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Nokia Claims Ogg Format is "Proprietary"
a nona maus writes "Several months ago a workgroup of the W3C decided to include Ogg/Theora+Vorbis as the recommended baseline video codec standard for HTML5, against Apple's aggressive protest. Now, Nokia seems to be seeking a reversal of that decision: they have released a position paper calling Ogg 'proprietary' and citing the importance of DRM support. Nokia has historically responded to questions about Ogg on their internet tablets with strange and inconsistent answers, along with hand waving about their legal department. This latest step is enough to really make you wonder what they are really up to."
They don't like open standards.
From vorbis.com:
"Ogg Vorbis is a completely open, patent-free, professional audio encoding and streaming technology with all the benefits of Open Source."
I lost any respect for Nokia.
Ogg technologies, based almost exclusively on the current perception of them being
free. The current perception ? WTF ?
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
The difference here is that Nokia does not own MP3.
Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
I had a scan through the PDF document, and couldn't really believe what I was reading. They're yet another company being pussy-whipped by Hollywood and the whole DRM issue (and it has now been demonstrably proven that widespread DRM can never work), rather than looking at the realities of the technology and working out how to make money from it. This is a very bizarre section to read: Commercial Constraints of the Web and Video ecosystems: Nokia doesn't seem to understand that the W3C is not in the habit of recommending technologies as web standards that are patented and proprietary and that mean that implementation is restricted.
Digital video over the web has been severely hindered, because it is not as widespread as content available through HTML.
No other W3C standard takes into account DRM. Nokia seems to misunderstand the role of the W3C.
Non-professional sources?
I think that should confirm that this document is junk, and that Nokia doesn't have the faintest idea what it is talking about.
This is just downright bizarre.
At first, I wasn't not so sure that Nokia was concerned about keeping Hollywood happy, as they are about keeping the current status quo of proprietary video and audio codecs, additionally restricted by patents if required. However, I haven't got the foggiest what Nokia are arguing. They just seem to be squirming over Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora for some reason.
The post focuses on a single detail: the author calls Ogg a "proprietary format". This is of course a regrettable and stupid comment as Ogg, Theora and Vorbis are not proprietary in any sense. But I suggest reading the whole paper which is an interesting and valid point of view. They are AGAINST the decision of the W3C to recommend those format for Web video. They use three arguments:
1. Theora video is somewhat based on H.261 and is obsolete in regards with recent developments such as H.264 and VP8 from On2. Can someone knowledgable about Theora make any comment on this assertion?
2. De facto standard of the Web is Flash video and H.264 encapsulated in either FLV or MPEG 4 file formats. This one valid and reversing the trend seems difficult to imagine.
3. They believe are not at ease with the process of the organisations behind ogg / vorbis / theora development and fear standard forks.
The last one is partially valid also but I have to add a comment: First, Nokia has vested interest in codec developments itself (they have patents related to the AMR codec). Second one has to remind that they are phone manufacturers. It is clear that they are more at ease with the standard process developed by the ITU. And I understand them: they are not building software but they are embedding chips with hardware codec capabilities. If someone 'forks' the standard and the OSS community decides to create an alternative standard (see Torrent protocol), all the chips that they developped are toasted.
Emmanuel
Of course it isn't. But I hope you weren't under the impression that Apple is actually against DRM in principle. They're only against DRM some of the time, only when it makes them money, and only because they're one of the few companies that have woken up to the fact that they can make more money by doing away with DRM some of the time.
And that's why Apple opposes Vorbis -- because they're actually on the ball, because they've got the foresight to realise both the pros and the cons of open formats for them, and they know exactly what the consequences would be if open standards were to become dominant.
Ok after looking at the website, it is probably both. He can't really speak English and he is a nut. However, Nokia is a really big company with lots of divisions, so I would not take it too too seriously
My little Linux and tech blog
Ogg is not "equal or superior to most other codecs" because it's not a codec. It's a container file that holds content compressed using a codec.
Ogg is comparable with Apple's QuickTime container format (MOV), Microsoft's former AVI (based on IFF), Microsoft's newer ASF, the rival FOSS Matroska container, or the ISO's MPEG-4 container (MP4, based on QuickTime).
When you talk about Ogg being a "good codec," it demonstrates the kind of impractical, blind bias for free-sounding buzzword projects, which FOSS advocates are quick favor over real open standards that are accepted and established. Ogg isn't open vs closed MPEG-4; they're both open containers available for non-discriminatory licensing. The difference is that there are only some theoretical uses of Ogg and a single source of documentation and libraries for it, while MPEG-4 is in use everywhere, has support across the industry, and has wide hardware support in silicon, because the MPEG-4 container is paired with a portfolio of codecs that people actually use. Ogg also competes with other FOSS containers such as Matroska, so it's not the lone FOSS messiah at all.
