Re: [whatwg] Video codec requirements changed
Has anyone considered Bink video as a viable option? http://www.radgametools.com/bnkmain.htm Bink is a better-than-DVD class codec - it compresses at higher quality than DVD at up to three times the playback speed! Bink uses up to 16 MB less memory at runtime than other codecs. It has been licensed for over 3,800 games since 1999! It is not open-source, but the good thing is that the codec is licensed on a flat-fee basis. Quoting their internet site: Our codecs are licensed on a flat-fee basis. RAD doesn't charge royalties - period. You pay one flat-fee to use Bink or Smacker in your product. 'Nuff said. I really couldn't find any comparison versus any other codec, compression and quality wise, but their site says: Bink is the best quality codec available. Bink creates incredible looking video at extremely low data rates. 256x192 animations for the Nintendo DS can be compressed all the way down to 50 kps and still look great. 640x480 animations can be crammed into 200 kps with little loss. At higher data rates, Bink can play HD video (1280x720) at 900 kps (DVDs use a 1000 kps data rate for 640x480 video). And even more important: Another nice feature of Bink is that it's technology was completely independently developed. We are not based on any MPEG or other committee standards (our techniques are quite different, in fact) of any kind, so the IP is safe, encumbrance-free, and (best of all) entirely royalty free. There are probably problems with open-sourcing it, but it might be worth trying to contact RAD and see if this could be a walkable road. -- Federico BP On Dec 11, 2007 3:39 AM, Ian Hickson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've temporarily removed the requirements on video codecs from the HTML5 spec, since the current text isn't helping us come to a useful interoperable conclusion. When a codec is found that is mutually acceptable to all major parties I will update the spec to require that instead and then reply to all the pending feedback on video codecs. http://www.whatwg.org/issues/#graphics-video-codec -- Ian Hickson U+1047E)\._.,--,'``.fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A/, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Re: [whatwg] Video codec requirements changed
Out of the question, it must be royalty-free. That's one of the requirements, so unless you can convince the holder to go RF, no chance. El Lunes 07 Ene 2008, Federico Bianco Prevot escribió: Has anyone considered Bink video as a viable option? http://www.radgametools.com/bnkmain.htm Bink is a better-than-DVD class codec - it compresses at higher quality than DVD at up to three times the playback speed! Bink uses up to 16 MB less memory at runtime than other codecs. It has been licensed for over 3,800 games since 1999! It is not open-source, but the good thing is that the codec is licensed on a flat-fee basis. Quoting their internet site: Our codecs are licensed on a flat-fee basis. RAD doesn't charge royalties - period. You pay one flat-fee to use Bink or Smacker in your product. 'Nuff said. I really couldn't find any comparison versus any other codec, compression and quality wise, but their site says: Bink is the best quality codec available. Bink creates incredible looking video at extremely low data rates. 256x192 animations for the Nintendo DS can be compressed all the way down to 50 kps and still look great. 640x480 animations can be crammed into 200 kps with little loss. At higher data rates, Bink can play HD video (1280x720) at 900 kps (DVDs use a 1000 kps data rate for 640x480 video). And even more important: Another nice feature of Bink is that it's technology was completely independently developed. We are not based on any MPEG or other committee standards (our techniques are quite different, in fact) of any kind, so the IP is safe, encumbrance-free, and (best of all) entirely royalty free. There are probably problems with open-sourcing it, but it might be worth trying to contact RAD and see if this could be a walkable road. -- Federico BP On Dec 11, 2007 3:39 AM, Ian Hickson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've temporarily removed the requirements on video codecs from the HTML5 spec, since the current text isn't helping us come to a useful interoperable conclusion. When a codec is found that is mutually acceptable to all major parties I will update the spec to require that instead and then reply to all the pending feedback on video codecs. http://www.whatwg.org/issues/#graphics-video-codec -- Ian Hickson U+1047E)\._.,--,'``.fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A/, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' -- Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Rudd-O.com - http://rudd-o.com/ GPG key ID 0xC8D28B92 at http://wwwkeys.pgp.net/ Now playing, courtesy of Amarok: Haddaway - What is love (7 mix) Good night to spend with family, but avoid arguments with your mate's new lover. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [whatwg] Video codec requirements changed
