Project Theora revealed, the first world free unpatented video codec

[BlackSun]

http://slashdot.org/articles/02/06/24/0041248.shtml?tid=162

Xiph.org finally posted the news about Theora, which is a project name code for a free unpatented audio/video stream, based on the OGG File format, the Vorbis audio codec and a futur enhancement of the well know VP3 video codec from On2.

The whole thing may be ready in 12 months. You guy may claim that some free video codecs are already here but you are wrong. DivX and XviD are MPEG-4 video codecs based on the MPEG-LA specifications, subject to royalties and patented, so nobody can claim that it is free.

On2 and Xiph have signed a paper saying that On2 renounce to every patents on the vp3 video codec, this mean the result will be the first world free and unpatented video codec ever seen... This mean everybody can use it freely, even for a commercial usage...

DivX Networks won't be happy :D

This is quiet amazing, it is the end of the MPEG-LA monopoly ? the answer is YES !!

Now I am trying to prevent Xiph to throw Tobias' work in the schredder... Neo-Neko, finally it's here (and our testicles are safe :D )

[Oxygen]

great news :)

vorbis pple are really active :)

[Doom9]

interesting. Considering that the xvid team managed to turn opendivx into something usable (opendivx pretty much sucked and so does vp3) in less than a year they certainly deserve the benefit of a doubt but there's a lot of work to be done and the xvid team won't be sleeping.

what's going to be interesting is that on2 will be fighting themselves now.. they have vp4 out for quite a while and it's notably better than vp3, and the vp5 release appears to be imminent.

a comment about the free thing: neither lame nor xvid have been bothered by the license holders and considering that especially lame has been around for a while I don't think there's any danger using xvid for private users. Commercial use is another thing of course...

[temporance]

Whilst entirely avoid patents is a noble aim, it is going to be a serious headache for the Theora developers.

The problem is this: On2 are not the only people with patents that are required for VP3. Yes, On2 are perfectly free to "neuter" their own patents, but what about others with relevant patents?

There are literally hundreds of patents that cover various aspects of video encoding. For example, motion compensation is patented. Circumventing this patent whilst maintaining performance would be very difficult.

I really don't think this is an issue for DivX Networks or other proponents of MPEG-4. To claim something is "patent-free" implies that you have spent months of expensive lawyer time trawling patent databases and double checking. I'll wager On2 and xiph haven't done this. Incidentally, I would be willing to bet that there is a patent waiting to bite the backside of Ogg Vorbis if it ever starts making serious money for someone.

This is the death throes of On2. They are desparate - their proprietary technology is loosing out to the world of standards so they release some misleading PR. Hmm.

[BlackSun]

Patents isn't a problems anymore, Theora has been planned since many months and the Xiph lawyer was incredibly busy... I know Xiph and they won't let the MPEG-LA investigating the subject, everything is planned, legal and perfect.

[mpucoder]

Originally posted by temporance
There are literally hundreds of patents that cover various aspects of video encoding. For example, motion compensation is patented. Circumventing this patent whilst maintaining performance would be very difficult.


Would that be the concept of motion compensation, or a particular implimentation? The last I knew, you couldn't patent an idea.
And the courts are beginning to reject many patent violation claims anyway, as either invalid, or not applicable - have a look at http://tv.zap2it.com/news/tvnewsdaily.html?26575

[temporance]

You can patent an idea so long as you know how to implement it and describe the best implementation in your patent. A patent is all about an innovation or an invention. If I have the idea to put a chip in a credit card then I cannot patent that. I have to have actually done it and describe the best way.

Most video patents are very well thought out and waterproof. They are a world away from the "one-click" patent and will be very hard to get thrown out.

"everything is planned, legal and perfect"

When it comes to the patent legal system, it all comes down to money. If Theora keeps it's head down and is a relatively unpopular codec then all will be fine. If Theora either:
* starts making someone a lot of money, or
* stops a competitor making lots of money
then the $hit will hit the fan and patents will be found to kill it, no matter how hard xiph have tried to avoid this.

