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Ogg Theora Alpha 2 Released 263

Posted by CmdrTaco from the its-like-ogg-but-for-video-dude dept.
An anonymouse reader writes "After almost seven months, another alpha release of Ogg Theora is finally out. Still not production ready, but it's certainly showing some progress." The world needs a free video codec. Looking forward to seeing where this one goes.
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Ogg Theora Alpha 2 Released More

Ogg Theora Alpha 2 Released

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  • release (Score:5, Informative)

    by frieked ( 187664 ) * on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @08:58AM (#6160367) Homepage Journal
    Yeah, it was supposed to go beta 2-3 months ago...:
    Ogg Theora was scheduled to go Beta (that means the bitstream is locked down, and all features are represented) in March of 2003. Obviously, that's slipped. Alpha 2 is going to be released shortly; but please remember that until Beta, there is no promise that files you encode will be supported in the final release.

    But when will Theora be done you ask?

    From the site: We nominally expect to be finished by the end of 2003. VP3 is a very mature video codec, so most of our effort is going into the Theora project.
    • ...some popular transcoding applications will start supporting it. One such as transcode [uni-goettingen.de] (but any other popular transcoder will do).
      I mean, it's like the Linux kernel, if there is no heavy testing from lots of users (such as during the "development" phase), not a lot of bugs get squashed out. Yet, soon after the first stable (the first "dot-zero") release is out, the bug reports start pouring in.
      The same mechanism would probably help the Vorbis codec.

      Nitpicker's P.S.: "transcoder" is the correct term for w
  • Hopefully this will be as good as their OGG audio codec. I think its great cos the file sizes are smaller than MP3 yet the quality is just as good!

    Keep up the good work :)

    • Re:OGG (Score:2, Interesting)

      by frieked ( 187664 ) *
      Well, with the amount of time they're taking I would certainly hope it would be as good ;)

      But seriously though, they have this to say on the subject: As the Ogg Vorbis format has gained acceptance, components have become available to play Ogg files on practically all of the major media players. We expect a similar if not superior level of support for Ogg Theora.

    • Re:OGG (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SCHecklerX ( 229973 )
      ..but takes more processor to play (at least the last time I played with Ogg, and I admit my only testing was with the xmms plugin). Not great if you want to use on a portable device, where battery life is a concern.

      • Re:OGG (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Abcd1234 ( 188840 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @11:26AM (#6161769) Homepage
        Not great if you want to use on a portable device, where battery life is a concern.

        Meh, this is becoming less and less of a concern. Your average PDA has a pretty damn powerful processor in it these days, while still having decent battery life. Heck, even cell-phones these days are pretty powerful. Enough so that decoding Vorbis shouldn't be a huge issue. And this ignores the possibility of hardware decoders, which make this whole point moot. Of course, a good question here is, how suitable is Vorbis for implementation in hardware?
        • There's something related to what kind of math operations are used by the codec. If the codec uses mostly math operations that are implemented in typical CPUs for PDA-like things and for portable MP3 players, then the codec is "fit for implementation in hardware".
          I'm sorry, i don't remember though what are those operations...

        • Re:OGG (Score:4, Informative)

          by Sunnan ( 466558 ) <sunnan@handgranat.org> on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @12:40PM (#6162633) Homepage Journal
          It's been done [sf.net] at least once. I'm looking forward to more hardware-based players since I don't like the battery-eating of software+ARM players.
          • Hmm... not quite. It looks like they just implemented the MDCT in hardware (albeit the most computationally intensive part). Although, now that I think about it, this is probably a good approach... it allows for firmware upgrades of the actual decoder (since it runs in software), yet still optimizes the most difficult bits in hardware.

  • Theora? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by meringuoid ( 568297 )
    So... who's Theora? I know Vorbis was head torturer of the Omnian Inquisition in Small Gods, but I don't know a Theora...

    • Re:Theora? (Score:4, Informative)

      by meringuoid ( 568297 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @09:04AM (#6160416)
      Oops, careless of me: I should RTFFAQ before posting silly questions :-)

      Q: Why the name 'Theora?'

      A: Like other Xiph.org Foundation codec projects such as Vorbis or Tarkin, Theora is named after a fictional character. Theora Jones was the name of Edison Carter's 'controller' on the television series Max Headroom. She was played by Amanda Pays.

    • What I want to know is why the extension on the audio files is .ogg?

      There's a few problems with this. The chief one being that now that there are two ogg formats, how will you know which file is which (OK, metadata is the *correct* answer, but I mean in the world in which we live)? Why aren't they called .VRB and .THR files?

