Fluendo To Sell Proprietary Codecs For Linux

Several readers wrote in to tell us that the open source media software development company Fluendo has announced plans to sell native Linux implementations of proprietary video codecs such as Windows Media, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4. (Press release here.) From the article: "Currently, many Linux video applications facilitate Windows Media video playback using Windows DLL files and Wine, which provides suboptimal performance, particularly with streaming video. Fluendo's codecs could potentially provide better integration for streaming Windows Media playback in Linux web browsers as well as through GStreamer-based desktop applications like Totem."

Hmmmmmmmmn,

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

1) I don't believe (for xine at least) that wine is neccessary for asf (wmv) playback (the windows codec dlls are required, but used by xine without wine's help)

2) I guess a native binary blob is slightly better than a MS coded binary blob.... but frankly, it's still just a binary blob. You have no idea what its really doing.

Good luck to Fluendo however.

Re:Hmmmmmmmmn,

[Anonymous Coward]

1) I don't believe (for xine at least) that wine is neccessary for asf (wmv) playback (the windows codec dlls are required, but used by xine without wine's help)

Saying "wine" is an overstatement. Some code from Wine is used, the DLL loading stuff being one part, and the Windows functions that the DLL calls would also be needed. But it's far from the full wine that you would need to play WoW or run MS Office.

Yes, they're part of ffmpeg

[Anonymous Coward]

The three major video players for linux: mplayer, xine and vlc all use the ffmpeg library by default for playing mpeg4 video. Recently, ffmpeg added support for Windows Media 9 (WMV3) as a native codec, so you don't even need the windows binaries for that anymore (although it's probably in "alpha" status).

Nice try, but...

[sid77]

I think someone should point them to the ffmpeg changelog [mplayerhq.hu]. Actually it does open lots of proprietary formats and VLC uses the same codebase for his own engine.

Re:Hmmmmmmmmn,

[Anonymous Coward]

binary blob

'blob' usually is an acronym for Binary Large OBject, so the 'binary' modifier is redundant.

FFMPEG

[BigBuckHunter]

I haven't scrolled to the bottom yet to see if this is redundant, but FFMPEG has recently added WMV9 and VC1 decoders. http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/ [mplayerhq.hu] It works fine for all of the Legacy content that I have. They also have MPEG/2/4 and a whole bunch of others. The only codec that I seem to be missing is Indeo 5

BBH

Re:Hmmmmmmmmn,

[doob]

Perhaps because of security fears?

"the NVIDIA Binary Graphics Driver for Linux is vulnerable to a buffer overflow that allows an attacker to run arbitrary code as root. This bug can be exploited both locally or remotely

You say that as if it were a current problem. This has actually been fixed in the last 3(4?) driver revisions, including a bugfix only release to a previous branch of the drivers.

Re:Yes, they're part of ffmpeg

[Shawn is an Asshole]

The FFMPEG devs have always done an excellent job at bringing Free video support to Linux. Thanks to them most video can be played on Linux without propreitary codecs. There is a downside, though: patents. FFMPEG isn't licensed, so it's not legal for distributions to distribute FFMPEG in countries dumb enough to allow software patents (USA, Japan, others?).

The Fluendo stuff could be a good thing if distros would ship with it. Then video would finally work "out of the box". For those like myself who avoid binary blobs and try to only use things that are truely Free will still have the option of using FFMPEG.

why we are releasing these codecs

[Ur@eus]

I see a lot of people confused about why we are releasing these codecs when there are things like the open source ffmpeg codecs etc.
Our goal is not to provide the community with codecs which there is absolutly no support for already as
that would be foolish. Our goal is to provide a 100% legal option which I know a lot of companies who have or
want to deploy linux desktops have been looking for. These companies like open source, but they also have policies in place
which hinders them from deploying solutions which have clear patent issues hanging over them in their country of operations. This is unfortunatly
the case with most multimedia codecs and even though we have spent a lot on resources on Xiph codecs here at Fluendo and are now working with BBC
on Dirac there is still some way to go before the need for non-free codecs are gone.

So for those in a situation where they can freely use gst-ffmpeg and similar options, more power to you! For those who the lack of licensed codecs
has been a hinderance or problem for adopting Linux (or Solaris) desktops at your company or institution or even private use, then we hope our plugins will be a good solution.

Christian Schaller
Fluendo

Obligatory Ogg Theora Post

[Cygnus v1]

Use Ogg Theora [theora.org]! It's a free and open spec.

Re:Hmmmmmmmmn,

[piranha(jpl)]

NVidia sat on their hands for years with that security problem, didn't they?

Thank you!

[XanC]

I deal with libraries in my line of work, and I think Linux and libraries are very compatible ideas. Librarians are also sensitive about respecting copyright, and I think codecs are possibly the biggest item slowing down adoption of Linux by librarians. Bravo!

No lindows

[Anonymous Coward]

It hasn't been Lindows for a long time now. Linspire and Freespire can be had with multimedia playback out of the box legally in the US. And they are the ones slowlly chipping away at OEM linux installs, which is eventually the only way you'll see "linux on the desktop" for a lot of people outside of geekdom, when it comes pre installed.

Re:Hmmmmmmmmn,

[h2g2bob]

FFMpeg does MPEG1/2, MPEG4 (aac, divx, etc), WMV1/2/3, H.263 (flv6), VP6 (flv8), and frankly god knows what else.

Who in there right mind would think that releasing proprietory codecs for exactly the same to linux to do the same thing is in any way a good business plan!? If it was encoding these video formats, there may be some merit (eg: better encoding techniques), but playback!? The only possible advantage is it can be used in non-GPL'd programs.

List of patents

[tepples]

They are covered by patents are therefore is a subject of USAGE restrictions.

What patents you are talking about?

It's not hard for anybody experienced with Google to find a list of MP3 patents [mp3licensing.com], the ASF patent [wikipedia.org], a list of MPEG-2 patents (PDF) [mpegla.com], and a list of MPEG-4 patents (PDF) [mpegla.com].

And no, vlc and xine is no use for simple user.

Even if so... type:

% yum install totem-xine

You forgot the step of obtaining a patent license.

Re:Good luck with that

[ajs318]

Actually, in at least the EU and the UK, and probably the British Commonwealth, software patents are not legally enforcible.

Nor will they ever be. If the law is changed to allow software patents, then it will be recognised that they were never valid before; so any software patent previously but falsely granted in the EU or UK will be recognised as bogus. The holders will have to re-apply for them, but will be blocked by reason of Prior Art and/or obviety (since there will be code out there to do the same things as what they're trying to patent).