http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/04/136220&%5C1from=rss <<<<<<<<<<<<<<< The Xiph.Org Foundation announced Monday the release of Theora 1.0. Theora is a free/open source video codec with a small CPU footprint that offers easy portability and requires no patent royalties. Upcoming versions of Firefox and Opera will play natively Ogg/Theora videos with the new HTML5 element <video src="file.ogv"></video>, and ffmpeg2theora offers an easy way to create content. Theora developers are already working on a 1.1 encoder that offers better quality/bitrate ratio, while producing streams backward-compatible with the current decoder
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On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 8:06 PM, Tei oscar.vives@gmail.com wrote:
Upcoming versions of Firefox and Opera will play natively Ogg/Theora videos with the new HTML5 element <video src="file.ogv"></video>
What about Internet Explorer? Will MS ever honor this HTML tag and this video codec without plugins?
Marco
As far as i know, the Theora codec has been taken out as the default video codec for the <video> element of the HTML5 spec on the specific request of, amongst other, Nokia.
-- Husky / Hay
On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 9:48 PM, Marco Schuster marco@harddisk.is-a-geek.org wrote:
On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 8:06 PM, Tei oscar.vives@gmail.com wrote:
Upcoming versions of Firefox and Opera will play natively Ogg/Theora videos with the new HTML5 element <video src="file.ogv"></video>
What about Internet Explorer? Will MS ever honor this HTML tag and this video codec without plugins?
Marco
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I don't understand why Nokia and other people would "ban" and "block" the adoption of video on internet. Is a bad idea. It don't make sense.. but I can live with it (Note to self: boycot nokia products).
Anyway here is the important bits: OGG is the way to go for audio, and OGV is the way to go for video. Mostly because... open source tools will support that formats. Thats how stuff like PNG extend, because is supported by your tools.
On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 10:02 PM, Husky huskyr@gmail.com wrote:
As far as i know, the Theora codec has been taken out as the default video codec for the <video> element of the HTML5 spec on the specific request of, amongst other, Nokia.
-- Husky / Hay
On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 9:48 PM, Marco Schuster marco@harddisk.is-a-geek.org wrote:
On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 8:06 PM, Tei oscar.vives@gmail.com wrote:
Upcoming versions of Firefox and Opera will play natively Ogg/Theora videos with the new HTML5 element <video src="file.ogv"></video>
What about Internet Explorer? Will MS ever honor this HTML tag and this video codec without plugins?
Marco
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On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 10:37 PM, Tei wrote:
I don't understand why Nokia and other people would "ban" and "block" the adoption of video on internet. Is a bad idea. It don't make sense.. but I can live with it (Note to self: boycot nokia products).
They fear a standard format without DRM so that they still can sell crappy protected music or other content to uninformed customers.
Anyway here is the important bits: OGG is the way to go for audio, and OGV is the way to go for video. Mostly because... open source tools will support that formats. Thats how stuff like PNG extend, because is supported by your tools.
Open Source yeah, but only that it's FOSS doesn't automatically make M$ support it, unfortunately :(
Marco
On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 10:37 PM, Tei oscar.vives@gmail.com wrote:
I don't understand why Nokia and other people would "ban" and "block" the adoption of video on internet. Is a bad idea. It don't make sense.. but I can live with it (Note to self: boycot nokia products).
Nokia and Apple (who also opposed Theora in HTML5) are not 'banning' or 'blocking' the adoption of video on the internet, simply look at the success of Apple's iTunes video store and its Quicktime technology. Also, both companies are very active within the free / open-source movement, especially Nokia who bought Trolltech (makers of the popular Qt widget library for Linux). Apple uses and writes lots of open source software, including the kernel for Mac OS X, Darwin.
The more sensible explanation for their rejection of OGG Theora are more logical reasons, such as the lack of tooling within the professional market and the somewhat difficult patent situation.
Anyway here is the important bits: OGG is the way to go for audio, and OGV is the way to go for video. Mostly because... open source tools will support that formats. Thats how stuff like PNG extend, because is supported by your tools.
OGG Vorbis (audio) is definitely a solid standard, but i'm not that sure about Theora. Video encoding is a difficult thing to tackle, and a legal minefield in terms of patents for encoding algorhytms (just try making sense out of the patent situation for MPEG) which Theora might use (i am not a lawyer or an expert on that subject, so if anyone can confirm or disprove this claim, please do so). Also, authoring tooling (especially in popular commercial packages such as Final Cut Pro and Premiere) is nearly unavailable for Theora, as is good support for playback. Currently, Theora is a nice alternative, but i'm hoping that better alternatives such as the Dirac codec (which is financially backed by the BBC) will take of soon.
