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Actually, I'm still rooting for Daala (from Xiph.org, the same folks that did so well with Opus). It's still a long ways away from being finished, but their wor

Actually, I'm still rooting for Daala (from Xiph.org, the same folks that did so well with Opus). It's still a long ways away from being finished, but their work is awesome and I've been following it for a while now! Either way, having another effort competing to make a great format is not a problem. Here's hoping it goes well!

dharma1 11y ago
looks interesting, Opus is great
derf_ 11y ago
Hello, I'm the Daala tech lead. One of the things that made Opus a success was the contributions of others. We certainly don't have a monopoly on good ideas. We'll take pieces of Daala and stick them in Thor and pieces of Thor and stick them in Daala, and figure out what works best. Some of that experimentation has already begun: https://github.com/cisco/thor/pull/8 https://github.com/cisco/thor/pull/8 https://review.xiph.org/874/ https://review.xiph.org/874/ https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/93/slides/slides-93-netvc-5.pdf https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/93/slides/slides-93-netvc-5... Because none of us have a financial incentive to get our patents into the standard, we're happy to pick whatever technology works best, as long as we end up with a great codec at the end. Hopefully NETVC can replicate the success of Opus this way.
- halosghost 11y ago
  It's this kind of awesome attitude that makes me so happy whenever I look into a Xiph project. I certainly did not mean to imply that the efforts of the org in OP should be moved to Daala and that competing projects are a bad thing; far from it! Rather, I was just voicing my support for a similar project that has had some great progress so far. You all have done a great job in the past and I'm always on the edge of my seat to see what incredible things you will do. Keep up the rockin' work!
- billconan 11y ago
  I hope you could have a comprehensive write-up about how codec works. your article, such as this http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/daala/demo1.shtml http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/daala/demo1.shtml is the best codec introduction I could find online, but still I couldn't follow, say, the deblocking part. there doesn't seem to be a book covering this area.
- xiphmont 11y ago
  Yeah, we're going to have to start arguing on what to name the hybrid soon, since 'Vopus' is already taken.
  - lcswi 11y ago
    I propose Kollóttadyngja!
  - cpeterso 11y ago
    Brainstorming fun names combining "Thor" and "Daala" reminded me of the Robert E. Howard villains "Thulsa Doom" and "Thoth-Amon". :)
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- shmerl 11y ago
  Is Thor based on similar principles to Daala (i.e. like lapped transforms) to make it useful for merging? And unrelated question, what will be the name of the merged codec? I hope it won't remain as NetVC, as that name is awful.
  - 0x09 11y ago
    According to the spec, Thor is a more traditional block-based codec with quadtree subdivisions in the vein of H.264 and forward. Beyond that the design is rather conservative and different from Daala's "start over from scratch" methodology. It doesn't look like the two would be poised to merge directly a-la Opus at this point, but rather to be mutual test beds and borrow and exchange unencumbered ideas that work well.
    - shmerl 11y ago
      I see, thanks.
masklinn 11y ago
Apparently, as part of the NetVC[0] effort Daala has started experimenting with Thor tech and innovation, Thor's been added to AreWeCompressedYet[1] and they looked into integrating Thor's motion compensation and its constrained low-pass filter into Daala during the IETF93 NetVC hackaton[2] a few weeks ago. [0] https://tools.ietf.org/wg/netvc/ https://tools.ietf.org/wg/netvc/ [1] https://arewecompressedyet.com https://arewecompressedyet.com [2] https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/93/slides/slides-93-netvc-5.pdf https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/93/slides/slides-93-netvc-5... (PDF)
cfluffy 11y ago
I'm betting on Daala and Thor. Both the teams involved are motivated by the same goal to make a royalty free codec. I think the odds are good that the IETF standards process will result in combining the best ideas of Daala and Thor and reviewing them from and patent point of view. If the guys doing VP10 wanted to work with us in an open way, that would be great too.
keeperofdakeys 11y ago
There was a great talk about Daala at Linux.conf.au 2015 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmho4gcRvQ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmho4gcRvQ4). It has both general, and technical information about Daala, so it's well worth a watch.
lambda 11y ago
Opus was actually a similar combination of two codecs, CELT from Xiph.org and SILK from Skype. So similarly, there are now two projects, Daala from Xiph and Thor from Cisco, which are both preliminary but being worked on in the same group, so hopefully the best parts can be taken from each to produce a new, better open codec.

