Theora 1.1 (Thusnelda) Is Released 184
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Soulskill
from the prettier-pictures dept.
from the prettier-pictures dept.
SD-Arcadia writes to tell us that Theora 1.1 has officially been released. It features improved encoding, providing better video quality for a given file size, a faster decoder, bitrate controls to help with streaming, and two-pass encoding. "The new rate control module hits its target much more accurately and obeys strict buffer constraints, including dropping frames if necessary. The latter is needed to enable live streaming without disconnecting users or pausing to buffer during sudden motion. Obeying these constraints can yield substantially worse quality than the 1.0 encoder, whose rate control did not obey any such constraints, and often landed only in the vague neighborhood of the desired rate target. The new --soft-target option can relax a few of these constraints, but the new two-pass rate control mode gives quality approaching full 'constant quality' mode with a predictable output size. This should be the preferred encoding method when not doing live streaming. Two-pass may also be used with finite buffer constraints, for non-live streaming." A detailed writeup on the new release has been posted at Mozilla.
Would it be so tough (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What every player is missing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What every player is missing (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? If the video and audio are compressed already, are you really gaining much by trying to compress them again?
Perhaps he's using the zip/rar as a simple container file.
Re:Q. What is Theora? (Score:5, Insightful)
And the real A:
It's an outdated video codec that loses to H.264 in pretty much every codec shootout, and is in general ignored in HD media (H.264/VC-1), HD broadcasts (H.264/MPEG2), set top boxes, mobile players and so on. It's also pretty much completely ignored by the pirate community, preferring mkv/H.264. While possibly FUD, not everyone is willing to ship this codec because they fear submarine patents meaning it's lost its only real shot at relevance as the default codec for HTML5 video, which now also seems to be a mix probably dominated by H.264. The end result is that it might be used by a few geeks and internally in video games and such that provide their own player, but it'll likely have as much impact as vorbis had on the mp3/aac format. That is, none.
Re:You know.. (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the point? It's free, in both senses of the word.
Unlike H.264, you do not have to pay to use Theora.
Unlike H.264, you can use Theora in open-source software without worrying about being sued or shut down overnight.
Sure, if you don't care about freedom and don't mind paying for the privilege, go ahead and use H.264. But why would you want to, when you can use Theora however you want to, and without paying a cent?
Re:What every player is missing (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep. They are actually zero-compressed files, but still inside multi-archived files. But the subtitle files are as separate. I can load a video file just fine on vlc, but I cant load subtitles in it unless I decompress and they have the same filename.
Re:Q. What is Theora? (Score:1, Insightful)
This is nothing to scoff at, particularly as independent games are growing. Even the AAA developers typically use Ogg Vorbis where in the past they'd use WAV or license MP3. Sadly, Bink video is still very much around, mostly for cross-platform reasons, I think. If Theora can squish them, that's quite significant.
Re:Maybe now Google will change their mind. (Score:2, Insightful)
A look at this comparison [saintdevelopment.com] seems to suggest to me that 1.1 is actually worse than 1.0. Certainly it's no where near as good as x264 produced h264.
Re:Q. What is Theora? (Score:3, Insightful)
A few clarifications:
> outdated video codec
An arbitrary definition which, could very well apply equally well to H.264 in comparison to almost any other codec.
> loses to H.264 in pretty much every codec shootout
But not usually by very much; and in any case, countless codecs beat H.264 in pretty much every respect in turn - but since the issue is not some theoretical perfect codec but a cost/bandwidth/quality/encode-cpu-time/decode-cpu-time/features/etc tradeoff, this might still result in a net benefit if attributes like "unpatented" rank high enough on your individual requirements list.
> and is in general ignored in HD media (H.264/VC-1), HD broadcasts (H.264/MPEG2), set top boxes, mobile players and so on.
Which is typical, that is, for commercial implementors to prefer commercial rather than community standards, as often as not purely because of personal bias or lack of understanding, and speaking nothing of the benefits otherwise.
> It's also pretty much completely ignored by the pirate community, preferring mkv/H.264
A moot point, given that people who are misappropriating unpaid-for content choosing to use a misappropriated unpaid-for format is hardly surprising.
> While possibly FUD, not everyone is willing to ship this codec because they fear submarine patents meaning it's lost its only real shot at relevance as the default codec for HTML5 video
Which only proves that patents are so absurd generally that the whole industry is jumping at shadows, given that the nearly-two-decade-old Xiph Foundation has never once even been accused of violating patents across their dozens of published and implemented standards, let alone having actually been formally challenged (and something that no other format/provider under consideration can say).
