

Lib-Ray: Non-DRM Open-Standards HD Video Format - Sander_Marechal
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2144275086/lib-ray-non-drm-open-standards-hd-video-format

======
zoul
_Free and independent film are experiencing an incredible boom right now, and
the Blu-Ray eco-system with its DRM (or TPM) , region codes, and exorbitant
patent licensing fees denies us access to that. So, I think it's time to do
something about it._

Like stop distributing movies on physical media?

~~~
jeffool
As much as I wish you were right, digital does nothing toward stopping region
coding/DRM if we're talking completely legal means. Though, the licensing
fees, sure.

As much as I'd like to say you're right, I think there are still too many
people (here in the US) that just don't have access to the kind of pipes make
this feasible. Even considering so many places here that DO have DSL or cable
as choices, you have to make the choice of EITHER streaming video OR doing
something more intense than web browsing.

I was at my cousin's today and ran into the trite example of downloading
something on Steam while someone else was trying to watch Hulu. First the
quality went to crap, then it just stopped, and Steam was only ("only")
pulling 600Kb/s.

Sure, there's probably enough of a market to make it a niche business, but
you'd have to strike gold to make it turn into a reason for better Internet
service. I mean bigger than Netflix. And with ISPs trying their best to turn
us into a "pay per GB" society, I don't see physical media going away any time
soon.

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jkn
_Video File Format: MKV container file with VP8 video and FLAC or Vorbis audio
(this standard is similar, but a little more permissive than WebM, and is
optimized for use on fixed media rather than downloads)._

It doesn't seem like they have strong arguments to create a new standard that
is almost but not quite compatible with WebM. The inclusion of FLAC is not a
strong argument, rather a bad idea, cf
<http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html>

~~~
sparkie
It's not just ability to use flac - there's a bunch of other restrictions on
the MKV format for webm. These include chapters & menus (and ability to use
separate media streams for each), support for variety of subtitle/closed
caption formats, plus the ability to add attachments like fonts, textures and
images for use in those streams.

Some of these features have been re-invented in the webvtt format, which is
inferior to what was already available.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
If they have good reason to break compatability with WebM, then they might
want to use Opus (Xiph's follow-up to Vorbis) as the audio codec. It's
possible that its combination of voice and wideband audio could be ideal for
video soundtracks.

<http://opus-codec.org/>

~~~
makomk
Opus is optimised for low-delay, relatively-low-bandwidth audio for stuff like
VOIP. It doesn't make much sense for recorded media where you can quite easily
hide a few hundred milliseconds of latency.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Opus is actually designed to span from low to high bandwidth (see the diagram
here <http://www.opus-codec.org/comparison/>) and since it performed
surprisingly well against aac and vorbis the developers are currently working
on tuning the encoder for standard music/soundtrack type workloads at higher
bitrates.

I was thinking that the mixed speech mode of Opus might be excellent for
documentaries and such with lots of dialogue at Youtube or web bitrates but
you're right, I forgot in this case we're talking Blu-ray size video, in which
case you can just play it safe and ramp up the vorbis bitrate instead and
it'll be a drop in the ocean compared with the video bitrate.

------
PaulHoule
I'd have a little more faith in it if he was asking for more money.

Also I think he is belittling what Blu-Ray has to offer. Blu-Ray doesn't just
provide 'menus', it provides an environment for writing Java applications that
can do serious tricks with video (such as picture-in-picture.)

In fact, from an authoring pov, a Blu-Ray disk is more like an Android
application with 25 GB of storage attached than a media file. Blu-Ray players
have streaming media capabilities so it would also be possible to make a disk
that is a "season's pass" to stream all the Red Sox games for a year.

Now, you can make a case that this is surplus capacity and that people would
do fine with DVD menus or no menus at all. Maybe you're right. Certainly the
full potential of Blu-Ray is hardly touched, and I know movie industry people
are quite baffled about what to do with it. You can certainly find disks that
make you watch annoying trailers -- on the other hand, I can point to many
Blu-Ray disks that "just play" and that come with 6 hours of documentary
content, commentary and other good stuff.

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sandGorgon
>The player will be written in Python with the python-gst, pywebkitgtk, and
python-gtk

Why ? It would much more useful to me (and much less work for the developer)
if you could write a VLC plugin.

~~~
jvc26
Not that everyone uses VLC - I thought the intention was something a little
more flexible.

~~~
dkersten
But the people who don't use VLC are able and willing to use python-gst,
pywebkitgtk, and python-gtk?

------
josephlord
If they are trying to create an interoperable standard the work plan seems to
be missing the two most important parts.

1) Test suite of sample encoded files with expected decoder behaviour
documented. This shouldn't be a random selection of different people's encodes
but a carefully selected set of those pushing the boundaries of the spec. This
should be used to test decoders rather than having a reference decoder that
has to be copied bugs and all.

2) The counterpart to the above is a file validator that checks as much as
possible that any given encoded file meets the specification.

Reference decoders only really make sense for codecs where you will expect a
particular bitstream output for any input.

If they don't do both of those things it doesn't seem much more useful than
just making some encoding recommendations for compatibility.

------
DigitalSea
It's a noble goal, but a little too ambitious for one person to undertake by
themselves though isn't it? Why not just start an open source project with the
cash and get some developers on board? Use the money to buy tools and hardware
needed, then let others help write the format and test.

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aw3c2
I don't quite understand what this is about. it sounds to me that mkv already
does most of the things?

~~~
sparkie
Misleading title - the project is about a player, not the format. The player
happens to use mkv etc. As to why he is reinventing menus is questionable
though, since they're already supported by the mkv format.

~~~
0x09
Matroska does not have any menu spec whatsoever.

~~~
sparkie
Oh, right you are! I had assumed they would be in there by now, as it was over
5 years ago when there was discussion about adding them. Appears to still be a
draft idea.

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tar
I sincerely hope that this project gets fully funded but I think this comic
(<http://xkcd.com/927/>) is very relevant in this context.

~~~
unimpressive
I was under the impression that this is about patents, and not standard-
hipsterism. I could be wrong though.

------
dantiberian
How is this better than a standard video file for the job that people hire a
movie to do? I don't think I have ever been glad that I had a movie menu to
play from, clicking a file is faster, more portable and more future proof.

