Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves
2007-Aug-21 07:49 UTC
[theora] This is a sad day for interoperability in the Web
Today, Adobe Systems Incorporated announced[1] that they will extend their Flash platform to support the proprietary H.264 and HE-AAC formats. The Xiph.Org Foundation has previously contacted Adobe to consider extending Flash to support the Open Media formats Vorbis, Theora, and Speex. Adobe developers replied by stating it would be unwise as it would increase the file size of the Flash Player, and yet, that is what will happen now, with the unfair procedure by Adobe to ignore the backing of our formats by the W3C through SVG and SMIL, by the WHATWG through HTML 5, and by the XMPP Standards Foundation through Jabber's Jingle. There is clearly a need for a non-patented, royalty-free standard for video and audio on the web. The Xiph.Org Foundation provided such standards. Adobe Systems Incorporated decided to ignore this and back the use of formats with submarine patents and no clear advantage over Open Media formats. Interoperability on the Web? Nah, screw that. The Xiph.Org Foundation will continue to provide support for the corporations who seek to create interoperability on the Web. We will not stop the improving process of our formats. The Xiph.Org Foundation will announce soon the Web Video/Audio Interoperability Campaign through our Spread Open Media project[2]. This campaign will bring together the community and the browser developers to speed up support of the <video> and <audio> elements of HTML 5, as well as the use of SVG and SMIL in order to create an Open Web. Be part of such vision. Adobe Systems Incorporated describes itself as "Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information -- anytime, anywhere and through any medium". We would like to work together with Adobe Systems Incorporated to reach such goal. However, we do not agree on their approach in this issue, and we would like to ask them to consider their stance. [1] http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070821/20070820006124.html?.v=1 [2] http://spreadopenmedia.org/ ---- The Xiph.Org Foundation is a non-profit organization that provides a collection of open source, multimedia-related projects. It is the most aggressive effort to put the foundation standards of Internet audio and video into the public domain, where all Internet standards belong.
Maik Merten
2007-Aug-21 09:03 UTC
[theora] This is a sad day for interoperability in the Web
Anybody surprised? A money making machine like Adobe couldn't care less to shift some money to MPEG-LA. I guess they just wanted to have something to counter the VC-1 powered Silverlight threat. As a nice side effect (from their perspective) they put another burden on any competitors that try to implement Flash. Flash is proprietary and closed and it'll stay that way, no matter if they ship additional codecs with it or not. From a free software perspective Flash always was and will always be an uninhabitable wasteland. It's time to move on and see if we can support open alternatives. So instead of mourning over Flash let's e.g. look at what Chris Double is doing with open standards and formats... SVG, HTML and Ogg: http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/2007/08/svg-video-demo.html Cool stuff. Maik Merten
Hannes Hauswedell
2007-Aug-21 09:31 UTC
[theora] This is a sad day for interoperability in the Web
Thanks for the info! I have problems of understanding tough. The Flash Player is proprietry and non-open, how would it have made it difference if the internal video-encoding was in a free format? You would still have been forced to use Adobe Flash Player Binary to look at it, or not? So we haven't really lost anything, because Free-Software-Users where not able to look at the stuff before anyways. What we really need to do is offer viable alternatives!! Xiph.org is doing a great job programming but from a marketing Point-of-View things are lagging behind. Theora is continously released in 1.0alpha steps. Everyone from outside the Free-Software world will take it as a sign of non-progress or so-little-progress and alpha clearly denotes it as not-usable: Quote from WP: "Alpha level software can be considered approximately 35% complete, and typically includes temporary material and multiple product-breaking issues." - Is this really the case with Theora? I am member of FSFE-Germany, we want to launch a compaign to make Public TV- and