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Theora Development Continues Apace, VP8 Now Open Source
SergeyKurdakov writes "Monty 'xiphmont' Montgomery of the Xiph Foundation says the latest action-packed, graph- and demo-clip-stuffed Theora project update page (demo 9) is now up for all and sundry! Catch up on what's gone into the new Theora encoder Ptalarbvorm over the last few months. It also instructs how to pronounce 'Ptalarbvorm.' Ptalarbvorm is not a finished release encoder yet, though I've personally been using it in production for a few months. Pace on improvements hasn't slowed down — the subjective psychovisual work being done by Tim Terriberry and Greg Maxwell has at least doubled-again on the improvements made by Thusnelda, and they're not anywhere near done yet. As a bonus Monty gathered all Xiph demo pages in one place."
Also on the video codec front, and also with a Xiph connection, atamido writes "Google has released On2's VP8 video codec to the world, royalty-free. It is packaging it with Vorbis audio, in a subset of the Matroska container, and calling it WebM. It's not branded as an exclusively Google project — Mozilla and Opera are also contributors. Builds of your favorite browsers with full support are available."
An anonymous reader points out this technical analysis of VP8.
As far as HTML5 Video goes, a new upcoming Flash will make things even more interesting and mix them up. The final version of Adobe Flash 10.1 supports P2P to reduce the bandwidth costs for site owners. It works out of the box too, so users can still get the video normally streamed, but it will seriously lower bandwidth usage and hence costs for video streaming sites. This same P2P feature also works for both on-demand and live video aswell as Flash based multiplayer games.
Live streaming should have some common specs too, but P2P streaming requires such to be made into the standard so it works for all. It's a quite large feature for site owners too, since it dramatically lowers bandwidth costs.
I don't think we will still see Flash going away, even if we at some point can even decide about the codec used for HTML5 Video. There's still too many features Flash has that HTML5 Video doesn't support at all.
I, for one, welcome our new open codec overlords.
Woohoo! Much good will come of this.
And all you closed, patent encumbered codec trolls: please go away now. Your services are no longer required.
The project is also backed by hardware partners such as AMD, ARM, and Nvidia. "Hardware acceleration is extremely important." Sunder Pichai, Google vice president of product management (From TheRegister link).
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Analysis can be found here. Comparison pictures to other codecs are included.
Read the blog post. Needless to say, this is astounding.
Google says it holds certain patents on the VP8 video codec that is part of WebM but there's no assurance that Google's patents are the only patents required. What about patents that third parties could assert? While it appears to be a nice gesture if a major player releases software on open source terms, it's imperative to perform a well-documented patent clearance.
Developers should be provided with detailed explanations why Google believes that no one adopting WebM will have to fear allegations of patent infringement. Otherwise those developers might be exposed to considerable risk. It wouldn't be possible to check on millions of different patents but at the very least I think Google should look at the patents held by the MPEG LA pool as well as patents held by some well-known 'trolls' and explain why those aren't infringed. Programmers have a right to get that information so they can make an informed decision for themselves whether to take that risk or not.
It's not unreasonable to ask Google to perform a well-documented patent clearance because they certainly have the resources in place while most open source developers don't.
The situation surrounding Android shows that Google might opt to stand on the sidelines if those adopting its open source technologies -- such as HTC -- are sued by patent holders. I can't find any promise on the WebM website that Google would come to the aid of third parties adopting the technology, so Google should at least help everyone to assess the risk.
We all know Steve Jobs' recent email in which he said a patent pool was being assembled to go after open source codecs. So the patent question is really a critical one. Also, this in-depth analysis by an X.264 developer shows that VP8 and H.264 are so similar that the risk of patent infringement could be substantial.
I have previously called for this kind of patent clearance, in connection with the open source Theora codec as well as with VP8, here on slashdot as well as on my blog, such as in this post.
http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/?p=377
They don't seem that impressed. It is less robust than H.264, in some places seems to outright copy it. Google is offering no patent indemnification (from the article: "this is a patent time-bomb waiting to happen.")
They give it credit for being the best open source format out there, but they fault it generally in every other category.
OK, I get that Ogg and Theora and Vorbis, etc., are interesting geek in-jokes. They are also horribly crappy product names. You and I might have no problem with them, but I guarantee that 95% of non-geeks will dismiss "Ptalarbvorm" as stupid and confusing without ever evaluating it. Pro-tip: if you need a pronunciation guide, then you desperately need to pick a better name. Yes, better, as in "the current one sucks and should be taken out back and shot".
