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Free codecs without patent issues were limited to things like Vorbis which never got wide support. There were FOSS codecs for patented algorithms, but those had
by zappb 1y ago
Free codecs without patent issues were limited to things like Vorbis which never got wide support. There were FOSS codecs for patented algorithms, but those had legal issues in places that enforce software patents.
- breve 1y agoAV1, VP9, and Opus are used on YouTube and Netflix right now. It's hard to get more mainstream than YouTube and Netflix.
- account42 1y agoNow, not in 2005.
- notpushkin 1y ago> which never got wide support Source? I’ve seen Vorbis used in a whole bunch of places. Notably, Spotify only used Vorbis for a while (still does, but also includes AAC now, for Apple platforms I think).
- scott_w 1y agoPre-Spotify, MP3 players would usually only ship with MP3 support (thus the name), so people would only rip to MP3. Ask any millennial and most of them will never have heard of Ogg.
- notpushkin 1y agoOf course, but this is not what I’d call “never got wide support”.
- scott_w 1y agoSo you’d say that a format that most consumers couldn’t use (because only a few devices could play it) is “widely supported?”
- nullc 1y agoThere is a lot more audio codecs embedded in other things than there ever were personal music players, by orders of magnitude. Vorbis was ubiquitous in video games, for example. Personal music players had the issue that they had to have MP3 due to market forces, so offering Vorbis didn't save them any money. There were also some design decisions in Vorbis that made it a little more annoying to support on some very limited hardware than MP3.
- scott_w 1y agoI couldn’t take my PlayStation to school.
- notpushkin 1y agoSure, but you can’t just say “Vorbis wasn’t widely used for music piracy, so it never gained wide support”.
- scott_w 1y agoI never said anything about piracy. Plenty of teenagers knew how to rip CDs onto their MP3 players, or had a friend who could do it for them.
- darkwater 1y agoPre-Spotify (and pre-iPod) there were plenty of cheap MP3 players that also supported Ogg Vorbis. I owned one, for example. Obviously MP3 was THE standard, but Vorbis reached a good adoption HW wise (basically because it was free as in beer to implement)
- scott_w 1y agoI also owned one but I had to look for it. It certainly wasn’t “widely supported.”
- account42 1y agoI had an MP3 player that did Vorbis.
- scott_w 1y agoResponded here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44825777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44825777