Ogg's video codec is Theora, which was proprietary. On2 developed it as its closed competition to MPEG-4's H.263 (DivX) and H.264 (AVC) codecs, alongside other competing proprietary codecs from Real and Microsoft (WMV). The winner to shake out of all that competition has been the MPEG-4 standard, which includes both a container and different sets of codecs. MPEG-4 is open and supported by lots of companies, and is also supported by FOSS (x264 is among the best implementations).
After realizing there was no reason to fight MPEG-4 with a proprietary runner up, On2 donated Theora to Xiph to use with Ogg, and Xiph published it as an open specification. However, Microsoft basically did the same thing: it published WMV with the SMPTE group as an "open standard" called VC1.
If you think Microsoft's VC1--which it's using to compete against the open MPEG-4--is an "open standard," then you can also say Theora is. It's easier to describe both as failed proprietary technologies that nobody uses, although Microsoft is pushing VC1 hard in HD-DVD and in Windows Vista.
For the WC3 to push an obscure format that nobody uses as the baseline of web video of the future is absurd. It means that rather than having one set of codecs that the world contributes toward, we'll have an official joke that nobody uses decreed the "standard" while everyone actually uses MPEG-4 / H.264 (and probably H.265 by the time HTML5 arrives).
This is not a case of OpenDocument vs MS-XML, open vs closed. It's closer to a case of GPL v3 vs BSD/Apache: rhetoric vs reality. Trying to rip apart MPEG-4 and install an openly published version of a failed proprietary standard that nobody uses in its place will only hand the lead to Microsoft's VC-1 (which itself is a proprietary version of H.263). What would that accomplish?
Supporters for Ogg/Theora are voting for a Ross Perot, assuring that we'll really get a George Bush. What we really need is an Al Gore: centrist, workable, functional, capable, and proven to work.
If that analogy lost you: pushing Ogg/Theora might make you proud to have voted, but it will only distract from the industry's coalition to unitedly back H.264 from mobile devices to HD. There's far more FOSS support for MPEG-4 and H.264 than for Ogg/Theora and the rest of the outdated codecs Xiph has salvaged from the dumpster of proprietary efforts. Having wide support behind one good, open portfolio of standards will make it easier for FOSS to compete with and participate in the desktop computing world.
Why Low Def is the New HD
Origins of the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD War
ITU & ISO MPEG-4 codecs and container
Good points.
Also afaik vorbis and theora are not ITU, ISO or whatever standards, that's why they say they are propriatery.
Regarding patents, just because Monty (of Xiph, the author of vorbis) says there are no patents because they checked, there could easily be. Afaik these standard organisations explicitly ask people to say if they have patents relating to a would be standard - Xiph did nothing like this, they just hired a lawyer who did some searches.
The point about h.261 not being much inferior to theora is also mostly valid.
And as the parent said, Nokia is also concerned about the availability of content in the format that is finally chosen.
All in all, I think nokia does have a point, and I think aac+h.264 would be perfectly fine, as both are technically advanced, and at least h.264 can be implemented without paying royalties afaik.
Your nerdy protests to the contrary, ogg is an audio format. There is no vorbis.
In this world, we use file extensions to determine data type. Apple even does it now.
You think we use MIME types? Bullshit! We pretend to use MIME types. A web server looks at the file extension, maps it to a MIME type, and sends the file. Most web browsers ignore the MIME type if they have a file extension. This is good, because the web server just pulled the MIME type out of its ass. Who can best decide, a server with an old MIME database or a client with all the latest players installed? It's not as if the MIME type was supplied when the file was first created on the filesystem. No, the file was created with an extension. All MIME types do is cause inconsistency.
Ogg has a small bit of inertia as an audio format, which is good. The "best" you can do fighting that is to sow confusion in the market. What, are you trying to kill ogg? Every silly claim that "ogg is not a codec" is fuel for the competition, which you should note has a massive head start.
Did you even read my previous post? I wrote that if there was DRM, Apple wanted to control it. Real was trying to enforce DRM, using Apple's own authentication servers without permission, via an exploit in the system. No company in their right mind would tolerate that. It is one thing to allow content from another supplier, another is to tolerate a security hole and pay the bandwidth costs for another company to authenticate their DRM.
Steve Jobs came out against DRM only after Apple was approached through channels by EMI about non-DRM sales.That is actually not true. Jobs spoke out against DRM, calling it doomed to failure and unworkable, before Apple even released the iPod.