If you need to pay ¢1 for copies distributed, then it isn't royalty free and it can't be on the standard as a requirement. Flat fee is not royalty free. YES, I MEANT BEING ABLE TO USE IT WITHOUT PAYING ANY KIND OF FEE. Am I too daft for my words to be understood? El Lunes 07 Ene 2008, escribió: On Jan 7, 2008 7:36 PM, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Out of the question, it must be royalty-free. That's one of the requirements, so unless you can convince the holder to go RF, no chance. Did you even read what I wrote? RAD doesn't charge royalties - period. You pay one flat-fee to use Bink or Smacker in your product. If you mean being able to use it without paying _any kind_ of fee, that's another thing. Royalty: a sum of money paid to a patentee for the use of a patent or to an author or composer for _each_ copy of a book sold or for _each_ public performance of a work. And about your last sentence.. As I said: It might be worth trying to contact RAD and see if this could be a walkable road. -- Federico BP -- Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Rudd-O.com - http://rudd-o.com/ GPG key ID 0xC8D28B92 at http://wwwkeys.pgp.net/ Now playing, courtesy of Amarok: Sonique - It feels so good Your boss is a few sandwiches short of a picnic. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [whatwg] Video codec requirements changed
At 19:29 +0100 7/01/08, Federico Bianco Prevot wrote: Has anyone considered Bink video as a viable option? http://www.radgametools.com/bnkmain.htm I get the impression that this is not an openly-specified codec, which I rather think is a problem. That is, there is neither a publicly available spec. nor publicly-available source, which means that it is controlled by one company. Am I misreading the situation? -- David Singer Apple/QuickTime
Re: [whatwg] Video codec requirements changed
On Mon, Jan 07, 2008 at 01:50:09PM -0800, Dave Singer wrote: I get the impression that this is not an openly-specified codec, which I rather think is a problem. That is, there is neither a publicly available spec. nor publicly-available source, which means that it is controlled by one company. That matches my understanding. Bink is widely distributed in commercial (game) software, under licence from another commercial entity, if that helps with the submarine patent risk. -r
Re: [whatwg] Video codec requirements changed
On 07/01/2008, Dave Singer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 19:29 +0100 7/01/08, Federico Bianco Prevot wrote: Has anyone considered Bink video as a viable option? http://www.radgametools.com/bnkmain.htm I get the impression that this is not an openly-specified codec, which I rather think is a problem. That is, there is neither a publicly available spec. nor publicly-available source, which means that it is controlled by one company. Am I misreading the situation? I have a suggestion: Nokia, Apple: you want H.264, you free H.264. Make it irrevocably perpetually royalty-free, it goes in. Do that with any other codec that's technically better than Ogg Theora, it goes in. You can't do that, we name Ogg Theora as a SHOULD. OK with you? Anyone see anything unacceptable in that approach? Find someone from Apple and Nokia who can actually say Yes or No to this, perhaps the fellow from Nokia who wrote that darling little paper claiming Ogg was too proprietary. You're from Apple, you'd know who can say yes or no to this. (I realise you've already stated Apple is okay with a SHOULD for Ogg, perhaps you can explain Apple's earlier objections without appearing to contradict that.) - d.
Re: [whatwg] Video codec requirements changed
I don't find anything objectionable with that suggestion. It gives us the best of two worlds. Of course, should x264 be freed, there would be no longer any reason not to put Ogg alongside x264 in the spec as MUST. I have a suggestion: Nokia, Apple: you want H.264, you free H.264. Make it irrevocably perpetually royalty-free, it goes in. Do that with any other codec that's technically better than Ogg Theora, it goes in. You can't do that, we name Ogg Theora as a SHOULD. OK with you? Anyone see anything unacceptable in that approach? Find someone from Apple and Nokia who can actually say Yes or No to this, perhaps the fellow from Nokia who wrote that darling little paper claiming Ogg was too proprietary. You're from Apple, you'd know who can say yes or no to this. (I realise you've already stated Apple is okay with a SHOULD for Ogg, perhaps you can explain Apple's earlier objections without appearing to contradict that.) - d. -- Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Rudd-O.com - http://rudd-o.com/ GPG key ID 0xC8D28B92 at http://wwwkeys.pgp.net/ Now playing, courtesy of Amarok: Rudd-O - Also sprach DragonFear Chess tonight. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [whatwg] Video codec requirements changed
At 21:59 + 7/01/08, David Gerard wrote: On 07/01/2008, Dave Singer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 19:29 +0100 7/01/08, Federico Bianco Prevot wrote: Has anyone considered Bink video as a viable option? http://www.radgametools.com/bnkmain.htm I get the impression that this is not an openly-specified codec, which I rather think is a problem. That is, there is neither a publicly available spec. nor publicly-available source, which means that it is controlled by one company. Am I misreading the situation? I have a suggestion: Nokia, Apple: you want H.264, you free H.264. Make it irrevocably perpetually royalty-free, it goes in. Do that with any other codec that's technically better than Ogg Theora, it goes in. You can't do that, we name Ogg Theora as a SHOULD. OK with you? Anyone see anything unacceptable in that approach? Find someone from Apple and Nokia who can actually say Yes or No to this, perhaps the fellow from Nokia who wrote that darling little paper claiming Ogg was too proprietary. You're from Apple, you'd know who can say yes or no to this. (I realise you've already stated Apple is okay with a SHOULD for Ogg, perhaps you can explain Apple's earlier objections without appearing to contradict that.) No, I am sorry, we've already been through this entire discussion twice, and I simply refer you to previous answers. Thanks. -- David Singer Apple/QuickTime
