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Forging an Alliance for Royalty-Free Video
- 1ris 11y agoI wonder what that means for Daala. It's scheduled to be finished by the end of this year. I hope it still gets finised.
- grayrest 11y agoDaala came up in the HN thread when Cisco announced Thor: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10042849 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10042849
- ZeroGravitas 11y agoI would guess, as an outsider, that it'll basically stop as an independent project and carry on to whatever degree its tech get absorbed into this new project. There's lots of cool tech in Daala, but I'm guessing that most people involved would be happy to see a royalty-free video codec succeed even if it wasn't entirely their baby and if the member corporations can throw enough lawyers, engineers and existing patents at the problem, then less sexy, more traditional tech will probably get the job done and make Daala's strategy less relevant.
- IshKebab 11y agoFrom what I've seen that is an unrealistic goal. It's not very close to H.265 yet.
- Caspy7 11y agoTechnologies from Daala, Thor, VP10 and contributions from other participants in the group will all be combined to essentially make one uber codec. Since Thor was released Daala already started incorporating parts of it that made sense (and vice versa for Thor). So this will just expand that pattern.
- atonse 11y agoThis is great, but how does it compare to H.265/HEVC? And any news on hardware decoding support? IMO, hardware support is the thing that really makes a difference from a consumer experience point of view (more than patents). It's what allows one to watch hours of video without the device getting hot or losing too much battery life.
- kibwen 11y agoGetting your codec supported in hardware is a tricky business, and as much as I've been a huge fan of the Daala initiative it was always going to be an insurmountable hurdle for Mozilla alone. IMO getting buy-in from Cisco and Youtube actually gives us a fighting chance at an actual royalty-free hardware-supported codec, which is why I'm so excited at this news.
- TD-Linux 11y agoThis isn't a codec, it's a group to do patent analysis and development for a future codec. WRT hardware support, I agree, but it won't be available in the early life of any new codec so it's important that it also works well in software (accelerated by SIMD and the like). The power difference is less than you might think, I have some preliminary measurements here: https://people.xiph.org/~tdaede/power/ https://people.xiph.org/~tdaede/power/
- ZeroGravitas 11y agoThis is aiming to be better than HEVC, because it won't be ready for a couple of years. Assuming the groups listed actually back up their words with action, then hardware support will happen, basically every smart TV shipped already has VP9, so if Google's Youtube and Netflix and Amazon and Microsoft agree on a codec, it'll be in hardware (both in the sense of it being available, and in the sense of it being in every video device you can buy almost instantly.)
- dogma1138 11y agoWould be interesting to see if this can be pulled off mostly due to existing patents. H.265 license covers over 500 patents you can find quite a few of them dating form the 90's which will expire in 2-3 years, but also quite a few that wont. http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/hevc/Documents/hevc-att1.pdf http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/hevc/Documents/hevc-att1... Considering that many companies patent everything and their mother I wonder if it's possible to actually have a Royalty-Free codec in which the involving parties did not volunteer their IP at no cost because I'm not sure if making one without stepping on the toes of existing patents is possible...
- keeperofdakeys 11y agoThat's the great thing about Daala, they are exploring alternate ways to build a video codec.I'm really hopeful that one day it will be as successful as Opus. There was a great talk about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmho4gcRvQ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmho4gcRvQ4
- threeseed 11y ago> I'm really hopeful that one day it will be as successful as Opus. I assume you mean more successful. I have never seen or even heard of an Opus file in the wild.
- bhrgunatha 11y agoPerhaps here success is a measurement of producing a patent free solution that's technically competitive (performance, compression, other metrics), rather than popular and widely adopted.
- TD-Linux 11y agoHave you ever used: - Skype - Google Hangouts - Youtube on Chrome - Mumble - Teamspeak - the Playstation 4 - most speech recognition APIs If so, then you've used Opus.
- boundlessdreamz 11y ago
- ocdtrekkie 11y agoIt's definitely cool if we get to a point where Microsoft, Mozilla, and Google aren't each pushing their own video codec in their respective browsers. If this ends that, I'm all for it. Though as long as it isn't proprietary and DRM'd to crud, you won't see any support from Hollywood.
- jmvalin 11y agoWell, DRM is completely independent from the codec. You can put DRM on a free codec and you can have a non-free codec without DRM. As for Hollywood... note that the Alliance also includes Netflix.
- dogma1138 11y agoDRM has to be kinda an integral part of the Codec in order for it to work efficiently especially with streaming any other type of DRM will not be really viable since it will either require you to get the entire file or to chop the video into smaller blocks. DRM for the most part is encryption and if you want to have it with all the vector voodoo of video compression it has to be built in. That said today there is no way in hell to make a codec without DRM and expect it to have wide support, lack of DRM is actually killing more projects (like various open source streamers) than outrage of the free software community will ever be able too. An open codec is only viable if it's worth to be picked by the big players and those are the big media and content providers who won't pick up a penny if it didn't had DRM support...
