Google Discontinues On2 Flix Engine Video Encoder

trawg writes "Google have recently discontinued sales of the Flix Engine, the last remnants of the purchase of On2 that they were selling directly to users. On2, developers of the VP8 video codec that formed the basis of their new WebM video format, was bought by Google early in 2010. The Flix Engine was a comprehensive API for Windows and Linux that allowed integration of On2 encoders directly into any software product. While you can still buy some On2 products from another company, it's not clear what effect this will have on Google's ultimate video strategy."

Comments

Watch this, large tech companies

[a Flatbed Darkly]

However large/successful/influential a company is, one must always take into account whether or not the product in question is actually necessary. Codecs are a flooded market.

Re:Watch this, large tech companies

[Opportunist]

Yes, but WHY are codecs a flooded market? Because every maker of some kind of crappy hardware thinks it's a spiffy idea to create its own proprietary format(s) that only their own products may used and can be compatible with, in an attempt to lock-in potential customers.

It's especially damaging to market transparency when it's done by makers of hardware. You can already see it happen where certain (cheap) video equipment can only export what you record with it in a "special" format so only the "special" software from the maker can work with it and only the "special" DVD player from them could play a DVD made with it.

It's not that we need fewer formats. What we'd really need is fewer of those lock-in formats that serve no purpose but to force people to buy overpriced, unnecessary hardware because they have no choice.

Re:Watch this, large tech companies

[sirsnork]

FInal Cut Pro comes with an Apple encoder and thats the default format it saves in. Unfortunatly you can't get he codec (even for decoding) seperately from FCP, so the only way to read a Final Cut Movie without it being reencoded is by buying FCP.. and thats Mac only.... Apple don't even release the decode codec for the Apple platform. I discovered this a little while ago and was reminded just how much lock in Apple goes for.

Re:Watch this, large tech companies

[jo_ham]

Apple's codec is not necessarily the default - you get to choose what format you want your timeline to use, and what format you want an export to use (either self contained or reference).

Back when I was doing it professionally, we were using sony's xdcam HD format right in fcp, since we were shooting on HD xdcam gear. We also had a small group of Sony z1's that shot in HDV for little projects.

We never used apple's pro res codec, and were never forced to. If you want fcp to work in a heterogeneous editing environment then it is easy to do from a format perspective - it supports many common professional formats, as well as its own prores codec, that you do not have to use if you don't want. Even if you somehow don't pay attention and get stuck with something in that format you can use compressor to convert it into something else. Just take the generation loss as a penalty for not paying attention to what formats you were using.

Re:Watch this, large tech companies

[jo_ham]

The codec is available for both Mac and windows on apple's site. Yes, a true example of "lock in".

Re:Watch this, large tech companies

[trawg]

(Disclaimer: I'm the submitter. I've used the Flix Engine and other On2 products as part of our video encoding pipeline; I have been encoding videos as a part of my job ~6 years so have some experience with the range of software available.)

Flix Engine was for me a necessity, basically because it let me build command-line encoding tools that I could use reliably in automation, with the following benefits:

- On2/Google are MPEG-LA licensees, so I could use it without having to worry (too much, anyway) about patent issues.
- It is one of the few products I've used that can handle a wide range of input formats (with appropriate codecs) and deal with them internally in a useful manner (largely because it uses a lot of open source components).
- I found it very flexible in terms of the API so it was very easy to customise our encoder - I was just using PHP so it was trivial to make small changes to the encoding process. The documentation is great too.

There are a lot of open source encoding alternatives - mencoder/ffmpeg - but our encoding pipeline is going to a client and patent/licensing issues are a concern for me. I inquired about licensing the MPEG-LA portfolio and they sent me a beautifully printed and bound 60 page contract that is still sitting on my desk, unopened - it is just a stupid thing for a small software developer to have to deal with to add video encoding into their system.

