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BBC Wants Help With Dirac Codec
Number Ten Ox writes "According to The Register the BBC wants help to develop their open source video codec Dirac. '[Lead developer Dr. Thomas] Davies said the codec could live on anything from mobile phones to high-definition TVs but not before a lot of further work is completed. For one thing, Dirac doesn't currently work in real-time. Davies also reckons that the compression offered by the technology could be further optimised. The BBC is working on integrating the technology with its other systems, but the corporation would welcome more help in developing Dirac.' Sounds like something worth helping with."
Actually, it sounds like something not worth wasting time on. Don't we already have enough codecs, including open source ones?
Compared to many other broadcoasters the BBC has a long and excellent record of producing great programms AND embracing the web/technology.
... compared to companies like Real ...
Certainly a good 'partner' to support
What's the advantage to using Dirac over a standard?
The BBC isn't a business, and isn't trying to make money. It's a state-funded channel, and is paid for by a license fee. I think it is actually a violation of their charter to get money from anywhere else: I know they're not allowed to run commercial advertisements.
American's don't get the concept of a Crown corporation. They don't act like any other "rational business". They don't really have to make a profit, and the way most are run, making a profit is a secondary objective.
I remember the sucking money hole that was Air Canada before the government chopped it up and sold it off. All of a sudden it's a profitable business, turns out they didn't need to be sending 737s to Beaversnatch, Alberta thrice a day.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
No the BBC is NOT funded by the UK Government.
The BBC has tax (i.e. the TV Licence Fee) raising powers of it's own - and is entirely independent of funding from government.
If the BBC *was* funded by government it wouldn't be considered trustworthy. It wouldn't be the "gold standard" of news reporting world wide that it is.
Have there been any comparisons? Do we really need two fully scalable open-source video codecs?
Dirac is a next generation codec. It is also the only one using wavelets (like JPEG2000). Is there an argument for developing new codecs which compress better than current ones? Very much I'd say, unless you want all technological progress to stop here.
Also - the BBC is funded by the British government. When did they get a mandate to spend money developing video codecs.
They are a broadcasting organisation. Video codecs are very much part of broadcasting. They also did a lot of development on digital TV, which is soon going to replace all analogue TV by law in the UK. If they use this codec to put their archives up on the internet, then they certainly do have a good reason to do this development.
I don't have a problem with government-funded "arts" but this seems a bit beyond the normal scope of things
Is it? What about all that government funded science and tech research?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
If you knew anything about the way the BBC runs and operates you'd realise how dumb a comment that was.
That has to be the funniest thing I've read in a long while. I think it's even funnier because it's moderated as "Informative".
For those who don't get the joke, read the wikipedia entry for the Hutton Report.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
There seems to be a cultural difference between the USA and the rest of the Western world, in that Americans are unable to conceive a government funded entity (directly funded or indirectly via 'license' fees) that is substantially free from Government influence. Possibly because there are apparantly no such entities in the USA. But in this matter, the USA is the exception rather than the rule, with respect to democratic governments.
That comment sure shows you know what HT is.
Americans are unable to conceive a government funded entity (directly funded or indirectly via 'license' fees) that is substantially free from Government influence.
Only Americans that don't listen to NPR are under that misconception.
There was a transition in public thinking in America from the 1960's to the 1980's (Reagan was a big force in this movement) that government could do good for the public to a belief that anything the government does could only do things badly (inefficient, red tape, bureaucracy, fraud-infested).
As usual, the truth is never so simple: government is capable of doing good or evil just as much as the people that comprise it.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Personally, I'm dissappointed that the idea of using genetic programming (or related technology) to develop or improve CODECs has not, at least to my knowlege, taken off.
The problem is that the evaluation loop is too expensive. It is _trivial_ to develop a system that attempts to eveolve various mechanisms to encode data, but to iterate each generation you need some sort of way to determine the winners and the losers. If you could figure out a way to use a program to determine which was the better of two video encoding mechanisms it would be worthy of a PhD or two. The simple way to think about this is that if you could perform this evaluation with a computer you would have figured out a practical mechanism for general-application computer vision.
One possibility is to corral ten thousand or so friends and get them to view three encoded clips (the original source and the versions produced by the two population members you are testing) but keeping this up long enough to end up with a decent encoder is an unlikely proposition. Making this harder is that once your population of encoding algorithms weeds out the obviously broken solutions you need evaluators who can determine things like which codec produced the fewest artifacts and other details that would shrink your potential pool of human evaluators.
The hard part about using evolutionary computing techniques is not the evolution engine, it is all about figuring out how to test the population members your engine generates. If you do not already have a well-defined target that is easy to describe mathematically (or a test environment in which you can pit two population members against each other) you are basically screwed.
The BBC need the codec in order to save themselves a bucketload of cash in the future
Yet ironically we're moving some DHCP servers from linux to windows, plan to move the central image server from Linux/SGI to Windows/SGI and then finally Windows/Windows, have just implemented a multi million pound project, in java, but put in windows servers for most of it, refuse to consider Open Office, refuse to have Mozilla as part of the standard desktop (and you have to jump through hoops to "legally" install it), and have half an intranet that's unavailable to the (few) Mac, Linux and Mozilla users, and the entire of Research and Development.
The BBC is a large company, some sectors are run my MCSEs living up Bill Gates' ass, others are at the forefront of technology.
Well if it was commercially owned I think it would guarantee failure. The BBC's culture is quite unique and probably not particularly understandable unless you're a Brit as they're a hangover from the days of the Establishment - a belief (however pompous and misguided) in public service for the good of the nation (and who's good has always been hotly contested).
--
USA: home of the world's largest terrorist training camp.
TimoT
Do not confuse the codec itself with the designated player.
Unless the copyrights and patents in the codec itself are licensed only in conjunction with the designated player.