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Amazing; the very first sentence in the article is factually incorrect: Pundits are roasting Apple over a scuffle raised by Mozilla and Opera to define the fre

Amazing; the very first sentence in the article is factually incorrect: Pundits are roasting Apple over a scuffle raised by Mozilla and Opera to define the free Ogg Theora video codec as the official way to present video on the web in the new HTML 5 specification. There was never any attempt to define Theora as the "official way to present video". It was merely provided as a baseline, a lowest-common-denominator format that could be relied upon by content providers. Ogg Theora is based upon VP3 video technology originally proprietary to On2, and subsequently abandoned after it became obsolete. Theora is not obsolete; it is superior to most popular codecs, such as XVid, WMV, and QuickTime. In standard-definition encoding, it's even superior to modern proprietary codecs such as H.264: http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html http://people.xiph.org/~maikmerten/youtube/ http://people.xiph.org/~maikmerten/youtube/ Apple has also voiced concerns that Ogg Theora may be encumbered by unknown patents. That risk isn't significant to Mozilla and Opera, both of whom could simply abandon the format for something else [...] Apple also has a bankroll to attract patent trolls that Mozilla and Opera both lack. This hand-waving ignores that Google will also be supporting Theora, and undoubtedly has deeper pockets than Apple. Besides, a risk of unknown patents applies to any video codec. There's no technical or legal reason to exclude Theora support.

FooBarWidget 17y ago
I agree that the complaining about Theora's quality is blown of of proportion by people who don't know any better. Theora is definitely better than low-definition FLV files as streamed by YouTube and better than MPEG-2. But can you really claim it is better than H.264? I don't see many differences in the Theora vs H.264 images on the comparison page, but I can clearly see the differences in the actual videos. H.264 is better than Theora, although not by too much. I'm more curious about how Theora compares to XviD/DivX, which is (was?) the standard in the video encoding community. But so far I haven't seen any comparisons.
- jmillikin 17y ago
  I don't know how to help if you can't tell the difference between the examples at < http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html >. The H.264 examples are significantly blurrier than the Theora versions. Theora is slightly better than XviD, which is much better than DivX. They are still the standard as far as I know, though being supplanted by H.264 encoders for high-end use.
ZeroGravitas 17y ago
"In standard-definition encoding, it's even superior to modern proprietary codecs such as H.264" That's arguably true in some senses, but not in the way most people will take it and it's not really backed up by your link. Theora only needs one qualification, being in the clear with respect to patents. If Apple's lawyers don't find anything (and it's an interesting question as to whether Apple would be pleased if they did) then there's still a chance Apple will support it.
DarkShikari 17y ago
Theora is not obsolete; it is superior to most popular codecs, such as XVid, WMV, and QuickTime. In standard-definition encoding, it's even superior to modern proprietary codecs such as H.264: Are you seriously this misinformed? 1. Quicktime isn't a "codec", it's a video player. There is no "Quicktime codec". 2. H.264 isn't proprietary. 3. Theora is roughly between MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 SP in potential efficiency; it's nowhere near VC-1 or H.264. Right now it's worse than MPEG-2 because the encoder is so bad, but Thusnelda is working on fixing that. The eventual goal is to become on par with FLV1 and similar formats; reaching more modern levels of compression will require a spec revision. The purpose of Theora is to provide a patent-free video format, not to be the best out there in compression, since the two goals are basically contradictory. Spreading lies like these are a great way to completely ruin any chance of Theora's adoption, because expectations will be set so high that the Theora developers will never be able to realistically reach them. This is a disservice to Xiph in every way. Despite the fact that the Theora specification is terrible and even their own developers admit it, they have one thing going their way: the quality of an encoder is far more important than the format itself. In other words, a really good MPEG-2 encoder can give better output than a really bad H.264 encoder, for example. A classic example of this is Quicktime's H.264 encoder, which is so bad that it is widely used across the industry as a marketing tool by competing encoder developers to demonstrate how good theirs is by comparison. As such, it is possible for Theora to beat some of the lower-end H.264 encoders if they really work hard at it, even if H.264 as a whole is vastly better than Theora. This is why Thusnelda is a big deal for Theora. This is also why it's such a problem that people consider "H.264" or "MPEG-2" or "JPEG" to be single entities; the compression quality can vary massively between different encoders. That's why I always cringe when someone posts, for example, an "H.264 vs Theora" comparison; they're really doing an "X H.264 encoder vs Thusnelda" comparison and generalizing it far beyond its meaning.
- jmillikin 17y ago
  Quicktime isn't a "codec", it's a video player. What codec is used for .MOV files, then? As far as I know they can only be en/decoded by Quicktime. H.264 isn't proprietary. Cool -- so if I start distributing H.264 videos without paying the appropriate licensing fees, there wouldn't be any trouble, right? And there's an encoder/decoder that I can install legally? Last I checked, the answer to both of those is "no". Theora is roughly between MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 SP in potential efficiency; it's nowhere near VC-1 or H.264. Right now it's worse than MPEG-2 because the encoder is so bad, but Thusnelda is working on fixing that. The eventual goal is to become on par with FLV1 and similar formats; reaching more modern levels of compression will require a spec revision. Obviously you've not used Theora for months or years. It is significantly better than MPEG-4 SP, and on par with H.264 for standard-def video.