[trbarry]

a comment about the free thing: neither lame nor xvid have been bothered by the license holders and considering that especially lame has been around for a while I don't think there's any danger using xvid for private users. Commercial use is another thing of course...

That may be why the MPEG-LA is going after the extremely stupid sounding usage license fees for MPEG4. If they can't easily stop the distribution of open source Xvid and other encoders then they can instead wait for deep pockets commercial users to broadcast/stream/distribute MPEG4 encoded content and then try to extract a per minute per user fee for it.

If they persist in this it will pretty much ensure MPEG-4 won't be used commercially by most folks that would have to pay this way.

I have no idea, for instance, how Microsoft intends to get around this with their own supposedly MPEG4 like codec. If it was enough like MPEG-4 then you could imagine the MPEG-LA lawyers going after Corona users, not just M$.

The incentive for the mass community to make Theora great will probably be directly proportional to the efforts the MPEG-LA lawyers expend making MPEG-4 undesirable. ;)

But currently I'm still not giving up on Xvid.

- Tom

[int 21h]

Originally posted by trbarry


That may be why the MPEG-LA is going after the extremely stupid sounding usage license fees for MPEG4. If they can't easily stop the distribution of open source Xvid and other encoders then they can instead wait for deep pockets commercial users to broadcast/stream/distribute MPEG4 encoded content and then try to extract a per minute per user fee for it.

If they persist in this it will pretty much ensure MPEG-4 won't be used commercially by most folks that would have to pay this way.

I have no idea, for instance, how Microsoft intends to get around this with their own supposedly MPEG4 like codec. If it was enough like MPEG-4 then you could imagine the MPEG-LA lawyers going after Corona users, not just M$.

The incentive for the mass community to make Theora great will probably be directly proportional to the efforts the MPEG-LA lawyers expend making MPEG-4 undesirable. ;)

But currently I'm still not giving up on Xvid.

- Tom

You can be sure that a company like MS can arrange their own agreements and fees.

[MfA]

Block motion compensation (and patents thereof) dates back to the beginning of the eighties, maybe the median prediction for entropy coding of motion vectors is recent enough to still have a valid patent ... but that is a patently obvious extension which I would hope no court would recognise as deserving of a patent (hope beyond reason I must admit).

[mpucoder]

Originally posted by MfA
... but that is a patently obvious extension

Pun intended?

[Neo Neko]

From what Emmett explained the pattents are nuter only where Theora is concerned. Anyone is free to work on it or tweek it. But anyone else decides to start their own project based on VP3 and the pattents come into play. Not really a problem though.

ON2 did extensive research about the algorithms used and what they could pattent. In the several years they have had pattent discoveries out none came back with aplicable pattent infringement. So with no one elses pattents aplicable and ON2's pattents waved in this case it is indeed free.

Emmett had contacted Blacksun and myself almost a month ago to talk about this and request our advisement for the future once development starts. The ideas have been flowing. But here is where the real fun begins. All those people who had ideas for Xvid that were denied as not fitting in the MPEG4 specs. As long as that idea does not violate any pattents and is feesable we could indeed see it implimented in Theora. Theora with some optimizaton could most likely be the coded of choice for those who encode cartoons and anime. And with even more tweaking live action should do well also.

[int 21h]

In this weeks episode of "Codecs and Video Programming of Our Lives", Xiph finally reveals why they objected to someone beating them to the punch and using OGG for video files (Consult previous episode "WaWa, Stop using our file format for something we didn't intend!! Only we have the power to name file extensions!!"), later in the episode, Xiph tries too little, too late to revive a dying company named On2. As the summer approaches, MPEG-LA says that they will have licensing finalized. According to many industry partners, this quickly closes the window that any wouldbe competitors could enter.

This could all be finalized in as little as a year!

Funny, as I read this, I simultaneously read about the flourishing relationship between several chip developers and DivX Networks for developing hardware solutions. DivX Networks recently launched an online survey for determining exactly what people are looking for in a standalone Mpeg-4 player.