      Not to mention that just about anything is cooler than .ogg. I favor .xpa and .xpv (Xiph Audio and Xiph Video), but I'm not the namer...

  • Whats the chance..... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cackmobile ( 182667 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @09:05AM (#6160419) Journal
    of major companies picking this up. Are they really going to use this for movie trailers/previews. I don't think so. They'll stick with QT and WMP. Big business loves Big business. I guess we'll be stuck with
    I hate QT, why don't they bring it out with something OSS

    • I hate QT, why don't they bring it out with something OSS

      Mplayer can play Quicktime just fine on Linux/x86 - and with the newer QT being based on MPEG4, presumably it will be possible to use ffmpeg/xvid/insert favourite mpeg4 codec combined with libquicktime to read QT files on all platforms.

      What this is useful, IMHO, is archiving. For all those DVDs that you have - it's quite nifty being able to burn 4 movies into a DVD-R. As for it catching on with businesses, well, not until long before Ogg Vorbis do

      • Mplayer can play Quicktime just fine on Linux/x86

        I think that's pushing it a bit. Yes, you can play most quicktimes on Linux, but it has to jump through hoops to do it as (IIRC) it uses WINE to run the Windows quicktime codecs - hardly a robust solution.

        Certianly, although I have managed to get quicktimes to work on Linux, I've not found it very stable.
        • Just install Xine [xinehq.de]. Download and install the Windows DLLs. Done. Now you can play QuickTime files, and even QuickTime webcasts (not to mention Windows Media, because those DLLs contain the required codecs). Heck, if you install RealPlayer9 for *NIX, you can also play Real Media in Xine.
          If you install the gxine interface, not xine-ui (but you can install as many interfaces at the same time as you like) you even get a Mozilla plugin to play all those formats in your browser. ;-)
          For the lazy, Red Hat RPM packag
    • I would say that it's pretty much guaranteed that companies will pick this up if it works. Money saved is profit made...

      Software companies in particular are likely to be early adopters... there is already substantial use of Vorbis for sound bites in games, I expect to see lots of cinematic cuts done in Theora.

      Oh, and if big business loves big business, why do they they try and cut each others throats?
      • What cost savings will content creators have by using Theora? It's not like you have to pay a license fee to distribute digital video files in the propritary formats. There are some cases where you have to pay content fees with MPEG-4, but they don't apply to most users (like you get the first 50,000 users a year free, and don't have to pay for marketing content, just content that gives you revenue).
    • Big Businesses use whatever does the job best. If Theora can compete with Quicktime on size/quality/CPU, and is standard in major players, then you'll bet they will use it.

      Just look at MP3. Big businesses were using MP3 before the patent issue became a problem... So they obviously aren't adverse to free and open codecs.

  • XviD? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Kopasape ( 646956 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @09:06AM (#6160437)
    "The world needs a free video codec."!?

    What about XviD?

    "XviD is Free Software (licensed under the GNU GPL), open to all contributions, its only aim is to stick to standard compliance."

    http://www.xvid.org

    • Re:XviD? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @09:14AM (#6160496) Journal
      What about XviD?

      Because XviD, as an MPEG-4 implementation, uses patented algorithms. It doesn't matter how free the code is if you need a license to be allowed to compile and run it.

    • Re:XviD? (Score:5, Funny)

      by fobbman ( 131816 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @09:15AM (#6160509) Homepage
      Maybe Taco will make reference to that project in the repost.

    • Re:XviD? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by WWWWolf ( 2428 )

      XviD is MPEG-4, which is, as usual, a patent minefield. The code may be open, but use is still restricted by the patents.

      VP3 (on which Theora is based on) is likewise patented, but AFAIK they've gotten an unrevocable royalty-free license to the patents, or something equally non-threatening.

    • xvid is not a mpeg4 codec, which means you are going to get sued over patent infrigment if you do anything big with it.
      Theora is a standard on itself (not just an implementation) supposedly free of patents.

      Jeroen

    • Re:XviD? (Score:2, Funny)

      by ironhide ( 803 )
      1) XviD is a open source implementation mpeg-4, which is *not* a free to use standard see the MPEGLA.
      2) Ogg Theora is more efficient at very low bitrates then XviD is. Real9 beats Ogg Theora on the ultra low bandwidth though (200 Kb/s)
      • 2) You wanna wait until it's released before you start saying how much better XYZ is than Theora? It isn't even in Beta yet, let alone being final.

