move Xvid to Theora or another Codec?

[morsa]

I thought just that.
Wouldn't be better to move most of the efforts and development on XVID to THEORA, which we know is free and open source with no licensing fees hanging around?

[Doom9]

Wouldn't it be better that the people who actually contribute their skill get to decide where they spend their time?

MPEG LA licenses are a moot point for open source projects because they a) do not distribute binaries, and b) there's clauses in both the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC license that allow a certain use without having to pay license fees. That makes it perfectly okay to use XviD or x264 without having to shell out a single dime if you're a private user. And if you want to use something commercially, well, you have to shell out money either way. Even the companies using Linux pay - for support for instance.

And if you think XviD has reached the ceiling, just wait for the 1.2 branch :P

There might even be a political component: not everybody like Xiph, and they make it very easy for you to hate them (especially if you're a Windows user). And since the DVD backup community is largely centered around the Windows world, that tends to cause some friction..

[ATM]

To be very blunt: no. First of all XviD is open source as well so that's not an issue. Second, mpeg-4 licensing fees aren't really that much from what I've seen, and IIRC you pay no fees until you hit the "50,000 implementations" mark (and since I don't use XviD for a commercial use that would make me liable to pay any fees this also doesn't affect me). And finally, theora has never impressed me in its quality at all (yes I know its still early in implementation but XviD impressed me well in its early stages) and if the development should shift anywhere I believe it should be towards AVC implementations (especially x264), but right now I think development on XviD should keep going as ASP is still quite useful.

[morsa]

Ok.Didn't know all this stuff.Sounds right anyway.
But I still think that even if not going Theora or Xiph related because half humanity hates Xiph, going Dirac (yes, I know many will come saying Dirac is backed by BBC and yes it is a big consortium or commercial company, but things on this are a bit different) or anything else not related to big consortiums formed or heavily financed by big companies to protect their commercial interests would be better.
By the way, the great success of Mpeg4 on the DVD backup community wasn't built by the MPEG consortium as far as I know, but from the DIVX/OPENDIVX/XVID people here and all over the world..
SO from my point of view all these efforts are just going towards letting big companies use the formats and make big bucks from the communitary efforts of making them available on a massive scale.
If it were the opposite way, many companies would end up implementing the Open Codecs, may be paying a really small fee to the Open source Consortium or something like that.
Just remember Linux (although I know it is heavily based on UNIX patents and the like).Do you remenber how many people was using UNIX breeds before its appearance?
Remember MP3.How many people was using it before it was cracked and Winamp was born?
Why the same hasn't happened to AAC although it was heavily promoted by big companies?
Remember VQF audio format from Yamaha? It is dead right now.
I was thinking also about Windows Media, but I know many will come after me if I say anything about it...

Anyway this seems to be just my point of view, and I don't pretend anybody else here to think the same way if they don't want to.

@Doom9: Ohh sure you are completely right, people could and should spend their time on anything they want, why doing different?
I was sharing my thought and being able to know and understand why people is doing what they do and what are the reasons for doing things this way or the other.

[ATM]

Originally posted by morsa
By the way, the great success of Mpeg4 on the DVD backup community wasn't built by the MPEG consortium as far as I know, but from the DIVX/OPENDIVX/XVID people here and all over the world..
SO from my point of view all these efforts are just going towards letting big companies use the formats and make big bucks from the communitary efforts of making them available on a massive scale.

So what if some company makes money off DivX or XviD? I can still use them freely without having to pay anyone money so I could honestly care less.

Originally posted by morsa
Remember MP3.How many people was using it before it was cracked and Winamp was born?
Why the same hasn't happened to AAC although it was heavily promoted by big companies?

I'm confused by what you are trying to say here because AAC has been in use for quite some time now for both sharing music (iTunes for example) and is being used widely as the audio format for creating mpeg-4 media and is now being supported more widely in mpeg-4 players (alot of this can be attributed to Nero). Just because you may not be using it doesn't mean no one is. I personally stopped using mp3 about 1.5 years ago and have been using AAC exclusively for my DVD rips.

[morsa]

ohh, sorry.I didn't know AAC was the default audio nowadays on copied movies.
Everything I could find seems to still be MP3...:eek:

[ATM]

Originally posted by morsa
ohh, sorry.I didn't know AAC was the default audio nowadays on copied movies.
Everything I could find seems to still be MP3...:eek:

Who made that claim that it was? I was merely pointing out that despite your statement that many people are using AAC otherwise why would any mpeg-4 players support this audio format if no one was using it, eh? Just because some pirates on the internet still use mp3 doesn't mean that everyone is. By this logic containers like mp4 and mkv must be useless because the pirates on the web are still mainly using AVI, again a ridiculous claim.

[iwod]

i would rather they take more time on snow.......

