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No, you can't do that with H.264

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Re: No, you can't do that with H.264

#31

Post by ZeroGravitas »

IgorPartola wrote: post #26
qjz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there are no barriers to adopting Theora practically overnight, once the market expresses an interest. Vorbis seems to be well supported after an initial wait-and-see period.

And what if you have around 8 petabytes of video ( http://beerpla.net/2008/08/14/how-to-find-out-the-number-of-... ) in H.264? What would you do, double your storage? How long would that take to re-encode anyways. The reason why Youtube is using H.264 instead of Theora is because they already have the videos in that format.

I would buy a company that makes video codecs that don't infringe on the MPEG patents for 133 million dollars. Coincidentally, so did Google:

http://www.on2.com/blog/2009/08/google-and-on2-to-improve-vi...

Re: No, you can't do that with H.264

#32

Post by pbhjpbhj »

eelco wrote: post #2

Well, so how much does the licensing actually cost? On their website MPEG LA mentions there are certain thresholds to "minimize the impact on lower volume users" ( http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Intro.aspx ). If you're running an consulting business using this format is it so weird to pay a little (or maybe nothing?) to use it? I'm pretty sure you can find outrageous (and oftentimes unlawful) things in…

From wikipedia (but it actually happened!):

In August 1999, Unisys changed the details of their licensing practice, announcing the option for owners of Billboard and Intra net Web sites to obtain licenses on payment of a one-time license fee of $5000 or $7500. Such licenses were not required for website owners or other GIF users who had used licensed software to generate GIFs.

Edit:

I am completely opposed to web standards including proprietary codecs. HTML5 should have Theora (or some other open gratis and libre codec) as the standard which all browsers wishing to be HTML5 compliant must be able to handle - this does not stop anyone from using h264 if they wish to. What it does is ensure that the web remains as free and open to use as possible.

If the working groups had plumped for Theora then optimisations and hardware would follow in pretty short shrift. It ain't going to happen and the reasons are commercial - this makes me sad for the future of the web, I see this is a big turning point. Kinda like if the developers of HTML4 had said "we know about the LZW patent but we're going to write in GIF as the standard requirement".

(Incidentally I gather that no image formats were written into the standards before?!).

So do you link to h264 videos from your intranet - want to buy a license for $10k? No? Switch to Theora as the best free alternative. OK, now none of the browsers support your video format natively. Congratulations you've been screwed again by MegaCorp.

Re: No, you can't do that with H.264

#33

Post by qjz »

IgorPartola wrote: post #26
qjz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there are no barriers to adopting Theora practically overnight, once the market expresses an interest. Vorbis seems to be well supported after an initial wait-and-see period.

And what if you have around 8 petabytes of video ( http://beerpla.net/2008/08/14/how-to-find-out-the-number-of-... ) in H.264? What would you do, double your storage? How long would that take to re-encode anyways. The reason why Youtube is using H.264 instead of Theora is because they already have the videos in that format.

We learned in Betamax vs. VHS that there are risks involved in backing an emerging format. The difference here is that it's a little easier for different codecs to coexist, even with varying licenses. The problem is that publishing shouldn't be limited to big players that can afford expensive and restrictive licensing agreements. There has to be a solution for the everyman, nonprofit, and nonprofessional. An unencumbered, nonrestrictive and free codec has to be an option, and Theora is one possiblility, if it can be easily supported in a product without worrying about licensing issues.

Re: No, you can't do that with H.264

#34

Post by tjogin »

romland wrote: post #30
tjogin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are obvious problems with H.264, but I don't believe MPEG LA's plan is to sue regular people for not complying with the license agreement when they did that video that one time. Not because I think they're not evil enough to do it, but because that kind of money-making scheme just doesn't scale. Also, whenever they've sued one or two people, people's eyes will open and they'll just use an other codec. No big de…

No, they are probably not out to get you and me... Unless you fall into one of the "still to be specified categories". I guess my biggest problem is that there are questions begging for answers. I admit that I went a bit over the top in the scare mongering with "_you_", though. (the comments at the end of the article linked above is quite interesting, by the way)

Yeah, but whatever those "still to be specified categories" are, they're not going to include a whole lot of people, because suing people like that as a means to make money does not scale.

Re: No, you can't do that with H.264

#35

Post by robin_reala »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #31
IgorPartola wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what if you have around 8 petabytes of video ( http://beerpla.net/2008/08/14/how-to-find-out-the-number-of-... ) in H.264? What would you do, double your storage? How long would that take to re-encode anyways. The reason why Youtube is using H.264 instead of Theora is because they already have the videos in that format.