> which now also seems to be a mix probably dominated by H.264.
The jury's still out on that one - I think most people expect the W3 to wash their hands of baseline video recommendations entirely (at least until a possible appropriate future format meets the requirements) and thus leaving a scenario of no de jure standard, and probably a de facto standard of, as you say, some semi-compatible mutant alternatives centering around semi-conformant H.264 implementations.
> The end result is that it might be used by a few geeks and internally in video games and such that provide their own player, but it'll likely have as much impact as vorbis had on the mp3/aac format. That is, none.
That is, an important and ALWAYS GROWING beachhead against unFree formats and bastardized non-standards generally (seriously, while not anywhere near de facto standard, vorbis, flac, speex, etc. usage has only ever increased - never decreased - and gets better with every passing year).
Re:You know.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Because everyone else in the industry is using H.264. If you want your materials to play nice with others hardware, software, etc. you'd better damn well be using H.264.
Generally, the cost of the H.264 license is covered by the software/hardware purchased by the consumer, whether it's a business or personal use. It's licensed by Adobe/Apple/Google/whomever when you buy or use their encoder. I don't have to pay a licensing fee for every video I create in H.264.
I've tested Theora on a few occasions. Everytime, H.264 has beat it in terms of quality for file size plus I can send an H.264 file to anyone else in the industry and I guarantee it will play for them. And today, I can put it out on the web and be pretty much guaranteed that just about everyone can view it.
Not so much with Theora.
Re:Q. What is Theora? (Score:1, Insightful)
> An arbitrary definition which, could very well apply equally well to H.264 in comparison to almost any other codec.
I don't think there are any relevant, modern video-coding specs that are newer than H.264.
> But not usually by very much;
Wrong, x264 beats Theora by quite a lot. Maybe you are comparing black frames?
> and in any case, countless codecs beat H.264 in pretty much every respect in turn
This is just wrong. I do not know of any lossy codec that delivers better bitrate/quality than current good H.264 implementations.
> but since the issue is not some theoretical perfect codec but a cost/bandwidth/quality
When talking about video quality, bitrate/quality is the only thing worthwhile to compare. x264 leaves Theora in the dust at this.
> encode-cpu-time/decode-cpu-time/features/etc tradeoff
Of course speed is another factor. Theora is quite unoptimized and slow. At fast settings, x264 quality and speed are still both much better than anything Theora can deliver. As for decoding, there are dedicated hardware chips to decode H.264. You will be able to play it on a phone. Theora will have to use implementations on general purpose CPUs, which will probably be much worse for battery life and performance.
> this might still result in a net benefit if attributes like "unpatented" rank high enough on your individual requirements list.
Maybe if it is your only factor?
> vorbis, flac, speex, etc. usage has only ever increased - never decreased - and gets better with every passing year
That is not because those are free, it is because those are actually pretty good.
Of course, I am probably wasting my time on a troll here.
Re:You know.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless it becomes popular, in which case the so-called "submarine" (actually they may not even be submarine) patents will come to the fore, and you'll have to pay.
I don't trust Xiph having read their comments about what exactly they mean by "Patent free" [hydrogenaudio.org], and having seen the silence over, say, Vorbis's apparent infringement of US Patent 5,214,742. Is Theora "safer" than Vorbis? Well, it's another DCT-based codec, just like 99% of the video codecs in use since H.261, and it's essentially doing stuff where everyone else is doing stuff. The chances of it not violating some patent somewhere is minimal to non-existent, as everyone and their brother is trying to come up with ways to improve DCT based algorithms that they can patent and then submit to MPEG or VCEG for incorporation into the next MPEG or H.26* video standard.
There are really only three standards that could be considered free of patent issues, and even then it's not entirely 100% certain. H.261 dates back to the mid eighties. The ITU lists no current patents applying to MPEG-1. (It's worth pointing out that Theora's predecessor, VP3, is considered to be somewhere between H.261 and MPEG-1 in terms of quality.) And finally, the BBC did an extensive search for anything that might hit their Dirac codec and came up blank, as well as proposing (and then withdrawing once published, so they count as prior art) some patents themselves, so Dirac is in the running too.
