OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/20485/The_Xiph_Org_Foundation_Announces_Theora_1_0 Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:28:07 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Time to be.. http://osnews.com/thread?336300 http://osnews.com/thread?336300 open. Actually I prefer open codecs because they come in extensive documentation,sample code and I do not have to rely on companies. Vorbis + Theora can change the way things work. And I would like to listen to music and watch content with my Fedora9 desktops out of the box. Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fithisux) Comments Comparisons? http://osnews.com/thread?336301 http://osnews.com/thread?336301 I would love the see an (output, not tools) comparison between theora (including the recent encoder work), Dirac and h.264. Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (VistaUser) Comments RE: Comparisons? http://osnews.com/thread?336306 http://osnews.com/thread?336306 From what I've heard Dirac would do better than either H.264 or Theora and H.264 would do better than Theora, which apparently performs at roughly the same level as XviD/DivX... Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (madcrow) Comments Comment by Kroc http://osnews.com/thread?336309 http://osnews.com/thread?336309 It's good, because OGG support will be baked into Firefox and Opera, there'll be adequate incentive. I'll certainly look to be supporting it. Now it's just a shame that Safari's implementation doesn't out of the box.

I really long for the day that Flash goes away. Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc) Comments RE: Comparisons? http://osnews.com/thread?336313 http://osnews.com/thread?336313
I would love the see an (output, not tools) comparison between theora (including the recent encoder work), Dirac and h.264.

There was a comparison between Theora and h.264 that linked here aswell. Maybe a year ago or something. The final conclusion was that h.264 had much better quality/filesize ratio. Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (SJ87) Comments Comment by fasteez http://osnews.com/thread?336314 http://osnews.com/thread?336314 comparison here : http://www.osnews.com/story/19019/Theora-vs.-h.264/

If theora made progress that would be delightfull.
And native support from firefox of Ogg formats would help a lot (+html 5 native controls ^^) Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fasteez) Comments RE: Comment by fasteez http://osnews.com/thread?336323 http://osnews.com/thread?336323 That comparison is not using the new encoding improvgements (http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/35363.html) - which to be far have not yet been incorporated back into the trunk yet.

Is there any comparison out there of how dirac compares to anything? Tue, 04 Nov 2008 21:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (VistaUser) Comments ... http://osnews.com/thread?336330 http://osnews.com/thread?336330 And by this time Theora would be part of the HTML5 standar.

Thank you very much Nokia.... NOT!!!. Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Hiev) Comments no hardware plays theodora http://osnews.com/thread?336334 http://osnews.com/thread?336334 no hardware (standalone dvd player, ipod, ps3 etc etc) can play ogg/mkv/ogm and all that stuff. and i mean without dirty unsupported hacks.

while i would love to see a patent free codec (and so should the hw. manufacturers) it didn't happen yet. unless this happens i see ogg or any other codec simply not practical for day to day usage.

just a note for the ogg developers, if you want to succeed, make an easy installer. and with easy i do mean easy. either have it build in the player, or make it a single click installer. as an experienced user i have trouble getting it to run, how can the masses adopt it?

and don't offer source downloads, it only confuses people. nobody uses it besides package maintainers. those people will find the tars anyway if it's a bit more hidden. all other developers use the svn tree.

good luck with polishing. Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (renhoek) Comments RE: no hardware plays theodora http://osnews.com/thread?336335 http://osnews.com/thread?336335 I'm very sure that MKV is very popular as a supported format. Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (wfox) Comments RE: ... http://osnews.com/thread?336336 http://osnews.com/thread?336336
And by this time Theora would be part of the HTML5 standar.

Thank you very much Nokia.... NOT!!!.

yeah, those people at nokia responsible for that really deserves to be painfully executed.. Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Redeeman) Comments RE: no hardware plays theodora http://osnews.com/thread?336342 http://osnews.com/thread?336342 >no hardware (standalone dvd player, ipod, ps3 etc etc) can play ogg/mkv/ogm and all that stuff. and i mean without dirty unsupported hacks.

http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/hardware.html
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,2121760,00.htm

Says otherwise.

http://www.neurostechnology.com/

Nice.

>just a note for the ogg developers, if you want to succeed, make an easy installer. and with easy i do mean easy.

Ogg is installed by default on most Linux distributions, and where it is not it is included in the package management repository, which makes it dead simple to install.

Ogg comes as a part of freedom-software players such as VLC ... it is installed painlessly with the media player.

AFAIK there is only one situation where ogg is difficult to get installed ... and that is in places where freedom-software is not welcomed (at least, not welcomed by the authors of the closed source systems, the user doesn't get a say here).

This means in effect that you might have a hard time installing ogg support on your Windows Media Player, on your Mac, or on your Nokia phone.

The fact that it might be difficult to install in situations like the latter sentence has absolutely NOTHING to do with Xiph.org.