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
WebM is available under a new license. So far haven't been able to find out whether Google will try to get this license OSI-approved.
So if you want to see who is watching a given YouTube (or porn site) video, just watch it yourself, and then watch your network while the flash player is still active.
h264 vs theora vs webm vs flash
this is dog balls
h.264 will win and you know it's true.
Here's a contrary point of view, with video.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Yet Another Codec, both Gratis AND Freedom ?
Supported by a fuck-ton of companies ?
- among which not only the major player which made better the modern web as we know it (All the companies mentioned in the summary. Basically anything beside Microsoft)
- but also several hardware industry backers (like major such as ARM, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments) ?
(We can expect a "WebM accelerated on embed chip's GPU+DSP" Google Summer of Code poping up this year...)
Well, thank you Google ! That's pretty much good news !!!
Only question : How will be the HTML5 standards organised ? Will it be possible to mix and match the various codecs (Theora, VP8, ...) with the various containers (OGG, Matroska, ...) ? Or will it be specified only as defined combination (WebM = Matroska + VP8 + Vorbis ; ??? = OGG + Theora + Vorbis, H264 = MP4 + Mpeg 4 AVC/h264 + AAC) ?
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
It doesn't produce the same quality, or else produces the same quality but require 1.5 times higher bitrates. Although it probably is better than Flash, and would be a good replacement for that.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
What about patents that third parties could assert?
It's Google for cricket's sake. Check this new (hypothetical) addition to the Google Search TOS: "You agree not to sue a user of any video codec based on VP3 or VP8 for violating any patent that you claim is essential to implementation of such codec." Even if that wouldn't fly, Google still has a load of patents with which it can countersue any third party that isn't a pure-play non-practicing entity.
Ignore the troll.
On the one hand we have a detailed point by point analysis of the spec and screenshot from an upcoming encoder comparison featuring different video formats with encoders set up to provide maximum quality that can be replicated by anyone. On the other hand we have On2 marketing material.
Seriously you want me to believe in the latter?
Some journalists, bloggers and Twitter users appear to have misconceptions regarding the way Microsoft Internet Explorer will support WebM.
It's certainly very positive for Internet Explorer users that they can play WebM video/audio provided that they have a codec (meaning, a plug-in) installed. That's what the Windows Team blog states as a technical requirement.
However, that just means flexibility for MSIE users and isn't a major breakthrough for WebM/VP8. Internet Explorer has always allowed plug-ins and I don't even know if it's ever tried to block one. So this isn't the same kind of endorsement of WebM/VP8 as if Internet Explorer came with WebM support on board. If that happened, it would also mean that there aren't any remaining concerns over patent issues. But that's not what has happened.
Keep in mind that you can also view H.264 with Firefox if you have a plug-in. The net effect of the whole HTML 5 video situation is that plug-ins will continue to play a role.
I would take the X264 dev's opinion over the company that originally designed the format... The X264 dev also posted screenshots of their results, and VP8 did not turn out very impressive.
Not to mention, On2 (who again, designed VP8) offers no technical analysis, while the X264 dev did a code level analysis.
I'm not saying the X264 folks won't have bias, but at least they're more neutral and did a spec level review.
Google still has a load of patents with which it can countersue any third party that isn't a pure-play non-practicing entity.
No, Google isn't a patent powerhouse. Its patent portfolio is only a fraction of the size of Apple, for an example, and even Apple isn't extremely big compared to some others. Look at this analysis, for an example:
In a recent investor note from Deutsche Bank, analyst Chris Whitmore compares the patent libraries of Apple, Google, and HTC. What he found was that in the past few years, Apple has been issued 3,000 patents, Google has been issued 316 patents, and HTC has been issued a measly 58 patents.
Also, if Google had the ability to do this, why would they stand on the sidelines when Android adopters such as HTC are being sued or when royalties are collected from them?
So can somebody clarify a few things related to html5 video for me? The video is encoded in one of these formats correct? ( H.264, WebM, etc). Then in html5 it is introduced into the page via some sort of video tag. So, if I'm using a browser that supports WebM, I still need it to support H.264 if I'm browsing a site that has videos encoded in H.264. Is this correct? So what is really the big deal about html5 vs playing video with a plug in? Just one less process running on the computer in favor of an additional browser process running (or a more bloated browser process)? Are the benefits that we now get tighter integration with the browser interface so you can now scale video or do weird stuff like rotations ala the firefox demo? In other words, is this really any different than, say, building quicktime playback natively into the browser rather than needing a plug-in? I understand that html5 offers a lot of new functionality but the video part of it seems unnecessary beyond removing a plug-in unless I'm not seeing something. And in some cases you still need a plug-in if your favorite browser doesn't support a certain kind encoded video. Thanks for any info.