One can't help but wonder if Xiph went the wrong way. Only time well tell of course, but 12 months, as you all know, is an eternity.

[MfA]

If they dont allow you to make codecs which produce streams incompatible with VP3 its probably better to work with the LGPL source (which allows no such restrictions on the patent license if its to be distributed by third parties, Im assuming they licensed it in good faith with a patent license compatible with the LGPL but Im not sure) if you want to improve it.

BTW about the window closing, I doubt MPEG-4 will last as long as its predecessor, it spent an ungodly amount of time in licensing limbo. The new ITU/ISO codec (which MPEG adopted) is almost ready already, of course it might spend the same amount of time to get a license pool going ... but lets hope they learned something from last time. At 50% smaller files at the same quality its sure to make a hit even if only in software, the availability of hardware for the old MPEG-4 standard will be a big plus for the old standard ... but smaller-files/lower-bitrates are still very important to a lot of people.

[diji1]

it sure has been amusing for me what with all the fine tuning and stuff going on with the ogg ( ogm ) format and the spats it has produced with naming etc. ;) ... but it is all so new. id rather that all this stuff was properly discussed and worked out rather than rushed onto the scene like perhaps is happening elsewhere. it's free which is excellent! for me as an end user i have been impressed with ogg vorbis so im looking forward to trying theora when it comes out.

[BlackSun]

Actually the website is under construction and is not ready for the masse.

Another thing, we must assure that Tobias' work won't be throwed in the schredder, I mean if they start a new OGG implementations for audio AND video, and it is not compatible with what Tobias did, it's a shame...

[Emmettfish]

Quoth Neo Neko:

From what Emmett explained the pattents are nuter only where Theora is concerned. Anyone is free to work on it or tweek it. But anyone else decides to start their own project based on VP3 and the pattents come into play. Not really a problem though.

No, anyone can start their own project based on VP3, not just us. Just wanted to make this clear.

Quoth int 12h:

One can't help but wonder if Xiph went the wrong way. Only time well tell of course, but 12 months, as you all know, is an eternity.

Well, gosh, maybe if we were a for-profit company hell-bent on raising shareholder value and striving for total marketshare, your note here would make a little sense. But we're not. We're a non-profit company devoted to the creation and maintenance of open multimedia.

As long as we're bringing open multimedia to the masses, it's hard to see where we 'went the wrong way.'

Emmett Plant
CEO, Xiph.org Foundation

[Acaila]

temporance wrote:
I really don't think this is an issue for DivX Networks or other proponents of MPEG-4. To claim something is "patent-free" implies that you have spent months of expensive lawyer time trawling patent databases and double checking. I'll wager On2 and xiph haven't done this. Incidentally, I would be willing to bet that there is a patent waiting to bite the backside of Ogg Vorbis if it ever starts making serious money for someone.
In response let me just quote something from the interview everwicked had with Emmitt:

Is VP3 fully patent-free? We don't want another look-but-no-touch codec.

No, it's not. There are patents in there, and this has been a big part of the negotiation process between On2 and the Xiph.org Foundation when we were putting this deal together. Basically, we worked out a deal where we pulled the teeth on the VP3 patents, and that's important. From here on in, anyone will be able to use VP3 for any purposes, and On2 isn't allowed to bust down your door for it. We wouldn't have done this if we could to. This includes getting it, modifying it, selling it, wallpapering the office with printouts of the code, anything. It was a lot of work to pull the teeth on those patents. Fortunately, even if this deal falls like a house of cards, the open source community will still have the ability to use VP3 for anything they like. We wouldn't have it any other way.
This tells us On2 cannot fight for VP3. Others patents might still be there though.

[int 21h]

Originally posted by Emmettfish
As long as we're bringing open multimedia to the masses, it's hard to see where we 'went the wrong way.'


Its easy to see where you went the wrong way. Bringing open multimedia to the masses entails a large amount of people adopting your media, it entails or implies that a large developer base (hardware and software) is actively developing and using your technology to again, bring open multimedia to the masses.