Radio-Stations use free Codecs on their web-pages (at least in addition to proprietry ones), since they are obliged by law to offer their content to the "general public" (e.g. they are prohibited from encrypting their Digital Signals). It would be great if we had a stable version of theora and a simple convert-from-anything-to-OGG program for windows that we could offer, so as to give less reasons of being turned down (maybe something like that could be hacked from vlc). Also something like http://www.mux.am that can convert uploaded media and/or media-files on the internet to ogg and offer them for download, would be great to have embedded on xiph.org . mux.am can actually do this and they offer "API-access for developers", maybe they would help... Thanks! Greetings Hannes Hauswedell Am Dienstag 21 August 2007 14:48:17 schrieb Ivo Emanuel Gon?alves:> Today, Adobe Systems Incorporated announced[1] that they will extend > their Flash platform to support the proprietary H.264 and HE-AAC > formats. > > The Xiph.Org Foundation has previously contacted Adobe to consider > extending Flash to support the Open Media formats Vorbis, Theora, and > Speex. Adobe developers replied by stating it would be unwise as it > would increase the file size of the Flash Player, and yet, that is > what will happen now, with the unfair procedure by Adobe to ignore the > backing of our formats by the W3C through SVG and SMIL, by the WHATWG > through HTML 5, and by the XMPP Standards Foundation through Jabber's > Jingle. > > There is clearly a need for a non-patented, royalty-free standard for > video and audio on the web. The Xiph.Org Foundation provided such > standards. Adobe Systems Incorporated decided to ignore this and back > the use of formats with submarine patents and no clear advantage over > Open Media formats. Interoperability on the Web? Nah, screw that. > > The Xiph.Org Foundation will continue to provide support for the > corporations who seek to create interoperability on the Web. We will > not stop the improving process of our formats. > > The Xiph.Org Foundation will announce soon the Web Video/Audio > Interoperability Campaign through our Spread Open Media project[2]. > This campaign will bring together the community and the browser > developers to speed up support of the <video> and <audio> elements of > HTML 5, as well as the use of SVG and SMIL in order to create an Open > Web. Be part of such vision. > > Adobe Systems Incorporated describes itself as "Adobe revolutionizes > how the world engages with ideas and information -- anytime, anywhere > and through any medium". We would like to work together with Adobe > Systems Incorporated to reach such goal. However, we do not agree on > their approach in this issue, and we would like to ask them to > consider their stance. > > > [1] http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070821/20070820006124.html?.v=1 > [2] http://spreadopenmedia.org/ > > ---- > The Xiph.Org Foundation is a non-profit organization that provides a > collection of open source, multimedia-related projects. It is the > most aggressive effort to put the foundation standards of Internet > audio and video into the public domain, where all Internet standards > belong. > _______________________________________________ > theora mailing list > theora@xiph.org > http://lists.xiph.org/mailman/listinfo/theora
Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves
2007-Aug-21 09:55 UTC
[theora] This is a sad day for interoperability in the Web
On 8/21/07, Hannes Hauswedell <theora.list@soulrebel.in-berlin.de> wrote:> - Is this really the case with Theora?No. We will change this soon.> It would be great if we had a stable version of theoraTheora is stable.> and a simple > convert-from-anything-to-OGG program for windows that we could offer, so as > to give less reasons of being turned down (maybe something like that could be > hacked from vlc).As I see it, we would like to offer a Qt4 application that would work on most operating systems with a simple drag&drop interface to convert files to our formats (Theora, Vorbis, Speex, FLAC, etc.). However, nobody here is available to work on this right now, which leaves me to hire someone from outside to do so. And we need funds to hire someone. Would your organization like to sponsor such project?> Also something like http://www.mux.am that can convert uploaded media and/or > media-files on the internet to ogg and offer them for download, would be > great to have embedded on xiph.org . mux.am can actually do this and they > offer "API-access for developers", maybe they would help...I will look into this. It has been suggested that our Spread Open Media project should offer something like this, so there is interest in that regards. -Ivo