Re: [whatwg] Video codec requirements changed
[snip] How about this permathread gets a @whatwg.org mailing list all of its own? Just a suggestion... dan
Re: [whatwg] Video codec requirements changed
On 12 Dec 2007, at 01:41, Maciej Stachowiak wrote: 1) maybe (I've heard game vendors cited, not sure which ones) I know someone already posted a list, but it is used within all Unreal Engine 2.5 (i.e., UT 2004) and Unreal Engine 3 (i.e., UT 3) games (which I'm sure you can find a long list of games that use them on Wikipedia or elsewhere). -- Geoffrey Sneddon http://gsnedders.com/
Re: [whatwg] Video codec requirements changed [ISSUE-7 video-codecs]
Ian Hickson wrote: I've temporarily removed the requirements on video codecs from the HTML5 spec, since the current text isn't helping us come to a useful interoperable conclusion. When a codec is found that is mutually acceptable to all major parties I will update the spec to require that instead and then reply to all the pending feedback on video codecs. http://www.whatwg.org/issues/#graphics-video-codec Thanks for letting us know. This message connects the email discussion to the issue tracker... http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/7 -- Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/
Re: [whatwg] Video codec requirements changed
Dnia 12-12-2007, Śr o godzinie 00:11 -0500, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) pisze: I'd rephrase it as # Has had traction, time and exposure in the market, enough so patent threats should have arisen already. That is, as a study of a troll's lifestyle shows, indefinite.
Re: [whatwg] Video codec requirements changed
Dnia 11-12-2007, Wt o godzinie 18:53 -0500, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) pisze: Wanna know what happened to the last troll that attacked free software? Ask Darl McBride. Everyone is under the possibility of constant attack from trolls. He was not a patent troll, he was acting for Microsoft and he got his reward for that.
Re: [whatwg] Video codec requirements changed
Ian Hickson wrote: I've temporarily removed the requirements on video codecs from the HTML5 spec, since the current text isn't helping us come to a useful interoperable conclusion. I don't think this solves any problem, neither in the short term or the long term. I suggest that the should text is put back in. When a codec is found that is mutually acceptable to all major parties I will update the spec to require that instead and then reply to all the pending feedback on video codecs. Sure, when that happens the text can be revised. But not before. -hkon Håkon Wium Lie CTO °þe®ª [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://people.opera.com/howcome
Re: [whatwg] Video codec requirements changed
On Tuesday 2007-12-11 02:39 +, Ian Hickson wrote: I've temporarily removed the requirements on video codecs from the HTML5 spec, since the current text isn't helping us come to a useful interoperable conclusion. When a codec is found that is mutually acceptable to all major parties I will update the spec to require that instead and then reply to all the pending feedback on video codecs. http://www.whatwg.org/issues/#graphics-video-codec The text you replaced the requirements with [1] includes the requirement that the codec: # is not an additional submarine patent risk for large companies Is this something that can be measured objectively, or is it a loophole that allows any sufficiently large company to veto the choice of codec for any reason it chooses, potentially including not wanting the video element to succeed in creating an open standard for video on the Web? -David [1] In full, the text is: # It would be helpful for interoperability if all browsers could # support the same codecs. However, there are no known codecs that # satisfy all the current players: we need a codec that is known to # not require per-unit or per-distributor licensing, that is # compatible with the open source development model, that is of # sufficient quality as to be usable, and that is not an additional # submarine patent risk for large companies. This is an ongoing # issue and this section will be updated once more information is # available. from http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/section-video.html#video -- L. David Baron http://dbaron.org/ Mozilla Corporation http://www.mozilla.com/
Re: [whatwg] Video codec requirements changed
The text you replaced the requirements with [1] includes the requirement that the codec: # is not an additional submarine patent risk for large companies Is this something that can be measured objectively, or is it a loophole that allows any sufficiently large company to veto the choice of codec for any reason it chooses, potentially including not wanting the video element to succeed in creating an open standard for video on the Web? There is no objective measurement possible for that requirement, except the lone yes/no of something being unpatented and really old. We can't make videos play on Web pages using forks, hammers and chairs. And even under those circumstances, patent trolls do get stuff that shouldn't be patentable patented, so living in fear of patent trolls is absurd. Wanna know what happened to the last troll that attacked free software? Ask Darl McBride. Everyone is under the possibility of constant attack from trolls. But, anyway, we've already established that the fear of patents is just an excuse to take Ogg out. Other sensible reasons remain