Theora is a video codec with a small CPU footprint that offers easy portability and requires no patent royalties. While the Theora bitstream format was standardized in 2004 and our beta releases have been used by millions, this 1.0 release is an important milestone reflecting the maturity and stability of the Theora codebase. A number of leading multimedia web groups already support Theora. Upcoming releases of Mozilla Firefox, the world's most popular open source browser, will support Theora natively, as will releases of the multi-platform Opera browser. Top-10 website Wikipedia uses Theora for all of its video.
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Member since:2008-10-11
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2007-02-17
>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
Member since:2005-06-30
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.
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.
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.
Member since:2007-02-17
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/PortablePlayers
Edited 2008-11-05 02:50 UTC
Member since:2005-12-02
"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
Member since:
2007-04-29
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.