I would buy a company that makes video codecs that don't infringe on the MPEG patents for 133 million dollars. Coincidentally, so did Google: http://www.on2.com/blog/2009/08/google-and-on2-to-improve-vi...

Here’s hoping for the dream scenario: Google release VP8 as a open and free format with a patent indemnity clause, then migrate YouTube over to it. They also release open specifications for a VP8 hardware decoding part, an OpenCL codec, and help Adobe bundle support into Flash for Microsoft and Apple browsers.

Happy days!

Re: No, you can't do that with H.264

#36

Post by DougBTX »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #32
eelco wrote: post #2

Well, so how much does the licensing actually cost? On their website MPEG LA mentions there are certain thresholds to "minimize the impact on lower volume users" ( http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Intro.aspx ). If you're running an consulting business using this format is it so weird to pay a little (or maybe nothing?) to use it? I'm pretty sure you can find outrageous (and oftentimes unlawful) things in…

From wikipedia (but it actually happened!): In August 1999, Unisys changed the details of their licensing practice, announcing the option for owners of Billboard and Intra net Web sites to obtain licenses on payment of a one-time license fee of $5000 or $7500. Such licenses were not required for website owners or other GIF users who had used licensed software to generate GIFs. Edit: I am completely opposed to web sta…

other GIF users who had used licensed software to generate GIFs.

In light of this article, that quote is quite interesting. Looks like this time around the software is only licensed to generate h264 for non-commercial reasons right from the get go. Something planning ahead?

Re: No, you can't do that with H.264

#38

Post by middayc »

tjogin wrote: post #27
romland wrote: post #10

The problem with these write-ups about how bad H.264 is (or will be in 2011) is that it will not reach the right people in time; the masses. The people who clicked through to an article with H.264 in the title already know about the ins and outs. The companies that implement and support H.264 also know all about the license, and they have most likely gotten some pretty sweet deals for getting this thing as widely dep…

There are obvious problems with H.264, but I don't believe MPEG LA's plan is to sue regular people for not complying with the license agreement when they did that video that one time. Not because I think they're not evil enough to do it, but because that kind of money-making scheme just doesn't scale. Also, whenever they've sued one or two people, people's eyes will open and they'll just use an other codec. No big de…

I thought we were "hackers" here with potential to create startups, possibly related to video or just using it as a support system?

If you have the need to pay for the sake of it you can relocate to my country, we have one of the highest taxes in the world :)

Re: No, you can't do that with H.264

#39

Post by ZeroGravitas »

sailormoon wrote: post #28
DrJokepu wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, Theora is just simply inferior in every technical aspect to h264. The decision comes down to quality vs price. Choosing quality for a higher price is definitely not a "dumb" decision, surely you too often buy a bit more expensive product that promises a better quality. On the other hand, choosing a cheaper, lower quality product is understandable as well if quality is not that important. Vorbis, howeve…

Sigh. I've recently been doing a lot of Theora encoding as I experiment with HTML5. I agree that Theora is immediately noticeable as worse quality than h264, and it's not a subtle difference. Even when the situation should have tricked me into thinking it was not Theora - for example, I was testing on Mac Safari and it should have been playing h264 but accepted the Theora because Perian was installed - I instantly no…

Are you sure you're using Theora 1.1 (aka Thusnelda)? Version 1.1 might be consider "inefficient" but 1.0 was simply "broken" for many uses.

You mention Macs and I'm not sure if there's been an official 1.1 release of the XiphQT Quicktime plugin yet, which would affect you if you're using Mac tools to generate the video.

Also, does Perian play Theora now? I'm guessing you meant the XiphQT plugin which enables Safari support.

Re: No, you can't do that with H.264

#40

Post by middayc »

sailormoon wrote: post #29
middayc wrote: post #18

T.F.A. site getting hammered, copy/past ==No, you can’t do that with H.264== A lot of commercial software comes with H.264 encoders and decoders, and some computers arrive with this software preinstalled. This leads a lot of people to believe that they can legally view and create H.264 videos for whatever purpose they like. Unfortunately for them, it ain’t so. Maybe the best example comes from the Final Cut Pro licen…

Why is this being downvoted? The site was down and the parent was just trying to be helpful. I admit the formatting is a bit bad but does that deserve punishment? edit: parent was at -1 when I posted that.

I admit the formatting is a bit bad. I was a little lazy and didn't want to seek out formatting rules. I would improve it now, but it seems I can't edit it any more.
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