Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Adobe Rants Over Linux Video Acceleration APIs

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Originally posted by deanjo View Post
    It maybe free and open but even the BBC itself admits it has no idea if it may infringe on patents (they haven't really done any research on it). The unfortunate part about doing that is by doing such hardware vendors and the like are less likely to pick it up. Lawyers don't like hearing "The short answer is that we don't know for certain, but we're pretty sure we don't. ".
    Same holds true for Theora though.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Ex-Cyber View Post
      Well, in all seriousness you can't do much better than that for any remotely current codec. Even MPEG LA flat-out states this (with regard to their MPEG-2 pool, even):

      (emphasis added)
      Sure but with at least codecs that do have a patent portfolio the guy using and gets caught in the middle can have some legal recourse to the solution provider. For example, a guy makes a player that utilizes a patented and licensed codec. If that codec is later found to be in infringement on an other technology a deal can be worked out between the licensor and the infringed party (usually done out of court through a settlement) and the end manufacturer of the player can keep on going selling his player with no additional cost placed upon himself or loss of functionality. If a free codec was to be found in violation chances are is that they would have to remove the infringing code and change the spec and maybe to the point of rendering that player manufacturer's product useless because of the change in spec.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by RealNC View Post
        Same holds true for Theora though.
        Actually Theora does have patents it's just that they have been acquired and made free by the patent holder with use of a irrevocable license. Xiph actually investigated these matters and as such is actually "safer" then Dirac is when it comes to legal matters.

        Comment


        • Wasn't the case for Dirac that it sucked on low bitrates, and was very slow to encode?

          Comment


          • Originally posted by curaga View Post
            Wasn't the case for Dirac that it sucked on low bitrates, and was very slow to encode?
            Here is a good little comparison of h264/Schroedinger/theora.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by deanjo View Post
              Sure but with at least codecs that do have a patent portfolio the guy using and gets caught in the middle can have some legal recourse to the solution provider. For example, a guy makes a player that utilizes a patented and licensed codec. If that codec is later found to be in infringement on an other technology a deal can be worked out between the licensor and the infringed party (usually done out of court through a settlement) and the end manufacturer of the player can keep on going selling his player with no additional cost placed upon himself or loss of functionality. If a free codec was to be found in violation chances are is that they would have to remove the infringing code and change the spec and maybe to the point of rendering that player manufacturer's product useless because of the change in spec.
              Actually, that's not a foregone conclusion, deanjo.

              Keeping in mind that the following remarks are not of an Lawyer but that of an inventor that has been down the Patent road before several times I will say the following...

              If you're doing something like h.264, you owe royalties up front- and if the rights holders choose to not license to you in a RAND manner (witness the back and forth with Apple and Nokia recently...) you can't implement- and if you do, you're guilty of infringement. If you're found guilty of infringement, you have no recourse whatsoever since it was clearly shown there were patents involved.

              In the case of Dirac, you don't know if there's patent coverage or not- the providers thereof have done a good faith effort to investigate possible infringements and came up with nothing at that time, however. There is a chance that you could be infringing on something. There is, however, some small recourse in the case of infringement if there is one found and the rights holder for the infringing tech chooses to not license in a RAND manner. You can stop implementing the infringing technology and walk away. No damages can be assessed because you did a good faith effort in determining whether you infringed or not and didn't know you were infringing at the time of the implementation. Moreover, depending on the date of the patent and the date of Dirac's release, there may be a bar to enforcement with regards to their patent and Dirac's use thereof by their delay in enforcement. This is a bit different than in the case of h.264. If you infringe with h.264, you KNOW you're doing it and that tidbit detail will be used to it's maximum effect on you in a court when they choose to litigate your actions there.

              In the case of Theora, the known patents have been provided an irrevocable license to it's implementation and it's derivatives that can play that format properly- from the rights holder, On2. While there is risk of overlapping patent coverage from someone else, they would have shown up by now and any attempt to enforce their rights respective to Theora would likely be barred due to an excessive amount of delay by the rights holder (Theora and VP3 have been around for quite a while now...someone, if there's overlapping patent coverage should have stepped up to the plate by now.). If so, there's much, much less risk with using Theora, actually, as a baseline codec, than anything else as it is very unlikely to have issues with regards to patents than anything in the same class right at the moment.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by deanjo View Post
                Here is a good little comparison of h264/Schroedinger/theora.

                http://codecism.blogspot.com/2010/01...roedinger.html
                The biggest problem with a comparison like this one is that they're doing objective PSNR comparisons- which is all well and good, but some artifacts are more jarring than others and sometimes the higher artifact generating codec produces better results to viewers because the artifacts in question are not at odds with how your brain and eyes process things.

                I'm not saying that Dirac's better or worse overall to Theora, mind- just that the comparison you linked to doesn't go far enough in comparing things...

                Comment


                • Probably dirac does not violate software partens. But if it does (Noone knows, thats the being of softwarpatents) it's easy to write the code 'around' the patents: http://diracvideo.org/wiki/index.php...any_patents.3F

                  In the wiki there is also a test dirac video. Just test it if you like.

                  I think the point is that dirac is not really ready, yet. And theora is. You cannot really put dirac into mkv containers. Ogg is available longer and "just works" in most cases. And the qualitiy should be good enough in most cases. For general web video at least. JPG has also its disatvanteges and there are better alternatives, but for the general use it is enough. And it just works, so the situation will not change in the near future.
                  We need a free video standard for web video now. And dirac can be used in contrary to theora also for HD content. But it's not so well tested and optimised as theora, yet, but promising for the future.

                  And that we can decode H.264 till 2016 for free does not solve the fundamentally problem with H.264: http://www.h-online.com/open/news/it...16-921828.html

                  Comment


                  • The reason dirac is relatively "safe" from patent disputes is because it uses some of the oldest and most widely used techniques (which would have expired if patented, but never were) for video encoding. If a patent claim was made against it there are near endless examples of prior use. It's pretty damn safe.

                    That said it's focused on high quality at high (sometimes extremely) bitrates. This isn't really suitable for streaming video.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Hoodlum View Post
                      That said it's focused on high quality at high (sometimes extremely) bitrates. This isn't really suitable for streaming video.
                      Can't find any references on that one.

                      Comment

                      Working...
                      X