Google Discontinues On2 Flix Engine Video Encoder 56
trawg writes "Google have recently discontinued sales of the Flix Engine, the last remnants of the purchase of On2 that they were selling directly to users. On2, developers of the VP8 video codec that formed the basis of their new WebM video format, was bought by Google early in 2010. The Flix Engine was a comprehensive API for Windows and Linux that allowed integration of On2 encoders directly into any software product. While you can still buy some On2 products from another company, it's not clear what effect this will have on Google's ultimate video strategy."
Watch this, large tech companies (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Watch this, large tech companies (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but WHY are codecs a flooded market? Because every maker of some kind of crappy hardware thinks it's a spiffy idea to create its own proprietary format(s) that only their own products may used and can be compatible with, in an attempt to lock-in potential customers.
It's especially damaging to market transparency when it's done by makers of hardware. You can already see it happen where certain (cheap) video equipment can only export what you record with it in a "special" format so only the "special" software from the maker can work with it and only the "special" DVD player from them could play a DVD made with it.
It's not that we need fewer formats. What we'd really need is fewer of those lock-in formats that serve no purpose but to force people to buy overpriced, unnecessary hardware because they have no choice.
Re:Watch this, large tech companies (Score:5, Informative)
And all the FCP types use it all the time (Score:2, Interesting)
Borrowed a video camera from people in another department, but it's firewire output was borked. They then went to dump the tape for me. I got asked at least 4 times if ProRes was ok and said "no we aren't Mac, I edit in Vegas it reads native files, HDV format please." What did I get in the end? ProRes. Of course Vegas can't read that because, as you noted, Apple doesn't release it.
Re:And all the FCP types use it all the time (Score:4, Informative)
They were dumb then. You have to specifically select prores - if you asked for something else they could easily provide it. FCP supports far more codecs than just that one.
PEBKAC error on their part I think.
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http://support.apple.com/downloads/Apple_ProRes_QuickTime_Decoder_1_0_for_Windows [apple.com]
If Vegas can use QuickTime, you can use it. Either way, you can format-convert it into something else on windows at the very least, although that is obviously suboptimal.
I just borrowed a different HDV camera (Score:1)
It was just annoying. Plus I like to work on the native files since Vegas can because there's minimal generation loss. While ProRes isn't very compressed, ti is still compressed and every lossy decompression/compression cycle hits quality a little bit. Better to go straight from the camera formats to your final render. Does take more CPU time but then CPU isn't that expensive these days.
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http://support.apple.com/downloads/Apple_ProRes_QuickTime_Decoder_1_0_for_Windows
http://support.apple.com/downloads/Apple_ProRes_QuickTime_Decoder_1_0_for_Mac
You're welcome.
Re:Watch this, large tech companies (Score:5, Informative)
Apple's codec is not necessarily the default - you get to choose what format you want your timeline to use, and what format you want an export to use (either self contained or reference).
Back when I was doing it professionally, we were using sony's xdcam HD format right in fcp, since we were shooting on HD xdcam gear. We also had a small group of Sony z1's that shot in HDV for little projects.
We never used apple's pro res codec, and were never forced to. If you want fcp to work in a heterogeneous editing environment then it is easy to do from a format perspective - it supports many common professional formats, as well as its own prores codec, that you do not have to use if you don't want. Even if you somehow don't pay attention and get stuck with something in that format you can use compressor to convert it into something else. Just take the generation loss as a penalty for not paying attention to what formats you were using.
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The issue is that agencies and their creative teams aren't on the same page. Not too long ago, I was asked why my video processing code wouldn't work with iCompany's video. I asked for the video they were trying to upload, and it was a 750MB Pro Res two minute clip for a pep-club musical tv show. Trying to explain to iCompany that their own Pro Res format was only supported in their program and that they needed to get us a more standards compliant version was a two day ordeal.
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What creative professional is making that mistake? I would wager that whatever tool you put them in front of, if they are that dense then it wouldn't matter. You're skirting dangerously close to inferring that people who use FCP are clueless.
FCP's export toolchain features a whole raft of presets designed for all manner of output scenarios. You can even add WMV as an option with third party codec packs (it's not included by default). If they've just never opened Compressor before then why are they even work
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Lol, I'm not 'skirting close to anything'. If anything I am saying that agencies or people that perform the agency function at companies are clueless. I mean seriously, who tries to upload a 750MB Pro Res clip to Facebook and then throws a fit when it doesn't work, and takes 2 days to manage getting a more appropriate format despite the fact that FCP is made by their own company? Oh right...they do.
I am sure the editor who made the clip was very capable, despite the Gleeful subject matter, but that doesn't
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I am exaggerating to some extent on the 'throwing a fit' aspect too. It just was an issue that got thrown in my lap with a 'make it work' directive, and there wasn't anything I could really do about it.
Re:Watch this, large tech companies (Score:4, Interesting)
The codec is available for both Mac and windows on apple's site. Yes, a true example of "lock in".
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Yes, but WHY are codecs a flooded market? Because every maker of some kind of crappy hardware thinks it's a spiffy idea to create its own proprietary format(s) that only their own products may used and can be compatible with, in an attempt to lock-in potential customers.
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the reason for this has more to do with patents than NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome. If a company thinks that they can create their own codec less expensively than licensing, they'll do it.
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There is a codec that cannot be replaced with another of similar properties where no GPL/BSD variant exists? Which one would that be?
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Or so they would want everyone to believe. [xiph.org] They might have over 2000 patents stuffed into the standards but that is altogether different.