[Sirber]

Originally posted by ATM
Who made that claim that it was? I was merely pointing out that despite your statement that many people are using AAC otherwise why would any mpeg-4 players support this audio format if no one was using it, eh? Just because some pirates on the internet still use mp3 doesn't mean that everyone is. By this logic containers like mp4 and mkv must be useless because the pirates on the web are still mainly using AVI, again a ridiculous claim. Maybe coz AAC is the "MP4 audio codec" that has been promoted by "big compagnies". On the field, AVI is the most used container, seconded by OGM. I rarelly see MKV and lessly MP4 and no RMVB. Anyway, not my war :)

[ATM]

Originally posted by Sirber
Maybe coz AAC is the "MP4 audio codec" that has been promoted by "big compagnies". On the field, AVI is the most used container, seconded by OGM. I rarelly see MKV and lessly MP4 and no RMVB. Anyway, not my war :)

Except he was trying to make the claim that I said, and I quote him, that "AAC was the default audio nowadays on copied movies" which isn't what I said at all. Secondly, it's not surprising that AVI would be the most use container considering its the one of the oldest of the containers for digital media, but even so people do use mkv and mp4 and the use of these containers has increased. Anyway, the format wars can be fought by someone else cause I could honestly care less what anyone else uses, as it doesn't have any effect on my life.

[morsa]

I don't understand why do you seem so annoyed ATM?
This is nothing personal.
I was just pointing out that it would seem more logical from my optic to spend more of all those resources used on XVID at service of some other Fully open, fully free codec.You can call it Dirac, Snow, whatever.
About conatiners I have no special preference, I use AVI, I use OGG, never have used MKV but I like it.
It would seem OGG should be the preferred one, but seeing Doom9 said Xiph doesn't like to many out there, I'm inclined to not including it.
So we still have Fully Open container but no real open codec to put inside....at least that is the actual situation.

[ATM]

Originally posted by morsa
I don't understand why do you seem so annoyed ATM?
This is nothing personal.

I'm not annoyed at anything, I don't really care if you use theora or any other codec as it makes little to no difference to me. I just see no real reason why XviD should be abandoned as it is a great codec, far better then theora IMO.

Originally posted by morsa
I was just pointing out that it would seem more logical from my optic to spend more of all those resources used on XVID at service of some other Fully open, fully free codec.You can call it Dirac, Snow, whatever.

Why? XviD is already open source and for personal use it is completely free, as is any mpeg-4 codec, so I really don't see the point of them abandoning the project for some other codec when it already meets those standards that you want.

[savage747]

Well, "moving" Xvid to Theora or any other codec doesn´t make sense. Xvid is a very good performing codec and much time has been invested in this. "Moving" would mean to completely abandon this codebase without any need - so it´s not "moving" but "restarting from scratch". What a waste.

I keep myself informed about activity at Xiph.org since several years and I think that they are doing good and valuable things for open-source multimedia. However, xiph isn´t immediatly open for "consumer needs" - they are doing their things their way.

For the DVD "backup" scene Theora would only be interesting because of politicial reasons ("freedom"). Most people don´t (have to) care for license fees, so those details are not too interesting for them. Although I would really love to see some 3rd party development on Theora asking for an open-source MPEG4 development halt is unrealistic. Let´s allow all possible contributors to contribute to projects they want to contribute to - and everyone should be happy. :)

[temporance]

Don't believe Theora is completely free. There are thousands of patents out their covering various aspsects of video encoding and decoding. If only one of these describes something that Theora is doing, then Theora is patent-encumbered. Both the Theora devs and the patent holder might not even know about it (yet) but when they do, the sh!t could hit the fan.

[savage747]

Originally posted by temporance
Don't believe Theora is completely free. There are thousands of patents out their covering various aspsects of video encoding and decoding. If only one of these describes something that Theora is doing, then Theora is patent-encumbered. Both the Theora devs and the patent holder might not even know about it (yet) but when they do, the sh!t could hit the fan.

Theora *is* patent-encumbered, however On2 donated a unrevocable free license. VP3 has been used *commercially* for many years and is far from "unknown" to the industry. This dramatically reduces the risk that there are undiscovered "submarine patents". However, with the current, horrible patent system it´s never possible to be 100% sure. That´s a flaw in the patent system, not with Theora.

[PatchWorKs]

@morsa: i totally agree with you ! Spending energies on patented codecs for free is not good !

Xvid is a very good performing codec and much time has been invested in this.
This mean that you will never see a standalone Theora codec... can you understand me ?

xiph isn´t immediatly open for "consumer needs"
Oh, well... what needs customers ? Do you NEED CSS ? Macrovision ? DRM ?
Customer buys what industries propose... if someone propose something other, someone can choose it. Am I wrong ?
And, well... does customers needs Vorbis ? No. Anyway many peroples is using it (more than AAC, actually).

XviD is already open source and for personal use
Yes, at the moment. MP3 is free too. AT THE MOMENT.

But here's just a little example: if a public broadcasting company (like BBC in UK) uses the patented codecs, who pays ? The Italian public broadcasting company (RAI) streams in RealVideo. WHY ???

And when you buy a DIVX standalone player to see youx XviD backups, who get the patent fees ? Open source XviD developers ? I don't think so.

the format wars can be fought by someone else
I can see OGG (Vorbis) is being included in standalone players: do you think is 'cause Xiph payed companies or 'cause peoples wants it ?

