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CineForm Goes Open Source

cineform.blogspot.com

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Re: CineForm Goes Open Source

#2

Post by j_s »

I am interested to see how the patent side of this shakes out, it seems to be a minefield for video codecs. Is there some scenario where going open source exposes the authors/companies involved to potential trouble?

Releasing under Apache License Version 2.0 seems to cover the normal bases with its Grant of Patent License. What are the compelling reasons to choose to use the MIT alternative?

Re: CineForm Goes Open Source

#3

Post by mindcrash »

j_s wrote: post #2

I am interested to see how the patent side of this shakes out, it seems to be a minefield for video codecs. Is there some scenario where going open source exposes the authors/companies involved to potential trouble? Releasing under Apache License Version 2.0 seems to cover the normal bases with its Grant of Patent License. What are the compelling reasons to choose to use the MIT alternative?

That you can do whatever you want with it as long as you give proper credit to the authors when distributing work based on the licensed code:

"Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software."

Re: CineForm Goes Open Source

#4

Post by sturmen »

j_s wrote: post #2

I am interested to see how the patent side of this shakes out, it seems to be a minefield for video codecs. Is there some scenario where going open source exposes the authors/companies involved to potential trouble? Releasing under Apache License Version 2.0 seems to cover the normal bases with its Grant of Patent License. What are the compelling reasons to choose to use the MIT alternative?

It would seem that CineForm is inherently simple, so perhaps it does not infringe on any of the "more clever" codec's inventions (AKA patents). I imagine GoPro ran it through legal before doing this.

Re: CineForm Goes Open Source

#5

Post by mulvya »

j_s wrote: post #2

I am interested to see how the patent side of this shakes out, it seems to be a minefield for video codecs. Is there some scenario where going open source exposes the authors/companies involved to potential trouble? Releasing under Apache License Version 2.0 seems to cover the normal bases with its Grant of Patent License. What are the compelling reasons to choose to use the MIT alternative?

MIT license is acceptable in GPLed projects, so potentially FFmpeg could inline the encoder.

Re: CineForm Goes Open Source

#10

Post by dkh »

muizelaar wrote: post #7
ttoinou wrote: post #6

160k LOC ? Sounds a lot... Great news anyway. Can't wait to see this in FFmpeg !

ffmpeg has had a CineForm decoder since Jan 2016: https://github.com/FFmpeg/FFmpeg/blob/master/libavcodec/cfhd...

Yes, but not an encoder, and that's the piece preventing it from being used to its potential. It's also nice when you no longer have to reverse-engineer the decoder. FFmpeg is one of my favorite things on earth, but minor differences between its implementations of closed-source codecs unfortunately prevent it from being a viable alternative in high-end post-production in many situations. ProRes encoding in FFmpeg for instance, although it certainly "works" as far as one can tell, still usually fails a few tests during the QC processes the bigger media companies use, and that generally means you can't use it, full-stop.
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