Theora Development Continues Apace, VP8 Now Open Source 312
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.
HTML5 video (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [torrentfreak.com]. 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.
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Re:HTML5 video (Score:5, Insightful)
P2P with the new version of Flash? Yupp thank-god for Flashblock.
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User can agree or disagree to participate in it
Towes explained that Stratus users will first have to agree to participate in a P2P-enabled Flash swarm, similar to how they are now asked to indicate whether Flash can use their webcam. If users do not want to share bandwidth, the broadcaster has the option to offer a regular stream, a degraded stream or no stream at all.
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so, if I don't want to share my bandwidth, the site I'm trying to view from has the option to give me a crappy version (or no version at all) of what I'm trying to view.
Wow. That'll kill flash faster than steve jobs ever could. "give us your bandwidth or no cookie".
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I was thinking this too. Plenty of people who have bandwidth caps are going to be none too pleased either. I know they say that people will have an option to choose whether to allow "p2pflash" or not, but that doesn't state if it will run when you're not watching videos.
OT: Flash P2P vs. privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:OT: Flash P2P vs. privacy (Score:4, Funny)
But what about those people just watching the video to watch who is watching the video while watching the video... or something like that.
I can't wait until the MPAA / TV broadcasters get a hold of this. They'll be sending out letters for people who watch a snippet of a TV show on Youtube.
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Instead of serving the media from a central server, users will provide the necessary bandwidth.
I wonder what happens if there are no users with that video stored on their drive. I certainly don't store the youtube videos I watch - they get erased immediately.
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Well. Damn.
This looks like almost exactly the same functionality that we were developing. Though we used a java applet for P2P that recombined the signals into a stream that would run on almost any player: flash, quicktime, silverlight media player, embedded windows media player, and many more. We even had a setup that would detect other clients on the local network and they would all source from the same feed, allowing any number of local clients at no additional external bandwidth usage.
We were in the fin
Re: Re-hash (Score:3, Insightful)
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!
Welcome, our new open codec overlords! (Score:3, Interesting)
I, for one, welcome our new open codec overlords.
Woohoo! Much good [pcworld.com] 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).
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Ogg Theora has had this problem for some time, yes it was open but there was no way of knowing if there were hidden patents so it didn't become popular.
It only takes a few whispered words about patents before everyone but a few dedicated people abandon the project or start paying "protection" money to trolls.
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You can never know for sure, unless you've went through all the patents. However I'm sure since it's On2 their lawyers have looked at it.
However, it doesn't mean it's completely patent free. Google still owns all the patents and gives a patent license to use it. They're promising it's royalty-free.
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However, it doesn't mean it's completely patent free. Google still owns all the patents and gives a patent license to use it. They're promising it's royalty-free.
Which is brilliant. If you're a small open-source group, you're a huge target for patent lawsuits due to your lack of resources. Someone is going to think twice before suing Google (or, if not think twice, have an uphill battle against their significant legal department).
Re:Welcome, our new open codec overlords! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Summary judgment for an injunction (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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You can never know for sure, unless you've went through all the patents.
Unfortunately, even then, that means nothing. Just because someone reviewed each and every patent in existence and doesn't think there is patent infringement, doesn't mean someone else will review the same information and disagree. So the question is really of high risk versus low risk for patent infringement, rather than yes or no. To me, it seem like h264 is guaranteed patent infringement, while VP8 is low risk, given that the distribution license has a patent clause.
It is not patent free (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Welcome, our new open codec overlords! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Welcome, our new open codec overlords! (Score:4, Insightful)
First, google paid over $124 million for this codec, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say they dropped a penny or two on legal to figure out just what they were getting before they made the check out.
Second, they are using this codec themselves (in chrome, on youtube, etc). They have a vested interest in defending it from patent suits, if those suits should arise.
Re:Welcome, our new open codec overlords! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Welcome, our new open codec overlords! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Welcome, our new open codec overlords! (Score:4, Funny)
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Newer research is in intraframe coding and interframe prediction. VP8 uses the same methods as x264. VP8 will most likely infringe the same patents. Google does not hold these patents.
