Hi all, I've been following Theora's progress for a while as the company I work for is looking at replacing the use of the MPEG1 codec with a royalty free alternative. I have evaluated Theora and I think in its current state it is quite close to doing to job as oppose to Dirac which still has a very long way to go. What I would like to ask is how far from 1.0 is Theora? I see periodic updates here and there and in my own tests using the last illuminable DirectShow filters release from February (which is quite dated now) it seemed close to usable with the only critical bug being that it didn't work under Windows 9x. As we are a commercial software producer we're a bit nervous about using alpha software but if there is a chance it could be finalised in the next year we'd be very interesting in using Theora. Keep up the good work guys, Doug
On 8/30/06, Douglas Gore <douglas@imagitech.co.uk> wrote:> Hi all, > > I've been following Theora's progress for a while as the company I work > for is looking at replacing the use of the MPEG1 codec with a royalty > free alternative. I have evaluated Theora and I think in its current > state it is quite close to doing to job as oppose to Dirac which still > has a very long way to go. > > What I would like to ask is how far from 1.0 is Theora? I see periodic > updates here and there and in my own tests using the last illuminable > DirectShow filters release from February (which is quite dated now) it > seemed close to usable with the only critical bug being that it didn't > work under Windows 9x. As we are a commercial software producer we're a > bit nervous about using alpha software but if there is a chance it could > be finalised in the next year we'd be very interesting in using Theora.We've not really done a very good job with our version numbering. Really, using theora is fine - despite the alpha name, it's very stable and reliable. It's only called 'alpha' because there are some additional features we'd like to implement. You'd certainly be far from the only commercial user of theora, should you choose it - so we hope you do. That said, we'd expect to see a final 1.0 release before another year passes. Mike
>Hi all, > >I've been following Theora's progress for a while as the company I work >for is looking at replacing the use of the MPEG1 codec with a royalty >free alternative. I have evaluated Theora and I think in its current >state it is quite close to doing to job as oppose to Dirac which still >has a very long way to go. > >What I would like to ask is how far from 1.0 is Theora? I see periodic >updates here and there and in my own tests using the last illuminable >DirectShow filters release from February (which is quite dated now) it >seemed close to usable with the only critical bug being that it didn't >work under Windows 9x. As we are a commercial software producer we're a >bit nervous about using alpha software but if there is a chance it could >be finalised in the next year we'd be very interesting in using Theora. > >Keep up the good work guys, > >DougMaybe the "alpha" word for you means unfinished software , but it's only beacuse in the roadmap there are some features that are not implement yet. Theora is so stable now and Theora bitstream format has been frozen , so all your Theora files can be showed and worked perfectly now to when Theora 1.0 will be released. And also Theora files can be showed in a lot of Operating Systems Linux , MacOs , Windows , ... Take a look at wikipedia for other details : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theora If you finally use Theora for commercial software , tell us about it. _________________________________________________________________ Un amor, una aventura, compa??a para un viaje. Reg?strate gratis en MSN Amor & Amistad. http://match.msn.es/match/mt.cfm?pg=channel&tcid=162349
Thanks, I've had a lot of response back on and off the list saying that Theora is ready for real use and as I said previously it was quite close in my own experience. In my own view the biggest issues are sorting out all the little issues on the Windows platform that might prevent me from using Theora. To give some background we are a Windows only company and we produce mass market retail software so whatever we use has to pretty reliable otherwise we will get hundreds of support calls. Currently we use DirectShow for all our video playback needs and have no plans to move away from that as our entire video infrastructure is built around it. Our software currently runs on Windows XP / 2000 / ME, it also runs a wide variety of computers some with quite a low spec (I think we now ask for 600Mhz as our minimum) and for this reason we rejected Windows Media as it's very slow unless you have a modern graphics card which many users don't. Evaluating the current DirectShow filters I did find that they work for encoding and decoding but under Windows 98 and ME fail to work because the Theora decoder cannot be attached to the video renderer. I think this is something to do with the output formats of the filter not matching up to the video renderer of DirectShow. If I continue evaluating this and other parts of the Windows implementation where is the best place to report issues found in Theora and the DirectShow filters? For encoding purposes is there a dedicated Video for Windows (VfW) codec in the works? I think I read you can encode Theora using the ffmpeg VfW implementation but I'm not sure if there are any issues with that. Thanks, Doug -----Original Message----- From: Luis Gonzalez [mailto:ghempresa@hotmail.com] Sent: 31 August 2006 11:41 To: theora@xiph.org; Douglas Gore Subject: RE: [theora] Ready for real use?>Hi all, > >I've been following Theora's progress for a while as the company I work >for is looking at replacing the use of the MPEG1 codec with a royalty >free alternative. I have evaluated Theora and I think in its current >state it is quite close to doing to job as oppose to Dirac which still >has a very long way to go. > >What I would like to ask is how far from 1.0 is Theora? I see periodic >updates here and there and in my own tests using the last illuminable >DirectShow filters release from February (which is quite dated now) it >seemed close to usable with the only critical bug being that it didn't >work under Windows 9x. As we are a commercial software producer we're a >bit nervous about using alpha software but if there is a chance it could >be finalised in the next year we'd be very interesting in using Theora. > >Keep up the good work guys, > >DougMaybe the "alpha" word for you means unfinished software , but it's only beacuse in the roadmap there are some features that are not implement yet. Theora is so stable now and Theora bitstream format has been frozen , so all your Theora files can be showed and worked perfectly now to when Theora 1.0 will be released. And also Theora files can be showed in a lot of Operating Systems Linux , MacOs , Windows , ... Take a look at wikipedia for other details : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theora If you finally use Theora for commercial software , tell us about it. _________________________________________________________________ Un amor, una aventura, compa??a para un viaje. Reg?strate gratis en MSN Amor & Amistad. http://match.msn.es/match/mt.cfm?pg=channel&tcid=162349
Just passing through, evaluating Theora for possible use on Wikipedia. The alpha version number is indeed a put-off. Alpha doesn't mean there's features left you want to implement, that will always be the case, in all release versions. There's always room for improvement. Alpha means some significant part of the core functionality is broken or missing. One could argue that none of Theora's versions were truly alpha versions, since they were packaged up and released to the public. Once you release it to the public, it's a beta. I would very much like to see a better spin on Theora's stability, be it 1.0.0, 0.1.0, 1.0.beta1 or 1.0.RC1. "Alpha" implies that the developers do not want the public to use it, which is evidently not the case. You can leave the extra features for 1.1 or 2.0. -- Tim Starling
how about deployment in the nintendo wii next gen console, as I understand it dvd playback support will be disabled out of the box due to roalty costs, are any of the theora devs aware of the oportunity presented here to piggyback a theora / Ogg based media center software on a comodity hardware with full internet and wifi connectivity on one of the most sought after apliances of the coming months (nintendo plans to deploy 4 million before the end of the year), it would be a win win situation for both parties, widespread hardware support for theora / ogg (maybe even a streaming client ) and added royalty free mediacenter capabilities to level the competition for the nintendo wii in the media center arena