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Why QuickTime???Why QuickTime???Posted Apr 12, 2006 16:09 UTC (Wed) by moxfyre (guest, #13847)Parent article: First "Firefox Flicks" released Firefox is an open source browser, right??? So why are they releasing their video clips in a proprietary, patent-encumbered, poorly documented format... namely Quicktime? There *is* a nice patent-free highly functional well-supported video codec available: Theora. It's from the same people who brough you Ogg Vorbis :-) I've been ripping all my DVDs into Theora the last few days with ffmpeg2theora. Theora is great, with out-of-the-box support on any Linux distro, well-documented, good quality video at reasonable bitrates. About the *only* downside right now is that encoding is slower than XviD, DivX, etc. So, hey, Firefox: leverage the power of open source and open standards and use Theora video clips!
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PS Posted Apr 12, 2006 16:11 UTC (Wed) by moxfyre (guest, #13847) [Link] Oh, and there are very nice plugins to integrate Theora video with Windows Media Player, so Theora will work for Windoze peeps too... it's no harder to install than QuickTime, in fact I'd say easier.
Why QuickTime??? Posted Apr 12, 2006 16:22 UTC (Wed) by kirkengaard (subscriber, #15022) [Link] It's sad that MPEG4 is worse off than MPEG3 in encumbrances. At least an MP3 is an MP3; an MP4 is a QuickTime MOV.
Why QuickTime??? Posted Apr 12, 2006 17:01 UTC (Wed) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link] MP3 is MPEG2, layer 3.
But yes, it is sad that the MPEG standards are progressing towards restrictions which make it difficult for open source software players and encoders to be written.
Why QuickTime??? Posted Apr 12, 2006 17:30 UTC (Wed) by kirkengaard (subscriber, #15022) [Link] (smacks self on head)I knew that. Mpeg Audio Layer 3 (but you mean MPEG1 -- MPEG2 is video). Same sentiment applies. Everybody wants to own a piece of an "open" standard, because they think that's the way to profit. Everybody uses, everybody pays, they win. And it ruins the landscape. ISO/IEC working groups working on behalf of companies that want to own their output exclusively.
Why QuickTime??? Posted Apr 12, 2006 21:12 UTC (Wed) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link] nitpick: MPEG1 and MPEG2 are both video standards for different bitrates and applications, and the MPEG group specified some audio streams for them as this is pretty useful for many video applications.
Why QuickTime??? Posted Apr 12, 2006 16:51 UTC (Wed) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link] Quicktime is quite open. But Quicktime is a container format, withinwhich various codecs can be used. The problem is that the most common codecs used in it are proprietary. See also: http://www.openquicktime.org/
Why QuickTime??? Posted Apr 12, 2006 21:27 UTC (Wed) by zdzichu (guest, #17118) [Link] It's not the first time the did it. Remeber the full-page NYT ad? It probably still fully viewable only in closed Acrobat Reader. Relevant bug #3252 is still open. And original bug report in GNOME Bugzilla is over a year old!
Why QuickTime??? Posted Apr 12, 2006 21:33 UTC (Wed) by moxfyre (guest, #13847) [Link] Well, I'm more willing to forgive that case since PDF is a (reasonably) standard and unencumbered format. In that particular case the bug is mainly with the open-source Xpdf and Evince PDF readers, which don't render the PDF correctly.
But it certainly is embarrassing to have that open-source software ad only viewable with closed-source software!
Why QuickTime??? Posted Apr 14, 2006 12:50 UTC (Fri) by pkern (subscriber, #32883) [Link] Wasn't Theora the codec which not even the developers consider as ready? (At least if you read their FAQ about alpha releases.) This is not to bash Theora, they only claim that it is just suitable for developers, not yet for mainstream end-users.
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