So what if some company makes money off DivX or XviD?
Oh, is just appened !!! Do you remember DivX vs. OpenDivX ? XviD vs. Sigma Designs ? A patented world !

First of all XviD is open source as well so that's not an issue.
Well, if my band wants sell a home video IS a problem !

[savage747]

@PatchWorKs: I´m all for free (Open Source *and* free license) codecs. I use Vorbis and Theora and think that Xiph.org is doing some very important work.

My point, however, is that it´s simply too much asked to demand that people abandom their hard work done "for the wrong format". They are doing this mostly in their spare time to *help* other people. Just because you and me think that MPEG 4 doesn´t suite our "philosophical needs" they are not "wrong". Actually claiming such a thing would *discourage* anyone to participate in a 3rd party Theora project.

[temporance]

Originally posted by savage747
Theora *is* patent-encumbered, however On2 donated a unrevocable free license. VP3 has been used *commercially* for many years and is far from "unknown" to the industry. This dramatically reduces the risk that there are undiscovered "submarine patents". However, with the current, horrible patent system it´s never possible to be 100% sure. That´s a flaw in the patent system, not with Theora. The fact that VP3 has donated a free license to a few patents that it owns does not mean that Theora is not encumbered by any other patents.

Look at almost any "open" video codec that has enjoyed any commercial sucess:
- MPEG-1,2,4
- H.26x
- VC-9
In all cases, multiple patent holders have smelt the $$$ and brought their cards to the table.

VC-9 is an interesting example for comparison to Theora. It was, supposedly, proprietary with patents owned by Microsoft. Since it was "opened" at SMPTE, 12 other patent holders have come forwards with claims on the technology. They realise that they could get some cash should VC-9/WMV9 be a success for Microsoft.

Theora is not so different to any other video codec. From a technical point of view, it has a lot in common with MPEG-x and H.26x. It uses the same math / signal processing as every other codec so is very likely to tread on any of the thousands of patents in the field. Theora's saving grace is that it is not commercially popular. So patent holders hat no motivation [=$$$] to look for infringement.

Maybe I should put my money where my mouth is. I'll examine Theora in detail and search USPTO and other patent databases. Does anyone want to bet that I can't find a patent that couldn't be used against Theora users?

[bond]

before we speculate, lets focus on the facts: noone apart from on2 claimed any patents on theora

practically this means that noone will ask you for money when you use theora

thats what counts, the rest is speculation

[temporance]

Originally posted by bond
before we speculate, lets focus on the facts: noone apart from on2 claimed any patents on theora

practically this means that noone will ask you for money when you use theora

thats what counts, the rest is speculation Agreed, my last post was speculation but I'd be willing to bet real money on my assertations!

Companies won't chase Theora infringement because there's no money in it for them. If xvid was based on the Theora standard instead of MPEG-4, and if it was _the_ codec used for Internet video, _and_ if it was supported by standalones, then dozens of video codec patent holders would be scouring their portfolios looking for some $$$ from its commercial success.

Theora, and any other so-called patent-free formats, are only safe so from patents so long as they never makes any $$ for anyone.

[bond]

Originally posted by temporance
my last post was speculationright

but I'd be willing to bet real money on my assertations! check your pm, there you will find my adress where you can send your money to ;)

[ATM]

Originally posted by PatchWorKs
@morsa: i totally agree with you ! Spending energies on patented codecs for free is not good !

And I will disagree because the energy spent on XviD was good becauase I have a great codec to use to backup DVDs and for my TV rips (open source and free as well).

Originally posted by PatchWorKs
This mean that you will never see a standalone Theora codec... can you understand me

What does the time spent in XviD's development have anything to do with a Theora codec being supported on a standalone?

Originally posted by PatchWorKs
Oh, well... what needs customers ? Do you NEED CSS ? Macrovision ? DRM ?
Customer buys what industries propose... if someone propose something other, someone can choose it. Am I wrong ?
And, well... does customers needs Vorbis ? No. Anyway many peroples is using it (more than AAC, actually).

I'm really not sure what point you are trying to make with this statement (maybe its the bad grammar and spelling).

Originally posted by PatchWorKs
Yes, at the moment. MP3 is free too. AT THE MOMENT.

Wrong. According to the licensing terms I will never owe them any money for using an mpeg-4 codec as I neither distribute 50,000 copies of a codec nor do I make $500,000 in revenue of said technology. If you think that the MPEGLA is gonna try to stop me some day from using XviD I'd love to hear your reasoning.

Originally posted by PatchWorKs
But here's just a little example: if a public broadcasting company (like BBC in UK) uses the patented codecs, who pays ? The Italian public broadcasting company (RAI) streams in RealVideo. WHY ???

First of all the BBC would pay the fees to use the codec. Your point is? To the answer about the Italian broadcasting company, I don't believe I or anyone else on this board knows, but if they are using RealVideo it means they must like the codec otherwise they wouldn't use it.

