Sun Developing Open Media Stack

Graftweed writes to share that Sun is working on a new open video codec called Open Media Stack (OMS). OMS video will be based on H.26x technology and promises to deliver royalty-free open video. This certainly isn't the first attempt at an open codec, hopefully Sun will decide to add something to the table beyond just their name.

Re:Open source?

[Anonymous Coward]

... like their "open source" operating system which is not actually open source.

OpenSolaris is certified Open Source [opensolaris.org] and there are already a half-dozen distributions based on OpenSolaris such as Nexenta [nexenta.org] and Schillix [berlios.de]. If you don't like Sun's management, fork the code and roll your own distro.

Huh?

[Watson Ladd]

Isn't there already a gpl'd alternative to .flv [flumotion.net]? What advantages are there in sun's offering? And given that the patent fees on .mp4 are so low, is that really needed?

Why this is important

[Anonymous Coward]

Right now, the working drafts for the HTML 5 specification specify a <video> element, but doesn't specify a codec to go with it. Unfortunately, there's no single video codec which is acceptable to all web browser vendors. Mozilla (and Opera, I think) will not go for something patent-encumbered, while Apple and Microsoft find Theora unacceptable, because of the risk of submarine patents.

Having a modern non-proprietary codec specified which all browser vendors could interoperably implement would give a tremendous boost to video on the internet. Things have stalled on convincing the various parties to accept something which currently exists. So it's looking to me as if Sun is deciding to help move things forward by providing a new alternative.

Re:Xvid

[Cajun Hell]

It's only successful from a technical perspective. The patents keep it underground. If anyone with money tries to use Xvid, they'll either have to license the patents, or they'll be in court. Xvid is useless to Sun and their customers.

Re:Seriously? Why?

[Jherek Carnelian]

Obviously all the folks who use H.264 have looked at the alternatives you mention and rejected them.

That's an awfully big assumption. From my experience within the corporate world, I'd feel reasonably confident in saying that not even half of the folks who use h.264 even know that dirac exists, much less have looked at it as an alternative to h.264.

Re:Alas, another flavour

[AndrewStephens]

Actually, I think Sun is one of the only companies that could possibly do this. Java is installed on the majority of Windows desktops, and self-updates on each new version. Sun could roll this out as part of a Java update and hardly anyone would notice. Now their only problem is getting content producers to use the codec - good luck with that.

Re:Seriously? Why?

[trawg]

How do you unseat Flash? Unless the codec is efficient enough to be decoded by Javascript, you won't have anything more commonly installed available.

If I had unlimited resources and was hugely philanthropic (and/or just wanted to destroy Flash as the de facto standard for web video), I'd do it like this:

1) develop an open source video codec that is a) comparable in quality/bitrate to mpeg4/h264) and b) not encumbered by patents and does not conflict with existing patents (this is almost certainly the hardest part - even starting from scratch chances are you're going to step on someone's patent portfolio)

2) create an open source player plugin for as many browsers on as many platforms as I could find, with some nice basic functionality and published specs so anyone else could create one for their browser/platform of choice.

3) create open source tools for easy encoding/transcoding of existing content to your content (note that this step might require your transcoding tool to be commercial - in order to do this legitimately I'd say you'd need to buy a license to decode things like mpeg4 into a new format). Publish the shit out of your encoding process and let the open source community make free tools. (This step is, I feel, ridiculously important. Video creation is still a bit of a pain in the ass and unless you can make it easy for people to use it, it'll never take off.)

4) create open source DirectShow filters and all the other crap needed to make your video codec work seamlessly on Windows, and distribute as a simple Windows installer. Make sure they're explicitly redistributable as part of the license and let all those codec pack creators help spread the word.

5) parter with, or create, a site with a bunch of video to a) demonstrate how well it works and b) promote it and help foster adoption. There is an assload of excellent Creative Commons content out there to start with.

(Optional) 6) Create a new company providing commercial services for all of the above for companies that want to go the extra mile (bulk encoding services, streaming and distribution, hosting, etc).

All non-trivial steps!

Re:Alas, another flavour

[atamido]

First of all, the specification and the reference implementation to produce and read back a valid stream were just finished. A month ago. After a few years of development. And it still doesn't even use all of the features, let alone efficiently.

The reason the BBC isn't using Dirac yet is that it isn't anywhere close to being ready, so it isn't actually usable in any meaningful way. Give it another year of development to get the obvious optimizations done and then the BBC may have a reason to switch to it entirely in the iPlayer. And once the millions of people that use the iPlayer to watch BBC's content prove the value of Dirac, other companies will have an incentive to use it.

Chances are that it will be used in many ways that people won't realize. For instance, Vorbis isn't well known at all in the public, but many game developers use it for audio in games. Game developers love having an open source and royalty free audio decoder with top of the line performance. When Dirac matures, they will love having an open source and royalty free video decoder with top of the line performance too.

Re:Alas, another flavour

[Tom9729]

I might be wrong, but I don't think Java updates itself autonomously on Windows. Maybe there's a setting so it will do that, but I think by default it'll only notify/annoy you about the latest version. You (as the user) still have to give it the "go ahead" before it will install anything.

Feel free to mod me down if I'm wrong though.