dharma1 11y ago

looks interesting, Opus is great

derf_ 11y ago

Hello, I'm the Daala tech lead. One of the things that made Opus a success was the contributions of others. We certainly don't have a monopoly on good ideas. We'll take pieces of Daala and stick them in Thor and pieces of Thor and stick them in Daala, and figure out what works best. Some of that experimentation has already begun: https://github.com/cisco/thor/pull/8 https://github.com/cisco/thor/pull/8 https://review.xiph.org/874/ https://review.xiph.org/874/ https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/93/slides/slides-93-netvc-5.pdf https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/93/slides/slides-93-netvc-5... Because none of us have a financial incentive to get our patents into the standard, we're happy to pick whatever technology works best, as long as we end up with a great codec at the end. Hopefully NETVC can replicate the success of Opus this way.

halosghost 11y ago
It's this kind of awesome attitude that makes me so happy whenever I look into a Xiph project. I certainly did not mean to imply that the efforts of the org in OP should be moved to Daala and that competing projects are a bad thing; far from it! Rather, I was just voicing my support for a similar project that has had some great progress so far. You all have done a great job in the past and I'm always on the edge of my seat to see what incredible things you will do. Keep up the rockin' work!
billconan 11y ago
I hope you could have a comprehensive write-up about how codec works. your article, such as this http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/daala/demo1.shtml http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/daala/demo1.shtml is the best codec introduction I could find online, but still I couldn't follow, say, the deblocking part. there doesn't seem to be a book covering this area.
xiphmont 11y ago
Yeah, we're going to have to start arguing on what to name the hybrid soon, since 'Vopus' is already taken.
- lcswi 11y ago
  I propose Kollóttadyngja!
- cpeterso 11y ago
  Brainstorming fun names combining "Thor" and "Daala" reminded me of the Robert E. Howard villains "Thulsa Doom" and "Thoth-Amon". :)
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
shmerl 11y ago
Is Thor based on similar principles to Daala (i.e. like lapped transforms) to make it useful for merging? And unrelated question, what will be the name of the merged codec? I hope it won't remain as NetVC, as that name is awful.
- 0x09 11y ago
  According to the spec, Thor is a more traditional block-based codec with quadtree subdivisions in the vein of H.264 and forward. Beyond that the design is rather conservative and different from Daala's "start over from scratch" methodology. It doesn't look like the two would be poised to merge directly a-la Opus at this point, but rather to be mutual test beds and borrow and exchange unencumbered ideas that work well.
  - shmerl 11y ago
    I see, thanks.

masklinn 11y ago

Apparently, as part of the NetVC[0] effort Daala has started experimenting with Thor tech and innovation, Thor's been added to AreWeCompressedYet[1] and they looked into integrating Thor's motion compensation and its constrained low-pass filter into Daala during the IETF93 NetVC hackaton[2] a few weeks ago. [0] https://tools.ietf.org/wg/netvc/ https://tools.ietf.org/wg/netvc/ [1] https://arewecompressedyet.com https://arewecompressedyet.com [2] https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/93/slides/slides-93-netvc-5.pdf https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/93/slides/slides-93-netvc-5... (PDF)

cfluffy 11y ago

I'm betting on Daala and Thor. Both the teams involved are motivated by the same goal to make a royalty free codec. I think the odds are good that the IETF standards process will result in combining the best ideas of Daala and Thor and reviewing them from and patent point of view. If the guys doing VP10 wanted to work with us in an open way, that would be great too.

keeperofdakeys 11y ago

There was a great talk about Daala at Linux.conf.au 2015 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmho4gcRvQ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmho4gcRvQ4). It has both general, and technical information about Daala, so it's well worth a watch.

lambda 11y ago

Opus was actually a similar combination of two codecs, CELT from Xiph.org and SILK from Skype. So similarly, there are now two projects, Daala from Xiph and Thor from Cisco, which are both preliminary but being worked on in the same group, so hopefully the best parts can be taken from each to produce a new, better open codec.