But that's a good thing. Google in fact holds patents on it. Why is this good? Well they give people a license to use it, free of charge. However the license is revoked if (and only if) you file a patent infringement suit against VP8. So this means if someone sues them, they can no longer implement VP8 in their products in any form. Also, since Google has patents, they have those to fire back with. If the patent filer infringes on any of those, they are in trouble, again since the license to use them is revoked.
Basically, there really isn't any harm. I mean yes, Google could take away the ability to get new licenses at some point if they wanted, but that's true even with no patents. However as the license stands you are free and clear, and they cannot revoke it, except if you file an infringement lawsuit over VP8.
That's nothing. Take a look at the very end of http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/theora/demo9.html where he says the release after that will be named... Eyjafjallajökull.
Honestly, you've got On2 on the side supporting VP8 and X264 on the of h.264. Neither side seems to be free of conflict of interest.
Put identity in the browser.
Look at this comment slightly further above, "The idea of Google countersuing isn't realistic."
I guarantee that 95% of non-geeks will dismiss "Ptalarbvorm"
People won't call Theora 1.2 "Ptalarbvorm" any more than they call Windows Vista "Longhorn". Referring to software products by their version codenames seems to be restricted to Debian (e.g. lenny), Ubuntu (e.g. Lucid Lynx), and Mac OS X (e.g. Snow Leopard).
Don't you think On2 is just a bit biased? In every other direct comparison I've seen, the MPEG4 AVC (x.264) was better.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Pro-tip: if you need a pronunciation guide, then you desperately need to pick a better name.
Tell that to the authors of the PNG spec: "'PNG' is always spelled 'PNG' (or 'Portable Network Graphics') and always pronounced 'ping' in English." Yes, that's "ping" as in "Snooping as usual, I see".
PCMCIA - People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms
And SCSI was SASI! Or was that the other way around? I think I remember wet SCSI being able to hot mount disks.
Sex sells!
[UID-HeinzIntel]
The WebM license consists of two portions: a copyright license and a patent license. The copyright license is identical to the 3-clause BSD license, which is already OSI approved.
At work, we've been looking for a non-native, open source encoding library for a week or so now and can't really find anything. Do any of these have a non-native library available? (preferably Java. If not, we might port it). Even FMJ and fobs4jmf only seem to have decoders and even so, there are no examples on how to set it up without using JMStudio or a derivative of a manual setup or installation package.
We can't seem to find any useful examples of anything anywhere. It's great to hear about new encoding plugins etc, but if nobody can find a way to use them as standalone libraries (multi-platform is best. aka Java for us) then it's difficult to back. And not having examples on how to implement make a lot of these packages almost useless as they never seem to be user friendly...
-SaNo
From #x264 of course I'm not neutral. but I'm not biased in favor of h264 ...
I'm biased against on2.
Bless you.
The quality seems to be ok but I couldn't figure out if it is possible to view the videos in fullscreen.
Here's one that works with HTML5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTNBwIAY9Zo
Ahh Whoops didn't notice that it filtered Dark_Shikari from that post due to the brackets, should read From x264 Dark_Shikari:of course I'm not neutral. -- Dark_Shikari: but I'm not biased in favor of h264 ... --
Dark_Shikari: I'm biased against on2.
He's playing PCB Lunatic, I'd trust him with the Internet.
But... the future refused to change.
I would take the X264 dev's opinion over the company that originally designed the format...
Although I agree that you can't quite trust the company that designed the format, and that the analysis by the dev is pretty detailed, I disagree that I would necessarily "take the X264 dev's opinion over" it.
The website is X264dev.multimedia.cx, after all.
My guess is the dev is probably at least somewhat emotionally, intellectually, and/or financially invested in X264. It's like reading a critique of Java from a website entitled csharpdev.com.
I'm not saying their opinion is invalid or even not useful, just that I would take it with a big grain of salt.
Far too happy... Need new pants...
and the x264 people aren't biased? Please. They specifically state that those comparison shots aren't even at the same bitrate. Useless comparison.
Yeah, because it's completely unlikely that someone like the x264 dev, who is heavily invested in H.264, might be biased...
Clever signature text goes here.
Of course. A guy who has a crapload of money, time and resources invested in H.264 obviously isn't biased in favor of it...
Clever signature text goes here.