    • Re:XviD? (Score:5, Informative)

      by powerlord ( 28156 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @09:30AM (#6160637) Journal
      Yes, the XviD software is freely available, however it is an implimentation of the MPEG-4 standard which may/may not be patent encumbered.

      The true legal status of XviD is currently grey (not that this would currently stop me from using it).

      Theora is specifically "Free" both in terms of code availability, AND in terms of not being Patent encumbered. A fine idea to have, although I'm not expecting any great shakes in immediate adoption.

      Remember all the hubabaloo surrounding L.A.M.E. http://lame.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net] sepcifically #5 on the technical FAQ.

      5. Does LAME use any MP3 patented technology?

      LAME, as the name says, is *not* an encoder. LAME is a development
      project which uses the open source model to improve MP3 technology.
      Many people believe that compiling this code and distributing an
      encoder which uses this code would violate some patents (in the US,
      Europe and Japan). However, *only* a patent lawyer is qualified to
      make this determination. The LAME project tries to avoid all these
      legal issues by only releasing source code, much like the ISO
      distributes MP3 "demonstration" source code. Source code is
      considered as speech, which may contain descriptions of patented
      technology. Descriptions of patents are in the public
      domain.

      Several companies plan on releasing encoders based on LAME, and
      they intend to obtain all the appropriate patent licenses. At least
      one company is now shipping a fully licensed version of LAME with
      their portable MP3 player.

      Note that under German Patent Law, Â11(1) a patent doesn't cover
      private acts with non-industrial purposes. Probably interesting for
      developers is that a patent doesn't cover acts with experimental
      purposes, that aim at the object of the patented invention (Â11(2)).


      They aren't sure and its legally grey. For the private individual to play nd tinker with it is probably okay, but not for corporations or other non-personal (or money making) projects. Its nice to have a non-patent encumbered alternative, wether we ever have to use it or not.

  • Part of a live ISO PVR? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by timothy ( 36799 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @09:07AM (#6160441) Journal
    Not that the video codec is the only important part of this, but the fact that unlike most, Ogg Theora is completely free of patent / royalty issues.

    Imagine (it's not a great stretch anymore, though it might have been a few years ago) being able to assemble a box with a hard drive, motherboard, memory, then popping in a CD ala Knoppix or Gentoo Live, and BOOM there's a DVR. Movix [linuxjournal.com] is one side of the instant multi-media computer, but does not offer capture / record functions.

    Built-to-purpose, such a computer ought to have a TV-out (and the live ISO would have to support it ;) -- including well-designed menus like the ones for freevo and mythTV, suitable for low-res TV screens -- so it could be used without a conventional monitor attached).

    timothy

    • Re:Part of a live ISO PVR? (Score:5, Informative)

      by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot@keir[ ]ad.org ['ste' in gap]> on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @09:22AM (#6160578)

      You want real time encoding, live guide features, ability to pause live tv, automated recordings, a unified enironment for MAME, DivX, DVD, MP3, Slideshows, and web browsing? What about the ability to control and schedule recodings via a web interface? Or the ability to edit recorded programs on the fly to remove commercials etc? What about automated DVD / DivX description info from IMDB as soon as you load it up to play? Oh, plus picture in pucture, and the ability to distribute the encoding load across as many machines as you want..

      Look no further than MythTV [mythtv.org]. It's only been in development for a year and it has all this and more. IMO this is the most under-celebrated open source project there is. Its amazing, makes Windows Media Center look like a hunk of garbage.

      • I agree, one of the most underrated projects out there :)

        However, no, I'm just imagining something much simpler. MythTV is complicated to set up (which makes sense, considering it's a complex, full-featured thing ...) -- what I think would be better (for many people, not all) is a simple schedule / record / pause / playback system. Maybe something which, if these things were all beers, could be called "MythTV Lite."

        timothy
        • I'd like to see a MythTV version of FreeVix [freevix.org]. FreeVix is a 25 MB mini distro that runs FreeVo [sf.net], which is a MythTV competitor. FreeVo has the same goals as MythTV but is nowhere near as full featured at present. The only difficult part of the idea is that Myth needs MySQL currently, but I wonder if that could be patched to use Berkley DB instead.
      • WOW!

        Okay, colour me impressed.

