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Firefox Beta 15 supports the new Opus audio format

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Re: Firefox Beta 15 supports the new Opus audio format

#51

Post by notatoad »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #47
notatoad wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On any specific technology, you absolutely can know that no one else has patents on it. That is the responsibility of the patent office: to grant exclusive rights to an 'invention'. you cannot be held liable for infringement of anything you have a license for. In this case though, Microsoft only has patents on part of the algorithm, so it is theoretically possible that other parts of the algorithm are covered by othe…

It's rare, but I remember reading that USPTO has mistakenly issued conflicting patents. Legally, any publication is enough to bar others' patents, they're just not good at finding anything in the software literature, so having your own patent sort of rubs examiners' noses in it.

But the point is that if the USTPO issues conflicting patents, it is them that is liable instead of you. If you have a license, you're golden.

Re: Firefox Beta 15 supports the new Opus audio format

#53

Post by mtgx »

supercow wrote: post #11
shmerl wrote: post #3

Luckily it's going to be W3C standard, and Apple and MS won't be able to use their lame excuses to avoid implementing it in their browsers, like they did for Vorbis, VP8 and etc.

Microsoft actually helped with the development of Opus according to the article. :)

Only in the same way you could say Google helped "build" Skype, because Skype uses the VP8 codec.

Re: Firefox Beta 15 supports the new Opus audio format

#54

Post by metajack »

alayne wrote: post #27
wmf wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Apple was opposed to Vorbis, I imagine they would be equally opposed to any new audio codec. http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2007-Dec...

That seems like a leap. Ogg codecs were always questionable to me because they are owned by xiph.org, rather than some other more widely accepted standards body.

We tried to get IETF and W3C interested. They barely talked to us. The most we could do was a Vorbis over RTP draft that I wrote. The next best option was to incorporate as a 501c3 and run our own standards body, similar to the XSF in the XMPP world.

The times have changed though, and the IETF is now receptive to this type of work (although it didn't happen without a political battle). Note that many of the Opus contributors are Xiph.org contributors as well.

Re: Firefox Beta 15 supports the new Opus audio format

#55

Post by metajack »

mtgx wrote: post #52

So is Mozilla going to use VP8 combined with Opus in Firefox 15, instead of Vorbis, for "free" videos?

Opus is a (usually) lower bitrate codec for very low latency applications. In other words, a completely different sweet spot than Vorbis, AAC, etc.

Re: Firefox Beta 15 supports the new Opus audio format

#56

Post by [deleted] »

taligent wrote: post #41
SiVal wrote: post #34

Where is Google in all this? They must surely be aware of all such IETF projects. I can understand why Apple wasn't mentioned (Apple Island is a world unto itself to the maximum extent possible), but Google has usually pursued the opposite strategy. This seems like the sort of thing they would get behind unless there is some issue I'm unaware of, and it seems as though Mozilla would mention Google in this infomercial…

Also we should point out that Google should NEVER be trusted. Their disgraceful behaviour in blackmailing Microsoft over H.264 FRAND patents is of huge concern to anyone who cares about standards. Companies should be encouraged to get together and define industry standards with fair royalty rates. When that happens we ALL win. Clearly the ITC/EU agree. Hopefully Google will see the error of its ways and change course…

[deleted]

Re: Firefox Beta 15 supports the new Opus audio format

#58

Post by pgeorgi »

makmanalp wrote: post #33
polshaw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My somewhat educated take on that is that 'perceptually lossless' refers to quality at which the source cannot be reliably picked from the source/encode in any sort of test that would pass as scientific, possibly outside of a few very rare edge cases (sound samples, not people). This happens at lower bitrates than many people might imagine, IIRC v2 lame (~192kbps) has not been reliably identified, nor vorbis v6 (~160…

So if I'm getting this correctly, a computer test (not a person) has to look at two clips of audio and tell which is the source and which is encoded? I'm surprised that 192k is actually indistinguishable. I thought some humans could tell the difference there.

Usually it's double blinded ABX testing: A computer program gives you: Encoding A, encoding B, unknown encoding A or B. You have to choose if X is A, or X is B.

One of the encodings will be "uncompressed" when testing if the format in question is perceptually lossless.

Repeat that a couple hundred times with many different listeners using standardized samples and programs (doom9, an audiophile forum, does such runs every now and then), and you get a rather good idea on what's going on.

As for the 192kbps: It also depends on the algorithms used. bladeenc or 8Hz-mp3 back then created 320kbps files where you can easily hear the difference. Current lame builds at 192kbps? not so much.

Re: Firefox Beta 15 supports the new Opus audio format

#59

Post by necubi »

taligent wrote: post #41
SiVal wrote: post #34

Where is Google in all this? They must surely be aware of all such IETF projects. I can understand why Apple wasn't mentioned (Apple Island is a world unto itself to the maximum extent possible), but Google has usually pursued the opposite strategy. This seems like the sort of thing they would get behind unless there is some issue I'm unaware of, and it seems as though Mozilla would mention Google in this infomercial…

Also we should point out that Google should NEVER be trusted. Their disgraceful behaviour in blackmailing Microsoft over H.264 FRAND patents is of huge concern to anyone who cares about standards. Companies should be encouraged to get together and define industry standards with fair royalty rates. When that happens we ALL win. Clearly the ITC/EU agree. Hopefully Google will see the error of its ways and change course…

Seriously? Google has owned Motorola Mobility for fewer than two months[0]. And in any case, though it seldom matters to people insistent on seeing the Android manufacturers in a bad light, Microsoft started this war by demanding licensing fees for ridiculous patents, like this one, for "Generating meeting requests and group scheduling from a mobile device"[1].

If you want to talk about bad guys in this mess, it's the companies who ended the détente by suing their competitors. That would be Microsoft and Apple. Asking companies like Motorola, HTC and Samsung to tie their hands behind their backs while Apple and Microsoft shake them down (or try to ban their products) is lunacy.

We need patent sanity in this country. But in the mean time, companies who are attacked have every right to defend themselves by any legal means they have available.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Mobility [1] http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...

Re: Firefox Beta 15 supports the new Opus audio format

#60

Post by [deleted] »

taligent wrote: post #37
ajasmin wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potentially yes. But Microsoft and Apple not supporting VP8 & WebM probably has more to do with these companies being part of MPEG LA (a firm which sell licenses for H.264 related patents).

It has nothing to do with that. And everything to do with VP8/WebM being a proprietary, non standard at the time that the world consolidated on H.264. That and the fact that H.264 had hardware support when the iPods and Zunes were taking off.

[deleted]
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