Daniil Kolpakov
2007-Aug-21 10:12 UTC
[Vorbis] This is a sad day for interoperability in the Web
? ????????? ?? 21 ??????? 2007 Ivo Emanuel Gon?alves ???????(a):> [Vorbis] This is a sad day for interoperability in the WebSorry, buf Flash != Web. -- /dev/brains: permission denied Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
Mihai Balea
2007-Aug-21 11:20 UTC
[theora] This is a sad day for interoperability in the Web
On Aug 21, 2007, at 10:48 AM, Ivo Emanuel Gon?alves wrote:> Today, Adobe Systems Incorporated announced[1] that they will extend > their Flash platform to support the proprietary H.264 and HE-AAC > formats. > > The Xiph.Org Foundation has previously contacted Adobe to consider > extending Flash to support the Open Media formats Vorbis, Theora, and > Speex. Adobe developers replied by stating it would be unwise as it > would increase the file size of the Flash Player, and yet, that is > what will happen now, with the unfair procedure by Adobe to ignore the > backing of our formats by the W3C through SVG and SMIL, by the WHATWG > through HTML 5, and by the XMPP Standards Foundation through Jabber's > Jingle.Hi all, I've been following this thread with great interest and I would like to add my $0.02. A lot of possible reasons for Adobe's decision have been suggested and some are undoubtedly true. Especially Adobe's penchant for closed technologies and the fact that Theora seems to be in an eternal alpha state (I know it's stable, but it matters how it looks to outside people). However, I am wondering if the real reason not something more down to earth and practical: the simple fact that H. 264 is technically superior to Theora. Let me explain what I mean by that. Theora is great for video storage and playback, but when it comes to video streaming and video conferences, it is, to put it mildly, less than stellar. Without going into a lot of technical details, the problem is two-fold: the need to send large chunks of header data out of band and the lack of a frame slicing mechanism. H.264 does not suffer from these limitations. It also seems that Adobe is targeting Flash towards these kinds of applications, which means that H.264 is a good fit for them, while Theora is not. Now, before I get flamed, let me tell you a bit about where I'm coming from. We have developed a video conferencing solution based on Theora, as well as other open source technologies. The reason we chose to go with Theora had mostly to do with licensing issues rather than technical merits. Basically, we decided it would be less painful to work around Theora's limitations than to go through the hoops and license H.264. Obviously Adobe decided otherwise. Anyways, that's just my guess. I believe that Theora has great potential and that open source, patent free media codecs are sorely needed in today's restrictive world. I also believe in constructive criticism :) Regards, Mihai -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: smime.p7s Type: application/pkcs7-signature Size: 2411 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/theora/attachments/20070821/16d11620/smime.bin
Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves
2007-Aug-21 13:33 UTC
[theora] This is a sad day for interoperability in the Web
On 8/21/07, Otan <ghostfighter@gmail.com> wrote:> And Sun is now rethinking the multimedia codec for their JavaFX (competitor > to Flash and Silverlight). I think now is the nice time to talk to Sun. Why > not xiph and sun work together?Yes, this would be great, but how do you suggest we approach Sun on this issue?> The market that Microsoft and Adobe wants to conquer is the mobile gadget > world which is currently occupied by Java. It will be a proper timing for > ogg to go mobile with Java in its side.Indeed. -Ivo
Diego Biurrun
2007-Aug-22 01:22 UTC
[Vorbis] Re: This is a sad day for interoperability in the Web
Ivo Emanuel Gon?alves wrote:> Today, Adobe Systems Incorporated announced[1] that they will extend > their Flash platform to support the proprietary H.264 and HE-AAC > formats.Since when, pray tell, are these standards proprietary? Diego
Robert Buchholz
2007-Aug-22 02:27 UTC
[Vorbis] Re: This is a sad day for interoperability in the Web
