New VP8 Codec SDK Release Improves Performance 168
An anonymous reader writes "Google released a new version of the VP8 codec SDK on Thursday. They note a number of performance improvements over the launch release including 20-40% (average 28%) improvement in libvpx decoder speed, an over 7% overall PSNR improvement (6.3% SSIM) in VP8 'best' quality encoding mode, and up to 60% improvement on very noisy, still or slow moving source video. In other WebM news, Texas Instruments has a demo of 1080p WebM video playing on their new TI OMAP 4 processor, in both Android and Ubuntu."
Re:What's the point? (Score:4, Insightful)
wtf? (Score:1, Insightful)
When i read the stuff you wrote, i begin to ask myself... did he really not read the article?
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's the point? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's the point? (Score:3, Insightful)
It probably will never reach AVC in quality (Score:5, Insightful)
But it doesn't need to. For one, all you have to do is be "good enough". This idea that every last bit has to be wrangled out of codecs is silly these days. Storage and bandwidth are cheap. So long as it is good enough, meaning performs like similar codecs (AVC, VC-1 and so on) it is fine. Remember that streaming Flash video was VP6 for a long time, and much of it still is.
However what it offers is a free option, truly free. Encoders, decoders, streaming, all have no royalties and never will. That is important. If you think AVC is free just because of x264 all that means is you aren't doing your homework. Go have a look, you have to pay to have encoders and decoders.
WebM is useful, if for no other reason than it puts pressure on MPEG-LA not to be dicks about patent licensing. However that aside, it may well be the smart choice for streaming out web based video (once it gets integrated in to browsers) since you don't have to worry about issues in the future.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Now considering that, why exactly should I assume that H.264 should be subject to patent trolling later and while WebM remains (patent) troll-free? Just because Google said so? Just because Google has an army of lawyers and money in the bank? Guess what, all of those arguments apply to H.264 too (the MPEG LA also says they have all the patents for it, they have lawyers and money in the bank from the license fees). And what Googles promises and their lawyers are actually worth, we will sadly see soon when the Android patent trials against Oracle gets started.
Also, since we already know that WebM and H.264 are technically very similar, I personally think that possible patent lawsuits coming from future patent trolls might be directed at both systems simultaneously, which would make any perceived advantage from WebM moot in that regard.
Now, WebM still has a lot of merit as an open and royalty-free web video codec. But as far as I am concerned, until either of them gets really tested in court against a patent troll, both codecs are still susceptible to litigation and H.264 may actually have an advantage in that regard as it has been on the market (and thus as a target for patent trolls) longer.
Re:It probably will never reach AVC in quality (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll give you that storage is cheap. But bandwidth is definitely not, at least not where latency is concerned. If you're willing to say "I want to watch this video in 12+ hours" then bandwidth is cheap, but if you say "I want to start watching this video within 15 seconds and never stop to buffer again before the end" then bandwidth is a huge cost, and improving encoding efficiency 10% could have a significant practical difference.
Not only that... (Score:3, Insightful)
The outcome of patent trials isn't 100% dependent on pesky facts, people can win and get injunctions because the other guy's lawyer was having a bad hair day or because the judge was too busy playing with his penis pump or any number of "human factors".
Re:It probably will never reach AVC in quality (Score:2, Insightful)
> WebM is useful, if for no other reason than it puts pressure on MPEG-LA not to be dicks about patent licensing. However that aside, it may well be the smart choice for streaming out web based video (once it gets integrated in to browsers) since you don't have to worry about issues in the future.
WebM is already included in Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera browsers. It will also be supported by IE9 if the user installs a codec for it, and there is absolutely no doubt that Google will offer a free codec for download as soon as IE9 is released.
This will end up giving WebM a wider installed base in browsers than H.264.
Since WebM is free for anyone to implement, and the code to implement it is freely available, it will start appearing in all other browsers soon.
Safari might be a hold-out for a while, but I doubt that any browser can afford to be the only one that doesn't support WebM. Even if Safari does try to hold out, it won't be long before someone produces a patch or a plugin, and that will be it. Universal support for HTML5/WebM in client browsers.
Use your browser for a video recording application:
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Mozilla-Labs-launches-browser-add-on-for-A-V-recording-1127702.html
Free to use and/or implement for anyone in any role, such as the example above.
Game over.
Re:What's the point? (Score:4, Insightful)
So Android (no GNU there) is a micro blip on the radar? Where do you get your data, so I can avoid it?
Youtube isn't exactly "small" and uses MP4 with H.264, so no.
Anyone who wants to sell a decent device in the US as opposed to $5 player needs to pay royalties to the MPEG-LA, regardless of where it was built.
Re:What's the point? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow.
What Microsoft is saying is that they are going to provide codec support so every application on the planet doesn't have to reinvent the wheel and that endusers don't have to download codec packs from 3rd parties!