        I finally have a reason to buy that Shuttle PC I always dreamed about. ... of course now if only I had the money (and the ability to convince my wife it was necessary :D)
      • Wow! Thank you - this is exactly what I need. I'll take the time to set this up for sure!
      • Does MythTV have reliable support for hardware encode/decode? And do the scanlines match up from end to end, or are things de-interlaced, massaged, stretched, and re-interlaced until they have no semblence of their original being?

        Not much point in another DVR system, if completely fucks up any video recorded with it, or crashes randomly due to bad drivers.

        • It runs on linux, so it works with any hardware linux supports (including some hardware encoders / decoders, liek the DXR3 ). But it's native format is not MPEG-2, it is a modified NupperlVideo or MPEG-4, whichever you prefer to choose. And I believe it has built in deinterlacing for playing interlaced video.
          • And I believe it has built in deinterlacing for playing interlaced video.


            Right. Which is precisely not what I want when watching them on my interlaced American TV.

            Thanks anyway. HAND.
      • Good luck getting MythTV installed. And asking the developers for help is useless.

  • World needs it, but will they use it? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Strike ( 220532 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @09:08AM (#6160452)
    The world needed a free audio codec but ogg vorbis is still a fairly niche market in the compressed audio field these days. I use it and love it but I am still in the vast minority. I would use (and love) a free video codec from the Xiph people as well, but that doesn't mean that other people will. It's that damn market momentum holding good things back, but such is the plight of a lot of good technologies it seems.
    • It depends on the "they" part.

      True, in the corporate universe, I can't see any of the big businesses jumping ten feet in the air every time a new rev of an open source codec comes out. IMO the big comms and content providers are always going to stick with WMV, Real, QT, etc.

      On the personal level though, things are much different. Sounds trollish I know, but I think that an awful lot of codec takeup by end users is driven by P2P. This isn't so prevalent with ogg vorbis, but the amount of XviD's out there (
      • Actually, the corporate world, especially European companies, are looking to MPEG-4 as their future format of choice. The cable industry has already agreed to switch to MPEG-4 for digital cable (in the vague future). MPEG-4 is becoming the standard format for cell phones via 3GPP.

        A lot of this has to do with maturity. You can actually buy interoperable, commerical MPEG-4 solutions from a variety of vendors today. Also, MPEG-4 supports real-time streaming over lossy networks. And it has profiles for everyth
    • I use it and love it but I am still in the vast minority.

      Well, at least it's a vast minority. :-)
    • I think that if Ogg Vorbis (and Theora for that matter) is to gain wide acceptance, these formats will need to be associated with something that "Joe User" can benefit from.

      For example, if...
      1. ...someone were to write a "Media System" layer to install over Windows 9x/2K/XP that would use those codecs to provide something similar to MythTV.
      2. That system was as easy to install as Winamp.
      3. The system provides a fullscreen mode that completely takes over the desktop.
      4. The system would make it VERY easy to

  • Great line from the FAQ (Score:5, Funny)

    by SuperCal ( 549671 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @09:11AM (#6160469) Homepage
    I love it when a FAQ document doesn't take itself to seriously....

    Q: Can I convert Ogg Theora files into VP3?

    A: Why would you want to do something stupid like that?
    Are you nuts?

    .

  • Release notes, a warning, and a mirror (Score:5, Informative)

    by cultobill ( 72845 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @09:15AM (#6160511)

    First, allow me to whore a bit...

    ---start whoring---
    [ June 9, 2003 - Theora alpha 2 release ]

    The libtheora reference implementation has reached its 'alpha 2' milestone. A lot of bugs have been fixed and new features added, including all the planned changes to the bitsteams format.

    This is more of an internal milestone than a public release, but we are making a source tarball available for convenience. Nevertheless we recommend using the cvs version if possible. This release also requires cvs libogg and libvorbis to compile; you might try the cvs nightly tarball if you don't already have these checked out. You will need to build and install the 'ogg' and 'vorbis' modules.
    ---end whoring---

    Note that it's not a user release, but a developer release.

    Finally, here [nmt.edu] is a mirror, to help out with their bandwidth costs.

  • "What the world... needs now... is a... freevideocodec..."
  • The world needs a free video codec.

    Well, VP3.2 is already out there, and has been for some time.

    Also, if I'm not mistaken, MPEG-1 is now patent-free as well...

    Any reason why people don't use either more often?

    • Re:Free, how? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Abcd1234 ( 188840 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @11:22AM (#6161719) Homepage
      Simple: MPEG-1 provides poor compressions ratios and VP3.2 has poor(er) quality. I think what people are really meaning when they say "we need a free video codec" is "we need a video codec that reaches the size and quality levels of MPEG-4, but isn't patent encumbered".

