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Mozilla, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Others Form 'Alliance For Open Media'
BrianFagioli tips news that Mozilla, Microsoft, Google, Cisco, Intel, Amazon, and Netflix are teaming up to create the Alliance for Open Media, "an open-source project that will develop next-generation media formats, codecs and technologies in the public interest." Several of these companies have been working on this problem alone: Mozilla started Daala, Google has VP9 and VP10, and Cisco just recently announced Thor. Amazon and Netflix, of course, are major suppliers of online video streaming, so they have a vested interested in royalty-free codecs. They're inviting others to join them — the more technology and patents they get on their side, the less likely they'll run into the issues that Microsoft's VC-1 and Google's VP8 struggled with. "The Alliance will operate under W3C patent rules and release code under an Apache 2.0 license. This means all Alliance participants are waiving royalties both for the codec implementation and for any patents on the codec itself."
That is all...
As much as the industry needs open codecs, if Apple refuses to support whatever they create (like the last three or four similar projects), this project is likely to be stillborn.
Look at all these defensive shenanigans.
With our powers combined, we are Captain Codec!
Can we assume they are also lobbying to abolish the concept of software patents? Or we looking at another honeypot that will be taken private, like a couple of those famous 'community' databases?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Stupid bugs/nuances with the main codec implementations are a pain in the neck. Hopefully if it's open there will be decent *reliable* libraries out there that any idiot can use to write a 'camera' driver for their phone, together with *lots* of testcases to test the damn camera as well!!!!
emphasis intended. Fed up with the amount of piss poor implmentations of camera/video recording drivers on many Android/Apple/etc/etc/etc phones. Basically, they're all sh1t.
If they can call themselves Open but not be, than I can call myself Horde.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
they ain't stopping with just one.
Somehow I expect something named "Alliance For Open Media" to turn into some hideous new DRM scheme that clutch your gonads in fists of iron. With age comes incredible cynicism.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
There was some industry group that would suggest/recommend best practices in the form of "standards."
Oh wait...how was Microsoft involved in that earlier group again?
anything they produce will be a) NOT purely free and open source software, b) NOT be absolutely free from the burden of patents, and c) WILL BE corrupted by closed source DRM...
so.. basically, its just business as usual and this is just some fluff PR piece
MPEG LA sues?
Media codecs are literally a patent minefield and even the likes of Microsoft or Google will have tough time breaking through the established monopolies.
Oh it'll be Open, for sure....conveniently packaged with built-in DRM controls.
Were they included out of pity?
Call me cynical, but I don't trust a coalition backed by any two of these players much less all seven of them at once. This partnership will only result in tighter Digital Restriction Management, more un-blockable advertising, less freedom for consumers, and more tracking of our every move.
Why the desire for a new codec now? Isn't h.264 good enough?
And how long before Microsoft uses a "slight modification" from the open standard, which will make everything incompatible.
Google will work with Netflix and Amazon to produce whatever that triumvirate wants, and Mozilla and Cisco will just be along for the ride. (I notice Microsoft isn't even listed here; they don't have anything even vaguely resembling any market power here, since the only platform of consequence they control is IE, and they know it.)
Poor adobe. *gives huggles to adobe*
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Possibly they see new alliance as defense from those mines.
You sue us with phony patents, Alliance will answer with hookey dokey patents of their own.
In brave new world of codecs everyone will stay inside their walled gardens(because mines) and there will be peace finally(or at least until someone turns greedy)
https://xkcd.com/927/
See subject - says it all for me (along with yourself)...
APK
P.S.=> You're not cynical - you're sensible based on past histories of those companies, ala/e.g. -> http://www.businessinsider.com...
... apk
"...next-generation media formats, codecs and technologies in the public interest..."
In other words, probably another DRM format, this one likely in an attempt to make it look like they're trying to be cross-compatible with open source and free software and point to it as an example of OSS being uncooperative when nobody wants it.
I think most of the posts are correct that this has come about because of the over reach of h265 patent holders' demands for money. I have to assume that they can change their licensing terms at any time though. If it looks like they are losing business, it would make sense for them to drop their prices, just like any business venture would.
