Hello everyone, I'm developing software for a marketing company which creates multimedia presentations. We're currently using proprietary Windows software, but are looking for a royalty-free cross-platform solution. It's important that the solution is royalty- and patent-free because the presentations are copied and given out in large quantities for free (as in beer ;-) We are looking for a good cross-platform solution to play back audio and video. I have the following questions: 1. What is the overall status of the project? Is there anything I should know about the status of the current CVS HEAD? Is the deadline (end of 2003) still reasonable and what will be finished until then? 2. Is the compression of Theora roughly comparable to MPEG4? Quality doesn't matter so much, but size is quite limited. 3. How difficult to you think would be a Windows port and how long would it take? Is anyone working on this already? (FYI I have 6+ years experience in Windows C++ programming and have just recently coded some small Linux Apps). Of course, all changes would be contributed back. 4. I understand that Theora is alpha-quality only, but because we basically bundle the player with the content and have great control about how the user uses the software I believe we could still get it to work _now_. Right or wrong? Looking forward to your answer. <p>Markus <p>--- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ Ogg project homepage: http://www.xiph.org/ogg/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'theora-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.
<DISCLAIMER> I am not a theora developer or in any way associated to Xiph. I just listen to this mailing-list. </DISCLAIMER> On 17 Jul 2003 00:01:23 +0200 Markus Meyer <meyer@mesw.de> wrote:> 4. I understand that Theora is alpha-quality only, but because we > basically bundle the player with the content and have great control > about how the user uses the software I believe we could still get it to > work _now_. Right or wrong?alpha-quality doesn't only mean that all the features aren't in place, but also that more bug are. If you don't want your software to behave oddly, it'd probably be wise to at least wait until a beta. Also, theora is largely unoptimzed at the moment, which means it is slow to encode and heavy on the CPU to decode. You'd probably get away with nothing less then a GHz for moderately sized video at "normal" bitrate. As I understands, there are optimizations for VP3 which can and probably will be worked into theora at some times, but as you understand, getting the bitstream fixed (as in frozen) and stable is much more important right now. Hope that helps. // Philip Jägenstedt --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ Ogg project homepage: http://www.xiph.org/ogg/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'theora-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.
> about how the user uses the software I believe we could still get it to > work _now_. Right or wrong?If you need something right _NOW_ then use vp32. Or Nullsoft's NSV, which is based on the vp32 codec. Theora isn't ready for prime time and probably wont be for quite a while. End of the year at the earliest, unless something changes drastically. I haven't been keeping track on the details, but they are running a bit late. Probably got distracted by something more important of some sort. (Jobs to pay the rent, etc...) <p>--- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ Ogg project homepage: http://www.xiph.org/ogg/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'theora-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.
Markus Meyer wrote: > Looking at the CVS, vp32 looks fine for now, though I hope it delivers > reasonable quality. Opinions about VP3´s video-quality do differ. In tests done by the german computer-magazine "Magazin für Computertechnik" (aka as "c´t") VP3 fared very well and even reached higher scores than DivX or XviD. However, older tests at doom9.org said VP3´s quality was behind the quality delivered by DivX. VP3 tends to "blur" the image when it is running out of bits, resulting in "lack of detail". Behaviour of DivX is a bit different in those situations - it tends to produce "block-artifacts" with sharp-edges instead of blurring the image. Personally I prefer a "smooth" image over a "blocky" image, so I´m very satisfied with VP3´s quality. Speaking of decoding speed: My good old AMD K6-2+ @ 500 MHz is capable to decode a ~800 KBit/s 512x240 VP3 video stream without frame-drops, so decoding speed is ok for me :-) Maik --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ Ogg project homepage: http://www.xiph.org/ogg/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'theora-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.
for the record, Theora has the potential to change several encoding parameters to trade off blurriness vs. blockiness and so on. However someone needs to monkey with the encoder to take advantage of this change in the bitstream. ___ Dan Miller (++,) Founder, On2 Technologies> -----Original Message----- > From: Maik Merten [mailto:maikmerten@gmx.net] > Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2003 2:48 PM > To: theora@xiph.org > Subject: Re: [theora] Current state of theora & Windows port? > > > Markus Meyer wrote: > > Looking at the CVS, vp32 looks fine for now, though I hope > it delivers > > reasonable quality. > > Opinions about VP3´s video-quality do differ. In tests done by the > german computer-magazine "Magazin für Computertechnik" (aka as "c´t") > VP3 fared very well and even reached higher scores than DivX or XviD. > > However, older tests at doom9.org said VP3´s quality was behind the > quality delivered by DivX. > > VP3 tends to "blur" the image when it is running out of bits, > resulting > in "lack of detail". Behaviour of DivX is a bit different in those > situations - it tends to produce "block-artifacts" with sharp-edges > instead of blurring the image. > > Personally I prefer a "smooth" image over a "blocky" image, > so I´m very > satisfied with VP3´s quality. > > Speaking of decoding speed: My good old AMD K6-2+ @ 500 MHz > is capable > to decode a ~800 KBit/s 512x240 VP3 video stream without > frame-drops, so > decoding speed is ok for me :-) > > Maik > > --- >8 ---- > List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ > Ogg project homepage: http://www.xiph.org/ogg/ > To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to > 'theora-request@xiph.org' > containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No > subject is needed. > Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. >--- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ Ogg project homepage: http://www.xiph.org/ogg/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'theora-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.