4 ms·

This could be a huge deal for anyone working on video codecs or display tech. Finding legally clear, high-quality, uncompressed (or mezzanine) 4K HDR footage to

This could be a huge deal for anyone working on video codecs or display tech. Finding legally clear, high-quality, uncompressed (or mezzanine) 4K HDR footage to test encoders against is surprisingly difficult. Most test footage you find online has already been stomped on by YouTube or Meta compression. Having the raw EXR sequences and the IMF packages for Sol Levante and Meridian means researchers can finally benchmark AV1 vs HEVC vs VVC using source material that actually has the dynamic range to show the differences. The fact that they included the Dolby vision metadata is the cherry on top.

Uehreka 9mo ago
Don’t most camera manufacturers (like ARRI and BlackMagic) have test footage for their raw and/or log formats on their websites? Here’s ARRI’s (which includes ProRes in addition to their proprietary formats) https://www.arri.com/en/learn-help/learn-help-camera-system/camera-sample-footage-reference-image https://www.arri.com/en/learn-help/learn-help-camera-system/...
- randall 9mo ago
  yeah but distributing them is probably not just “oh it’s open source!”
  - otterley 9mo ago
    These are motion pictures, not software. “Open source” is about the latter.
    - rib3ye 9mo ago
      I believe open source is about the law. Software is one way it can be applied.
      - otterley 9mo ago
        IAAL (but this is not legal advice). Anyone can freely license a work to the public, and copyright holders were doing that long before modern computers were invented. “Open source” (other than, say, in the context of open water sources or intelligence or journalistic sources, where it was rarely used) as a descriptive term did not enter the common lexicon until 1998 and that was specifically to refer to software source code. https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source-software https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source...
        scott_w 9mo ago
        You’re correct but words and phrases can evolve in their meaning over time. If the licensing terms for this are analogous to open source software licensing terms then calling it “open source media” is pretty reasonable.
        otterley 9mo ago
        I’m all for linguistic evolution as long as it decreases ambiguity and confusion, as opposed to exacerbating it. See: “literally.”
        kennyadam 9mo ago
        It's awful what happened to literally. The enormity of the change in meaning is so egregious. When it literally gets used with both meanings in the same conversation, decimating my brain, I have to wonder how nonplussed anyone trying to learn English must be. I'm sure there are plenty of words it's happened to, but this must the most egregious example.
        efreak 9mo ago
        Is it decimating your brain literally or figuratively? You only have one, after all.
        p91paul 9mo ago
        IANAL, but I think open source started with software since software has source and binary form. Now with compression and other shenanigans, probably even videos or images could be argued to have a source and binary form. I don't know a thing about multimedia, but people here saying this "open source" release is a good thing mention specifically the fact that it's the uncompressed version, or as the FSF would call it, "the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it".
    - clbn 9mo ago
      But... you'll see Netflix calls it "OPEN SOURCE CONTENT" if you click the link.
      - otterley 9mo ago
        You are right! At least the link title got it right.
    - RobotToaster 9mo ago
      It's not popular, but even creative commons, the organisation that wrote the licence they are using, prefers the term "free cultural work" https://creativecommons.org/public-domain/freeworks/ https://creativecommons.org/public-domain/freeworks/
    - saghm 9mo ago
      They're "we won't sue you for using these" bytes. The terminology might be fuzzy but I feel like everyone in this thread understands the concept.
jwr 9mo ago
I used to work at a company developing an independent H.264 decoder implementation. We would have killed for this kind of source content, especially if the license allowed showing it at trade shows.
matteocontrini 9mo ago
Finally? This content has been up since 2018.

Uehreka 9mo ago

Don’t most camera manufacturers (like ARRI and BlackMagic) have test footage for their raw and/or log formats on their websites? Here’s ARRI’s (which includes ProRes in addition to their proprietary formats) https://www.arri.com/en/learn-help/learn-help-camera-system/camera-sample-footage-reference-image https://www.arri.com/en/learn-help/learn-help-camera-system/...

randall 9mo ago
yeah but distributing them is probably not just “oh it’s open source!”
- otterley 9mo ago
  These are motion pictures, not software. “Open source” is about the latter.
  - rib3ye 9mo ago
    I believe open source is about the law. Software is one way it can be applied.
    - otterley 9mo ago
      IAAL (but this is not legal advice). Anyone can freely license a work to the public, and copyright holders were doing that long before modern computers were invented. “Open source” (other than, say, in the context of open water sources or intelligence or journalistic sources, where it was rarely used) as a descriptive term did not enter the common lexicon until 1998 and that was specifically to refer to software source code. https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source-software https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source...
      - scott_w 9mo ago
        You’re correct but words and phrases can evolve in their meaning over time. If the licensing terms for this are analogous to open source software licensing terms then calling it “open source media” is pretty reasonable.
        otterley 9mo ago
        I’m all for linguistic evolution as long as it decreases ambiguity and confusion, as opposed to exacerbating it. See: “literally.”
        kennyadam 9mo ago
        It's awful what happened to literally. The enormity of the change in meaning is so egregious. When it literally gets used with both meanings in the same conversation, decimating my brain, I have to wonder how nonplussed anyone trying to learn English must be. I'm sure there are plenty of words it's happened to, but this must the most egregious example.
        efreak 9mo ago
        Is it decimating your brain literally or figuratively? You only have one, after all.
      - p91paul 9mo ago
        IANAL, but I think open source started with software since software has source and binary form. Now with compression and other shenanigans, probably even videos or images could be argued to have a source and binary form. I don't know a thing about multimedia, but people here saying this "open source" release is a good thing mention specifically the fact that it's the uncompressed version, or as the FSF would call it, "the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it".
  - clbn 9mo ago
    But... you'll see Netflix calls it "OPEN SOURCE CONTENT" if you click the link.
    - otterley 9mo ago
      You are right! At least the link title got it right.
  - RobotToaster 9mo ago
    It's not popular, but even creative commons, the organisation that wrote the licence they are using, prefers the term "free cultural work" https://creativecommons.org/public-domain/freeworks/ https://creativecommons.org/public-domain/freeworks/
  - saghm 9mo ago
    They're "we won't sue you for using these" bytes. The terminology might be fuzzy but I feel like everyone in this thread understands the concept.

jwr 9mo ago

I used to work at a company developing an independent H.264 decoder implementation. We would have killed for this kind of source content, especially if the license allowed showing it at trade shows.

matteocontrini 9mo ago

Finally? This content has been up since 2018.