Ateme Beta Encoder Leak :(

[bobololo]

Dear community,

This is with a deep sadness that we discovered today a leak of the beta test material on the internet.

The beta program was set up earlier with the will from Ateme to share suggestions and opinions with the video compression community in order to help us improving this new codec with your feedback. This also gave testers the exclusive chance to experience this brand new codec.

Due to legal constraints we had to make it private and partially closed requiring testers not to disclose the files provided for the test which are highly confidential.

Since then many bugs were fixed, quality and speed were improved and we worked with Ahead Software to integrate it into Nero Recode 2.2 as the new NeroDigital video codec !

That situation is very uncomfortable for us since we were planning to set up a new beta test round in early january with our latest developments in the spirit of the successful first round.

Now, it's difficult for us to know who we can trust (obviously not RBF anymore) and if it is worth setting up other betas if they are meant to be leaked later which is unacceptable for us (and our legal department).

Please understand that such behaviour is very disappointing while we're making effort to open ourselves to the community.

-- Tchi Southivong (aka bobololo) - Ateme

[SeeMoreDigital]

Jeez,

RBF only joined us in Aug 2004, made 20 posts and has not been heard of since Nov 28th!

I'm so sorry and disappointed to hear about this Tchi :(

[Doom9]

What can I say.. it's a shame that the offender came out of this community. And considering that each encoded clip can be tracked to the encoder and thus the person who was given the encoder, it's hard for me to comprehend why somebody would screw him/herself by leaking something if the leak can be traced back to you?

In the end, even though private and a bit at odds with our clear focus on discussion on publicly available technology, I think this beta test was beneficial to all Nero users (of whom most don't even know this board) so it's sad to see to end it that way.

Oh, and one more thing: considering that online, all you have to go on is a nickname, your bevaviour and your word, and then you break your word.. you're not left with a lot. Thus, in the 5 years that I'm into DVD backups now I have always been the ass who didn't give out private software, even if it earned me some harsh comments by my friends. But you cannot possibly by your reputation back once you're known to not be trustworthy. So keep that in mind if you ever participate in any private test even if the software cannot be traced back to you.

[acidsex]

That is a shame big time. I thought it was very generous on Ateme's part to even allow a select few to test the waters of what has turned out to be a great codec.

It saddens me to think that those of us that had adhered to the rules of the beta test will now probably be excluded from future developments and have to wait like the rest of the free world.

I also agree with Doom9. If you cant be trusted on the internet that what does that say about that person in a rela life situation. here's hoping the offender isnt defending something that relates to safety or of great value.

On behalf of the asshole that leaked the beta, I would like to offer my apologies to Ateme and ask that they not hold it against those of us who held to our word and played by the rules.

[Teegedeck]

Shame. Obiously, being a 20-posts-member RBF didn't feel very obliged to the reputation of this community. Had he really felt this here was his peer-group he never would have disappointed your trust in the testers' integrity. :(

[LostMP4]

:(

[BoNz1]

:devil: RBF I hope you feel ashamed :angry:. This sort of thing should never happen. Pretty sad. I hope it doesn't ruin prospects of a new test in January.

[Andrey]

:mad:
:scared:
Íó è íàõðåíà ýòî áûëî äåëàòü ?
EDIT: ...

[thegeby]

Shame on him. Doesn't anyone feel obliged by their word anymore?

[chilledoutuk]

Those of us who have kept there word and not leaked the beta test material are clearly trustworthy as we have prooven.

In the next beta test just use people from the test before as im sure that they will be intersted and the important ones were on the first beta test anyways.

[IgorC]

so sorry what has happened, but i comunicate to RBF several times.
he seems to me a good and clever person.
You should forgive RBF in this magic night. Thanks God this christmas
I´m sure this won´t be happened again.

btw, Thanks to RBF in forums people more and more talking about H.264 and not about Divx. The popularity is important part of commercial succes.I expected that people talked much about new h.264, but the most part of them even doesn´t know about difference between Xvid and Divx.

[Leo 69]

@ IgorC

Once I spoke to him too.Yeah,he seemed clever,but it doesn't mean anything!He turned out an unreliable person,and nobody has
to forgive him,you know.Shame upon you,RBF!

[JohnV]

Originally posted by IgorC
so sorry what has happened, but i comunicate to RBF several times.
he seems to me a good and clever person.
You should forgive RBF in this magic night. Thanks God this christmas
I´m sure this won´t be happened again.
Yes, I'm sure bobololo could forgive him, although RBF put bobololo to difficult situation. But I don't think Ateme can afford to trust RBF anymore.

