Cisco introduces the Thor video codec
Aug. 11th, 2015 04:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphmontI want to mention this on its own, because it's a big deal, and so that other news items don't steal its thunder: Cisco has begun blogging about their own FOSS video codec project, also being submitted as an initial input to the IETF NetVC video codec working group effort:
"World, Meet Thor – a Project to Hammer Out a Royalty Free Video Codec"
Heh. Even an appropriate almost-us-like nutty headline for the post. I approve :-)
In a bit, I'll write more about what's been going on in the video codec realm in general. Folks have especially been asking lots of questions about HEVCAdvance licensing recently. But it's not their moment right now. Bask in the glow of more open development goodness, we'll get to talking about the 'other side' in a bit.
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Date: 2015-08-11 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-11 09:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-11 09:42 pm (UTC)Also, to quote our Daala project lead Tim Terriberry from the HN thread (since he already said it and said it well):
"One of the things that made Opus a success was the contributions of others. We certainly don't have a monopoly on good ideas. We'll take pieces of Daala and stick them in Thor and pieces of Thor and stick them in Daala, and figure out what works best. Some of that experimentation has already begun:
https://github.com/cisco/thor/pull/8
https://review.xiph.org/874/
https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/93/slides/slides-93-netvc-5...
Because none of us have a financial incentive to get our patents into the standard, we're happy to pick whatever technology works best, as long as we end up with a great codec at the end. Hopefully NETVC can replicate the success of Opus this way."
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Date: 2015-08-11 11:12 pm (UTC)ummm, isnt VP9 Royalty-free and non-proprietary?
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Date: 2015-08-12 03:16 am (UTC)VP9 is proprietary
Date: 2015-08-12 03:14 pm (UTC)1) There is no specification for VP9 that independent implementers could use. To independently implement this format, you have to copy behaviour of Google's/On2's library. It basically means reverse-engineering from source code and you have to copy bugs that it has, else you won't be fully compatible with the format (there is more than one such bug AFAIK).
Compared to MPEG codecs that have defined spec which is the first authority, VP9 is proprietary.
2) There was no open standardization for VP9. Google made it internally on its own, then releases. No review, no changes possible. In MPEG, the specification was openly discussed and developped with input from many parties. So gain, VP9 is definitely more proprietary than HEVC...
Imagine that Real would open source their encoder and decoder for RealVideo 10 or a format like that. It was 100% proprietary technology, do you think having an open source encoder/decoder would suddenly make it not be?
Yes - VP9 also has na open source reference encoder/decododer implementation, but so what? HEVC and H.264 have *several* those are more importantly independently developped. This is not just an ideologic/theoretical perk, having multiple independent vendors leads to the encoder software being much better performing. Just look how poor libvpx sadly is :(
RE: VP9 is proprietary
Date: 2015-08-13 12:45 am (UTC)VP9 has a spec, it's linked from Wikipedia.
VP9 has a developer mailing list, which is better run than a closed door standards body STUFFED with Cisco employees.
Re: VP9 is proprietary
Date: 2015-08-13 12:40 pm (UTC)There is no specification linked on wikipedia, just some "summary" page link to Google's web (paste direct link if you find any!). You should have checked facts better, especially if you are going to accuse people that happen to know more than you from lies. People that wrote the independent FFVP9 decoder as well as other developers keep asking for it ever since VP9 has been released, but there is no specification of the format, the only reference for it is the libvpx software as I said.
Re: VP9 is proprietary
Date: 2015-08-14 02:31 am (UTC)Re: VP9 is proprietary
Date: 2015-08-14 02:32 am (UTC)https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6386
Re: VP9 is proprietary
Date: 2015-08-15 02:15 am (UTC)VP8 has had a specification released (IIRC though, it was still refering to the actual code in places, so it is a bit less authoritative and complete than would be desireable). The problem is with VP9 for which it was not published or made. No idea if there is some internal or NDAed one.
Re: VP9 is proprietary
Date: 2015-08-14 02:19 pm (UTC)Re: VP9 is proprietary
Date: 2015-08-14 08:37 pm (UTC)I know this is false because I personally reviewed it before it was finalized and made changes that were included [0] [1]. I do not work for Google, and never have.
[0] https://chromium.googlesource.com/webm/libvpx/+/95339d68258b8f752e114e6c81e6e19f99cde5a4%5E!/
[1] https://chromium.googlesource.com/webm/libvpx/+/042e70e45e74ad5105d1c9f35375350000b56b39%5E!/
Re: VP9 is proprietary
Date: 2015-08-15 02:10 am (UTC)Re: VP9 is proprietary
Date: 2015-08-16 10:46 am (UTC)A Google backed codec is faaaaar more likely to be successful. If they can stop themselves tweaking it long enough to let vendors implement it in hardware...
Re: VP9 is proprietary
Date: 2015-08-17 01:23 am (UTC)I didn't see the code before it was available to the entire rest of the world. My patches did go through review just like I'd expect any patches to Daala or Opus or anything else to go through review. But that's a good thing. In this case it led to some minor improvements (the second changeset).
Anyone else could have done what I did. I don't believe you can point to Google refusing anyone's contributions just because they didn't work for Google or have "connections". To claim that it was not possible to review or contribute is clearly falsified by someone doing it.
Unionize!
Date: 2015-08-15 05:04 am (UTC)http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2015/08/reject-hevc-advance-licensing-terms.html
Hopefully NetVC gathers stream and all the industry will have to adopt is a royalty free codec.
Third Pool for HEVC?
Date: 2015-08-18 09:32 am (UTC)Does Cisco intend to develop it?
Date: 2015-08-22 05:57 pm (UTC)About alliance for open media
Date: 2015-09-02 03:19 am (UTC)How the recently announced "Alliance for open media" affects Daala and NetVC?
Re: About alliance for open media
Date: 2015-09-02 03:38 am (UTC)DMCA claim
Date: 2015-10-01 11:47 am (UTC)