VP3, Open Source Video at 200kbs 219
Honest Man
noted that intel is hyping VP3 as the first low bitrate open source video codec. 200kbs for VHS quality video sounds good to me, especially when I can apt-get it. But is DivX already to entrenched in this niche?
Will the MPAA allow Intel to do this? (Score:2, Interesting)
So quick, apt-get it before it gets banned!
Wiht @Home in Doubt (Score:2, Interesting)
A low-bandwidth codec might have more success than DiVX (which, while lighter than mpeg-2, is still 800 meg for 90-100 minutes at decent quality).
Open Source??? (Score:1, Interesting)
Am I missing something here????
Re:Open Source??? (Score:2, Interesting)
"With VP3, there are no platform limitations and developers are not required to pay the restrictive license fees that other open source codecs make mandatory."
restrictive license fees for open source...? They seem to have a very strange concept of the term "open source".
"Open Source"? (Score:4, Interesting)
Major differences (Score:2, Interesting)
With DivX, if you want to copy your video collection, your hard drive is likely too small, plus you need special equipment to record. The alternatives are open as the linked article demonstrates. Via KazaA (or Gnutella, or whatever), Video files (even a 22 minute Simpsons episode) take a long time to download via cable modem, and is not realistic for the majority of people who use dial-up connections.
Don't get me wrong, DivX ;) is great, just as MP3 is. All I'm saying is that the differences are big enough to prevent DivX from being entrenched at this stage of the game.
what about audio (Score:5, Interesting)
VP3 as counterpart to MP3... (Score:5, Interesting)
isn't MP3 a patented, non-free algorithm? isn't that why Ogg Vorbis [ogg.org] exists? so the only reason Intel is comparing VP3 to MP3 is marketing crap, right?
either that, or they are hoping people will compress millions of DVDs into VP3 and set up giant file-swapping services, that would be a video counterpart to MP3.
in other news, are there any side-by-side comparisons of VP3 and DivX? and how does Ogg Tarkin fit into all of this, now that there is an 'open source' codec?
-sam
Not to mention... (Score:2, Interesting)
This new Codec developed by intel, is open, so there is no immediate legal issues pertaining to its use, unlike DiVX. Also, this may open the doors to commercialization. I mean... How many vendors do you think would want to release something called DiVX
I think it would have better market value knowing it was a codec developed by a real company, not a hack of someone else's work.
Besides, isn't the bitrate of DiVX like 910 kb/sec in most applications? I think 200kb/sec for the same quality is awesome.
Key difference being: WMA supposedly offers better/equal quality to MP3 at a lower bitrate, but nobody wants to be sucked into a proprietary format. Likewise Windows Media8 supposedly offers DVD quality video at like 500 kb/sec, but again, who wants to be sucked into a proprietary format? This new codec from Intel on the other hand is open.
Just my two bits...
Re:*Not* Open Source *or* Free Software (Score:5, Interesting)
This is smart, and contrary to what you believe you can improve the encoder without breaking compatibility with the decoder. The datastream format is what cannot change.
Quality comparison? (Score:3, Interesting)
...has anyone put together a good test suite to compare the various codecs at various bit rates? I'm thinking something that'd have some fixed-images (test patterns), some high- and medium-intensity moving images, lots of colors, simple and complex sounds, etc. Then put that file through all the various systems, at various rates, and compare the quality somehow...
Not that it'll really make much difference to me, as an end-user, since I'll just watch whatever someone has already encoded, but I'd be curious to see something a little more substantial and quantitative than just "sorenson's cool" sort of postings...
Only 200kbps (Score:2, Interesting)
Two months ago I was compressing near-VHS quality at just over 250 kbps with DiVX. Could have gone down to 200 kbps if I had the time to tweak it a little more.
Now, if VP3 can do the tweaking for me, and is faster, then I'll be impressed.
Possibly... (Score:5, Interesting)
Otherwise, the best you can do with the current license is make a VP3 player/stream codec for Linux (Which wouldn't be a bad thing- I've seen the technology in action with RealPlayer 8 on Linux, playing some unbelievable streams from news.com.).
Re:Quick Answer (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting... I assume you mean it's the standard for final output on projects? You don't edit in DivX, do you?
Will you also archive your projects in DivX? If so, I'm glad I didn't attend U of South FL. I prefer my demo reel to be on something other people can look at easily, such as one of the established tape formats, not some unknown codec inappropriate for broadcast and not available on most desktops.
Good for my FreeTivo/OpenTivo project (Score:2, Interesting)
Here is what I have so far : http://tv.cheema.com/vcr/ [cheema.com] Its in early stages of development and you may find some problems here and there. I plan to release the source under GPL once I get my employer's approval.
Warning : The system above is on a slow uplink so some pages may load slowly. At some point I will start using mod_gzip.
How to make VP3 truly Open Source.. (Score:3, Interesting)
So, given a code base for reference (ala reverse engineering), all we need is for somebody outside of the US, where software patents don't apply, to develop a GPL replacement written from the ground up, but which is unofficially 100% compatible with the VP3 format. Ideally, it may even be possible to work around their patents somehow, which would free content producers from having to pay royalty fees (as with MP3).
Of course, that's assuming that VP3 is really a format worth emulating compared to the patent-free video codec the Ogg Vorbis people are working on. But hey, even they may be able to gain some insight from looking at the VP3 code.
I love it when people put good content... (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.on2.com/quicktime/trailers/
Rather than watching the movies in a tiny window embedded in a web page, visit this page, download them, and watch them in their own player as large as you want. Personally, I'm very impressed.