Read this take from someone who is without a doubt an expert in these matters.
http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/?p=377
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Note that H264 has exactly the same problem, that is, you can pay the MPEG-LA licensing fees, but there's no way of knowing if that covers all of the patents involved. The advantage that H264 did have was the backing of the major players involved with the MPEG-LA, who might have enough muscle to scare off patent trolls; Theora perhaps didn't have the same level of legal support. With VP8 being backed by Google and some other pretty big companies, it has the power to fight (or buy - Google's patent license s
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Is H264 incumbered by any patents not held by the MPEG-LA? Their argument is that if you pay to use their codec, you're in the clear patent-wise, but there's no guarantee that another 3rd party won't pull out a patent they're infringing.... and the MPEG-LA has stated they're going to start charging everybody for access to H264 anyways.
Theora and VP8 are in a better position patent-wise anyways. They both have tearms that have done searches patents (i believe VP8 has, I *know* Theora has), and they've public
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"Is H264 incumbered by any patents not held by the MPEG-LA?" Probably.
The protection that H264 has is that any outside entity filing an h264 patent lawsuit is going to have to defend themselves against MPEGLA's patent portfolio.
VP8 has exactly the same protection from Googles patent portfolio.
The difference between the two is that Google offers a free forever license, where MPEGLA can start charging any amount at any time and that there are no H264 cameras that are legally licensed for commercial or for pro
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The protection that H264 has is that any outside entity filing an h264 patent lawsuit is going to have to defend themselves against MPEGLA's patent portfolio.
Which means nothing to a patent troll, since they, by definition, produce nothing, and therefore cannot be violating any patents.
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Even MPEG-LA acknowledges that there may be patents on h.264 that they do not hold and that paying them does not protect you from these possible patent claims.
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Wow.... the patent system is deeply broken.
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First in-depth technical analysis of VP8 (Score:5, Informative)
Analysis can be found here. [multimedia.cx] Comparison pictures to other codecs are included.
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While an excellent analysis, it unfortunately confirms all the worst fears I've had about VP8: The quality doesn't match up to H.264, it despite that also can't even match it in speed, the spec is apparently an unholy abomination, the implementation needs work, and most disappointingly of all, it appears there is serious risk of patent issues (largely due to blatantly ripping off various parts of H.264). If there's sufficient assurance that there won't be any patent troubles, it's at least an improvement fo
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With respect to quality, it's better than either Theora and Dirac, and it's also better than H.264 Baseline. If I understand correctly, the latter is largely what is used on the Net today (including YouTube), and enjoys most hardware decoding support.
With respect to patents, the big difference between WebM and Theora is that the former has Google's corporate backing - they are the ones standing in line to be sued first if MPEG LA (or someone else) decides to do so. Needless to say, they have far more legal
Re:First in-depth technical analysis of VP8 (Score:5, Interesting)
Hardware support will be good on the TI OMAP line of cellphone chips, which include an actual programmable DSP (instead of a hardcoded decoder). There's already a Theora implementation for them. These chips are used e.g. on the Droid and the N900.
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Most probably include some sort of DSP, but it's not guaranteed to be externally programmable (the firmware might be in ROM), and key portions of the decoder are implemented in hardware. Sure, it might be a DSP, but not a general-purpose DSP.
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Yes, like I said, it's still an improvement for patent-unencumbered codecs (if it truly is such). But while I certainly didn't think On2's claims of 50% greater quality than H.264 were anything more than blatant bullshit, I at least figured it'd be on roughly the same level as H.264, not just barely better than the Baseline profile. Before this, I was thinking, "hey, maybe I can start switching over to VP8 for my own encodes once the encoder gets a bit of work done on it". Now, not so much. I'm understandab
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And while having a behemoth like Google behind it is certainly nice, I'm still far more confident about Theora, as it has been out in the open for much longer without problems, and doesn't quite so freely "borrow" from recent and heavily patented standards.
Well, all it takes is one patent, either way...
And I don't think that longer exposure for Theora is a sign of anything in particular - the real question is, has it actually being used by anyone worth suing (i.e. with enough cash to part) in all those years? If not, then it would make perfect sense for any would-be patent trolls to wait until it is more widely adopted to have more lucrative targets.