to prefer other technologies, and the standard as it was written before did cater to those technologies as well. -David [1] In full, the text is: # It would be helpful for interoperability if all browsers could # support the same codecs. However, there are no known codecs that # satisfy all the current players: we need a codec that is known to # not require per-unit or per-distributor licensing, that is # compatible with the open source development model, that is of # sufficient quality as to be usable, and that is not an additional # submarine patent risk for large companies. This is an ongoing # issue and this section will be updated once more information is # available. from http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/section-video.h tml#video -- Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Rudd-O.com - http://rudd-o.com/ GPG key ID 0xC8D28B92 at http://wwwkeys.pgp.net/ Hope that the day after you die is a nice day. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [whatwg] Video codec requirements changed
On Dec 11, 2007, at 3:27 PM, L. David Baron wrote: On Tuesday 2007-12-11 02:39 +, Ian Hickson wrote: I've temporarily removed the requirements on video codecs from the HTML5 spec, since the current text isn't helping us come to a useful interoperable conclusion. When a codec is found that is mutually acceptable to all major parties I will update the spec to require that instead and then reply to all the pending feedback on video codecs. http://www.whatwg.org/issues/#graphics-video-codec The text you replaced the requirements with [1] includes the requirement that the codec: # is not an additional submarine patent risk for large companies Is this something that can be measured objectively, or is it a loophole that allows any sufficiently large company to veto the choice of codec for any reason it chooses, potentially including not wanting the video element to succeed in creating an open standard for video on the Web? I think there are some objective criteria that can help determine the scope of risk: 1) Is the codec already in use by deep-pockets vendors? 2) Was the codec developed through an open standards process with strong IP disclosure requirements? 3) Is the codec old enough that any essential patents must be expired? 4) Has an exhaustive patent search been done (this can't be done by most large companies since doing a patent search ironically increases your financial exposure to patent infringement claims)? 5) Is indemnification available? Here are the answers I know of for some well-known video codecs: H.264: 1) yes 2) yes 3) no 4) no (I think) 5) no Theora: 1) no 2) no 3) no 4) no 5) no H.261: 1) yes 2) yes 3) yes 4) no 5) no Here are the answers for some popular audio codecs: MP3: 1) yes 2) yes 3) no (but in a few years, 2 or 3 I think, it will be) 4) no 5) no Vorbis: 1) maybe (I've heard game vendors cited, not sure which ones) 2) no 3) no 4) yes 5) no AAC: 1) yes 2) yes 3) no 4) no 5) no I'm not 100% sure on all of these answers, but I hope these are the kind of criteria applied, and not just purely subjective considerations. Regards, Maciej
Re: [whatwg] Video codec requirements changed
On 12/12/2007, Maciej Stachowiak [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think there are some objective criteria that can help determine the scope of risk: 1) Is the codec already in use by deep-pockets vendors? ... Vorbis: 1) maybe (I've heard game vendors cited, not sure which ones) Microsoft (Bungie): Halo id: Doom 3, Quake 4 RockStar: Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas Activition (Red Octane): Guitar Hero II Blizzard: World of Warcraft The US Army: America's Army many more listed at: http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/Games_that_use_Vorbis cheers, Conrad.
Re: [whatwg] Video codec requirements changed
On 12/11/07, L. David Baron [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: # is not an additional submarine patent risk for large companies Is this something that can be measured objectively, or is it a loophole that allows any sufficiently large company to veto the choice of codec for any reason it chooses, potentially including not wanting the video element to succeed in creating an open standard for video on the Web? I agree as well that that sentence is in need of better wording as to avoid what may be an ambiguous statement. -Ivo
Re: [whatwg] Video codec requirements changed
I'd rephrase it as # Has had traction, time and exposure in the market, enough so patent threats should have arisen already. Which is basically the same meaning, and includes Ogg Vorbis technology. Because if America Online (Winamp) is not a big company, then I don't know the meaning of the word big. I'd also not use a hash to denote a bullet point ;-). El Mar 11 Dic 2007, Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves escribió: On 12/11/07, L. David Baron [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: # is not an additional submarine patent risk for large companies Is this something that can be measured objectively, or is it a loophole that allows any sufficiently large company to veto the choice of codec for any reason it chooses, potentially including not wanting the video element to succeed in creating an open standard for video on the Web? I agree as well that that sentence is in need of better wording as to avoid what may be an ambiguous statement. -Ivo -- Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Rudd-O.com - http://rudd-o.com/ GPG key ID 0xC8D28B92 at http://wwwkeys.pgp.net/ Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
