

Theora update for May 2009; quality has improved dramatically - wmf
http://web.mit.edu/xiphmont/Public/theora/demo7.html

======
ZeroGravitas
The Theora guys have given themselves a bit of a PR black-eye here. In amongst
all the fascinating yet mostly incomprehensible progress reports they make a
passing reference to x264 which has been stripped of all their carefully
worded caveats and unleashed on reddit et al to completely hijack the good
press they should be getting from this.

Instead of "solid progress of free codec, supported natively by popular
browser, potential game changer for online media" you get a standard online
benchmark squabble stealing all their press and goodwill.

Maybe it's one of those "no such thing as bad publicity" things and they've
been taking lessons from DHH. Then again they probably had no hope of avoiding
it, the same arguments appear every time there's Theora news.

Open Source Lessons Learned:

from pulseaudio: linux users get really(!) upset when you break their
proprietary Flash plugins and Skype.

from theora: there can be no compromise in quality standards when transcoding
bootleg DVDs.

~~~
wmf
I have a somewhat opposite viewpoint. For years I considered Theora worthless
_because_ the developers appeared not to care about how it compares to H.264.
IMO this is the first _good_ press for Theora ever.