Re:First in-depth technical analysis of VP8 (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're one of them most powerful technology companies in the world, one patent probably isn't too much of a problem, but many patents, and potentially major ones, could certainly be a problem. And VP8 hasn't seen any real usage yet either and there's already been possible problems with regard to patents identified.
Well, Google certainly seems to be willing to risk it as they're moving YouTube to it. That is rather confidence-inspiring. I understand that there are no guarantees either way, but I'd trust a major corp to do a thorough legal analysis before making moves like that - especially when patents have been part of the story all along - over a few random guys with blogs proclaiming imminent doom.
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They may just make a deal with TI, A/D and other like companies. Offer technical expertise and maybe development dollars. There's no royalties so it lets them add functionality to their chips. They like that, as it gives companies reasons to want to buy new versions.
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While an excellent analysis, it unfortunately confirms all the worst fears I've had about VP8: The quality doesn't match up to H.264
Really? Because they don't have any bias? How about this [on2.com]? VP8 looks significantly better in that video compared to x264.
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Thanks much for the link.
Intra prediction is used to guess the content of a block without referring to other frames.
How the heck does that work? "Well I think Pinocchio's nose is growing in this frame, so I'll add some motion blur." - Pentium CPU. ???
Inter prediction is used to guess the content of a block by referring to past frames
The Commodore Amiga was probably the first home PC to do this. Rather than store all ~40,000 frames of the Dragon's Lair or Space Ace laserdisc games, it stored only a few key frames and then filled-in the gaps in-between. They also used rotoscoping (fixed backgrounds; moving foregrounds). That allowed it to fit these laserdiscs on
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Says the idiot who replied to it, and myself, the third-party idiot who is pointing this out here.
IE9 Will Support VP8 Playback (Score:3, Informative)
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Keyword(s);
"when the user has installed a VP8 codec on Windows."
They've already said they'll support any codec installed on the machine. But they're only going to bundle H.264.
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No they didn't, they said they would support ONLY h.264 no more than a few weeks ago, regardless of what the user had installed in the machine.
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Citation: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/05/03/follow-up-on-html5-video-in-ie9.aspx [msdn.com]
We’ve read some follow up discussion about support for more than the H.264 codec in IE9’s HTML5 video tag.
To be clear, users can install other codecs for use in Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center. For web browsers, developers can continue to offer plug-ins (using NPAPI or ActiveX; they are effectively equivalent in this scenario) so that webpages can play video using these codecs on Windows. For example, webpages will still be able to play VC-1 (Microsoft WMV) files in IE9. A key motivator for improving the codec support in Windows 7 was to reduce the need that end-users might have to download additional codecs. The security risks regarding downloadable codecs and associated malware are documented and significant. By building on H.264 for HTML5 video functionality, we provide a higher level of certainty regarding the security of this aspect of browsing and our web platform.
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http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/04/29/html5-video.aspx [msdn.com]
Right here buddy.
Honestly, what makes you think you can ask others for citations when you obviously didn't even try to provide your own (seeing as it was factually wrong).
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Actually, no. What they said was that they would support EMBEDDING of any format using the <embed> or <object> tags. The <video> tag was going to be H.264 only (no matter what you had installed on your machine).
So that implies the question, did they mean "support" by means of the embedding, or support by means of the <video> tag...
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This is specifically about HTML5 video. Quote:
In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video as well as VP8 video when the user has installed a VP8 codec on Windows.
Again, we want to be clear about our intent to support the same markup in the open and interoperable web. We are strongly committed to making sure that in IE9 you can safely view all types of content in all widely used formats. When it comes to video and HTML5, we’re all in. In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playba
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So far as I can see, this is the end of HTML5 codec wars - if IE, Firefox, Chrome and Opera are all going to support it, it has the critical mass to become a de facto standard
Alright, so this is the final nail in the coffin, for sure - Adobe has announced support for VP8 streaming in Flash [adobe.com]. This means that providers can switch to VP8/WebM completely, using HTML5 for newer browsers, and Flash as a fallback for older ones.
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No, they didn't. They specifically said they would not. The relevant quote is:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/04/29/html5-video.aspx [msdn.com]
"In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video only."