If semi-public beta testing continues, I'd suggest that only use long time trusted members with lots of posts from now on, and maybe make them sign NDA, so that proper legal actions can be taken if something like this ever happens again.

[acidsex]

I dont think the number of posts should be counted towards eligibility. It wasnt for the first one so it shouldnt for the second one. Besides, how someone with 3000 posts prove over someone with 10? That they type/chat a lot more?

I hope those of the first test will continue for the second one. I am not opposed to signing a NDA especially if it protects the company who is being generous and allowing us to test the future.

[JohnV]

Originally posted by acidsex
I dont think the number of posts should be counted towards eligibility. It wasnt for the first one so it shouldnt for the second one. Besides, how someone with 3000 posts prove over someone with 10? That they type/chat a lot more?
Because someone who has more than few dozen posts is an established member and probably thinks twice before ruining his/her reputation in the community like this.

[Razorblade2000]

Bad RBF! BAD!
Sorry to hear this :(

[CruNcher]

Yeah indeed that are very very bad Christmas News, but please don't forget there are other beta testers here who take that more serious and have higher views of morallity, it was allready strange to me when he talked about this on the russian Forum and IgorC their is no excuse for this im glad it seems to have happened after the Release of Recode but nevertheless no excuse for this, tchi trusted him and RBF exploited that.

But i also think we should give RBF the chance to explain the WHY to Tchi, in the end He (Ateme) and Nero will decide what todo about it personaly if im true im not quiet sure how this beta encoder leak could hurt them comercialy, after the release of Recode but maybe im looking not far enough.

[P0l1m0rph1c]

It's indeed a shame that stuff like this happens. Ateme trusted some users of this forum, and they turn out to be unreliable. We can't also put all the shame on RBF, we don't know if it even was voluntary, but it's a shame nevertheless.

I'm glad that Ateme put signatures in the encoders though. At least they know who did it, and perhaps not everyone will be excluded from further tests.

Dcoder

[acidsex]

JohnV, I understand what you are saying but I am looking at it as I would consider myself a low poster but yet a member of the community for some time now. I just dont want to end up off the list because of my post count even though I was part of the first beta test.

For new members of the beta test team, I could understand post count and perhaps even contribution quality in their posts. But for those that were a part of the first test that gave and held to their words, dont punish those of us that dont have huge post counts. :)

[plonk420]

i don't consider your post count low, acidsex.

i could imagine a few hundred posts, but those posters with in the thousands of posts .. makes me raise an eyebrow. if this were IRC maybe, but i'd hope more goes into a webboard post than typing some drivel and hitting return on your fave irc client...

[gozu]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it standard procedure to properly identify beta testers and make them sign non-disclosure agreements before handing them code that you do not want leaked? Why don't you just sue the guy?

I have a hard time believing you handed your code to some anonymous nickname...but that's just me.

[RBF]

Originally posted by Andrey
:mad:
:scared:
Íó è íàõðåíà ýòî áûëî äåëàòü ?
EDIT: ...

ß íèõðåíà íå âûêëàäûâàë, ïîíàäåÿëñÿ íà îäíîãî ÷åëà, à îí ìåíÿ ïîäñòàâèë.

[chilledoutuk]

rbf what exactly does that mean?

IN English

[plonk420]

exactly. hate to be a TOS thumper, but

13) The official language is English. Outside the translator forum English is the only allowed language.

ain't my rules, it's doom9's.

[Andrey]

>>plonk420, doom9
Sorry. Was too angry to think about it...
I like what Ahead is doing, I like this community and I like to take a part in beta test. You see :). English (obviously :) ) isn't my native.
To RBF:
As a senior system analyst working in banking industry I can say you: there are some cases when you can not trust onyone :( even friends and relatives w/o some known risk. Think about it...

[pogo stick]

A lot of stuff happened since I was missing again.
And this situation is very upsetting. :(
I don't have much time anymore (even for video encoding), but I looked into this and it really seems like beta encoder wasn't put to internet for public by RBF. Someone else did it and set him up (that's what he wrote). What RBF did wrong is shared encoder with someone who can not be trusted, while he shouldn't be sharing it even with trusted people. That's his fault, but I'm sure he didn't what this leek to happen and feel very bad about it. I have been in similar (even worse) situation in real life once because of my naivety and I know how it feels (very stupid, but can't be changed).
I hope Ateme and Bobololo personally will not be harmed by this. And beta practice will be continued. It seems like it helps development a lot!
Originally posted by IgorC
so sorry what has happened...
Somehow I feel very strange when I hear it from you, but I will leave my comments about it to myself...
Originally posted by CruNcher
...it was allready strange to me when he talked about this on the russian Forum...
I don't see why TALKING about Ateme beta encoder is bad. That thread in that forum wasn't bad at all, until it became a total mess (not because of RBF). Or is it strange because that forum is Russian?