Theora? If I was a commercial concern, I would avoid it. I'd go for the predictability of a licensable codec ahead of one that almost certainly would be a target for patent lawsuits if it ever achieves critical mass, and possibly earlier.
I might feel differently if Xiph didn't play word games with the term "Patent free", and gave a straight answer on the issues of actual patents people have found, rather than turning around and saying "Yeah, we ran it by a lawyer, and they said we're OK, but we're not going to tell you why because it's our super secret defense we'll use if we're ever sued", which doesn't exactly inspire confidence, especially as nobody will ever sue Xiph anyway (Xiph just writes the software, they leave the packaging, compiling, possible selling, and actual using to everyone else.)
Re:Q. What is Theora? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously? Do you work for the MPAA or some other group like that? People who pirate stuff aren't comic book villains who break laws just for the sake of breaking laws. They don't think "oh hey while I'm violating copyright I'll violate patents too, just because I can!" H.264 is more popular because it is better, not because the people who encode stuff get hard at the thought of breaking laws in a way nobody particularly cares about and they're never ever going to get in trouble for.
The AC above me covers the rest of your points quite nicely, so I'm not going to write something that would be much the same as his. Your post is utter nonsense, and you and the people who actually looked at your post and not only managed to not laugh, but modded you up need to pull your heads out of the GNU/sand and admit that Theora is simply inferior. If you think not having any patent problems is a big enough issue to prefer a technologically inferior codec, that's fine. But don't twist the facts and outright lie just so you can try to pretend Theora is otherwise a match for modern codecs, because it is not.
Re:Q. What is Theora? (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you even watch the videos at your second link? It's pretty clear to me that Theora is the better codec in that clip. Play them side by side and notice how much better the butterfly and the sky looks with Theora.
Re:Q. What is Theora? (Score:3, Insightful)
They don't think "oh hey while I'm violating copyright I'll violate patents too, just because I can!"
No, but if they don't particularly care about violating copyright, they won't care much about violating patents, either.
H.264 is more popular because it is better
Because it's better, or because it's perceived as better -- in terms of quality per bit. But again, anywhere other than the pirate community, patents are likely to be an issue, and an open-but-worse format may be preferred over a closed-but-better format, especially if it's not that much worse.
admit that Theora is simply inferior.
I'm pretty sure that's what was meant by this part:
But not usually by very much; and in any case, countless codecs beat H.264 in pretty much every respect in turn
In other words, yes, Theora is inferior, but probably not by enough to care -- just as better-than-h.264 formats aren't better enough to care.
Re:What every player is missing (Score:2, Insightful)
The old scene follows obscure rules to be l33t like ftping around rars, but they're a fraction of a fraction of the people downloading.
Sure. But they are supplying 95% of what other people are downloading.
The topsite network was never meant to supply a large number of people, but was and is a *fast* and *secure* distributed exchange system for those who are in, *and* are contributing.
There's also a new scene that's not so lame, I can tell you there's original releases that go on private torrents first but are packed up to make the old scene happy.
Sure, I know and I respect them. They often fill the many holes left by the old scene these days. But still, these new scenes are *mostly* supplying mp3/cam/ts/scr/rips. No technical knowledge in there, just a matter of having fresh meat working for you. Yes, I also know exceptions to this, but these can be counted on your two index fingers...
The Scene is dimming. People in get older, get real life. New people are not allowed to get in for security reasons/are not motivated to do so with all the easy-to-get-into p2p stuff.
But it still is the real deal.
-xded
Re:Maybe now Google will change their mind. (Score:1, Insightful)
And licensing this shit is not free. Doesn't matter how many times you say it; it's not true. Most browsers don't even have MP3 support built in; I don't know where you're getting that from, either.
Re:Would it be so tough (Score:1, Insightful)
If you can't derive "it's a video codec" from "It features improved encoding, providing better video quality for a given file size, a faster decoder, bitrate controls to help with streaming, and two-pass encoding", I'd suggest being quiet about it. Better to keep your mouth closed and so on.
Re:You know.. (Score:3, Insightful)
> And today, I can put it out on the web
Something that may cost you money starting 2011. MPEG-LA has indicated that it's likely to require royalties for streaming (not encoding; simply making available in a streamable fashion) H.264 starting then, with the final decisions on pricing and such to be made in December 2009, last I checked.
Of course for the next year or so you're ok.
The fact is, the video codec landscape on the web just doesn't look very good.