Now they say they'll support H.264, and VP8 if the codec is installed (http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/05/19/another-follow-up-on-html5-video-in-ie9.aspx). Since this post happened literally the same day that this became an option, it sounds like this contingency plan had been in place ahead of
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So it's much the same way that Safari supports Ogg Theora/Vorbis video and audio - once you've installed the free XiphQT [xiph.org] QuickTime® component...
(XiphQT's not that bad - it makes the entire QuickTime®-using system able to understand Ogg file formats and the Xiph codecs, not just the browser. Even so, it's still one additional component that needs to be installed.)
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So it's much the same way that Safari supports Ogg Theora/Vorbis video and audio - once you've installed the free XiphQT QuickTime component
Which is not available for iPhone OS.
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WebM/VP8 patent risk for software developers (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [slashdot.org] 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 [multimedia.cx] 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 [blogspot.com].
Counter-Strike is dead; long live Counter-Suit (Score:2)
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.
The idea of Google countersuing isn't realistic (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [edibleapple.com], 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?
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MPEG LA roughly 100 times Google's patent power (Score:2)
Look at this comment slightly further above, "The idea of Google countersuing isn't realistic." [slashdot.org]
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I don't have a Slashdot account since I normally don't respond but this time I just feel the need to say this.
I disagree.
The burden of proof lies/or should lie with those intending to claim infringement. Until a claim has been made and the case has been settled or judged by the courts, these codecs like Theora and VP8 should be treated as being patent free, as far as submarine patents are concerned. To do otherwise would mean that it would be impossible to create any open and free codecs, as there is always
x264 dev did a technical review (Score:5, Interesting)
http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/?p=377 [multimedia.cx]
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.
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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?
Re:X264 dev doesn't like VP8. Color me shocked. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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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.
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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.
Namefail (Score:3, Insightful)
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".
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Yeah and names like "IEEE 802.3" are so much better? We can go back over time to things like PCMCIA and SCSI. Give me a break. Weird names have been in tech forever.
I think the general public gave up looking for sane tech product names a LONG time ago. Nobody attaches any significance to them. Products sell and people don't care about the buzzwords as long as the product functions.
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Yeah and names like "IEEE 802.3" are so much better? We can go back over time to things like PCMCIA and SCSI.
Yes, those names are better. They're awkward abbreviations that derive from standards documents or technical names that make sense. They're not pretty, but they have an excuse for being weird. The Ogg names, though, are just odd and/or unpronounceable for the sake of being odd and/or unpronounceable.
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Well, "PCMCIA" may not be the sexiest name in the world, but if you can't pronounce or spell it trivially you should probably take a refresher course on the alphabet. Even more so for USB, SATA, MP3, or AVC.
And people most definitely care about tech product and standard names, even if they have no idea why they care. Why? Because companies tell them they should care through very clever and persistent marketing. I don't know how many times I have been asked questions by non-technical friends or relatives
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"Tall-ar-vorm". Jack Tramiel changed his company's name to Tramel so people would pronounce it probably. Maybe all that's needed is the same name to be spelled phonetically - Taller-vorm
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Re:Namefail (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, I didn't even know what "Vorbis" means (or that it is even supposed to mean anything) for the first few years of using it rather extensively. It sounds like a nice name to me, even on its own. Same for Theora. What's wrong with them? They aren't offensive, they are distinctive, they are easy to pronounce (Vorbis perhaps more so) - so what's the problem?
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I actually like "Theora". "Vorbis" is... well, it's not my favorite, but I can pronounce it. I always visualize "Ogg" as carved in stone. It seems to go downhill quickly after those, though.
Re: (Score:2)
I was thinking the same thing. No wonder no one outside of open source AV geeks have ever heard of any of these standards.
"It's a Ptalarbvorm/Vorbis Matroska stream" it just plain awful. I guess there just aren't enough open source marketing volunteers...
It's a codename (Score:4, Insightful)
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).
Re: (Score:2)
However, isn't the codec really still "Theora"? "Ptalarbvorm" and "Thusnelda" are just code-names for particular generations of the encoder, and presumably not really intended for use outside the relatively small community of developers.