I think this leek is stupid mistake and not an intentional evil deed.

[bobololo]

Originally posted by pogo stick
I don't see why TALKING about Ateme beta encoder is bad. That thread in that forum wasn't bad at all, until it became a total mess (not because of RBF). Or is it strange because that forum is Russian?

It wouldn't be bad if it didn't infringe the terms of the program (that RBF approved). They explicitly required that the feedback were expected in the dedicated forum on doom9 *only*.

The reasons for this are quite simple, the main purpose of this test was for us to collect the opinions and suggestions of tester for improving our codec. Discussing and advertising about an early beta version of the codec wasn't really intended considering it was still under development and could show serious flaws (it was the case with the bframe in the begining).

Therefore the discussions on mediatory were definitely useless for us (and particularly since babelfish gave really poor results) and could even hurt the codec by reviewing it before it reached its final version.

When we saw the thread on mediatory, we kindly tolerated it and I just asked RBF to give us a brief overview of what was said there so we could also benefit from them. Now I've just the feeling we were too kind...

[Andrey]

>>Therefore the discussions on mediatory were definitely useless for us
Yeah. From this point of view it's true.
>>and could even hurt the codec by reviewing it before it reached its final version.
I doubt it, codec behaved very good. :rolleyes:
But anyway, it is your product and your team/company is only one to decide what to do with it...
Alas, RBF didn't catch it. :(

[JohnV]

Originally posted by pogo stick
Someone else did it and set him up (that's what he wrote). What RBF did wrong is shared encoder with someone who can not be trusted, Haha yeah, of course the fault is always someone else's.. :rolleyes:
RBF leaked it and it ended up to the internet (what a surprise.. :rolleyes: ). It was his responsibility not to give it to _anyone_.

[DeathTheSheep]

Woah. Ateme was offering a Beta? Geez, I'm out of it.

Anyway, yeah, by definition, Beta means < not ready for public distribution > (or at least, for the most part).

I wonder... why would anyone even TRY to leak out the beta?

A list of points I might make:
- Used materials point back to the distributer (directly, in some cases)
- If he wanted to spread good encoding, he could have linked Nero's download page-- NeroDigital (which IS Ateme's AVC codec) is even better, and NOT in beta stage... so WHY even leak this in the first place?
- If the leaker didn't know, why did he accept the beta initially, not knowing what he was getting himself into?
- Ateme, please don't let the actions of one hasty individual determine all ensuing actions regarding the doom9 community.

ON AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT NOTE:
Um, one more thing... I might be a bit guilty of something... I gave my friend a CD with the formerly free VP6 personal codec... And I just figured out it was removed from the VP6 site... Yikes, I admit it... Is that bad? I didn't know...

[ObiKenobi]

Originally posted by pogo stick
but I looked into this and it really seems like beta encoder wasn't put to internet for public by RBF. Someone else did it and set him up (that's what he wrote). What RBF did wrong is shared encoder with someone who can not be trusted, while he shouldn't be sharing it even with trusted people. That's his fault, but I'm sure he didn't what this leek to happen and feel very bad about it. I have been in similar (even worse) situation in real life once because of my naivety and I know how it feels (very stupid, but can't be changed).

See the problem with this is that he hadn't given out the software TO ANYONE like he was supposed to he wouldn't have had to be put in this situation at all. This is, of course, assuming he really didn't intend for it to be leaked (maybe its my cynical side but I don't quite trust this "I was setup" excuse). Yes, if his story is true, its sad that this person who he thought he could trust did betray this and leak it onto the internet but at the same time its 100% his fault that this happened because he violated the trust that was put in him to beta test the encoder and the rules set forth that he was to keep the software to himself.

[Andrey]

>>same time its 100% his fault
Of course, this is not the question.

For me it was interesting, WHY it happened... As I remember, bobololo tells openly that beta marks video stream and each beta is unique. So it was rather stupid to distribute it...

P.S. Still hope it will not break Atheme beta testing practice...

[Soulhunter]

Originally posted by bobololo

...a new beta test round in early january with our latest developments...

Maybe offtopic, but...

Does it contain FRExt by chance ???