When you walk off of the path, away from established standards, away from the support that those standards carry (i.e. embedded capabilities, etc), you lose a large part of 'the masses'.

Catering to the Doom9, Slashdot, open Source community crowd is all fine and good, but realize, its not the masses, its far from the masses.

[xercist]

Originally posted by BlackSun
Actually the website is under construction and is not ready for the masse.

Another thing, we must assure that Tobias' work won't be throwed in the schredder, I mean if they start a new OGG implementations for audio AND video, and it is not compatible with what Tobias did, it's a shame...

Compatibility might be possible, but the *first* thing that has to happen is the sources for oggDS need to be opened up immediatly. I don't understand why they're being kept closed in the first place. That's the whole idea behind a community developing technology - to share information.

Also, files producted by oggmux/oggds make a lot of little mistakes that may end up being its downfall (such as labeling the video stream as "Vorbis" - wtf?).

[MfA]

Its being brought to the masses, wether the masses embrace it or not is something entirely different. The established standards are fine and dandy, but they are not open. They are either crippled (AVI) or tied down with patents.

I think there's room for truly open solutions, they probably wont ever be best of class because of the way they have to restrict themselves ... and as such probably wont dominate the market either. Not everything has to take over the world to be worthwhile though.

BTW what was all the ogm controversy about exactly? Did someone from Xiph threaten with lawyers or something? (I did look around a bit, but did not see it.) Or did they just violently disagree with the basic approach? (If so I fail to see the problem, there is no obligation to cooperate from any side ... if you cant come to an agreement branch the source or move on.)

[Emmettfish]

Quoth MfA:

"I think there's room for truly open solutions, they probably wont ever be best of class because of the way they have to restrict themselves ... and as such probably wont dominate the market either. Not everything has to take over the world to be worthwhile though."

Ogg Vorbis is already best-of-class, in my opinion. It's beating the prevailing proprietary option hands-down.

"BTW what was all the ogm controversy about exactly? Did someone from Xiph threaten with lawyers or something? (I did look around a bit, but did not see it.) Or did they just violently disagree with the basic approach? (If so I fail to see the problem, there is no obligation to cooperate from any side ... if you cant come to an agreement branch the source or move on.)"

Not at all. I think people make it into a much bigger issue than it really is. Some people think ogg files that contain video content should be called .ogm files, other people disagree. This is a simple thing, but people will argue to the death about useless trivia.

We haven't called out the lawyers on anyone; It's not our style, and we're not about to spend money on lawyers on something that basically comes down to naming-convention dogma.

Emmett Plant
CEO, Xiph.org Foundation

[Emp3r0r]

Welcome to the forums Emmett Plant, there is no substitute for a personal presence.

I have question or perhaps comment about the subject. I know tobias's implementation mentioned earlier... and I'd like to futher that discussion by asking if Theora will encompass this or ignore it's existence?

Also, how long until we get to start testing the goodies of this Project Theora? I ask because IMHO, the turn around time on something like this needs to avoid cliffhanger like projects such as CMP or Xvid B-Frames that make time seem to progress sooo sloooowly (no criticism intended ;) ).

Yea, why is OggDS closed source, tis weird now that you mention it.

[Emmettfish]

From the desk of Emp3r0r:

"Welcome to the forums Emmett Plant, there is no substitute for a personal presence."

Hey, thanks for the welcome! It's a bit harrowing at times (mainly because a lot of people like to scream first and research later), but I'd rather be here and in touch rather than in some ivory-tower kind of position. People might not like what I have to say here, but at least I show up to the ballgame.

"I have question or perhaps comment about the subject. I know tobias's implementation mentioned earlier... and I'd like to futher that discussion by asking if Theora will encompass this or ignore it's existence?"

Wow, there's a lot of space between 'encompassing' a implementation and being completely and totally ignorant of it. As far as Tobias' implementation is concerned, I'm not sure how it's all going to play out.