Let me get this straight. Old is not necessarily good and new is not necessarily better. Bearing in mind correlation != causality. I'm sure a Russian Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods could come up with something for old Koreans that will generate ... profit!
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
As one of the comments on the page points out: "Although the spec if *final*, the encoder/decoders are just preview releases. It is silly and naive to make comparisons on an alpha preview. From the official website,
“Note: The initial developer preview releases of browsers supporting WebM are not yet fully optimized and therefore have a higher computational footprint for screen rendering than we expect for the general releases. The computational efficiencies of WebM are more accurately measured today using the development tools in the VP8 SDKs. Optimizations of the browser implementations are forthcoming.”
Also, why just accept a 264 dev's opinion of the specs? Why not look for yourself?
http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.webmproject.org/en/us/media/pdf/vp8_bitstream.pdf
That video demonstrates the hallmark of On2 video encoders - they blur detail they can't encode. This is a nice trick that makes things look better at low bitrates where none of the codecs can encode all the detail, and would instead look blocky. However, this blurring tends to mask the fact that they aren't encoding as much detail as the other codecs. This becomes very obvious as the bitrates increase. On2 encoders remain blurry while others gain more detail.
That is why all of On2's promotional material uses low-bitrate examples. It is also why they hype their PSNR numbers - that is an image quality metric which does not always match human perception of image quality, and tends to favor blurred images.
Different VP8 encoders could be written that choose to optimize for detail rather than smoothness, but there is a limit to the amount of detail that can be preserved by the nature of the format. Jason's argument about the lack of adaptive quantization killing the ability of VP8 to match H.264 is pretty compelling to me.
Guaranteed patent-free: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto
Copy anything you want except the trademarks.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Intel.
Well all I see is a single hand picked frame in the analysis.
Why doesn't he include variety of real video clips?
Your link was a refutation to a rant written by Mans Rullgard. This was written by Jason Garrett-Glaser, and it is very objective. How about you base you judgment on the quality and validity of the assessment rather than guilt by association?
You are right, the VP8 file has a 5% higher bitrate than the H.264 and Theora files.
Intel is not an MPEG LA Licensor. They don't have a dog in this fight. They'll come around.
Or they won't, and they'll bear the consequences of attempting to stifle this real progress. Their choice.
Once the majority of online video content is transcoded and the majority of users support an open codec, I can see a business case for deprecating H.264. It costs money to store data in multiple formats, and H.264 encoding licenses aren't free for commercial use.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Sounds like a Klingon insult.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
"give us your bandwidth or no cookie".
That's no different from a private BitTorrent tracker that requires users to maintain a ratio.
The analysis of VP8 is fantastic and very well written, except for a cut-and-paste of an IRC session that provides additional information.
Way to make yourself look like an idiot.
...Sanyo...
It doesn't matter if the Hello Kitty plush toys are H264 enabled or not.
What matters is that the actual maker of chips embed found in 99.9% of multimedia hardware like smartphones (the various ARM based chips), are endorsing this and will probably roll out some for of hardware acceleration or another.
The only valid point for h.264 vs. other codec ("it's supported in hardware accelerated form on embed chips, and in portable widgets, every saved watt counts") will become moot.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
> They specifically state that those comparison shots aren't even at the same bitrate. Useless comparison.
I'd like to politely suggest you learn to read. They stated that bitrate is identical.
Look at the files on http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/?p=377:
vp8.mkv - 17479998 Byte (actually a raw stream, not mkv)
x264.mkv - 17111109 Byte
x264baseline.mkv - 17213488 Byte
ptalabvorm.ogv - 16909836 Byte
dirac.mkv - 17439049 Byte
vc1.mkv - 17436535 Byte
xvid.avi - 17616424 Byte
As you can see the filesizes and thus bitrates are pretty close. Actually, VP8 even had slightly more bitrate in this comparison.
They aren't talking about making VP8 a part of HTML5 standard *yet*.
Yet = the keyword.
And if VP8 is supported by Firefox (a good chunk of desktop machines), Opera (a good chunk of embed systems) and Google (one word : Youtube), there's a good chance that it will be on the recommended list of codecs.
Even more so as the makers (ARM, TI, Qualcomm...) of the most prolific chips on portable media widgets such as smart phones are on the same bandwagon.
Suddenly the h264 vs. Theora flameware (quality + hardware support vs. patent licensing problems + opensource) becomes moot.