On Wednesday, 22. August 2007, Diego Biurrun wrote:> Ivo Emanuel Gon?alves wrote: > > Today, Adobe Systems Incorporated announced[1] that they will > > extend their Flash platform to support the proprietary H.264 and > > HE-AAC formats. > > Since when, pray tell, are these standards proprietary?Patented they are, though. Robert -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part. Url : http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/vorbis/attachments/20070822/05f50966/attachment.pgp
Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves
2007-Aug-22 11:26 UTC
[theora] This is a sad day for interoperability in the Web
On 8/22/07, Patrick Aljord <patcito@gmail.com> wrote:> JavaFX is open, you can contact them on their mailing list: > https://openjfx.dev.java.net/servlets/ProjectMailingListListMighty thanks for this. I'll be sending a message there, tomorrow. -Ivo
Charles Iliya Krempeaux
2007-Aug-22 12:24 UTC
[theora] This is a sad day for interoperability in the Web
Just an update. I didn't wait until the weekend.... I've got most of it down now. It's a little application that you drap-and-drop videos files (of other types) onto, and it converts them to Ogg Theora. I just have the "auto-download of ffmpeg2theora" part to implement... and then it's ready for alpha testing. See ya On 8/21/07, Charles Iliya Krempeaux <supercanadian@gmail.com> wrote:> Hello, > > On 8/21/07, Maik Merten <maikmerten@gmx.net> wrote: > > > For the Theora case... It shouldn't be too difficult to do something > > > quick and dirty on Windows. > > > > > > Use the ffmpeg2theora Windows binary... and create a C# GUI program that > > > uses " System.Diagnostics.Start" to run it. > > > > > > > The problem with ffmpeg2theora is that it ships with a lot of decoders > > for patented formats, bringing with it all the problems of "intellectual > > property". So Xiph.org can't offer a bundle of a GUI with ffmpeg2theora > > as official download. > > > > However, if the GUI would automatically download a fitting ffmpeg2theora > > build on first startup it may be possible to get around this limitation. > > > > That would certainly be doable. > > > > -- > Charles Iliya Krempeaux, B.Sc. <http://ChangeLog.ca/> > > > Vlog Razor... Vlogging News > http://vlograzor.com/-- Charles Iliya Krempeaux, B.Sc. <http://ChangeLog.ca/> Vlog Razor... Vlogging News http://vlograzor.com/
Daniil Kolpakov
2007-Aug-23 13:34 UTC
[Vorbis] Re: [theora] This is a sad day for interoperability in the Web
? ????????? ?? 23 ??????? 2007 Tor-Einar Jarnbjo ???????(a):> Ivo Emanuel Gon?alves schrieb: > > That is why the <video> and <audio> elements of HTML 5 are so > > important. ?They provide an uniform API, as well stating the default > > codecs (i.e. Theora and Vorbis). > > That is incorrect. The user agent MUST support PCM-encoded WAV files and > SHOULD support Theora and Vorbis. Except for the WAV requirement and the > Theora and Vorbis recommendations, the HTML 5 draft is not defining > anything like a "default codec" but clearly states: "user agents may > support any video and audio codecs and container formats.""SHOULD" is still stronger/better for us than "MAY". And, this is only a draft, after all. -- /dev/brains: permission denied Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
James Cloos
2007-Aug-27 22:46 UTC
[theora] Re: This is a sad day for interoperability in the Web
While it would?ve been most cool were Adobe to have also added Theora and Vorbis ? and Speex & Flac while we?re at it ? to the reference flash players, we have to face the fact that (as I see it) they added H.264 and HE-AAC because there is a larger demand for those formats right now. The mainstream consumer camcoder market is in the middle of a move to 264. Many (all?) current video-enabled cell phones also record in 264. The demand for sharing 264 video is large and growing. Sites like youtube can?t help but prefer to accept submitted video w/o re-encoding it, so they?ll want their viewer to support the same codecs their users are submitting. And the *vast* majority of submissions will always be at most linearly edited clips from a consumer recorder. A chicken and egg game it might be, but there needs to be much more Theora video out there before a company like Adobe can be expected to care. On the plus side, perhaps the Beeb will advocate Dirac well enough to get it ? and Vorbis ? into a future version of the reference flash player. -JimC -- James Cloos <cloos@jhcloos.com> OpenPGP: 1024D/ED7DAEA6