-- Hay / Husky
I'll make one somewhat long group reply on this thread. See inline:
On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 3:48 PM, Marco Schuster marco@harddisk.is-a-geek.org wrote:
What about Internet Explorer? Will MS ever honor this HTML tag and this video codec without plugins?
There are no known publicly announced plans from Microsoft to include support in Internet Explorer. Although it looks like Microsoft will be including XiphQT (Theora, Vorbis, Speex, Flac) in a windows standard codec service for Vista, though what that entails is somewhat vague to me right now.
The non-inclusion in Explorer is unfortunate, but not the end of the world:
Web developers can use <video/> in pages and source a piece of JS that knows how to replace the video tag with another playback method. Currently Theora + Vorbis can be played by by any Java supporting browser, or via browser plugins (like VLC plugin). There is now a Flash 10 player for Vorbis (which involves a Vorbis decoder written in actionscript) and Theora decoding in Flash 10 should be possible if someone gets around to implementing the Theora spec in Flash) . Of course, native playback will always work best and since native playback will be supported in both Opera and Firefox the public will have the opportunity to change browsers if they are unhappy with the performance in IE.
Wikimedia projects have had support for <video/> in one form or another pretty much since the original spec was drafted. So it's nice to see production browsers catching up.
On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 10:37 PM, Tei wrote:
I don't understand why Nokia and other people would "ban" and "block" the adoption of video on internet. Is a bad idea. It don't make sense.. but I can live with it (Note to self: boycot nokia products).
They fear a standard format without DRM so that they still can sell crappy protected music or other content to uninformed customers.
Someone could propose a DRM standard for Ogg. No one has done so. Apple and Nokia are both participants in several of the MPEG patent pools, Nokia quite substantially. When people license MPEG technology these companies make money. It's unsurprising that they would promote their codecs to the exclusion of 'the competition'. It doesn't require any evil.
I strongly recommend that you take a few minutes to read the About Xiph page (http://xiph.org/about/) if you have not. The document is somewhat old, but it's every bit as relevant today as it was a decade ago, although the commercial format battle ground has shifted more towards Video as Ogg/Vorbis largely salted the ground for profits to be made on audio formats.
In any case, since Microsoft, unlike Apple or Nokia, isn't making any money from the MPEG formats and their own formats have mostly lost the format wars outside of set top boxes (at least I think so, they may disagree), it would seem to make economic sense for them to adopt the open standards. So perhaps that may happen at some point, but I am not a Microsoft executive and my crystal ball is currently in the shop for repairs.
On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 5:11 PM, Husky huskyr@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
Apple uses and writes lots of open source software, including the kernel for Mac OS X, Darwin.
Apple's relationship with Free/Open source software is tenuous at best. For example: Apple programmers are now forbidden from reading the mailing lists for GPLv3 licensed software if it's possible that code may be posted to the lists. (I can cite public statements if you do not wish to take my word for it). I do not consider them evil for this— Their policies are a result of honestly made business decisions, and their mission is to maximize value for their shareholders, not the public good.
As mentioned, Apple enjoys licensing fees from MPEG technology, it would be bad business for them to not resist the adoption of Vorbis, Theora, FLAC, Speex, etc. Unsurprisingly they have resisted every one of these formats even while their competition (including Microsoft, Adobe, etc) have adopted (some) of them. At the same time they continue to support MP3, .WAV files, and other DRM-free formats.
The patent hand-waving with respect to Theora is spurious at best and dishonest FUD at worst. There is a very important reason that the claims are non-specific and always attributed to unnamed parties: It makes it impossible to address them. There exist patents in every area of engineering interest and it is almost always impossible to be *certain* that a particular solution violates none of them (excepting old solutions used in the same way they were always used). This is a truism — the same risk exists even for licensed codecs and virtually all software and technoligy. When you license a MPEG codec you are not provided with indemnity against third party claims, just ask Microsoft (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcatel-Lucent_v._Microsoft). Multi-million dollar companies have shipped Theora, and have had legal teams evaluate the situation. If this doesn't provide you with enough confidence you should be demanding patent reforms, not expressing concern about Theora. So please do not spread the claim that Theora has some uniquely poor position with respect to patents.
Cheers
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