Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Opus 1.5 released: Opus gets a machine learning upgrade

opus-codec.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 151 posts

Re: Opus 1.5 released: Opus gets a machine learning upgrade

#71

Post by rockdoe »

dogma1138 wrote: post #11
out_of_protocol wrote: post #3

Why the hell opus still not in Bluetooth? Well i know - sweet sweet license fees (aKKtually, there IS opus codec, supported by pixel phones - google made it for VR/AR stuff. No one uses it, there are about ~1 headphone with opus support )

Opus isn’t patent free, and what’s worse it’s not particularly clear who owns what. The biggest patent pool is currently OpusPool but it’s not the only one. https://www.opuspool.com/

Opus isn’t patent free

The existence of a patent pool does not mean there are valid patent claims against it. But yes, you may be technically correct by saying "patent free" rather than "not infringing on any valid patents". That said historically Opus has had claims against it by patents that looked valid but upon closer investigation didn't actually cover what the codec does.

Just looks like FUD to me. Meanwhile, the patent pools of competing technologies definitely still don't offer indemnification they cover all patents, but have no problem paying a bunch of people to spew exactly this kind of FUD - they're the ones who tried to set up this "patent pool" to begin with!

Re: Opus 1.5 released: Opus gets a machine learning upgrade

#72

Post by gcr »

dist-epoch wrote: post #59
The_Colonel wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine you release a codec which optimizes for cis white male voice, every other kind of voice has perceptibly lower fidelity (at low bitrates). That would not go well...

[flagged]

Questions of "which users can use my product and which can't" certainly encompass political views to be sure, but they also extend further beyond. I don't see why you feel the need to argue from the position of "woke devil's advocate" here.

For a politically-neutral example of why poor DEI practice can lead directly to worse products, see my sister comment about faucet sensors and black skin.

Re: Opus 1.5 released: Opus gets a machine learning upgrade

#73

Post by GaggiX »

stevage wrote: post #65
jmvalin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's different ways to make things up. We decided against using a pure generative model to avoid making up phoneme or words. Instead, we predict the expected acoustic features (using a regression loss), which means that model is able to continue a vowel. If unsure it'll just pick the "middle point", which won't be something recognizable as a new word. That's in line with how traditional PLCs work. It just so…

Any demos of this to listen to? It sounds potentially really good.

There is a demo in the link shared by OP.

Re: Opus 1.5 released: Opus gets a machine learning upgrade

#74

Post by giantrobot »

out_of_protocol wrote: post #15
giantrobot wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BT SIG moves kind of slow and there's a really long tail of devices. Until there's a chip with native Opus support (that's as cheap as ones with AAC etc) you wouldn't get Opus support even if it was in the spec. Realistically for most headphones people actually buy AAC (LC and HE) is more than good enough encoding quality for the audio the headphones can produce. Even if Opus was in the spec and Opus-supporting c…

They chose to make totally new inferior LC3 codec though. Also, on my system (Android phone + BTR5/BTR15 Bluetooth DAC + Sennheiser H600) all options sound realy crappy compared to plain old usb, everything else is the same. LDAC 990kbps is less crappy, by sheer brute force. I suspect it's not only codec but other co-factors as well (like mandatory DSP on phone side)

I've got AirPods and a Beats headset so they both support AAC and to my ear sound great. Keep in mind I went to a lot of concerts in my 20s without earplugs so my hearing isn't necessarily the greatest anymore.

AFAIK Android's AAC quality isn't that great so aptX and LDAC are the only real high quality options for Android and headphones. It's a shame as a lot of streaming is actually AAC bitstreams and can be passed directly through to headphones with no intermediate lossy re-encode.

Like I said though, to get Opus support in A2DP a BT SIG member would really have to be in love with it. Qualcomm and Sony have put forward aptX and LDAC respectively in order to get licensing money on decoders. Since no one is going to get Opus royalties there's not much incentive for anyone to push for its inclusion in A2DP.

Re: Opus 1.5 released: Opus gets a machine learning upgrade

#75

Post by [deleted] »

dogma1138 wrote: post #33
pgeorgi wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No codec (or any other technical development, really - edit: except for 20+ years old stuff, and only if you don't add any, even "obvious" improvements) is known patent free, or clear on "who owns what." Folks set up pools all the time, but somehow they never offer indemnification for completeness of the pool - because they can't. See https://en.kangxin.com/html/2/218/219/220/11565.html for a few examples how the pat…

No one said that Opus is the only one suffering from licensing ambiguity, but comparing it to say AptX and its variants which do have a clear one stop shop for licensing (Qualcomm) it’s a much riskier venture especially when it comes to hardware.

[deleted]

Re: Opus 1.5 released: Opus gets a machine learning upgrade

#76

Post by cma »

gcr wrote: post #66
unixhero wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the ethics question important? It is a new feature for an audio codec, not a new material to teach in your kids curriculum.

This is a great question! Here's a related failure case that I think illustrates the issue. In my country, public restroom facilities replaced all the buttons and levers on faucets, towel dispensers, etc. with sensors that detect your hand under the faucet. Black people tell me they aren't able to easily use these restrooms. I was surprised when I heard this, but if you google this, it's apparently a thing. Why does…

What if it is a pareto improvement: better improvement for some dialects but no worse than the earlier version for anyone. Should it be shelved or tuned down so all improvement for each dialect see gains by an exactly equal percentage?

Re: Opus 1.5 released: Opus gets a machine learning upgrade

#78

Post by rockdoe »

tux3 wrote: post #40
dogma1138 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one said that Opus is the only one suffering from licensing ambiguity, but comparing it to say AptX and its variants which do have a clear one stop shop for licensing (Qualcomm) it’s a much riskier venture especially when it comes to hardware.

Making a patent troll is just a matter of putting up a press release and a web page. I could claim to have a long list of patents against AptX. Anyone could. Of course I'm not willing to disclose the list of patents at this time, but customers looking to be extorted may contact me privately.

FhG and Dolby did eventually put up a list of patents you are licensing from them.

It makes for some funny reading if you're familiar with the field. (This should not be construed as legal advice as to the validity of the pool)

Re: Opus 1.5 released: Opus gets a machine learning upgrade

#79

Post by bdowling »

tux3 wrote: post #40
dogma1138 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one said that Opus is the only one suffering from licensing ambiguity, but comparing it to say AptX and its variants which do have a clear one stop shop for licensing (Qualcomm) it’s a much riskier venture especially when it comes to hardware.

Making a patent troll is just a matter of putting up a press release and a web page. I could claim to have a long list of patents against AptX. Anyone could. Of course I'm not willing to disclose the list of patents at this time, but customers looking to be extorted may contact me privately.

At least in the U.S., anyone can look up all the patents a person/entity owns. So, your fraud wouldn’t get very far.

https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html#/patent/searc...

Post reply on HN