I think it's probably a mistake to let the behavior of any specific application determine how a container format will function, no matter how well-liked or popular that particular application is. We have no interest in intentionally breaking anyone's implementation of anything we write, but we can't exactly let one particular application dictate the terms.

Obviously, we're willing to keep Tobias in the loop every step of the way to ensure that his stuff will keep working, no matter what changes we make.

I hope that made sense.

"Also, how long until we get to start testing the goodies of this Project Theora? I ask because IMHO, the turn around time on something like this needs to avoid cliffhanger like projects such as CMP or Xvid B-Frames that make time seem to progress sooo sloooowly (no criticism intended)"

Theora Alpha One will definitely be out within the next quarter, so it's not a really long time to wait to start hacking. We're shooting for two alphas, one beta, and then 1.0 around this time next year.

"Yea, why is OggDS closed source, tis weird now that you mention it."

I don't have the answer to that one. OggDS isn't our baby, it's Tobias', so you'll have to ask him yourself. I respect his right to license anything he makes under any license he chooses.

Emmett Plant
CEO, Xiph.org Foundation

[BlackSun]

Originally posted by Emp3r0r


Also, how long until we get to start testing the goodies of this Project Theora? I ask because IMHO, the turn around time on something like this needs to avoid cliffhanger like projects such as CMP or Xvid B-Frames that make time seem to progress sooo sloooowly (no criticism intended ;) ).


:o TCMP progress slowly ? If we want to offer you a kick-ass product, we'll adopt Blizzard dev style which seems to be pretty good. Of course we avoid 3D Realms style (Duke Nukem 4 Ever) and we will really release it :) In anycase, we privilege quality over speed...

[Neo Neko]

Originally posted by Emmettfish
Quoth Neo Neko:

From what Emmett explained the pattents are nuter only where Theora is concerned. Anyone is free to work on it or tweek it. But anyone else decides to start their own project based on VP3 and the pattents come into play. Not really a problem though.

No, anyone can start their own project based on VP3, not just us. Just wanted to make this clear.


I was not aware of that. Mucho excelante! Even just getting them lifted for Xiph alone was a feat! And they did it for everyone else as well? Damn they are throwing themselves whole heartedly into opensource! Good stuff. Good good stuff.

[Latexxx]

Originally posted by Emmettfish
Quoth MfA:

"I think there's room for truly open solutions, they probably wont ever be best of class because of the way they have to restrict themselves ... and as such probably wont dominate the market either. Not everything has to take over the world to be worthwhile though."

Ogg Vorbis is already best-of-class, in my opinion. It's beating the prevailing proprietary option hands-down.

"BTW what was all the ogm controversy about exactly? Did someone from Xiph threaten with lawyers or something? (I did look around a bit, but did not see it.) Or did they just violently disagree with the basic approach? (If so I fail to see the problem, there is no obligation to cooperate from any side ... if you cant come to an agreement branch the source or move on.)"

Not at all. I think people make it into a much bigger issue than it really is. Some people think ogg files that contain video content should be called .ogm files, other people disagree. This is a simple thing, but people will argue to the death about useless trivia.

We haven't called out the lawyers on anyone; It's not our style, and we're not about to spend money on lawyers on something that basically comes down to naming-convention dogma.

Emmett Plant
CEO, Xiph.org Foundation

"We're not the file-extension cops, right? As far as I'm concerned, if people want to rename all their files with an .ogg extension to a file with a .crazymonkey extension, that's okay with me."

The same guy in everwicked.com

[Doobie]

There is no way to create a good audio or video codec without violating someone's patents. There are a huge number of patents and many of them are broad. If Xiph ever has too much success, lawyers will swoop down on them and eat them.

At the very least, you need a bunch of your own patents to counter accuse should anyone accuse you of stepping on their patents. This is how the established players try to keep others from joining the game.

BTW, the liberation of Vp3 is a symbolic victory. The codec isn't good enough for us to use... which is probably why On2 agreed to release it (no one would give them a cent for it).