Or so I am assuming, anyway.
PNG is officially pronounced ping (Score:2)
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 [libpng.org] 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" [youtube.com].
Re: (Score:2)
I doubt "Chrome" is a terrific name to someone who only speaks Japanese. Firefox probably doesn't make much sense to a person in Brazil. IE is horrible, even in English.
In the end, if youtube requires it, people will install/upgrade it.
Re: (Score:2)
Ogg - "Ogg derives from ogging, jargon from the computer game Netrek, which came to mean doing something forcefully, possibly without consideration of the drain on future resources."
Vorbis - "named after the Terry Pratchett character from the book Small Gods."
Theora - "named after Theora Jones, Edison Carter's Controller on the Max Headroom television program" - wikipedia
Ptalarbvorm - no idea.
I think Ogg is rather lame, but Vorbis and Theora are better than HE-AAC v2 or h.268, as far as marketing goes.
WebM (VP8) license: will it be approved by OSI? (Score:4, Interesting)
WebM is available under a new license [webmproject.org]. So far haven't been able to find out whether Google will try to get this license OSI-approved [opensource.org].
The 3-clause BSD license (Score:3, Informative)
And there was much rejoicing !.... (Score:3, Interesting)
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 [blogspot.com] (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) ?
Re:And there was much rejoicing !.... (Score:4, Informative)
How will be the HTML5 standards organised
The HTML standard just says "play video here" just like the image tag just says "show picture here" it's up to the browser to decide how to do this, and up to the web developer to use a file format that's supported by people looking at their website.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
How will be the HTML5 standards organised
The HTML standard just says "play video here" just like the image tag just says "show picture here"
That's just not true - try here [w3.org] and here [w3.org]. While W3C doesn't mandate certain formats, they give everyone specs for some. Besides, all generally useful image compression formats are freely available to anyone without any restrictions (as "freely" as it can be with any software these days).
None of the above is true with video.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yet, there is no W3C endorsed/created video standard.
Claiming HTML5 video tag is "just like" the img tag is deceiving at best:
with images:
- W3C provides standards for some useful formats
- virtually all other generally useful formats are free/unrestricted
- all generally useful formats are supported by virtually all browsers "out of the box" (no plug-ins, no 3rd party software)
with video:
- W3C provides no standards whatsoever
- virtually all other generally useful formats are patent-encumbered*
- the only conse
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They aren't talking about making VP8 a part of HTML5 standard yet. So far, HTML5 spec doesn't specify video codecs at all.
Not *yet* (Score:3, Insightful)
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 VP
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Basically anything beside Microsoft
Hello Kitty (Score:3, Insightful)
...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.
VP8 won't replace MPEG 4 AVC (H.264) (Score:2)
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.
Re:VP8 won't replace MPEG 4 AVC (H.264) (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:VP8 won't replace MPEG 4 AVC (H.264) (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hear, hear.
If you're running Big Media Pay-Per-View movies and television, I can understand that the quality of the picture might, maybe, be important. Then again, I've seen people happily watching Big Media "content" as horribly smeared/blurry-looking "digital HD cable", so maybe not even then.
I'm not sure how high-resolution helps improve videos of skater kids suffering accidental testicular trauma or kittens attacking inanimate objects...
Misconceptions concerning MSIE support for WebM (Score:2)
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 [windowsteamblog.com] 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
Confused about HTLM5 video (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Confused about HTLM5 video (Score:4, Insightful)
Paragraphs next time, please.
Yes, of course.
<video> is semantic - it has a specific meaning, unlike object or embed, which could be anything. Then there are the attributes and the DOM interface that go with the <video> tag, which allow direct control and integration with the page. Plugin-based systems are just a big black box sitting in the midst of all this native web content, with minimal interaction between the two. <video> makes video a native, interactive, first class citizen of the web.
http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/video.html [whatwg.org]
The video decoding could still be handled with an external process, BTW. Nothing in the spec prevents that.
non-native libraries? (Score:2)
We can't seem to find any useful examples of anything anywhere. It's great to hear about new encod
Ptalarbvorm! (Score:3, Interesting)