    • Re:Free, how? (Score:3, Informative)

      by m1a1 ( 622864 )
      Any reason why people don't use either more often?

      I don't now about VP3.2, but MPEG-1 is garbage. Unless you are looking for something in the area of VHS quality, you can toss it. MPEG-1 demands high bitrate, but doesn't give you much in return. Compare that to MPEG-2, which demands high bitrate, but pays you back with beautiful video, the experimental features of mpeg4 codecs such as DivX 5.05 or the open source XviD [xvid.org] which allow a low bitrate stream to (nearly?) match the appearance of a high bitra

      • Re:Free, how? (Score:3, Informative)

        by halfelven ( 207781 )
        The only use it has is so 1337-k1dz can make (S)VCDs.

        Nope, MPEG1 is only for VCD.
        SVCD uses MPEG2, which has a better quality. That's why VCD is so crappy, and SVCD is actually watchable.
        MPEG2 is also used by DVD, but at a much higher bitrate.

        • SVCD uses MPEG2, which has a better quality. That's why VCD is so crappy, and SVCD is actually watchable.

          No, actually, the reason SVCD is higher quality is because the SVCD spec calls for higher resolutions than VCD, in exchange for each SVCD disc holding much less. Double the res for VCD, hence halve the run time, and you'll get quality similar to SVCD.

          MPEG-1 has the same problem that VP3.2 is accused of... MPEG-1, at high bitrates works quite well, and I consider it better than MPEG2/4 in that it's ar

          • No, actually, the reason SVCD is higher quality is because the SVCD spec calls for higher resolutions than VCD, in exchange for each SVCD disc holding much less. Double the res for VCD, hence halve the run time, and you'll get quality similar to SVCD.

            Nope. At the same resolution, at the same bitrate, MPEG2 will have a clearly better quality than MPEG1. The MPEG2 codec does more "clever" things to get more information into the same amount of bits.
            I actually tried that, and the result was obvious.
            I agree wi
  • The world needs better video codecs... ...and free software needs better names.

    Ogg Theora?

  • Open Source Codec (Score:3, Informative)

    by m1a1 ( 622864 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @11:52AM (#6162056)
    The world needs a free video codec.

    There already is one. XviD [xvid.org] is an open source (gpl) mpeg4 codec. Although there is no 1.0 release yet it is completely useable and can achieve better quality than DivX 5.05 (although encode times are longer). XviD currently supports B frames, chroma searching, VHQ, and host of other compressability improvers and motion tracking aids. I don't develop for it, but I am an avid fan. Check it out if you want to support open source video.

    • Re:Open Source Codec (Score:3, Insightful)

      by motown ( 178312 )
      There is one problem with xvid, however.

      Since it's based on mpeg4, it's software patent encumbered. Perhaps no problem at all in Europe (and I sure hope it will stay that way, have you signed the petition yet, folks?), but a major problem in the US as well as other countries where these patents apply.

      Don't take me wrong, I really appreciate and respect the amazing work the people of the xvid-project have produced so far, but to be honest: that's all the more reason for me to be disappointed in the fact th
    • This seems like the perfect opportunity to copy and paste one of the many responses about it being patent encumbered, because asking this question 12 times is not enough!

      Let's drive home the point a little more!

  • What about Ogg Tarkin? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ae ( 16342 )

    Does anyone have any further information on what's happening to Ogg Tarkin? The Ogg Theora FAQ [theora.org] says the following:

    Q: What about Tarkin?

    A: Tarkin is essentially a proof-of-concept wavelet-based codec. Its experimental nature means it will not be ready for general use for some time. VP3 is a high-quality codec that can meet today's video needs now, so Xiph.org will be focusing its efforts on Theora for the near future.

  • ...The world needs a free video codec...

    No, what the world needs is for storage and bandwidth to become prevalent enough that video and audio compression are no longer necessary, so that I can send a full length 2048x1200 40fps 2 hour video clip around the world in less than 5 minutes, and that I can store dozens of those files on my hard drive at one time.

    On a completely different note, I'm trying to figure out what niche a free codec will fill. The major media houses won't use it, the major hardware ma

    • No, what the world needs is efficient use of resources (not just in computer technology, but everywhere). If a given amount of bandwidth can transmit more information using compression technology, what is the reason not to use it?
  • If you want a cool utility to index and search metadata from ogg vorbis files (and other files), try Scopeware Vision [scopeware.com].

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