Originally posted by PatchWorKs
And when you buy a DIVX standalone player to see youx XviD backups, who get the patent fees ? Open source XviD developers ? I don't think so.

Thye pay MPEGLA the licensing fees which it distributes between the patent holders. I bet PACE Soft Silicon Pvt. Ltd (just picked an mpeg-4 licensee at random) doesn't get any money when people play their mpeg-4 content on said players either, so what's your point?

Originally posted by PatchWorKs
I can see OGG (Vorbis) is being included in standalone players

That's great for OGG Vorbis.

Originally posted by PatchWorKs
: do you think is 'cause Xiph payed companies or 'cause peoples wants it ?

I really don't understand what you mean by this. If it's supported on a hardware player it means that the manufacturers assumed someone would want to playback format of audio/video on their player.

Originally posted by PatchWorKs
Oh, is just appened !!! Do you remember DivX vs. OpenDivX ? XviD vs. Sigma Designs ? A patented world !

Yes, I do, but I fail to see how either case has anything to do with my statement. I was talking about people making money using the codec who had paid the licensing fees, etc. to use an mpeg-4 technology to distribute their commercial content, not people who steal source code like Sigma. Besides, people can sell content encoded with Theora as well so again I don't see what the big deal is (which would be "making money off theora").

Originally posted by PatchWorKs
Well, if my band wants sell a home video IS a problem !

If it's a problem don't use an mpeg-4 technology cause no one is forcing you to do so. You can choose to use whatever you want, I can choose to use whatever I want. And what that I'm done with the thread.

[savage747]

Originally posted by temporance

Theora is not so different to any other video codec. From a technical point of view, it has a lot in common with MPEG-x and H.26x. It uses the same math / signal processing as every other codec so is very likely to tread on any of the thousands of patents in the field.


Yes, Theora may be quite similiar to other compression schemes. So what makes you think there are patents that apply to Theora but not to MPEG (which definately has money involved)?

Submarine patents *are* a problem. However, I´m quite sure On2 did a "proper" patent research. This means we´re as sure about Theora´s patent status as we can be. Everything else is speculation.

Fact, however, is that *at least* an important part of Theora´s patents is free and that the specification is public domain. We´ll see if there will be any further patent claims before they expire (and Theora doesn´t introduce revolutionary methods).

Blame the patent system :(

[Tommy Carrot]

My views on this xvid vs. theora thing is simple: to my best knowledge theora is technically inferior to mpeg4 ASP, so it cannot achieve the same quality at the same bitrate. Those, who are using xvid (or divx) with satisfaction, they won't replace them with theora just because it's "patent-free", as they can use xvid for free too (even if not exactly legally, but who cares), so most efforts going towards theora would be meaningless.

[Sirber]

IMO, better use a codec for it's "quality" raither than for it's "patents", for personnal uses.

[savage747]

Originally posted by Tommy Carrot
to my best knowledge theora is technically inferior to mpeg4 ASP

Well, it´s not that simple:

small list of the features available in the Theora Format (and a comparison to VP3 and MPEG-4 ASP):
- Theora is a lossy video codec and supports
- a block-based motion compensation
- a 8x8 Type-II Discrete Cosine Transform
- free-form variable bit rates (VBR)
- in-loop deblocking applied to the edges of all coded blocks (not existing in MPEG-4 ASP)
- block sizes down to 8x8 (MPEG-4 ASP supports normally only 16x16)
- custom quantization matrices (more than VP3)
- adaptive entropy encoding (MPEG-4 ASP doesnt support adaptivity)
- 4:2:0, 4:2:2, and 4:4:4 chroma subsampling formats (VP3 and MPEG-4 ASP only support 4:2:0)
- multiple reference frames (not possible in MPEG-4 ASP)
- pixel aspect ratio (eg for anamorphic signalling/playback)
- intra frames (I-Frames in MPEG), inter frames (P-Frames), but no B-Frames (as supported in MPEG-4 ASP)
- HalfPixel Motion Search Precision (MPEG-4 ASP supports HalfPixel or QuarterPixel)
- technologies used already in Vorbis (decoder setup configuration, bitstream headers...) not available in VP3

I won´t even try to predict what format can achieve better quality once maxed out.

[bond]

Originally posted by Tommy Carrot
My views on this xvid vs. theora thing is simple: to my best knowledge theora is technically inferior to mpeg4 ASP, so it cannot achieve the same quality at the same bitratethats not true
on some parts its worse than asp (eg b-frames, qpel), on others its better (loop, colorspaces, multiple references, better entropy encoding)

of course as always there is a difference between what the specs define and the implementations

[morsa]

well, I never said to "abandon" Xvid development if my memory is good enough.
I was just meaning to migrate some percentage of all those efforts to Theora, Dirac or any other "free" codec out there.
That doesn't mean to forget Xvid or the like.
In the actual situation Xvid is really in good shape, and Theora and the rest needs hard work on them,so I still don't see the great advantage on continue improving it (XVID) with a lot of work, instead of developing new better features on any of these new "free" formats.

