theora 1.0 alpha 4 released

[bond]

alpha 4 of the theora reference encoder has been released (theora is a video codec 100% free for any usage):

We're pleased to announce a new release of the libtheora reference implemenation. This is an incremental update over alpha 3, in support of Icecast's use of some new utility calls to provide theora streaming support.

Changes since the alpha3 release:

- first draft of the Theora I Format Specification
- I documentation generated from theora.h with Doxygen
- fix a double-update bug in the motion analysis
- apply the loop filter before filling motion vector border in the reference frame
- new utility functions: theora_packet_isheader(), theora_packet_iskeyframe(), and theora_granule_frame()
- optional support for building without floating point
- optional support for building without encode support
- various build and packaging fixes
- pkg-config support
- SymbianOS build support

We still plan to make incompatible api changes before the first beta release, but this new alpha provides a stable base including all the work that has happened up to those changes.grab the files as always here (http://www.theora.org/)

[Tommy Carrot]

I really like the concept of theora, being a truely free codec, but i still cannot imagine that many will use it, since it performs so poorly. Nero's h.264 codec and snow codec are giving comparable quality at less than half bitrate, even good old mpeg4 outperforms it badly.

[bond]

i think it can indeed be a good solution for small bitrates (eg with streaming) and very high bitrates

also quality is not everything: for commercial usage fees play an important issue and theora really makes a difference here compared to the other popular formats (i, for example, would use definitely theora if i would have to spread files)

also dont forget that theora probably will always be used with vorbis, which is very good (if not better) compared to aac

last but not least support in the community would also help it a lot, and on the decoding side it is indeed already supported in all big players (except quicktime), but on the encoding side it would need of course a lot of tuning too (is only an alpha till now)