Sure, none of the labels had any objection to Harmony, and Apple was blatantly manipulating DRM to maintain its monopoly on legal digital iPod downloads, but Apple never had any interest in DRM.Apple's interest in DRM was in keeping the labels willing to supply content. Downloads have always been legal on the iPod, for other companies, Apple just has refused to support other DRM. Contrary to what most people think, Apple even licensed fairplay to several other manufacturers, mostly for cell phones. Their DRM was predominantly a counter to MS's attempt to monopolize music DRM in the first place.
After all, St. Jobs said so.*Poof* there goes your credibility. My post was explaining why Apple's best financial interests were to get rid of DRM, and you try to portray it as if I was claiming they were being altruistic. You seem to be lacking reading comprehension. Why do I bother responding to ACs?
Look, Apple needs the content from the music publishers. They are pushing to remove as much as possible, but they're rather have DRM'd content than no content at all. Apple cn only release music without DRM when the publishers agree and they have only so much influence.
No, the only goal that Apple has; is to make as much money as it can, and it doesn't care about DRM or open formats. It's all about the bottom line and the shareholders.What is wrong with people's reading comprehension today? As I said Apple wants to get rid of DRM because it makes them more money in the long term. That's the whole point. Apple makes more money without DRM, thus the argument that Apple is against Ogg formats because they want to add more DRM is flawed, assuming Apple is working to make the most money.
Don't drink the "Apple is good for you" Kool-Aid(tm)Sigh. I argue that it is in Apple's best financial interests to get rid of DRM they are probably doing that, and people respond by claiming I'm blindly in favor of whatever Apple is doing or I think they're being altruistic, despite that is exactly the opposite of what I've said.
Apple's interests coincide with ours on the topic of DRM. DRM hinders users and thus hinders Apple's hardware sales. Thus, we can benefit from Apple's interest in their own bottom line as they work to get rid of DRM. That doesn't mean we should blindly support them. In fact Ogg as part of the HTML5 spec may be the best option. Apple's objection to it may not be in our best interests, but it isn't because of DRM for multiple reasons I originally stated.
HTML5 is a very practical attempt to define additional elements and set a standard for all the things Web developers do today, but in a wide variety of ways that leads to incompatibility problems or just really complex code. I like it because when I built some XHTML for uses I needed I came up with many of the same basic tags, even using the same, fairly logical names as what they did.
I don't think anyone would argue that one common thing Web pages do today is provide streaming videos. I don't think anyone would deny that depending on the format used and the way it is embedded, different video behaves differently, not all video will play on all browsers and OS's, and it is really hard for browser and OS coders to create easy, standard ways to manipulate that video as a result. Would it be nice if the Firefox team made a way to make embedded videos fullscreen with a key press? Maybe add some translucent controls that will pop up over it when you move the mouse? Maybe allow you to right click on videos and add them to a fullscreen viewing queue that will all play end to end? Standardizing on a video format that can play everywhere is the first step to making that a reality.
Are they also going to recommend what browser I should use, what operating system I should run, or what brand of coffee I should drink?No, they're recommending the exact opposite. By standardizing on the "img" tag for embedding images or on the Ogg-Theora format for streaming video they're insuring that any OS and any browser that conform to the standards will let you view streaming video. You theoretically won't have to worry if the browser on your smartphone supports Silverlight, or if Firefox on Linux supports MPEG in a QuickTime container, or if your game console supports Flash videos. So long as they support the standard, they'll all show streaming video, which is what standards are supposed to be about.
Now I'm not endorsing Ogg as that standard and I'm not convinced it will lead to better results than standardizing on H.261. I think ignoring the wrapper component, or choosing a wrapper that cannot support DRM, might lead to the standard being ignored. I'm not sure the big players in the industry will buy into Ogg-Theora. Still, standardizing on a wrapper format and specifying Ogg Theora at least as a preferred option, might well do a lot of good for end users.
I mean, seriously, I don't see what this even has to do with html.Yeah, and implementers of the first version of HTML would not have seen what images had to do with it, since they were only supported as links and everyone was doing them differently. Times change. Browser don't generally run in a terminal anymore. A big use for Web pages these days is displaying video, and the new standard should reflect that and make it easy and uniform.
But you'd be seriously lacking in technical intelligence if you assume that file extension = media format. What codecs were used in this .avi, for example? can you tell without analysing the file?
Theora may be the product of a company, but that is not enough to make it proprietary; the question is whether the company maintains control over it as its own property. As it stands, while the company could change or supersede the current standard and people would probably follow along to the extent that the changes are reasonable, this is not owing to any special "intellectual property" rights they have, but only their social position. Moreover, if Theora was adopted as the standard, it would then be standardized by a recognized standards organization. By your logic here, the C language would have been proprietary before its standardization, yet its status at that point was the polar opposite of what is normally called proprietary (e.g., the .doc format). This is a severe abuse of language.