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This is so great to see. I know we're years away, but what does the HN community think it would take for Daala to reach the Opus-levels? Not just in technical a

This is so great to see. I know we're years away, but what does the HN community think it would take for Daala to reach the Opus-levels? Not just in technical achievement, but widespread usage/hardware support? I would love to have a completely free codec dominate video.

wmf 12y ago
widespread usage/hardware support A lot of bribes to implementers, probably.
- walrus 12y ago
  I wonder if offering permissively licensed HDL implementations would help uptake on the hardware side.
  - TD-Linux 12y ago
    I started a Verilog implementation of part of Daala with this kind of idea. Google also provides a VP9 HDL implementation which has been included by a couple of chip vendors. However, such a fixed purpose decoder is going to have to compete in die area with other video decoders on the chip. I feel that a better solution is DSP-based video decoding - examples include Broadcom's VideoCore. This is actually how most video decoders already work, but you generally can't edit the code. These decoders give the speed and low power of a dedicated hardware decoder due to special-purpose function blocks, but are still flexible enough to decode different video formats and include bugfixes after the hardware has shipped.
higherpurpose 12y ago
First off, it should probably be 2x as efficient as HEVC, and be out at least 2-3 years before HEVC's successor is out. Then it needs to convince at least the biggest chip makers to support it to try and get some momentum. There's no way around that. Unless Google decides to push it in Android as a replacement to VP9. But that's like asking for a miracle, so chances for that are even lower.
- josephlord 12y ago
  This is exactly right and these are pretty much the same requirements for a non-free new codec. The bulk of the direction will be clear to those working or studying the standard a couple of years before the standard is official and hardware prototyping will occur over that period.
- p0nce 12y ago
  If it really does beat HEVC there should be lots of interest.
  - josephlord 12y ago
    No it is much too late if all it does is beat HEVC. Adoption and hardware availability is already there for HEVC so that has almost certainly become the successor to AVC as the main compatible widely deployed codec. 50% encoded size for same quality and similar computational complexity would do the trick but a 80% encoded file size wouldn't do it. I guess AVC will fade out over the next 5-10 years and HEVC will dominate from a couple of years time until 2025 or so unless something computationally feasible can encode to about 50% file size earlier. Xiph needs to be demonstrating something in about 2022 that encodes to 50% of HEVC size with computational complexity that will be feasible in 2025 and that complexity has to be manageable in (mobile) hardware and in software.
    - p0nce 12y ago
      We are in agreement, Daala must indeed beat the top dog by 50%.
      - josephlord 12y ago
        OK, sorry I may have agreed disagreeably. I just want be clear that it needed to be a whole generation beyond at that being a little better and Free wasn't going to be enough which based on WebM/AVC discussion in the past many people seemed to believe.
gillianseed 12y ago
I love these articles by Monty for the technical insight they give me in to video compression, and I would love it if the end product from this work would result in a top-class codec which would atleast rival HEVC/VPX. Realistically though I don't think this will lead to anything competitive at all, I really wish I am wrong but I just don't see it. Just avoiding trampling on MPEGLA's huge patent chest would be a massive feat in itself, finding/developing compression techniques which aren't patented and capable of improving on the likes of HEVC while still be performant enough to be realistically usable strikes me as 'mission impossible'. Again, would be so happy to be dead wrong.
- wmf 12y ago
  BTW this article is attributed to Jean-Marc Valin.
  - gillianseed 12y ago
    Ah thanks, missed that.
- ZeroGravitas 12y ago
  Both Vorbis and Opus were somewhat miraculous in terms of scrappy outsiders beating the industry. This either points to the Xiph team being mad geniuses, or the audio codec field being somewhat warped by it's obsession with standardizing on design-by-committee, patent-driven corporate codecs. Either explanation gives Daala a fighting chance.

wmf 12y ago

widespread usage/hardware support A lot of bribes to implementers, probably.

walrus 12y ago
I wonder if offering permissively licensed HDL implementations would help uptake on the hardware side.
- TD-Linux 12y ago
  I started a Verilog implementation of part of Daala with this kind of idea. Google also provides a VP9 HDL implementation which has been included by a couple of chip vendors. However, such a fixed purpose decoder is going to have to compete in die area with other video decoders on the chip. I feel that a better solution is DSP-based video decoding - examples include Broadcom's VideoCore. This is actually how most video decoders already work, but you generally can't edit the code. These decoders give the speed and low power of a dedicated hardware decoder due to special-purpose function blocks, but are still flexible enough to decode different video formats and include bugfixes after the hardware has shipped.

higherpurpose 12y ago

First off, it should probably be 2x as efficient as HEVC, and be out at least 2-3 years before HEVC's successor is out. Then it needs to convince at least the biggest chip makers to support it to try and get some momentum. There's no way around that. Unless Google decides to push it in Android as a replacement to VP9. But that's like asking for a miracle, so chances for that are even lower.

josephlord 12y ago
This is exactly right and these are pretty much the same requirements for a non-free new codec. The bulk of the direction will be clear to those working or studying the standard a couple of years before the standard is official and hardware prototyping will occur over that period.
p0nce 12y ago
If it really does beat HEVC there should be lots of interest.
- josephlord 12y ago
  No it is much too late if all it does is beat HEVC. Adoption and hardware availability is already there for HEVC so that has almost certainly become the successor to AVC as the main compatible widely deployed codec. 50% encoded size for same quality and similar computational complexity would do the trick but a 80% encoded file size wouldn't do it. I guess AVC will fade out over the next 5-10 years and HEVC will dominate from a couple of years time until 2025 or so unless something computationally feasible can encode to about 50% file size earlier. Xiph needs to be demonstrating something in about 2022 that encodes to 50% of HEVC size with computational complexity that will be feasible in 2025 and that complexity has to be manageable in (mobile) hardware and in software.
  - p0nce 12y ago
    We are in agreement, Daala must indeed beat the top dog by 50%.
    - josephlord 12y ago
      OK, sorry I may have agreed disagreeably. I just want be clear that it needed to be a whole generation beyond at that being a little better and Free wasn't going to be enough which based on WebM/AVC discussion in the past many people seemed to believe.

gillianseed 12y ago

I love these articles by Monty for the technical insight they give me in to video compression, and I would love it if the end product from this work would result in a top-class codec which would atleast rival HEVC/VPX. Realistically though I don't think this will lead to anything competitive at all, I really wish I am wrong but I just don't see it. Just avoiding trampling on MPEGLA's huge patent chest would be a massive feat in itself, finding/developing compression techniques which aren't patented and capable of improving on the likes of HEVC while still be performant enough to be realistically usable strikes me as 'mission impossible'. Again, would be so happy to be dead wrong.

wmf 12y ago
BTW this article is attributed to Jean-Marc Valin.
- gillianseed 12y ago
  Ah thanks, missed that.
ZeroGravitas 12y ago
Both Vorbis and Opus were somewhat miraculous in terms of scrappy outsiders beating the industry. This either points to the Xiph team being mad geniuses, or the audio codec field being somewhat warped by it's obsession with standardizing on design-by-committee, patent-driven corporate codecs. Either explanation gives Daala a fighting chance.