Interview With BBC Dirac Developer Thomas Davis

arclightfire writes "The subject of the BBC video codec Dirac has been here before, but we've managed to get an interview with Thomas Davies, Senior R&D Engineer at the BBC who devised the Dirac algorithm. Interesting to note that the codec should be with Mplayer soon; "As far as players go, we'll be submitting a patch to Mplayer to allow it to play Dirac pretty soon." And info about the tech developments in Dirac; "I used tried and techniques, like wavelets, which weren't in standards at the time, and tried to develop them. And that's what we'll continue to do as the algorithm develops. So we've tried to build on some pretty well-understood technology, and also tried to do some new things with it. We're patenting the new stuff, quite a bit of which hasn't got into the software yet. The license means that these patents are licensed for free within the Dirac software.""

Comments

Now...

[Pig Hogger]

How long before he'll be offered a juicy job at Microsoft or Apple???

Great codec, awful name

[YetAnotherName]

Especially from a British developer ... I mean, he could've gone with something like "The Cybermen Codec" or "The Sontaran Codec" or at least "The Dalek Codec" ...

Re:Great codec, awful name

[savagedome]

I would definitely take a suggestion for name from somebody whose id is "YetAnotherName". Yup.

Re:Great codec, awful name

[AKAImBatman]

"Always Look on the Bright Side of the Screen"

US media won't use it

[calculadoru]

...because it rhymes with Chirac.

Re:US media won't use it

[calculadoru]

It's DIE-rac, not dih-RAC

Sorry about that one then.
I still don't think the US media will use it, because it rhymes with (the bizarre way they choose to pronounce) Iraq .

Re:No jokes about Wendys?

[Resident Maniac]

No jokes about Wendys? What the hell, where are all the slashot humorists?

In Soviet Russia, Wendy's jokes about Slashdot humorists! =P

They could at least write it with ResEdit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Like Adam recently did with his latest incarnation of Adam's Platform....
... or so he told his board yesterday!

MWC

I think the Dirac project is fantastic and is a good example of public money being used for the public good.

what?

[squarefish]

the BBC working with software?

did they have anything to do with python?

Re:what?

[UserGoogol]

Oh wow. I had absolutely no idea that there was once a comedy group named after the Python programming language. And in 1969! Those cats were ahead of their time.

Dang, now when they invent the FTL telephone...

[argent]

Dang, now when they invent the FTL telephone they won't be able to call it the Dirac Communicator, 'cos everyone will think it's some kind of MP3 player!

Another SF classic (Cities in Flight) shot down by careless scientist types. Goldarn it!

network television

[Doc Ruby]

The BBC has an R&D department that builds video codecs. In the states, we've got PBS which makes a new muppet every 10 years, and ABCNNBCBS, which came up with projecting a yellow bar across the football scrimmage line in the 40 years since introducing color TV. That's why America is leading the media revolution!

Re:Interesting...

[mikael]

That's the easy bit :)

Your mission, if you decide to accept it, is to catalogue 80,000 hours worth of pixel colours in movies and video so it can be searched by location, actors, presenters, producer, camera operator, sound operator, objects, clothes, sky, clouds, landmarks, time, direction, events, astronomical, geological, geopolitical events, age and anything else that a producer may want on a whim at 5.30pm, 30 minutes prior to presenting the evening news.