- AnthonyMouse 11y agoDRM is dying. CSS, AACS and HDCP are all broken, Flash is on its last legs and music downloads have largely abandoned it to positive consequences. Streams seem to be the last bastion, but that doesn't even make sense -- the reason people subscribe to Netflix is to watch new content every month, not to watch the same content over and over. If they wanted to do that they would just buy the Blu-ray (or, if so inclined, pirate it once). And pirates have no reason to rip a 6Mbps stream when they can rip a 40Mbps Blu-ray. DRM is a box you have to check when a suit was bamboozled by a DRM snake oil salesman into putting it in a contract. How the DRM works is irrelevant because it won't actually work anyway. A fig leaf doesn't need codec support. That's what EME is about, and that's why you hear the free software people griping about it but not the actual pirates. EME makes piracy easier. It separates the DRM into its own little box which makes it easier to circumvent. Which is what the pirates will do because they don't care about breaking the law, but which law-abiding free software people are proscribed from doing by DMCA 1201. But the most fundamental flaw in your argument is that you misunderstand who decides what DRM gets used. DRM is not content. What gets supported is ultimately decided by the platform companies. When Apple says there will be no DRM on iTunes, there will be no DRM on iTunes. The only thing Disney or Universal can do about it is withhold their content, but that costs them more than it costs Apple or Google. Which means it isn't something they can credibly threaten unless the dispute is of a make or break significance, and the particulars of DRM implementation are not on that level.
- spankalee 11y agoEdit: Looks like I was mistaken. See: http://aomedia.org/ http://aomedia.org/ It's important to note that this isn't a project to create a new codec. It's an organization to share the legal infrastructure for things like patent analysis and licensing agreements. The Joint Development Foundation's website is not even video-specific, but invites any project to join operate under their legal umbrella. http://www.jointdevelopment.org/ http://www.jointdevelopment.org/
- ZeroGravitas 11y ago> It's important to note that this isn't a project to create a new codec. Are you sure? The alliance website says "The Open and royalty-free format for next-generation ultra high definition media" and their top news item is "Alliance for Open Media Established to Deliver Next-Generation Open Media Formats".
- spankalee 11y agoOh, good point. I jumped right to the Joint Development Foundation part. Oops!
- ZeroGravitas 11y agoTo be fair, it seems you were technically correct (the best kind!) and the website messaging is slightly confusing. According to xiphmont the main point of this particular group is for sharing IP investigation, and the development output of the members will be directed towards NetVC effort in the IETF. So a codec will be produced, and by these same people, but wearing different hats. http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/67752.html http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/67752.html
- cheersalam 11y agoCisco is working on royalty free open source video codec called Thor. https://github.com/cisco/thor https://github.com/cisco/thor
- mtgx 11y agoRead the post.
- ZeroGravitas 11y agoI guess a new web image standard to replace JPEG might be a nice side-effect of this too.
- datashovel 11y agoIt will be interesting to see how much of the "stack" ends up being open and royalty free. Don't get me wrong, open format is great, but only part of the story. That being said, I'm definitely optimistic this is a step in the right direction given the fact that Mozilla is a part of it. EDIT: Actually, looks like they may be proposing full-stack will be open: http://aomedia.org/about-us/ http://aomedia.org/about-us/
- kerkeslager 11y agoWhat does this mean for DRM?
- Caspy7 11y agoThis is a video codec and is a separate topic from DRM. It will have nothing DRM specific.
- Daiz 11y agoSounds nice and all, but part of me can't help but feel quite "eh" to see names like Netflix, Google and Microsoft in there, all responsible for bringing DRM into HTML and moving the open web more toward a closed one. So while they might champion for the open web in cases like these, it's obvious that the only thing they really care about is their bottom line and not paying license fees on video formats.
- NeutronBoy 11y ago> So while they might champion for the open web in cases like these, it's obvious that the only thing they really care about is their bottom line and not paying license fees on video formats. So? Netflix and Google are the two biggest online video players. Without them, adoption is going to be pretty pathetic. You want to start excluding people because of perceived (or actual) motivations?
- Daiz 11y ago>You want to start excluding people because of perceived (or actual) motivations? Nah, I don't subscribe to the (unfortunately common) mentality of being exclusionary based on ideological purity evaluations. But since they obviously don't really subscribe to the idea of Open Web (as evident by their enthusiastic support for DRM in HTML, which is about as anti-Open Web as it gets), I guess I just wish they could be more honest about it. After all, what good is it that someone uses an "Open Media" format when it's put behind a completely closed black box barrier of DRM that you aren't even allowed to legally poke at thanks to anti-circumvention laws? I do think this particular development is very much a good thing for the Open Web, and I certainly don't doubt Mozilla commitment to that. But the whole HTML DRM debacle did leave a really bitter taste in my mouth.
- Caspy7 11y agoCompanies definitely look for things that serve themselves. But they are not binary "all good" and "all bad." Those companies have also contributed open technologies as well. And this codec would have nothing in it inherently DRM or "closing." If successful this will be good for all of us, not just good for them and bad for us.
- sitkack 11y agoWhat Mozilla should do is patent the hell of out everything they are currently developing. One way out is a MAD style codec arms race. You have to get the other side to capitulate, to tap out. If you have no patents you have no leverage. The problem with the licensing "authorities" is that they are borg like in that hundreds of orgs have put patents in the pool. Nocking out a patent or two won't effect them.
- 9fb29947 11y agoWhy isn't Apple in this alliance?
- jmvalin 11y agoYou have to start somewhere. Expect more companies to join.