Having said that ... it doesn't seem all that hard to do:

http://xiph.org/dshow/Edited 2008-11-05 00:53 UTC Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (lemur2) Comments RE: no hardware plays theodora http://osnews.com/thread?336346 http://osnews.com/thread?336346
no hardware (standalone dvd player, ipod, ps3 etc etc) can play ogg/mkv/ogm and all that stuff. and i mean without dirty unsupported hacks.


Electronics:

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8300

http://edageek.com/2006/10/31/ogg-vorbis-decoder-xtensa-hifi-2/
http://www.tensilica.com/products/ogg.htm

http://www.2k1.co.uk/components/VLSI_audio.asp

Warning: PDF's ==>
http://linux.gda.pl/pub/finearch.com/OggVorbisProductSummaryE.pdf

http://focus.ti.com/lit/ml/sprp525/sprp525.pdf

Portable Players:

http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/PortablePlayersEdited 2008-11-05 02:50 UTC Wed, 05 Nov 2008 02:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (lemur2) Comments RE[2]: no hardware plays theodora http://osnews.com/thread?336347 http://osnews.com/thread?336347
Says otherwise.

There are many media players supporting Ogg formats, but they are often not available at your nearest store. I was shopping for a media player supporting Ogg Vorbis last year and I had to order it from a store literally across the country. It might only be a slight annoyance for a technogeek, but the average Joe won't bother with that. Not really Xiph's fault, though.

AFAIK there is only one situation where ogg is difficult to get installed ... and that is in places where freedom-software is not welcomed (at least, not welcomed by the authors of the closed source systems, the user doesn't get a say here).

Well, given these systems are making the vast majority of the market, this "lone" situation is quite a big deal! Many high-profile open-source applications like Firefox and OOo became popular when they ran well on Windows, so I don't see Theora going anywhere until it's properly supported on it. Being supported by Firefox won't solve the problem, since people still want to watch videos offline or in another still-dominant browser.

Having said that ... it doesn't seem all that hard to do:
http://xiph.org/dshow/


To my experience, these filters are quite flakey and outdated. Same thing for the XiphQT component on the Mac, although it does work better. Again, it won't become a real alternative if they just manage to get okay support on the major platforms, especially when they already have to compete with different commercially-backed and/or standardized codecs and deal with the fact that most people don't really give a damn about the "freedom" of their codecs, as long as they work with minimal fuss (just like Flash).

Don't get me wrong: I support your point. However, I believe I'm a tad more realistic, just like another recent thread. ;) Wed, 05 Nov 2008 03:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Wrawrat) Comments Will it be available as a plug-in? http://osnews.com/thread?336348 http://osnews.com/thread?336348 So is this going to be offered as a plug-in for IE and Safari? This should be simple to add to them.

What would be better is if a download was offered that added full Ogg Vorbis and Theora support into Windows Media Player and IE with one download.

Perhaps Apple will add support for this in Quicktime? I really doubt but who knows? What would be the best way to package this simply for general Mac use and use with Safari-specifically through a plug-in?

Also will Google Chrome support this?

Why are these things not packaged like this already on their website? If they want the actual usage of these standards to increase then they need to make them as dead simple to install as possible. Wed, 05 Nov 2008 03:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (asupcb) Comments RE: Comparisons? http://osnews.com/thread?336349 http://osnews.com/thread?336349 There is no real comparison, theora is several generations behind everyone else. The only conceivable reason to use it is the license. Wed, 05 Nov 2008 03:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (google_ninja) Comments RE: no hardware plays theodora http://osnews.com/thread?336353 http://osnews.com/thread?336353 "no hardware (standalone dvd player, ipod, ps3 etc etc) can play ogg/mkv/ogm and all that stuff. and i mean without dirty unsupported hacks."

If that is the case, please inform the manufacturers of the equipment listed on this link. They may want to know that the product they mass produce and sell does not do what they say it does.

http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/PortablePlayers#iDREAM_Jukebox_2.2_G...

EDIT: Forgot the link!Edited 2008-11-05 05:40 UTC Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (DrillSgt) Comments Meh http://osnews.com/thread?336355 http://osnews.com/thread?336355 Theora seems largely irrelevant. I'd never had to use it and I see no reason to in the future either as there are formats that are both more well known / supported and have better quality / size ratio. Does it have any reason to exist? Wed, 05 Nov 2008 06:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Bending Unit) Comments RE: Meh http://osnews.com/thread?336360 http://osnews.com/thread?336360 It's free to implement, and that makes all the difference.

If Mozilla wanted to use H.264 they'd have to pay a licence for each user of Firefox, and it could only be included in official builds from Mozilla - which would rule out H.264 support for Mozilla's unofficially supported platforms such as anything x64, BeOS, OS/2, Solaris &c.