Google getting behind On2 and getting the Engine out and cheaper (they changed the price from $4000/year or something to $200 flat rate) and their development of WebM gave me a lot of hope that they were going to be the ones that were going to fight the battle to free video. While it might seem like codecs are a flooded market, the reality seems to be that everyone in the market (commercially - not open source) is too scared to do anything at the moment in case they get sued.

I hope Google do something with the Flix Engine and this is just a part of their overall strategy to release an even more awesome, comprehensive video encoding system for the world.

Re:Watch this, large tech companies

[hairyfeet]

MP4. I had the "pleasure" of helping several customers on the run up to Xmas learn how to convert videos with this proprietary app or that, because apparently little PMPs were being pushed on sale at several retailers and everyone bought them for stocking stuffers. Nearly all were just using some funky format as a wrapper to help cover the fact they were using MP4. Since IIRC the chip that decodes MP3/MP4 is actually dirt cheap but the licenses to MP4 are not these company use funky formats to try to cover up their lack of a license.

I don't know of any BSD/GPL codec that will decode on those dirt cheap MP3/MP4 chips you get on those little PMPs, and it isn't like they have enough native CPU to decode anything that it doesn't have a chip for. Meh at least they don't make you convert the music into funky formats anymore. Either the license for MP3 must be dirt cheap or nobody gives a fuck about the license anymore, because they all had built in WMV, WAV and MP3 support, followed by whatever funky format they used for MP4.

Of course the big "gotcha" with the BSD/GPL codecs is that MPEG-LA has over 2000 patents that pretty much cover everything one has to do to get video to go from a file on a medium to a picture on a screen, so unless the guys in charge of Vorbis and Theora are willing to sign a contract saying they indemnify users of their codecs (which I doubt they would) then you are no more safe than if you just used MP4 or H.264 without a license. I'd say the only reason the guys making those codecs haven't been sued already is that no major OEMs have been pushing those formats in a popular PMP. If someone like Best Buy or Walmart were to release their own branded PMP that used those formats and took off I have NO doubt the excrement would hit the bladed cooling device. As it is now MPEG-LA simply can't be bothered to raise a stink and stir up bad will over such a tiny niche.

Re:Watch this, large tech companies

[hairyfeet]

Oh Lord, not this again. Answer me this: Exactly, give me a number here, exactly how many MPG1 MP4 files have you encountered in the wild? MPG2? Hell even the first link on Wiki when you type in MP4 ends up taking you to an article about MPEG 4 Part 2 so how much more of this completely worthless circle jerk BS do we really need?

It is as completely worthless as those that pop up with "it is GNU-Linux" or "Linux is just a kernel" bullshit. Yeah thanks a lot of that info professor, it just completely changed the entire conversation! What in the world would we do without you?

Just so we have this clear, once more from the top: When someone says "avi" they are NOT talking about a fucking RMV with a Vorbis audio file, kay? They are talking about a DivX or Xvid file. Because there is exactly one asshole in Omaha Nebraska that uses anything else, and that is just so he can enjoy his "it's a container!" BS like you. Likewise if someone says "MP4" they are NOT talking about, in any particular order, MP1, MP2,AAC, or even fricking Indeo video, kay? They are talking about what is defined by MPEG-LA, which I even mentioned in the post, as MPEG-4, Part 2. Why? Because that is ALL you will ever run into in the wild!

So can we PLEASE just stop the pedantic bullshit? If I would have said FLV THEN, and ONLY then, would you have had a point, because in the wild you will find anything and everything, from VP6 to H.26x, all stuffed into an FLV wrapper. But nobody fricking does that with MP4! Click on Nero Recode, pick MP4. What do you get? MP4-PT2. I could name another 100 converters and rippers and ALL will output down to a single app MP4-PT2 when you click on MP4. THEY get it, Wiki gets it, so why in the hell do we have to get at least one smartass "it is a container" worthless post when anyone talks MP4 or avi? Does it bring anything useful to the conversation? NO!

Re:Watch this, large tech companies

[slaingod]

Lol, I'm not 'skirting close to anything'. If anything I am saying that agencies or people that perform the agency function at companies are clueless. I mean seriously, who tries to upload a 750MB Pro Res clip to Facebook and then throws a fit when it doesn't work, and takes 2 days to manage getting a more appropriate format despite the fact that FCP is made by their own company? Oh right...they do.

