Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Sun Developing Open Media Stack

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the shine-it-up-and-call-it-new dept.

Graftweed writes to share that Sun is working on a new open video codec called Open Media Stack (OMS). OMS video will be based on H.26x technology and promises to deliver royalty-free open video. This certainly isn't the first attempt at an open codec, hopefully Sun will decide to add something to the table beyond just their name.

5 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Just their name by DennisZeMenace · · Score: 5, Funny

    > hopefully Sun will decide to add something to
    > the table beyond just their name.

    The *Java* Sun Open Media Stack ?

  2. Xvid by TheGreatOrangePeel · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...uhm. not only is Xvid an "attempt" at an open codec, it's arguably a success. I use it for just about all of my encoding, andyway and it's certainly more of a success than Theora.

    1. Re:Xvid by Cajun+Hell · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's only successful from a technical perspective. The patents keep it underground. If anyone with money tries to use Xvid, they'll either have to license the patents, or they'll be in court. Xvid is useless to Sun and their customers.

      --
      "Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
  3. Seriously? Why? by rmdir+-r+* · · Score: 5, Interesting
    What's wrong with existing solutions? Xiph has a pretty good container format, and a codec comparable divx/xvid, while the BBC has recently finished Dirac, which is not quite ready, but which has the advantage of being:
    • Patent and royalty free (the BBC worked very hard at this)
    • GPLv2, LGPL, MIT or MPL licensed reference implementation
    • Finished: the bitstream has been frozen, etc. Integration with container formats isn't quite there though.
    • Better than h.264
    So why is trying making a patent-free h.264 clone worth the time? You are certainly duplicating effort, and we already have solutions.

    NIH, perhaps? Too many bored engineers?

  4. Re:Alas, another flavour by setagllib · · Score: 5, Informative

    Except that Sun's work is based on h261, because it's so old that no patents can possibly apply to it any more. Dirac is a current/next-generation codec that's also royalty free, and certainly a lot closer to completion than Sun's offering. The FAQ for OMS considers Theora and Dirac as friendly competition, which is fair enough, but really, why not just put more talent into Dirac?

    --
    Sam ty sig.