Wow. Let me say that again, just in case you missed it. Wow. The quality looks to be on par with what I get out of H.264, but Theora has the added benefit of free and open source software with no patent worries so I can use it with a clean conscience. Thanks, everyone.
On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Zik Zak <zikzakfr at gmail.com> wrote:> I agree on the Wow effect of the quality. > I can't say it is on a par, Theora is still using alot of bits to achieve a > very good quality but the most important part is that it is free. > An it works very well with Firefox 3.1b3 ^_^ > > Keep up the very good work !It's definitely using more bits to achieve the quality; I was overlooking that and comparing the video quality alone. Since it's only alpha1 my hope is that the bitrate needed to achieve a certain quality level will be reduced as development continues.
On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 9:22 AM, Jason Self <jason.self at gmail.com> wrote:> The quality looks to be on par with what I get out of H.264, but > Theora has the added benefit of free and open source software with no > patent worries so I can use it with a clean conscience. Thanks, > everyone.Yep. We're very excited about the improvements too. -r
On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 12:22 PM, Jason Self <jason.self at gmail.com> wrote:> Wow. > Let me say that again, just in case you missed it. > Wow. > > The quality looks to be on par with what I get out of H.264, but > Theora has the added benefit of free and open source software with no > patent worries so I can use it with a clean conscience. Thanks, > everyone.I think we can comfortably say that the new behaviour doesn't suck. But lets not allow our enthusiasm to make us sloppy: There is still significant room for improvement. If it is now as good as H.264 it is likely that Theora only compares so well at particular (lower) bitrates or against particular H.264 encoders. Full H.264 is a more modern, more complex, more CPU hungry format. If it doesn't edge out against Theora then there is a flaw in the H264 encoder. *However* that edge isn't necessarily a big one. Most users don't care about and won't notice a small difference in quality. (I'd suggest your claim that Theora is as good is demonstrating that). ? but loud proclamations that Theora is as good are going to invite the people who do care about those small differences to make a disproportionate amount of noise. Theora's strength is and will remain that it is free of encumbrance, it's just that now (or soon) many more applications can enjoy that advantage without a huge compromise in quality/bitrate. I'd really prefer that the public sees this as "Theora: Free as always, and now better quality." rather than "Theora: Still Not always as good as H.264.". Realistic expectations are important. In particular, Theora's quality is limited on the high end and will likely remain that way unless there is a non-backwards compatible revision to the forma. It seems that as soon as you say 'quality' people jump to doing high bitrate comparisons. Don't let someone try to drag you into a comparison of 4mbit/sec standard def video with Theora vs H.264. Thats not what Theora is intended for and Dirac does that much better than Theora. If you really don't care much about bitrate (i.e. movie copying rather than webcasting), then you should be looking at Dirac rather than Theora. (While Theora does low bitrates better than Dirac does)
on the topic of Thusnelda quality ... is anyone planing on doing a blog post showing improvements with samples similar to the stuff Monty posted for the original Thusnelda experiments? I think having a before and after page (comparing theora to Thusnelda theora ) would be a good thing to target our blogging efforts at. (rather than a comparing theora to h.264) ... if proprietary comparisons must be made then we should highlight the cost of the proprietary codec in the comparison. ie a h.264 includes per-stream per broadcast distribution costs starting in 2010. (when distributing above X amount). http://tinyurl.com/cwhf4e ie it appears it's "$0.02" per stream over 12 minutes when charging per title? or when distributing "for free" when you have a million viewers your looking at 100k? .. its kind of hard to decifer what exactly the costs would be for running a site.. the core issue is that you can't legally distribute the encoder/decoder in free software in most countries. This fundamental issue should be highlighted ... maybe point to a "null" file to show what free software users and the children of the developing world XO's can see when you use h.264. As Gregory point out we need to shape the message as theora is "free", much higher quality than before and patent unencumbered. Not theora is better in absolute "quality" terms. --michael Jason Self wrote:> Wow. > > Let me say that again, just in case you missed it. > > Wow. > > The quality looks to be on par with what I get out of H.264, but > Theora has the added benefit of free and open source software with no > patent worries so I can use it with a clean conscience. Thanks, > everyone. > _______________________________________________ > theora mailing list > theora at xiph.org > http://lists.xiph.org/mailman/listinfo/theora >