Ogg is going to become relevant by it's inclusion into browsers. Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc) Comments RE[2]: no hardware plays theodora http://osnews.com/thread?336362 http://osnews.com/thread?336362 given how MKV is just a can (similar to AVI) that could hold just about any combo of video and audio, im not surprised. Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hobgoblin) Comments RE[2]: Comment by fasteez http://osnews.com/thread?336363 http://osnews.com/thread?336363 and one thing to note there is that the examples are taking a smaller area of a large image and sizing it up.

the question is how noticeable the "issue" will be unless one grab a stampsized web video and slap it onto a 50" "wallpaper" screen. Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hobgoblin) Comments RE[2]: Meh http://osnews.com/thread?336364 http://osnews.com/thread?336364 and scares the big boys silly that have hedged their bets.

now the big tech equalizer, the web, wants to use something else pr default (never mind that one can stack media files using these tags so that the user or the system can pick the "better" one), one thats not part of said hedged bet.

no wonder they are fighting, there is billions in hardware and software, direct and thru IP agreements, that can basically have been wasted. Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hobgoblin) Comments I've always wondered... http://osnews.com/thread?336383 http://osnews.com/thread?336383 ...why the MPEG standards comittees have been so gutless vis a vis pushing for the free implementabilty of their standards. Other major standards bodies OASIS, JPEG, W3C, etc have always operated under the principle that they needed to be producing standards that could be implemented (legally) by anybody from a 14 year old hobbyist to a multi-billion dollar international company and that doing so would incur no patent liabilities or liscensing fees. Even greedy, propreitary companies like Microsoft and Adobe allow for free access to and royalty-free implementation of a whole host of their standards and file formats. Nobody seems to have suffered from this, so why have the MPEG comittees continued to operate counter to general industry practice? Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (madcrow) Comments RE: I've always wondered... http://osnews.com/thread?336405 http://osnews.com/thread?336405 because it costs money to develop good codecs, not just average or mediocre ones, good ones. there's a reason xiph/theora is free, because it lost. they tried very hard to win and get that money.

in the end lost because it was inferior and remains inferior.

to the consumer and myself, nobody cares about patents, every player supports mp4/h264 decoding, is free and also already has hardware h264 decoders. Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mckill) Comments RE[2]: I've always wondered... http://osnews.com/thread?336421 http://osnews.com/thread?336421
because it costs money to develop good codecs, not just average or mediocre ones, good ones. there's a reason xiph/theora is free, because it lost. they tried very hard to win and get that money.

in the end lost because it was inferior and remains inferior.

to the consumer and myself, nobody cares about patents, every player supports mp4/h264 decoding, is free and also already has hardware h264 decoders.

And you're saying it didn't cost money to develop ODF or JPEG or PDF or any of the many freely-implementable file formats out there? I just don't see the huge difference. Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (madcrow) Comments RE[2]: I've always wondered... http://osnews.com/thread?336424 http://osnews.com/thread?336424
because it costs money to develop good codecs, not just average or mediocre ones, good ones. there's a reason xiph/theora is free, because it lost. they tried very hard to win and get that money. in the end lost because it was inferior and remains inferior.


That argument doesn't work in the case of FLAC and Vorbis. It doesn't even work for speex. Each of those xiph codecs is superior, but they are not widely used merely because big corporate media interests do not want them to be used, and actively suppress them.

The reason for the supression is pure and simple ... big corporate media interests wish to retain control over what consumers can and cannot do, in order to be able to rip them off.

The "way out" here is to support FLAC & Vorbis (because they are no way inferior) and Dirac. Theora can be kept as well ... why not? It may be able to be improved with development.

Dirac is a different story. It is good enough to be comparable with the likes of H.264.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_codec
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/11153/35811/0...

I'm not therefore sure of the Ogg container format ... can it suport Dirac as well or is it limited only to xiph codecs? If the former, then we either need to support Matroska over Ogg, or we need to encourage Xiph to accomodate Dirac in addition to Theora.

PS: Correcting myself ... it would appear as though Xiph has indeed taken on board the task to get Ogg to accomodate the Dirac codec.

http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/OggDiracEdited 2008-11-05 23:04 UTC Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (lemur2) Comments Another nice thing about Theora... http://osnews.com/thread?336425 http://osnews.com/thread?336425 ...is that there's a native Java applet implementation of it:

http://www.flumotion.net/cortado/

It's GPL too. Not a bad alternative to Flash and FLVs, methinks...

Plus in the future there's a good chance it'll be integrated into the JVM itself.

http://developers.sun.com/learning/javaoneonline/2008/pdf/TS-6509.p...
(Java Media Components) Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Moochman) Comments MPEG-1 is close to being royalty free already http://osnews.com/thread?336571 http://osnews.com/thread?336571 MPEG-1 is close to being royalty free. MPEG-1 audio layer II is close enough to MASCAM which was described in detail in August of 1988. MPEG-1 video is fairly close to H.261 which came out in 1990. It would almost certainly be possible to make a royalty free profile of MPEG-1 that could be played with existing players, yet could also be implemented for free. I have been putting information as I find it up at http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/MPEG_patent_status Fri, 07 Nov 2008 04:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jrincayc) Comments