[ATM]

Originally posted by morsa
In the actual situation Xvid is really in good shape, and Theora and the rest needs hard work on them,so I still don't see the great advantage on continue improving it (XVID) with a lot of work, instead of developing new better features on any of these new "free" formats.

Well that's your opinion, but I will respectfully disagree with that as I believe there is a great advantage to the continual development of XviD and other mpeg-4 ASP and AVC codecs as despite your objections they are still in my opinion superior in quality to to theora and in the end that's all that really matters to me. And since I can already use XviD for free there is really no reason that I can see to move to theora, especially when at this point in time it is inferior in quality to XviD.

In the case of XviD there are still quite a few improvements to be made, some coming in the 1.2 branch, and problems to be worked out as XviD is no where near being a perfect codec at its current state at all.

And finally, if you don't feel enough work is going into the development of theora why don't you help out with the development rather then expecting others to do all the work?

[Sirber]

if people want to dev xvid, let them do. It's on their free will.

[morsa]

"And finally, if you don't feel enough work is going into the development of theora why don't you help out with the development rather then expecting others to do all the work?"


Well, again I don't understand why you take it so personal ATM.
I was sharing my opinions, whatever I say it's just as "subjective" as whatever you could say because it is me who is saying it, and it's you who is saying it, "objective" statements come from community consensus.
So you treat my comments as if I were some kind of long beared dictator telling the masses what they "must" do.
Your answers are like if I were prohibiting people to work on Xvid.
I never did that.
This is just a thread for sharing and retrieving opinions about what people think on this matter nothing else.
Of course you and anybody else here are free to think their way.I'm not against that and I hope you aren't too.
I'm not contributing indeed cause my programming skills are not enough for being useful on a codec developement task.Anyway I think this limitation doesn't disqualify me for having opinions.

[bond]

i dont get where this "theora vs. xvid" come from? there is no format fight or so...

[ATM]

Originally posted by morsa
Well, again I don't understand why you take it so personal ATM.

I'm not taking anything personal. This is a discussion and I am just espousing my opinion on the matter.

Originally posted by morsa
I was sharing my opinions, whatever I say it's just as "subjective" as whatever you could say because it is me who is saying it, and it's you who is saying it, "objective" statements come from community consensus.

Yeah and I'm just sharing mine. So whats the big deal? Do you want a conversation where we share our opinions or not?

Originally posted by morsa
So you treat my comments as if I were some kind of long beared dictator telling the masses what they "must" do.
Your answers are like if I were prohibiting people to work on Xvid.

No, my comments are saying that contrary to your statement that nothing more could come about through developing XviD that this is not true as there are quite a few improvements to be made and bugs to work out.

Originally posted by morsa
This is just a thread for sharing and retrieving opinions about what people think on this matter nothing else.
Of course you and anybody else here are free to think their way.I'm not against that and I hope you aren't too.

Great, and I'm not against what you think either, but I do respectfully disagree on certain points you make. That's life, if you can't handle it then don't start a discussion.

Originally posted by morsa
I'm not contributing indeed cause my programming skills are not enough for being useful on a codec developement task.

Well, you could always improve your programming skills and eventually help out. I need to brush up on my skills as well as I'd love to help out with XviD development myself. Everyone has to start from somewhere and improve their skills as the developers of codecs now were at one point at your level of programming skill as well.

Originally posted by morsa
Anyway I think this limitation doesn't disqualify me for having opinions.

And where in any of my posts did I say your opinion was disqualified? You need to stop putting words in my mouth.

[bond]

ok everyone

if this discussion develops into a flameware be sure i will enforce the rules
its no problem to discuss dis/advantages of different formats, but personal attacks are not tolerable

so lets get back on topic, noone will stop developing xvid or start developing theora or move from one to the other or whatever because of our opinions, so all plz stay calm

[morsa]

So I still think that putting more efforts on other formats (not abandoning Xvid) would result in better codecs, may be some little money for the Open Source Community, and the possibility for several companies and particulars of making some money from it.
As things are now we are just always working as a test bench for big boys, without receiving anything from them.
Imagine what would happen if we were just using open source versions of WM9 ?

[Sirber]

IMO, better putting energy in the most standart one to break the other commercials one... like xvid and x264. I have nothing against the others codecs (snow, dirac, theora) :oOriginally posted by morsa
Imagine what would happen if we were just using open source versions of WM9 ? I would recycle myself in book selling :D

[PatchWorKs]

Oh, well... i found the problem (ATM vs. morsa):

one from Texas one from Malvinas... too far to have the same opinions ! :D

And I will disagree because the energy spent on XviD was good becauase I have a great codec to use to backup DVDs and for my TV rips (open source and free as well).

NO. Here's an abstract of Larry Horn (MPEG-LA vice president) answer email: 1. Any product with MPEG-4 Visual functionality uses patents that are essential to the MPEG-4 Visual Standard and is required to be licensed under them by the payment of applicable royalties. Therefore, if XviD incorporates MPEG-4, then it needs to be licensed under these patents and the applicable royalties need to be paid.
If you live in USA you're infringing the law (DMCA) if you're using XviD. Not so free, from my point of view.