Bye

[Sirber]

sucks... :angry:

[LordRPI]

Although I'm late to this topic, I'm very upset with the actions myself. At least in the US and the rest of the civilized world, a contract is a binding agreement and must be upheld. Obeying these is your duty as it shows the integrity of yourself and your peers.

I've been in situations where I've had signed agreements for pre-release software. The horrible part is I would find these beta releases on P2P sites within hours(yes, this is a high profile beta). The next year, a similar beta relese was planned, although it excluded a certain age group of which I belong to. As you might imagine, there was outrage as well as a petition to get these beta releases. I refused to sign it - putting myself in the company's position, I do realize that this is sensitive information and if I were in the company's position, I would probably be far harsher.

bobololo: I hope little to no damage to Ateme comes from this leak.

[Lefungus]

Unless I'm mistaken, no contracts were signed. While this leak is unfortunate for Ateme, you just can't 'trust' people on some forums on such matters. And I am actually quite amazed there was only one leak.

[DeathTheSheep]

Mmm... Yes, perhaps a contract is in order. However, age, in itself, is not a factor determining the capability of an individual to thoroughly test a product. For instance, I am not yet nearing the age of 16, yet I firmly believe I am more than able to evaluate certain products more effectivly than certain individuals 20 years my superior. My very presence in this forum is indicative of my interests and abilities in regards to codec testing, and I'd be rather crestfallen if such a contract is put into place pertaining to age.

Indeed, a contract would do fairly well to deter potential leaks, especially one written in a clear and consice manner to those of countries where such contracts are legally binding. However, I still do not think age should be taken into account at all.

[Doom9]

Well, with or without NDA, there's still the problem of enforcing legal action across international borders. It takes money for a lawsuit, and not everybody has a large warchest.

[aaar9800]

There could be a solution on preventing further leaks. The first one that came to my mind is that everyone who wants to beta test an in-development product must send their personal inforamtion privately to the people working on the to-be-tested-product and that very same time they agree to a simple rule of use - not to copy the files sent to them for evaluation onto computers that do not belong to them. Failure to do so will result in disclosure of that personal information (address, name, e-mail and so on) to everyone and a permanent ban from www.doom9.org. Then people are to send letters to offender(s)'s home address with messages of disgust towards them. However it might be a bit difficult to make sure that the address and names are legit, I am sure a solution for that could be worked out too.

[DeathTheSheep]

That's really a good idea. Truly. There are definately ways to verify personal info. Yeah...
Cheers, baa

[SeeMoreDigital]

Maybe Ateme could do a simalar thing to how the guys at 3ivx do it for their "seeding" program!

They do ask for personal information, which is quite fair in my opinion.


Cheers

[Sharktooth]

Originally posted by LordRPI
I've been in situations where I've had signed agreements for pre-release software. The horrible part is I would find these beta releases on P2P sites within hours(yes, this is a high profile beta).
Leaks are always a plague, but P2P is not the cause... P2P is widely used to spread the leaks but the real problem are the leakers.

[Doom9]

hmm. I never had to tell 3ivX as much as my real name, much less anything else. I guess I'm trustworthy even without that ;)

But even with NDAs and large legal departments, it's kinda hard to go after offenders for real.. and what do you do if you catch them? Shame and flame them? Make sure as good as you can that they'll never participate in another beta test again? You cannot exactly have them thrown in prison, can you? Well, I guess it's a point for lawyers to discuss. Needless to say that this leak, at least for the moment, has put a stop into upcoming beta tests, and that is a huge disservice to everyone.. I'm sure we'd all like to see a full blown High Profile encoder ready.

@LordRPI: What happens with those people that break NDAs? We see it every day with info about new computer products, don't we? And the consequences are usually not very severe.. sure you'll be banned but you get something else to give you the info. I suppose the only working solution is strict DRM, perhaps coupled with a TPM module, but that's a horror scenario for me.. 1984 style. And, I'm sure eventually there'll be ways to beat even that.. the real criminals always find ways.

[plonk420]

i wouldn't have minded submitting personal info (name, addy, drivers' license) to get into the beta.. i could say i wouldn't mind again for the next beta, but they already have mine (submitted for the "present")

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Doom9
hmm. I never had to tell 3ivX as much as my real name, much less anything else. I guess I'm trustworthy even without that ;) I'm sure exceptions can be made for some people such as your good self ;)

Anyway, this is what Jan asked of me, which in my opinion does not go far enough!
Dear Sir,

Could you mail me, your full name, the computer configuration(s) you will be testing the 3ivx Software on and the e-mail address you would like us to use to send seeding information to?

I look forward to your reply.

Thanks and regards,
Jan Devos

Cheers