

Mozilla gives a $100K grant towards an open video format for the web - vaksel
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/26/mozilla-gives-100000-grant-towards-an-open-video-format-for-the-web/

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pavlov
This is good news. Theora (the open-source video codec whose development
Mozilla is supporting with this grant) is mature and there is an irrevocable
license to free use of the original patents covering the compression
technology, so there's at least a good chance that it truly is "patent-free".

The downside of Theora is that its compression quality is a generation behind
H.264 or the latest Windows Media codecs. But web users in general are not
sticklers about video compression artifacts: YouTube was for a long time
limited to 320*240 video compressed with Sorenson Spark (a H.263 variant of
worse quality than Theora), and that didn't hinder its success. If wide
support by next-generation browsers makes it possible to start delivering
compelling content in Theora, it has a chance.

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shutter
What would it take to create a free codec rivaling H.264? Is it a patent issue
or a technological one?

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pavlov
It seems to be mostly about patents. The H.264 patent pool contains hundreds
of patents owned by 23 organizations. Many of them appear generic enough that
any new codec would run a serious risk of infringing them. For example, one of
H.264's major improvements over previous codecs is the use of arithmetic
coding, and there's a patent in the pool concerning a "method and apparatus
for binarization and arithmetic coding of a data value".

(Here's an interesting mini white paper about the codec patent situation:
<http://www.vcodex.com/videocodingpatents.html> )

Worse, there's the possibility of submarine patents that are not included in
the H.264 pool. Qualcomm has already attempted to sue Broadcom for making
H.264-compliant products that allegedly infringed Qualcomm patents (which
Qualcomm had not disclosed when H.264 was being developed). They lost the
case, but the US Court of Appeals specifically limited the scope of those
patents' unenforceability only to products which are covered by a H.264
license. That means Qualcomm is still free to sue for any independently
developed non-H.264 codecs that might be similar enough.

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codedivine
Why Theora and not lets say Dirac? Anyone with more knowledge can comment?

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GHFigs
Mozilla has already committed to native Theora/Vorbis support in Firefox 3.1,
and WikiMedia (who will administer the grant) is already committed to using
Theora and Vorbis for Wikipedia.

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volida
The problem is not developing a new video codec but gain support in digital
cameras.

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brentr
Please spare me the RTFM comments; I am sick and not feeling well enough
tonight to dig into some huge research project. I simply would like to know
how a company like Youtube functions. Do they have to pay for the right to use
their video software or is the software currently available for anyone?

~~~
scw
They embed their movies using the Flash Video format
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Video>) which is a container format for
multiple audio and video codecs. These are licensed by Adobe, and indirectly
to purchasers of their software. Because these codecs are bundled with Flash,
to get iPhone support, all the videos had to be transcoded into Quicktime-
friendly formats.

Generally, there are licensing fees for each codec (e.g. H.264) which are
licensed by software companies for use within their products. The open source
implementations of such codecs are in a legal grey area, as technically
compiling them means you should pay for their licensing.

~~~
GHFigs
A clarification: H.264 videos on YouTube don't use FLV containers. Flash 9 and
up supports H.264 in MP4 containers natively. The iPhone app simply streams
these directly.

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pclark
I'm curious -- is it "okay" for Mozilla to bundle their video player in
Firefox? Isn't this abusing their large user base to push technologie _they_
endorse?

or does it not matter if it's FOSS?

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jcl
The funny thing is: If Nokia and Apple hadn't lobbied so hard against Theora
(and for their own DRM-laden alternatives), it would now be part of the W3C
spec, and Mozilla would be criticized for not having implemented it yet.

[http://www.boingboing.net/2007/12/09/nokia-to-w3c-ogg-
is.htm...](http://www.boingboing.net/2007/12/09/nokia-to-w3c-ogg-is.html)

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Zarathu
Eh, why not? It's not like we don't have room for one more.