What does the time spent in XviD's development have anything to do with a Theora codec being supported on a standalone?
Wanna remember you the history of XviD (and DivX): the ORIGINAL code is a MicroSoft hack (AVI-lock remove), then Joe Bezdek and Eldon Hylton founded Project Mayo to "legalize" the code. After the great open source community work, they closed the CVS: DivX is borned.
(I lost my trust in closed standards due to this history).
Anyway, MPEG-4 is becomed popular only after the great DVD Jon DeCSS release, due to the ability to compress a movie into a normal CD (no dvd-burners was available at that time) without so mutch quality loss. The P2P explosion "standardized" it and now whe have standalone players... can you understand now ? To be more explicit: if a codec is popular indistries support it. Here's the reason to work on free codecs !

I'm really not sure what point you are trying to make with this statement
Alternatives can change the scene (and may give mutch more opportunities to emerging peoples).

(maybe its the bad grammar and spelling).
I'm Italian, why Anglo-Saxons don't learn any other language ? :D

According to the licensing terms
Licensing terms can be modified, if they want... MP3 *was* free at the beginning, then Thompson acquired it. If MicroSoft acquires Thompson, for example, they _can_ change license terms. I'm not saying that this will happen but could...

Your point is?
A clarification: we have different concept of "public". We mean "state television"

State broadcasting company should use open codecs 'cause they're financed by our money (the reason of Dirac). I know that this concept is a bit ununderstandable for an US citizen, but here in Italy (and in Europe too) what is financed by the state must be public (open) for all.

so what's your point?
As said, the popularity of DivX & XviD codecs comes from the great open source community. Industries that builds standalones pays fees to MPEG-LA, but MPEG-LA pays you to develop XviD ?
At least, with Theora, you'll work for freedom :eek:
(even if i think that we could know who should be payed by CVS-stats :confused: )

If it's supported on a hardware player it means that the manufacturers assumed someone would want to playback format of audio/video on their player.
That means is used from several peoples. Vorbis (aoTuV) won the 128kbps listening test (http://www.rjamorim.com/test/multiformat128/results.html) in mid 2004, that means there was mutch people that used Vorbis not just for quality reason. Is clear ?

not people who steal source code like Sigma.
Sigma pays MPEG-LA fees so, from a legal point of view, they're more honest than XviD developers. I mean that XviD can't do almost nothing (or just stop the develops) against such situation.

You can choose to use whatever you want, I can choose to use whatever I want.
Right, but i choose the legality.

[morsa]

Much better than what I could have ever said!!
Thank you Patchworks!!

(BTW my Grandmother was Italian, Grassi was her surname, from Milano);)

PS: Well in fact I'm not in Malvinas (Falklands for the English) but much north :D

[temporance]

Originally posted by PatchWorKs
Wanna remember you the history of XviD (and DivX): the ORIGINAL code is a MicroSoft hack (AVI-lock remove), then Joe Bezdek and Eldon Hylton founded Project Mayo to "legalize" the code.Sorry to be picky but I don't think DivX are such ogres:
After the great open source community work,
Yes, it was inspired decision for DXN to publish their work as an open source project. However, it doesn't seem like such a "community work" when you know that everyone who contributed to OpenDivX was compensated with real money for his work.
they closed the CVS
Eventually, yes, but only because people prefered to work on xvid, not OpenDivX. DivX Networks had changed course and moved their developers onto a new, closed-source codec. The OpenDivX CVS remained open for any developers that wanted to continue work on it (why would they when xvid was GPL and OpenDivX was not?). Btw, the OpenDivX decoder was later relicensed GPL. The xvid developers branched the OpenDivX code on a new CVS server -- which now exists as xvid 1.1.
(I lost my trust in closed standards due to this history).MPEG-4 is an open standard. DivX is just one flavor of MPEG-4. No-one was ripped off - let us know if you can find someone who thinks he was.
MP3 *was* free at the beginning, then Thompson acquired it,MP3 was never free. The patents that Thompson owns were filed before MP3 was born.
As said, the popularity of DivX & XviD codecs comes from the great open source community. Industries that builds standalones pays fees to MPEG-LA, but MPEG-LA pays you to develop XviD ?
Xvid developers don't do it for money. If they were motivated by money they'd work for company like Microsoft, DivX or Ateme. I'd bet many of them have day-jobs at corporates like these.
At least, with Theora, you'll work for freedomYes, until someone comes with a submarine patent and "closes" Theora. Don't think it can happen? Then bet me a couple 100 USD or EUR that Theora infringes only On2's patents and that there are no other patents in existence that could be used against Theora.

Edit:
Sigma pays MPEG-LA fees so, from a legal point of view, they're more honest than XviD developers. I mean that XviD can't do almost nothing (or just stop the develops) against such situation.What law are xvid developers breaking exactly? It could be argued that they are guilty of contributary patent infringement, but it would be impossible to prove this in court. Sigma, on the other hand, was violating the terms of Xvid's license to them (the GPL). There was no doubt about that, and, if it went to court, xvid would win.