I am sure the editor who made the clip was very capable, despite the Gleeful subject matter, but that doesn't mean the people upstream are, or even understand what a codec is.

Before that it was people trying to upload Apple Intermediate Codec vids for use on the web. 'But it is a MOV...it should just work!'

Re:Hmm...

[devxo]

Google didn't buy On2 for their business and software, they bought them for their technology and patents.

Re:Hmm...

[EXMSFT]

First, as the other comment said - On2 wasn't bought for products. It was bought for technology and people. Google's motives should be clear with the WebM open source version of On2's VP8 codec. Second, you're trivializing the cost and complexity required to keep a product alive and supported. It's not just leaving a product in the channel to blossom. It has to be supported, patched, and updated - and the products sold by On2 were not logical for Google to continue selling as they were - but the technology and people from On2 are hardly going to waste at Google.

Re:I hate when Oracle buys something just to kill

[icebraining]

Uh, they bought On2 and open sourced its best codec. They didn't bought On2 just to kill it. They killed a small part of the On2 product line.

Oh, and I think you mean "cue", not "queue".

Re:And all the FCP types use it all the time

[jo_ham]

They were dumb then. You have to specifically select prores - if you asked for something else they could easily provide it. FCP supports far more codecs than just that one.

PEBKAC error on their part I think.

Google doesn't sell many products

[Animats]

Google sells very little, other than advertising. If they sold something for money, customers would insist on support. Almost the only thing Google sells directly to customers is the Google Search Appliance, which is available as a 1U or 4U rackmount server. The low-end version, the Google Mini, is sold with no support and a two-year replacement warranty. After two years, you're supposed to replace the entire unit. Google tried selling phones directly, and that lasted only for five months of 2010.

So it's not surprising that Google would drop a commercial software product. They don't sell any.

Re:Google doesn't sell many products

[dubidub]

They sell Google Earth Pro and Google SketchUp Pro.

Oh, Boris ... what strategy?

[ScrewMaster]

it's not clear what effect this will have on Google's ultimate video strategy.

For that matter, Google's ultimate video strategy is unclear, quite possibly because they don't actually have one. Google is investing big money in lots of technologies, presumably hoping that one or more of them will become the "next big thing" when advertising is no longer the cash cow for them that it is now.

Re:And all the FCP types use it all the time

[jo_ham]

http://support.apple.com/downloads/Apple_ProRes_QuickTime_Decoder_1_0_for_Windows

If Vegas can use QuickTime, you can use it. Either way, you can format-convert it into something else on windows at the very least, although that is obviously suboptimal.

Re:Good riddance

[DontLickJesus]

You, my friend, are a moron. At the time digital video equipment was in a deciding moment. I personally suggested this format to a company, and it completely changed the game for them. Their storage space increased by over 10x, while resolution stayed the same. This was a vendor of security surveillance systems, and I was fired months later. The company blossomed due to my suggestion, even dropping an in-house developed MPEG codec.

VP6 was ahead of its time. It's deserved the money. Codecs involve more than web, and their development involves very specific knowledge in both high level math and computers. It's hard work that take loads of time. They deserved the money.

PS: My wife asked me to add an appendage about sucking a certain appendage.

Re:hairyfeet eats his own words (3 times)

[hairyfeet]

More like three little cries as I bitch slapped you around. Linking to your very own posts does NOT equal evidence or proof, otherwise I would simply link to the many instances I posted of me banging your mom and they would thus be "proof" that she owes me $500 for services rendered.

You know what you have to do trollie. Post your IP address as a first post on /. or show us the math proving your HOPES file can scale. Otherwise all you are doing is crying in the dark, hanging onto your your little woobie, hoping someone will listen to your pathetic theories based around tech nobody uses anymore. I find your pathetic little cries...rather amusing actually. Submit your proof trollie, we're waiting.