(As VP8 is a modern era codec, and will probably improve to levels in the same range as h264,
chip-makers can roll out hardware acceleration, probably GPU+DSP based,
and Google will grant free patent license for opensource implementation)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Suing a Free Software project just guarantees that the patent holders suing 1) look like horrible thugs in front of a jury
Which is why a sufficiently large patent-holding company will pay its lawyers big money to find a way to get a judge to pass summary judgment on as many issues as possible before the jury even hears the case.
2) limit the amount of damages that they can ask for
Practicing entities don't necessarily want damages; instead, they want an injunction so that they don't have to compete with free. Sometimes this can be as easy as a cease and desist notice, as it was with ASF demuxing support in VirtualDub 1.3 series.
What do you think all those links labeled 'source' (right next to the links to the png files) point to?
when i read a name like "theora" or "thusnelda" or this latest abomination "Ptalarbvorm", i can't help thinking that the various ogg codecs might be more successful if they didn't have such DUMB names.
Firefox has support on a branch with open bugs and ongoing effort to merge it into trunk which will then flow into SeaMonkey and other Mozilla/Gecko based browsers.
Chrome is getting support.
Opera is getting support.
What will the others do?
Will Google support VP8 on Android?
Will Microsoft support VP8 in IE9?
Will Apple support VP8 in Safari? (and Safari Mobile?)
Not to be blind to issues that VP8 may or may not have, but a still shot isn't a great indicator of how the video looks over all, especially when it comes to a moving shot. I'd really like to see that exact test in motion for the codecs.
Hmmm, considering Adobe's record of using Akamai's P2P client as part their Download Manager, which you have to use to download stuff from their store (or did at one time anyway). The thing runs in stealth mode, and I'd venture to guess that most users who have it installed don't know that they do, and don't know that they may *still* be sharing their bandwidth long after they downloaded their Adobe product.
Basically, I'd be fine with it so long as they give users a true opportunity for informed consent (not bury some sneaky clause in a EULA), AND give users control over how much bandwidth is used/when.
For example, if my laptop is connected off a 3G card, I don't want to share *any* bandwidth. And if I downloaded some content a week ago, time's up, I'm not sharing that thing anymore. And if I'm playing a lag-sensitive game, I don't want some background P2P client mucking with my bandwidth.
The fact that Adobe is putting this P2P stuff directly into their Flash player is problematic unless they do a *much* better job than in the past of respecting the fact that the computer and its bandwidth belong to the user.
But if somebody does want to get into a patent fight over codecs, I imagine that some targets are less attractive than others.
Google? Would some lawyer want to bring his patents into court against Google? There can't be a company on Earth better prepared to find prior art to invalidate any plaintiff's entire patent portfolio than Google. They're Google. They index the world's information. It's what they do. It wouldn't surprise me if Google had prior art on trellis quantization based on translation of Olmec temple ornamental carvings.
Lawyer fights are usually such dry, boring drawn out things that they don't get much attention. That, though? That would be such a one-sided brutal crushing of the plaintiff that if it were televised I'd like to pay-per-view it.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Speaking of retarded monkeys... Why the fuck is the parent modded as a troll, exactly?
I doubt it will work with Google. If you want to look for prior art on some patent, where are you going to look? Yahoo? Bing? Google has so well served searching for information that their company name is now the verb for that activity. Anybody who thinks theres a current patent that can't be defeated by prior art is kidding himself. If you're Google, there's always prior art. Even Marconi's radio patents were invalidated eventually in favor of Tesla - who was dead by then.
Google paid $133,000,000 for On2 and they didn't just buy their VP8 Codec, they bought the entire company including customers, patents and cross-patent licensing agreements that date back as far as the early 1990's, engineers, executives and lawyers. Google got an awesomely good deal here - the price of On2 was severely depressed below its true value by the market conditions, which is why wise companies save up their cash in good times by the way. If there were a better company to buy for video encoding, who would know that better than Google? Google is Google. They know stuff. On2 by itself has a long history of mergers and acquisitions - it was once valued at $1B. On2's VP6 was selected as the Macromedia Flash 8 video codec. VP3 was the basis of Theora. In 2005 Skype licensed the On2 codecs, all current and future versions. It was licensed by AOL. Even Microsoft has licensed On2 technologies since 1997. Oh, and China. China's big, right? China's DVD format is based on On2 codecs.
If the H.264 patent licensing consortium MPEG LA (Founded, 1996) wants a fight, I think Google's got a fight for them and Google's loaded for bear.