If the cost of using h265 suddenly drops to the range of using h264, I have to think that at least the speed of progress would slow for the open solution(s). I have to believe it's really hard to create a codec that is performant and doesn't (arguably) infringe on alleged patent rights. At some point, some of the companies in this alliance may decide it's not worth the cost of doing more development if it's just as cheap to pay mpegla (or whomever) to use h265.
I really think that it's good news that this is happening because of a business decision in addition a moral decision. It makes it a much easier sell to the PHB, but as business situations change, business decisions must also change. I really hope that there is enough conviction in this project to overcome issues that have kept previous solutions from following through.
MPEG standards (like h.264/AVC and now h.265/HEVC) are the best.
Isn't it easier for the "alliance" to pay MPEG to open their standards rather than make inferior alternatives that may not even be completely patent-free?
This is only for video. For audio, free codecs are actually really good, except maybe for multichannel. But considering how much lower audio bandwidth is compared to video, it doesn't matter as much. For stereo music, you can reach transparency with a well-encoded 256Mbps MP3 and maybe down to 128Mbps with state-of-the-art codecs. In fact the trend seem to go towards lossless audio, where the codec matters even less.
I hate the ongoing assumption that "media" just mean "internet TV".
Anyway, this appears to be specifically about developing a legally-free video codec. Anyone who's skeptical that it can be done should be pointed to the previous similar project to develop an audio codec: opus, which has been done, successfully, for a couple of years now and was developed in a similar fashion by a similar coalition of companies (and driven largely by Xiph/Mozilla's work as looks like this video codec will probably be, with input from other relevant tech). Opus is extremely successful technically (I don't think there is any other general-purpose lossy audio codec - free or proprietary - that opus doesn't handily beat), and has been moderately successful in the market (uptake by forward-looking developers was fast, Google supports it, Cisco supports it, and even friggin' MICROSOFT has committed to it now...)
My only complaint about opus so far is that Google's webm-only video fixation keeps them from remembering to support .opus audio files often. Android "Lollipop" and later has native opus codec support but still doesn't recognize .opus files as media. (VLC for Android does, though...) Chrome had a long delay in getting opus audio enabled for the same reason. Jerks. (Chrome does support .opus now, though, and has for a while).
If work on the video codec goes anywhere near as well for this coalition as it did for Opus audio, it ought to be very successful. Maybe more so, given that much of this coalition was also involved with opus and perhaps have learned some useful lessons on how to run projects like this.
(Admittedly, that's still an "if", but I'm actually optimistic here.)
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
They're advocating for open media for them, not for the consumer. They want to find a way to charge consumers money for crippled media without having to pay anybody for the technology.
Why do we need new codecs? I'm genuinely confused and would like to understand.
Is it an issue of patents and royalties? I know I've been watching videos on my computer since about 1995. The patents on those codecs should be expired. Also, I use a lot of Linux and open source and have since about 1998. I can still play videos. If those codecs are patented and closed then who paid the royalties to make that open source software possible? Is patent violating software being openly distributed while nobody does anything about it? And if so then why do the patents even matter?
Is it about quality? Can't pretty much any codec support arbritary resolution, color pallets, frame rates and compression levels? i would think that the same old codecs would keep working and content providers would just tweak those parameters as computers become faster, storage larger and user's internet connection bandwidth greater.
Is it that different mathematical algorithms can compress the same quality of data into a tighter package? If so then how do we even know that? If such algorithms are already known then doesn't that define our new format already? If not then have mathmeticians via information theory have somehow shown that better compression is possible but the current task is to figure out how?
The only problem I have ever had playing a video is DRM. I don't see new formats somehow convincing the industry to drop DRM though. Without answers to these questions all I see is that old XKCD comic about standards.
Thanks for any thoughtful answers!
The only open way into a viable future is OPEN
Open source and royalty free existing codecs...would be much easier, quicker, and apparently makes way too much sense. Instead we have a loose conglomerate of competitors that each create incompatible codecs that probably will only be supported in their browser. That those are then open source and royalty free doesn't matter that much.