[sysKin]

OK, you've been trying to decide what I should develop, why and to what extend for the last two pages. So, if it's OK with you, I'll now announce that I intend to do my best developing x264 video codec in the foreseeable future. Thanks all the same :)

What I'm trying to say is: XviD development effort is not a magical force field, whirling and sizzling and making an occasional octarine (http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=octarine&gwp=8) spark. You can't channel some of it into some other project neither with a strong will nor with arguments, no matter how good these arguments are.

Radek

[morsa]

Ohh sorry for that syskin, never meant to force you take such a drastical decision.:eek:
Now seriously.You can do whatever you want.It is up to you, so I guess no need to tell us what you wanna do.We are also not telling you what to do (at least that is what I guess :confused: )
This is just a thread to see what would be the general opinion.
I never meant to get Xvid developers so offended about this question : move Xvid to Theora or another Codec?
Didn't know everyone was so picky about it.
Sorry again.

[sysKin]

Nono, I'm not offended by any means. It's just that this discussion was a bit... futile :)

[Doom9]

It's just that this discussion was a bit... futileLol.. I guess that's the best point so far.

You might also wanna tell the lame and faac/faad developers to abandon their chosen software and work exclusively on Vorbis, or on a larger scale, every developer who creates Windows software to migrate to Linux asap ;) Futile it is indeed.

[morsa]

hahahahah LOL :D
You like going to extremes Doom9 !!!
Anyway I'm still waiting for Avisynth 3.0 and Linux-Vdub.....;)

[ATM]

Originally posted by PatchWorKs
NO. Here's an abstract of Larry Horn (MPEG-LA vice president) answer email:
If you live in USA you're infringing the law (DMCA) if you're using XviD. Not so free, from my point of view.

Well since I haven't paid a single cent in royalties it is quite free for me.

Originally posted by PatchWorKs
I'm Italian, why Anglo-Saxons don't learn any other language ? :D

I'm not Anglo-Saxon (not sure where you pulled that from) and I'm sorry to disappoint you but I have studied a number of different languages (spanish, japanese, french, german to name a few).

Originally posted by PatchWorKs
Licensing terms can be modified, if they want... MP3 *was* free at the beginning, then Thompson acquired it. If MicroSoft acquires Thompson, for example, they _can_ change license terms. I'm not saying that this will happen but could...

Wrong, MP3 was never free.

Originally posted by PatchWorKs
State broadcasting company should use open codecs 'cause they're financed by our money (the reason of Dirac). I know that this concept is a bit ununderstandable for an US citizen, but here in Italy (and in Europe too) what is financed by the state must be public (open) for all.

I'm sorry but explain to me how television is no longer public because they are using a RealVideo codec?

Originally posted by PatchWorKs
As said, the popularity of DivX & XviD codecs comes from the great open source community. Industries that builds standalones pays fees to MPEG-LA, but MPEG-LA pays you to develop XviD ?

Yes the manufacturers pay the mpegla which distributes those fees among the patent holders of the technology. That's the way it works. And no mpegla doesn't pay the developers of XviD (or any of the numerous licensees (http://www.mpegla.com/m4v/m4v-licensees.cfm) of mpeg-4), why would they?

Originally posted by PatchWorKs
That means is used from several peoples. Vorbis (aoTuV) won the 128kbps listening test (http://www.rjamorim.com/test/multiformat128/results.html) in mid 2004, that means there was mutch people that used Vorbis not just for quality reason. Is clear ?

Okay, and that was exactly what I had said in my previous post. It was added because the manufacturers decided that a decent amount people were using said format and decided to support it in their players. I'm not sure why you are trying to debate me on a point I was in agreement with.

Originally posted by PatchWorKs
Sigma pays MPEG-LA fees so, from a legal point of view, they're more honest than XviD developers. I mean that XviD can't do almost nothing (or just stop the develops) against such situation.

How so? How is it honest when you steal source code released under the terms of the GPL and give no credit to the original authors of said code?

Originally posted by PatchWorKs
Right, but i choose the legality.

Good for you. Neither I or anyone else is going to force you to use any codec you don't want to.

[Mug Funky]

Well since I haven't paid a single cent in royalties it is quite free for me.

any avid p2p user would say exactly the same thing.

i'm philosophically in favour of open standard, patent free options, but in a world with such a pathetically stupid patent system, i'm willing to get behind the lawbreakers :devil: when cultural advancement lies in that direction (the reason IP laws exist in the forst place, though you wouldn't know it from looking at the current state of IP).

i'm an xvid user, but i await development of things like Dirac as alternatives - dirac is the ideal situation in my opinion - it has the versatility, diversity and zeal (not to mention coding genius) of the opensource community, and it has the BBC to absorb any legal and administrative issues. this leaves the devs free to dev in peace, and the BBC handles the paperwork - they're a credible organization that courts will most likely listen to, and they want to redefine the state of the art of video coding and actually make it free. there's no way you can't be happy with that :)

@ syskin: i lol'd :)

[Teegedeck]

Hey, I really think decisions like those are a matter of taste in which no-one should try and talk anyone else into.