Mozilla could use the provided codec frameworks on each platform to provide h.264 support. The reason they will not is simply one of politics.
Choice is a good thing so let the endusers decide. First time they got to play and h.264 video give them the choice of using the internal codec frame work or not. And in a security warning if you wish.
If not I see a lot of folks going with Chrome.
Re:Also it should be noted (Score:3, Insightful)
> free for end-users at the moment as long as they are using a licensed decoder
In other words, free as long as they have already paid for it, right? ;)
Re:It probably will never reach AVC in quality (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet if you want to watch that same video in six months time, because of bandwidth capacity improvements, that efficiency has become moot.
Now, that doesn't mean efficiency isn't important. The real point of efficiency comes when you consider the sheer scale of bandwidth used on video worldwide. Right now, online streaming video is probably the single largest user of bandwidth worldwide (with the possible exception of bittorrent). Gaining 10% efficiency here means a huge amount for the internet as a whole and and this scale, it becomes hugely important to save every last bit.
Re:Who cares? (Score:1, Insightful)
eternally free for those who only transfer the data. Not free for those who want to create or view data.
But hey, let's not get stuck in details -- who'd want to create or view videos?
Re:What's the point? (Score:2, Insightful)
Important politics. They want an open web. Supporting web video through a proprietary codec goes against that goal. It amazes me how many miss that point.
commercial H.264 license (Score:1, Insightful)
I'd like to add that watching H.264 content is free for end-users at the moment as long as they are using a licensed decoder.
If you purchased (say) Final Cut Studio from Apple to make a movie, television show, ad, or other "commercial" video, you have to buy—on top of what you paid for the software—a licence from the MPEG to legally make that video:
15. H.264/AVC Notice. To the extent that the Apple Software contains AVC encoding and/or decoding functionality, commercial use of H.264/AVC requires additional licensing and the following provision applies: THE AVC FUNCTIONALITY IN THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED HEREIN ONLY FOR THE PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE OF A CONSUMER TO (i) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC STANDARD ("AVC VIDEO") AND/OR (ii) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY AND/OR AVC VIDEO THAT WAS OBTAINED FROM A VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC VIDEO. INFORMATION REGARDING OTHER USES AND LICENSES MAY BE OBTAINED FROM MPEG LA L.L.C. SEE HTTP://WWW.MPEGLA.COM.
http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/finalcutstudio2.pdf
Ditto for iMovie in the iLife suite: http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/ilife09.pdf
So yes, if you're just making a movie of the kid for the grand-parents, you're fine. If you want to do anything more and make some cash, be prepared to fork over some cash.
To the OP: How is that "free"?
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
Do I think WebM will be better able to defend itself against patent trolls just because Google has an army of lawyers and money in the bank?
Um... yes? Plus the due diligence they did to ensure it was not infringing before they bought it.
As far as I am concerned, this planet may not be habitable after an asteroid hits until it gets tested. However, if you are going to live your life in fear then you will never get anything done.
I agree with Google that the recording and playing back of moving images and sound is too fundamental to society and to the web to put a toll gate in front of.
Phillip.
Re:It probably will never reach AVC in quality (Score:4, Insightful)
You are several replies are all correct in many ways.
#1. Internet bandwidth increases ~50-60% year-over-year. Will 10% less bandwidth used for video stream matter?
#2. Many *customers* rarely get a 50% speed boost every 3-4 years. reducing video load time by 10% can help dramatically
#3. On a whole scale, video streaming is a large part of internet bandwidth. Even if bandwidth increases 50%, the average resolution of streamed videos will increases to consume that extra bandwidth. ie, 480p one year, 720p the next and 1080p the next. If the video quality was static, then bandwidth would make codec efficiency moot very easily, but people keep increasing the bit rate of the videos to instantly consume that extra bandwidth.
#4. If video streaming is 10% of internet bandwidth, and we're talking about many many teratibts of backbone bandwidth, then reducing that by 10% would free up 1%, which is still a large amount.
Re:What's the point? (Score:4, Insightful)
Firefox loads *many* proprietary DLL's on Windows systems (and the OS/X equivs) in order to render web content.
You've turned it into a religion ONLY in the case of CODECS. Why are CODECS special?
Re:What's the point? (Score:4, Insightful)
I understand it.
But the statement that Firefox can to use h.264 is a flat out lie.
They can use it and they can use it without a paying a cent. The can just use the already installed codec system for each of the OSs. In fact that would be the correct way from the stand point of code reuse and software components.
It is silly to have 5 different programs on one OS all implanting h.264.
Firefox can implement h.264 they have chose not to to make a political statement! To put in any other way is a lie. And I do not care how important you think it is to make that statement it should not be wrapped with a lie.
What amazes me is how many people miss that point and are okay with that lie.