FooBarWidget 17y ago

I agree that the complaining about Theora's quality is blown of of proportion by people who don't know any better. Theora is definitely better than low-definition FLV files as streamed by YouTube and better than MPEG-2. But can you really claim it is better than H.264? I don't see many differences in the Theora vs H.264 images on the comparison page, but I can clearly see the differences in the actual videos. H.264 is better than Theora, although not by too much. I'm more curious about how Theora compares to XviD/DivX, which is (was?) the standard in the video encoding community. But so far I haven't seen any comparisons.

jmillikin 17y ago
I don't know how to help if you can't tell the difference between the examples at < http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html >. The H.264 examples are significantly blurrier than the Theora versions. Theora is slightly better than XviD, which is much better than DivX. They are still the standard as far as I know, though being supplanted by H.264 encoders for high-end use.

ZeroGravitas 17y ago

"In standard-definition encoding, it's even superior to modern proprietary codecs such as H.264" That's arguably true in some senses, but not in the way most people will take it and it's not really backed up by your link. Theora only needs one qualification, being in the clear with respect to patents. If Apple's lawyers don't find anything (and it's an interesting question as to whether Apple would be pleased if they did) then there's still a chance Apple will support it.

DarkShikari 17y ago

Theora is not obsolete; it is superior to most popular codecs, such as XVid, WMV, and QuickTime. In standard-definition encoding, it's even superior to modern proprietary codecs such as H.264: Are you seriously this misinformed? 1. Quicktime isn't a "codec", it's a video player. There is no "Quicktime codec". 2. H.264 isn't proprietary. 3. Theora is roughly between MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 SP in potential efficiency; it's nowhere near VC-1 or H.264. Right now it's worse than MPEG-2 because the encoder is so bad, but Thusnelda is working on fixing that. The eventual goal is to become on par with FLV1 and similar formats; reaching more modern levels of compression will require a spec revision. The purpose of Theora is to provide a patent-free video format, not to be the best out there in compression, since the two goals are basically contradictory. Spreading lies like these are a great way to completely ruin any chance of Theora's adoption, because expectations will be set so high that the Theora developers will never be able to realistically reach them. This is a disservice to Xiph in every way. Despite the fact that the Theora specification is terrible and even their own developers admit it, they have one thing going their way: the quality of an encoder is far more important than the format itself. In other words, a really good MPEG-2 encoder can give better output than a really bad H.264 encoder, for example. A classic example of this is Quicktime's H.264 encoder, which is so bad that it is widely used across the industry as a marketing tool by competing encoder developers to demonstrate how good theirs is by comparison. As such, it is possible for Theora to beat some of the lower-end H.264 encoders if they really work hard at it, even if H.264 as a whole is vastly better than Theora. This is why Thusnelda is a big deal for Theora. This is also why it's such a problem that people consider "H.264" or "MPEG-2" or "JPEG" to be single entities; the compression quality can vary massively between different encoders. That's why I always cringe when someone posts, for example, an "H.264 vs Theora" comparison; they're really doing an "X H.264 encoder vs Thusnelda" comparison and generalizing it far beyond its meaning.

jmillikin 17y ago
Quicktime isn't a "codec", it's a video player. What codec is used for .MOV files, then? As far as I know they can only be en/decoded by Quicktime. H.264 isn't proprietary. Cool -- so if I start distributing H.264 videos without paying the appropriate licensing fees, there wouldn't be any trouble, right? And there's an encoder/decoder that I can install legally? Last I checked, the answer to both of those is "no". Theora is roughly between MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 SP in potential efficiency; it's nowhere near VC-1 or H.264. Right now it's worse than MPEG-2 because the encoder is so bad, but Thusnelda is working on fixing that. The eventual goal is to become on par with FLV1 and similar formats; reaching more modern levels of compression will require a spec revision. Obviously you've not used Theora for months or years. It is significantly better than MPEG-4 SP, and on par with H.264 for standard-def video.