It’s Opus, it rocks and now it’s an audio codec standard
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It’s Opus, it rocks and now it’s an audio codec standard
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Re: It’s Opus, it rocks and now it’s an audio codec standard
#2MP3 is getting very long in the tooth, not to mention the fact that it's encumbered by patents. A new codec would be nice, but hardware adoption of the codec will take a while. Long enough, dare I say, to kill it dead in the water.
Re: It’s Opus, it rocks and now it’s an audio codec standard
#3Before someone chimes in with that XKCD strip:
How does Opus compare to other codecs?
Opus is distinguished from most formats for high quality audio (AAC, Vorbis, MP3) by having low delay and it is distinguished from most low delay formats (G.711, GSM, Speex) by supporting high audio quality. It meets or exceeds existing codecs' quality across a wide range of bitrates, and it operates at lower delay than virtually any existing compressed format. Further, the Opus format itself and the reference implementation are available under liberal royalty-free licenses, making it easy to adopt, compatible with free software, and suitable for usage as part of the basic infrastructure of the Internet. See the Opus comparison page for more details.
http://wiki.xiph.org/OpusFAQ#How_does_Opus_compare_to_other_...
Which is to say, this isn't (okay, isn't just) a case of having "too many standards"; Opus is legitimately impressive from a technical standpoint. Oh, and it's unencumbered by patents. That's cool.
EDIT: And here's the coolest part of the article that completely took me by surprise:
"The IETF recently decided with “strong consensus” to adopt Opus as a mandatory-to-implement (MTI) codec for WebRTC, an upcoming standard for real-time communication on the web."
Re: It’s Opus, it rocks and now it’s an audio codec standard
#4I'm not familiar with Opus. Can someone tell me if it is able to dynamically adapt quality based on available bandwidth? If it loses packets in the stream, do we get a 'skip' in the audio or does the quality go down?
Re: It’s Opus, it rocks and now it’s an audio codec standard
#5I expect Firefox and Chrome to adopt this within months, but IE10 is coming out soon. Does it mean it won't have it? And then we'll have to wait another year or more for IE11 to implement it? Not to mention IE9 and IE8 will probably never get it.
I also assume WebM will replace Vorbis with Opus very soon?
Re: It’s Opus, it rocks and now it’s an audio codec standard
#6MP3 is getting very long in the tooth, not to mention the fact that it's encumbered by patents. A new codec would be nice, but hardware adoption of the codec will take a while. Long enough, dare I say, to kill it dead in the water.
Why would you say that?
Most "hardware" decoders are DSPs that run software loaded onto them at runtime. This goes for anything with an OMAP, Tegra or Samsung (Samsung's own decode block) SoC in (that I know for sure) and probably almost everything else. Tegra3 and OMAP4 can decode WebM in hardware, for example.
Re: It’s Opus, it rocks and now it’s an audio codec standard
#7I'm not an audio guy. Can anyone explain like I'm five why this new codec was needed? How does it affect me as a consumer of audio? Who out there was saying "Gosh, I want to do X, but it's really tough because existing codecs force me to choose between high quality and low delay"? What is an example of "X" in that sentence?
Re: It’s Opus, it rocks and now it’s an audio codec standard
#8Before someone chimes in with that XKCD strip: How does Opus compare to other codecs? Opus is distinguished from most formats for high quality audio (AAC, Vorbis, MP3) by having low delay and it is distinguished from most low delay formats (G.711, GSM, Speex) by supporting high audio quality. It meets or exceeds existing codecs' quality across a wide range of bitrates, and it operates at lower delay than virtually an…
There is no such thing as "unencumbered by patents". Unless you have a technology that has already been tested thoroughly in the courts, which is the only way you can really determine whether something would be deemed to violate a patent or not, you simply can't know.
Re: It’s Opus, it rocks and now it’s an audio codec standard
#9Before someone chimes in with that XKCD strip: How does Opus compare to other codecs? Opus is distinguished from most formats for high quality audio (AAC, Vorbis, MP3) by having low delay and it is distinguished from most low delay formats (G.711, GSM, Speex) by supporting high audio quality. It meets or exceeds existing codecs' quality across a wide range of bitrates, and it operates at lower delay than virtually an…
There is no such thing as "unencumbered by patents". Unless you have a technology that has already been tested thoroughly in the courts, which is the only way you can really determine whether something would be deemed to violate a patent or not, you simply can't know.
Even if it was tested by the courts, you can appeal. And even after the appeal, you can appeal to a higher court, all the way to the Supreme. And even if was tested there, congress can pass a law that allows it. And even if that happens the Supreme court can strike down the law. And even if that happens, the public can mount a revolution and tear down the legal system.
But, practically speaking, Opus has extremely good guarantees for being unencumbered, as much as is possible - the people working on it have given licenses to use it, and experts in the field have had a while to go over this stuff. Nothing is 100%, but this is as good as it gets.
Re: It’s Opus, it rocks and now it’s an audio codec standard
#10I'm not an audio guy. Can anyone explain like I'm five why this new codec was needed? How does it affect me as a consumer of audio? Who out there was saying "Gosh, I want to do X, but it's really tough because existing codecs force me to choose between high quality and low delay"? What is an example of "X" in that sentence?
There was no existing codec that is both good and not encumbered by patents.
Opus is good and not encumbered by patents, and it has just been standardized.