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(Disclaimer: I'm the submitter. I've used the Flix Engine and other On2 products as part of our video encoding pipeline; I have been encoding videos as a part of my job ~6 years so have some experience with the range of software available.)
Flix Engine was for me a necessity, basically because it let me build command-line encoding tools that I could use reliably in automation, with the following benefits:
- On2/Google are MPEG-LA licensees, so I could use it without having to worry (too much, anyway) about pa
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Since you're clearly not married to a mainstream codec, what's stopping you from using Theora?
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We are married to a mainstream codec really - we're stuck using h264 as we need to encode for the web and mobile devices.
One of the big reasons for going with Flix Encoder was that it also supported WebM, with the (now reduced) hope that Google would get behind WebM in a major way and it would get everyone off h264.
Hmm... (Score:2)
It would be totally unsurprising(and seems to be standard industry practice in general) to put any products that you've acquired but have no strategic in more or less on ice, cutting engineering down to bare minimum critical bug fixes and selling on a more or less "only if you ask" basis, rather than actually marketing.
Actually killing a product, though, when all you need to do to keep selling it is maintain some minimal licensing and payment
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I'm just a bit surprised that there were products that didn't fall into either of those camps. Google has considerable expertise in low-cost file distribution and sells a few other pieces of software, so I would have expected the marginal cost of
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Probably the best case scenario would be how Blender was handled. It's not generally that useful to sell old software that's not being updated or bug fixed.
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Indeed, you can keep selling a product without support or patches for future OS releases, but in practice few people are willing to pay for that.
Sure you might not sell very many but those stuck with the software and in need of more licenses will be very glad they could get them. Is having a list of licenses that you will sell to anyone who asks but won't market in any way really that expensive?
Why do we tolerate a software industry that locks customers into products and then leaves them high and dry when a
Google doesn't sell many products (Score:4, Interesting)
Google sells very little, other than advertising. If they sold something for money, customers would insist on support. Almost the only thing Google sells directly to customers is the Google Search Appliance, which is available as a 1U or 4U rackmount server. The low-end version, the Google Mini, is sold with no support and a two-year replacement warranty. After two years, you're supposed to replace the entire unit. Google tried selling phones directly, and that lasted only for five months of 2010.
So it's not surprising that Google would drop a commercial software product. They don't sell any.
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Their support for Flix Engine was limited to FAQs, documentation, and a couple of their developers working on the project (possibly former On2 employees?) on the mailing list. I am on the mailing list and the developers are very quick to respond; it is usually pretty low volume so I don't think the support burden was a really big deal for them considering what it gave them.
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Uh, they bought On2 and open sourced its best codec. They didn't bought On2 just to kill it. They killed a small part of the On2 product line.
Oh, and I think you mean "cue", not "queue".
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Uh, they bought On2 and open sourced its best codec. They didn't bought On2 just to kill it. They killed a small part of the On2 product line.
Oh, and I think you mean "cue", not "queue".
Well, to his credit he spelled "excoriate" correctly, even if he was otherwise off-base.
Re:Good riddance (Score:4, Interesting)
VP6 was ahead of its time. It's deserved the money. Codecs involve more than web, and their development involves very specific knowledge in both high level math and computers. It's hard work that take loads of time. They deserved the money.
PS: My wife asked me to add an appendage about sucking a certain appendage.
Oh, Boris ... what strategy? (Score:4, Insightful)
it's not clear what effect this will have on Google's ultimate video strategy.
For that matter, Google's ultimate video strategy is unclear, quite possibly because they don't actually have one. Google is investing big money in lots of technologies, presumably hoping that one or more of them will become the "next big thing" when advertising is no longer the cash cow for them that it is now.
Why this one, of course. (Score:2)
The reasons behind buying On2 were obvious, it was to get out from under the thumb of MPEG-LA and it's constituents, many of whom are actively working against Google.
The payoff just from eliminating MPEG licensing would be huge for YouTube. Greater profit by lowering costs, raising revenue is not the only or necessarily best method of increasing profitability.
Apart from that their video
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Apart from that their video strategy is clear, provide advertisement (which is revenue on planet Google) whilst not providing content.
That's their immediate strategy. I'm talking longer-term here ... it's pretty obvious from the way Google has been creating and releasing products that they're looking for a. more ways to gain eyeballs for advertising and b. other ways to make money. Same goes for Microsoft, for that matter: both are basically one-trick ponies that would like to have a few more up their respective sleeves.
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googles long term policy to most companies has been to buy them to recruit the people working in them and then kill their inhouse projects and axe the whole thing. it doesn't sound smart or logical, but that's the way they're doing it.
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googles long term policy to most companies has been to buy them to recruit the people working in them and then kill their inhouse projects and axe the whole thing. it doesn't sound smart or logical, but that's the way they're doing it.
In other words, it's the same corporate policy followed by most large tech companies. Microsoft has always operated in much the same way (they're perfectly happy to steal the work and put the company out of business.
Strategy was earlier this year. (Score:1)
With the discontinuation of the Flix engine, this marks the end of support for a Flash 8 codec. I imagine a few Wii owners that use Flash 8 to serve their media library will be largely apathetic.
I also doubt Nintendo will contract Opera to support WebM (VP8/vorbis), but one can hope.
Google does a pretty good job at figuring out where the interest is. FFMPEG is where Joe User is getting his free encoder, so good support in what's preferred can get your standards into the other browsers. FCP is sufficiently a