as in speech) sound and video formats are a good thing but it seems that certain formats, particularly mp3 are now more or less ubiqoutous (sp??). I mean how many people pick up their 128meg solid state ogg player in the morning??

Re:Fighting a losing battle

[forkazoo]

The fact that you don't start the battle as a winner is no reason not to fight it.

Many people create their own content. I consider it much more entertaining than just being a consumer of content, even if my content isn't as flashy as the Matrix or Britney Spears. Because of this, the ability to have free tools to work with is a big deal. I don't care if we never see a movieflix.com movie download site from the MPAA with exclusively Theora content. That isn't the point.

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.

Oh, and the guys who are interested in video compression have an interesting toy to hack. That's one step geekier than I currently am, but guys decided to make something cool, and they have done it. Isn't that enough? Why does it have to be a battle. Minix wasn't a battle. Fighting wasn't why it was written. But, because it was more open, and assorted Fins could gain access to the source code to see how things worked, they were able to make some sort of Leenoooks clone with help from the tooth fairy. It doesn't matter than minix didn't win!

Re:Fighting a losing battle

[The_reformant]

meh, im tired of these..ive got such and such which plays ogg. Your missing the point. Most people dont know what the hell ogg is.

Your "Ogg player" is described thusly on the product webpage :- "The first MP3 digital audio computer built to manage, broadcast, and expand your digital music world. With Neuros, your digital music experience keeps evolving"

Why? Because only a hand full of people use ogg, its part of the mental snobbery and one upmanship that is ridiculously prevalent in this so called "Community". Why dont you guys quite being such dorks and join the real world? When you hand over that wicked track on cdr to your mate down the pub theyre not gonna think "Wow! this guys smart, he's using a free (as in speech) audio format, what a swell guy!" Rather theyre gonna think, "oh crap i hate it when that guy whinges on about that younixks thingy i'll just smile and bin the cdr without bothering to find out how to play it"

Wow that was a long rant!

Re:sigh.

[Azrael Newtype]

While this is true, it's always possible that we'll come up with something a bit better in the file size/quality ratio. I mean, look at XviD vs DivX. But, that doesn't mean we all have to jump every time a new codec hits, but considering the success of the Vorbis codec for audio, it's a bit sad to see another ogg bite it.

What is with the compression ratio?

[xiphy]

Will Theora codecs ever be as good as MPEG-4 ones? Or we have to wait for wavelet based codecs to have a patent free good format?
IIRC the MPlayer lead developer (Alex) said that he reckons Theora will never get close to MPEG-4.

Uses for Theora

[SeanTobin]

Reading the posts, it seems that people are missing a major use for Theora and even Vorbis.

You know all those games you have that use MP3 for music? They had to pay a fee to do so. You know all those games you have that use bink video for cutscenes? They had to pay a fee to do so.

Now they don't. If there is a free alternative of comperable quality, the developers will use it instead of paying a $25k technology licensing fee. And the companies that don't will end up priced out of the market.

Re:Oh, this will be modded as flamebait...

[dasmegabyte]

Well, the reason Microsoft includes codecs for download on their site is that the codec producer paid them to do so. They're not giving away bandwidth just because it's cool.

If you want to get DivX, Theora, Ogg or WHATEVER in WMP, you'd have to pay the same price Intel does. It's not impossible, and if it's important to the community to do so, have a project manager get in touch with Microsoft and we'll start a collection.