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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.
Analysis can be found here. Comparison pictures to other codecs are included.
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.
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.
Unfortunately the patent system is so broken there just is no way to authoritatively declare anything patent-free.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
The trouble is even that wont give you an authoritative answer under this screwed up patent regime. So yes it's a fair assumption that both Theora and WebM have been thoroughly checked out by legal. It's also a fair assumption they found some patents that might appear to apply to them (this will be the case for anything you do) and that legal concluded those patents were invalid and would be defeated in court were they asserted. It's a fair assumption that the holders of those patents would have already asserted them if their own legal teams did not concurr that the risk of invalidation was high. But until and unless they actually go to court, no one can know for sure.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
You, sir, obviously dont have a clue what you are talking about. For starters, flash isnt even a codec. You're comparing a container to a codec, that's not even apples and oranges, that's apples and boxes.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Well, if streaming media has proved *anything* over the years, it's that the general public doesn't care if the compression ruins the work as long as they can play it for free.
Reference the following:
* RealMedia
* Most Youtube videos, "fan reposts" aka re-encodes, and re-re-encodes
* Low bitrate MP3
* JPEG (ok, it's not streaming, but still - "needs more JPEG artifacts")
* Screeners, cams, and foreign translations from the DIVX Discount Theatre
* Webcams
* Most QuickTime videos
* Most AVIs
* Most streaming video on Flash today
* Cable and satellite delivered HD content
Really, the only thing you need to say is "free" and people will at least give it a try.
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.
Most video codec patents revolve around implementations of the discrete cosine transform, Huffman coding, chroma sub-sampling, and bilinear interpolation. All of these techniques are older than the patent examiners who approved the patents and indeed the judges who will try the cases. It's all mathematics, every last bit. These patents are all essentially equivalent to patenting the tetrahedron.
There is nothing the USPTO will not give a patent for. As such, there is absolutely nothing in the universe past or present which can be declared patent free wherever the authority of the USPTO is recognised.
May the Maths Be with you!
Free Software projects are not likely to be a target in this particular patent battle. Patent lawsuits are expensive, and Free Software projects are unlikely to have the resources to make them workable targets. After all, how do you prove millions in damages from a project given away for free? More importantly, there are plenty of well-funded entities with an interest in protecting Free Software projects in general, and these codecs in particular, from patent attacks. My guess is that if you were sued by MPEG-LA (or whoever) for using of VP8 or Ogg Theora that there would be plenty of companies with deep pockets that would be willing to help pay for excellent legal representation.
You don't honestly think that Google will allow MPEG-LA (or Microsoft, or Apple) to get a precedent setting patent case against some piddly Free Software project that was merely using VP8 (or even Ogg Theora) without at least offering world class legal assistance? It doesn't matter who gets sued over these codecs. Google is going to make sure that whoever it is that gets sued has the best lawyers that money can buy. Suing a Free Software project just guarantees that the patent holders suing 1) look like horrible thugs in front of a jury 2) limit the amount of damages that they can ask for (because the Free Software guy is likely to be much poorer than Google).
In short, there is no upside to suing the little guy, only downside. So if there is a lawsuit it will be against Google, and MPEG-LA (or Apple or Microsoft) would have to be desperate to get to that point.
Talk, on the other hand is cheap. I fully expect a FUD-storm very reminiscent of the one that Microsoft leveled against Linux. Just because Microsoft, Apple, or MPEG-LA say that there are problems, however, does not mean that they are willing to risk a patent war with Google, and that's what it would take to actually back up any threats.