Developers are completely free to regard or disregard following considerations:
- technical perspectives of a codec's outline
- amount of of foreseeable work they'll have to put into it to make it good
- amount of foreseeable fun...
- implications of their decision on tendencies in software development (open source, patents...)
- implications of their decision on the future choices of users, such as the following:

If developers continue to join the MPEG-standard-compliant efforts, users that put quality first but feel they need some sort of continuity and security (standard compliancy) will be happy to put 3 DVD-backups onto one DVD-R with x264, once it is mature enough, where they put 2 transparent XviD encodes, now. (ATM even Ateme's MPEG4 AVC codec doesn't give any advantage over XviD where transparency is wanted.) I for one will be.

If develpers decide to wave the flag of patent-free software, they make it easier for users that that feel the same way to confide in Theora.

It is only natural that users should feel they want to influence the developers' decisions because their own choices depend on them, as outlined above, but nonetheless it isn't really their decision to make. It is wise to be thankful that anyone is doing anything for you for free. Just sit back and wait for the good things to come from it. Peace. :)

[PatchWorKs]

Okay, and that was exactly what I had said in my previous post. It was added because the manufacturers decided that a decent amount people were using said format and decided to support it in their players. I'm not sure why you are trying to debate me on a point I was in agreement with.
You misunderstood me: i meant that mutch developers are tuning vorbis and mutch users are using it (even when it wasn't so cool). If you understand "1 + 1 = 2", then: more developers tuning Theora, more people will use it (and probably we'll have standlones).
Am i clear ?

Well since I haven't paid a single cent in royalties it is quite free for me <-> Wrong, MP3 was never free.
Can you see the connection ?

I'm sorry but explain to me how television is no longer public because they are using a RealVideo codec?
I haven't said that "is no longer public". I claim that a public broadcasting company should use public technologies, not "owned" ones.

And no mpegla doesn't pay the developers of XviD
Do you think is the same for DivX.com (that CERTIFIES (http://www.divx.com/certified/) :confused: hardware too !!) ???

How is it honest when you steal source code released under the terms of the GPL and give no credit to the original authors of said code?
Here's what GPL says:
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all.
For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both
it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

Neither I or anyone else is going to force you to use any codec you don't want to.
Not exactly. Some years ago I can't distribute music in Vorbis even if was fully functional. Why ? No software support. Now can you understand me ???

[Sergei_Esenin]

Now can you understand me ???

We can understand you, we just don't care.

The only thing *I* care about is that, right now, XviD is so mature and well-supported, and based on a fully documented and stable widely supported standard, that I can archive all of my personal collection of rare video and film to XviD (with SixOfNine-HVS matrix) without losing any quality and without worrying that compatibility will be broken.

No other codec can do that at a large-but-reasomable bitrate--not even Nero's AVC implementation, since its matrix smoothes out too much detail from my captures. Theora, Dirac, etc., certainly are useless to me, because I need something mature and highest-quality *now*, not a year or two or five from now. And XviD would not be so useful and mature already if not for the great and continued efforts of developers who chose to give it their time, so I thank them and am glad they didn't spend all their time on other codecs which would not have matured as rapidly.

I can understand your Xiph-like ideological zealotry. But you should understand that most of us only care about what works. If I ever need to distribute my archived video in a legally free and completely unencumbered codec I can just re-encode a copy in the lesser-quality free format. But for my own archive I need highest quality and no 100% free-in-every-meaning codec is as useful to me as XviD, and even with much work they'd take many, many years to catch up.

In ideological zealotry vs. practical usefulness, what is practical and useful is more important to almost everyone.

[PatchWorKs]

And XviD would not be so useful and mature already if not for the great and continued efforts of developers who chose to give it their time, so I thank them and am glad they didn't spend all their time on other codecs which would not have matured as rapidly.
(any-other-unpatented-codec) will not be so useful and mature if the great and continued efforts of developers still go to patented codecs (x264 too) :cool:

In ideological zealotry vs. practical usefulness, what is practical and useful is more important to almost everyone.

As Mike Godwin says: "I worry that 10 or 15 years from now, she will come to me and say 'Daddy, where were you when they took freedom of the press away from the Internet?'"

I won't say the same for the audio/video codecs scene, so i *MUST* inform anyone i can... as the reason of this 3ad ;)

[Doom9]

As Mike Godwin says: "I worry that 10 or 15 years from now, she will come to me and say 'Daddy, where were you when they took freedom of the press away from the Internet?'"What do codecs or patents in general have to do with freedom of press?

Just to make this clear, syskin might not mind, but I like to put your statements to the extreme and you're telling me I'm stupid for making a site that caters to a window audience and I'm stupid for writing software for Windows as part of my job. And I don't appreciate being called stupid. And while most developers just don't care, it's still very insulting to question their motives and where they spend their time. So, being a flamebait, it's now time to lay this to rest.