So we've got On2 codecs and technologies used in Flash, YouTube, China, Microsoft's video, and vastly many others over a nearly 20 year span. It's endorsed and supported by ARM, AMD(ATI) and Nvidia. Um, this one is completely over. The guy that thinks the On2 codecs are derivative of H.264 may be reversing his entropy arrow, but really it doesn't matter any more than the squeaking of a mouse blocking a tank tread.
We've also got a proponent with deep pockets. Google turns a profit of $2B a quarter. That's $22M a day, 7 days a week. They can afford some good lawyers, and lots of 'em. Maybe all of 'em. And that's not considering they have enough cash on hand to buy Kansas. They can afford to keep up the good fight forever without so much as an entry on their SEC forms. They can be stubborn, too... who walks away from the China market? Stubborn and well funded does not a good troll target make.
Somebody might try to get an edge here, but to steal a Star Wars quote: "These Federation types are cowards. The negotiations will be short."
Or not... this is the sort of epic "Clash of the titans" legal brawl I'd like to see play out on groklaw, now that the SCO thing is pretty much over.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
You're wrong though. Html5 is "good enough," and maybe it can be secured - Flash can't for sure.
Adobe had best recognize that they need to move quicker, they need to secure their stuff, and they need to learn who their friends aren't. They have to this fast, or they're going to be bickering on the sidelines with the duck-billed playpus and the Baiji Dolphi over who went extinct first.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
On the one hand we have an X264 developer POV. On the other hand we have an On2 POV. I don't want you to believe either of them. They are by their positions biased in obvious ways. I want you to look for yourself and make up your own mind.
In the end though your opinion doesn't matter. Google has many billions to defend their codec. VP8 is open source, patented but a free patent license to all as long as you don't sue. The codec compresses video to an acceptable level, and the decoder presents it well at any relative resolution. Compared to the blocky presentation of low-bitrate H264, I prefer the blurry VP8 because the blur is less distracting to me than the blocks. Check it for yourself. The On2 codecs go back in time as far, or further, than the H.264 licensors (MPEG LA). Google is Google, and patent lawyers are well advised to not mess with a company whose mission is "index the world's information". Google's depth of information gathering is so much deeper than what one would consider "due diligence" that the common usage seems but a shadow of their use. One must consider that they dug down in their trove of information before dishing out $133,000,000 for On2.
So no, I don't want you to believe anything. I don't care what you believe. We'll have our open codec and there's nothing you can do about it. Thanks, Sergey.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
If you want to look for prior art on some patent, where are you going to look? Yahoo? Bing? Google has so well served searching for information that their company name is now the verb for that activity.
Stanford has a patent on using the principal eigenvector of a document link graph to rank documents, exclusively licensed to Google.
Anybody who thinks theres a current patent
The PageRank patent doesn't expire until 2018. I imagine Google controls other key patents, but I have other things to attend to at the moment.
that can't be defeated by prior art
Show me some relevant prior art for PageRank, and I'll believe you.
Well, it certainly is a contrary point of view... :P
I am not devoid of humor.
The real question is, if by obtaining(buying) other companies, does google hold the patients that H.264 is already using. In that way, copying code would be perfectly reasonable. IMO, that win/win for google, they would still get royalties from MPEG LA as well.
Publish your implementation, then wait 20 years to use it. The product needs to be described in the public 20 years ago to be guaranteed prior art.
You seem not to understand how smartphone CPUs are built.
Yes, I do.
ARM does not make CPUs, they design CPU cores
Hence ARM based chips in the post you're replying to and not ARM-made chips.
And hence the mention of ARM together with TI and Qualcomm in my top post to whose response I was responding.
One of these other components is the bit that handles H.264 decoding, typically something like a C64x DSP.
Well. Sort of. ARM also provides the NEON SIMD CORE which can be integrated into the chip.
And a hypothetical hardware accelerated VP8 may or may not use NEON, in addition to DSP (as does the hardware Theora acceleration which is NEON+DSP), GPU (very likely as PowerVR are among the OpenCL proponents, and Nvidia is even supporting VP8) and dedicated core (not very likely but could happen if WebM gets that popular).
The only company that makes ARM chips on the list is Qualcomm. Other big players, like TI and Samsung, are absent.
Read again. Texas Instrument, the makers of the OMAP series of SoC, which has a mammoth market share in the embed world, is listed in 4th position from the bottom of the list.
(As is also Nvidia which - some predicts - could play a significant role in upcoming the ARM-powered-netbooks market share)
So, as I was saying in my top post, with ARM (the design maker), TI and Qualcomm (the biggest chip makers) you pretty much cover 99.9% of the phones.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]