theora - Aug 2007 - 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.

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

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

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 theora
Theora 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

? ????????? ?? 21 ??????? 2007 Ivo Emanuel Gon?alves
???????(a):
> [Vorbis] This is a sad day for interoperability in the Web
Sorry, buf Flash != Web.

-- 
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Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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

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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

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

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
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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/ProjectMailingListList
Mighty thanks for this.  I'll be sending a message there, tomorrow.

-Ivo

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/

? ????????? ?? 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.

-- 
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Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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