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 6:42 PM, Michael Dale <mdale at wikimedia.org> wrote:> As Gregory point out we need to shape the message as theora is "free", > much higher quality than before and patent unencumbered. Not theora is > better in absolute "quality" terms.I would like to see how it holds up though. Is it better than MPEG2? MPEG 4 ASP? H.263? Quality is a factor that needs to have some hard data, because bandwidth costs money just like patent licenses do. Remco
On Wed, 1/4/09, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com>wrote: On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 8:46 PM, Remco <remco47 at gmail.com> wrote:> On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 6:42 PM, Michael Dale<snip> <snip>>For most content producers the 'cost' of compatibility dwarfs >other >factors.? Quality? Who cares about quality if it doesn't even >*play*?the content producers are then feed the market to maintain this monopoly <snip>>Take a look at areas where free formats have achieved >widespread >adoption: Still images (JPEG, for example), Hypertext (HTML), >etc.? In >these areas proprietary formats receive no air. Even though >superior >proprietary alternatives exist, virtually no one bothers to >use them >because compatibility is the 'cost' that matters most for >almost >everyone, not quality.<snip> hang on, that not always true MPEG1 ISO/IEC 11172 (MP3) MPEG2 ISO/IEC 13818 MPEG4 ISO/IEC 14496 they are all standards witch I can find the document by googling, but I have to pay for the license to use that standard :( tom_a_sparks Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. but instead use OpenDocument File Formats or use OpenOffice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html The new Internet Explorer 8 optimised for Yahoo!7: Faster, Safer, Easier.
--- On Thu, 2/4/09, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote: From: Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> Subject: Re: [theora] Thusnelda Video Quality To: "Tom Sparks" <tom_a_sparks at yahoo.com.au> Cc: theora at xiph.org Received: Thursday, 2 April, 2009, 4:36 PM On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 1:23 AM, Tom Sparks <tom_a_sparks at yahoo.com.au> wrote: <snip>> <snip> > hang on, that not always true > MPEG1 ISO/IEC 11172 (MP3) > MPEG2 ISO/IEC 13818 > MPEG4 ISO/IEC 14496 > they are all standards witch I can find the document by >googling, but I have to pay for the license to use that >standard :(>I'm not quite sure what you're saying. Perhaps you're saying >that >MPEG4 is not proprietary because it is an ISO standard?jpeg (ISO 10918-1) newly discovered (2007) patent issues http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG#Patent_issues there is no grantee that even when it has been ISO approved that you well not be exploited for profit in the future>I've been trying to use the word "encumbered" to describe these >formats to avoid that particular piece of nit-picking, and I >slipped >up there... but I do actually stand by use of proprietary in >that >context:>Merriam-Webster states: >Main Entry: 1pro?pri?e?tary >[...] >2: something that is used, produced, or marketed under >exclusive legal >right of the inventor or maker ; specifically : a drug (as a >patent >medicine) that is protected by secrecy, patent, or copyright >against >free competition as to name, product, composition, or process >of >manufacture>These codecs are protected by patent and are available for use >only >with the exclusive legal right of a singular licensing body. >They are >proprietary, even though their operation is publicly disclosed >like >all other patented things.? Somewhat incongruently they would >be less >proprietary if they were secret and not protected by patent, >since >they could be legally reverse engineered.hang on, even if you buy hardware and/or software that can compress/decompress that format, you the end user is responsible for figuring out which patents you have>Notice I didn't mention audio and video as examples. In those >domains >free formats have not reached sufficient adoption to be >considered >'effectively free'. To make the free alternatives usable the >public >must first adopt them.the public is being feed to much FUD (Fear, uncertainty and doubt), until they are forced, or do their own fact finding they are less likely to look at free alternatives The new Internet Explorer 8 optimised for Yahoo!7: Faster, Safer, Easier.