Ecma International Approves Office Open XML as Worldwide Industry Standard [LWN.net]

Ecma International Approves Office Open XML as Worldwide Industry Standard

Posted Dec 9, 2006 20:19 UTC (Sat) by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
In reply to: Ecma International Approves Office Open XML as Worldwide Industry Standard by k8to
Parent article: Ecma International Approves Office Open XML as Worldwide Industry Standard

Is it? A mystery??

Post a Theora video on your website and ask your girlfriend to play it. Let's assume she's using Windows because 99.9% of girlfriends are. If 1/2 hour later she's managed to figre out what a codec is, find non-spyware codecs to download and installed them, then you have an uncommonly inquisitive and tenacious girlfriend. Now put her on a Mac or a Linux box and see how she does.

Now post it on YouTube and ask her to play it. 2 sends later it's playing, no matter what platform she's on (no, she's NOT using a MIPS box, obviously, this is not the place to whine about what platforms support Flash).

Convenience counts for a lot.

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Ecma International Approves Office Open XML as Worldwide Industry Standard

Posted Dec 10, 2006 0:02 UTC (Sun) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Theora is as convient as quicktime for Windows users and it is as convient as WMV for OS X users.

The reason people are using Flash is partially because of it being convient, but it also has a lot to do with that the fact that it's not aviable in convient format for storage.

That is if you put a download to your website a person downloads it and emails it to friends and such..

But if you put it in Flash, like youtube, were your website is advertising-driven then they are forced to come back to that web page over and over again to view it. Drives up advertising revenue quite a bit.

Also it adds extra restrictions on usage so people are more comfortable uploading content because they don't think that people can 'steal' it.

So flash is used, in a large way, because it is awkward to deal with.

Of course both you and I know there is ways around this, but it's still a PITA.

Ecma International Approves Office Open XML as Worldwide Industry Standard

Posted Dec 10, 2006 1:04 UTC (Sun) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

I agree with everything you say. I'll elaborate a bit.

If there was a Firefox extension to stream Theora videos, shipped in the default install of all major distros, Theora usage would take a mighty leap forward. Furthermore, if there were a single InstallShield download, appearing in the #1 slot when you search on "Theora" in Google, that enabled playback in IE6/7, Windows Media, and Firefox Windows, I think Theora could very well take off. You'd see sites like nhl.com using it to stream because it's cheaper and easier than Real and MS formats.

Alas, today the right Theora software doesn't even exist, much less come pre-installed anywhere.

In my experience, it was the utter lack of usability that killed Voribis. The file format rocked, the tools sucked. I pray the same fate doesn't befall Theora.

Ecma International Approves Office Open XML as Worldwide Industry Standard

Posted Dec 10, 2006 7:00 UTC (Sun) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

I have to dissagree with vorbis being 'killed'.

It's not as popular as mp3 or itunes stuff, but it's supported by many different peices of software, used in a lot of games, and is supported by a wide veriaty of hardware.

It's actually quite widely known.

If people actually start _using_ theora then it will be known. Your not going to have a codec get accepted just becuase it has a cool name, there has to be a reason for people to go and download it.

Ogg is quite kick-ass. 255 possible audio channels, Theora has good compression and I expect that subtitles support is good compared to AVI. Very recently there has been supported added to Flac for Ogg support.

So even from a pure technical standpoint there are plenty or reasons to use Ogg Theora/Flac/Vorbis for a wide veriaty of stuff. You can create some very feature-rich media files and media streaming is very smart.

The major downside for Theora, in my personal experiance, is that the codec itself is not well optimized cpu-wise. I am sure it's been improved since then, but I also expect that there is work to do.

Ecma International Approves Office Open XML as Worldwide Industry Standard

Posted Dec 10, 2006 11:38 UTC (Sun) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]

I agree with everything you say.

Except the thing about Vorbis. The tools are fine. Vorbis is much easier to deal with for me than mp3.

Even if Voribis is dead, long live Vorbis ;-)

Posted Dec 10, 2006 12:02 UTC (Sun) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link]

> In my experience, it was the utter lack of usability that killed Voribis.
Not sure what are you tawkin' about, sure not of Ogg Vorbis? libogg/libvorbis are quite demanded on my systems and by folks' players/encoders around.

Ecma International Approves Office Open XML as Worldwide Industry Standard

Posted Dec 29, 2006 0:15 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Well I have done some more research on Theora.

The problem with theora isn't so much that it's difficult but that it's already obsolete. Stillbirth, so to say.

It's based on the VP3 codec which has acceptable quality, but it has been surpased by more modern codecs such as H.264, VP6, or VP7. The quality is comparable to Mpeg1, which is to say that it's not realy good at all.

This is very different from Ogg Vorbis, which is superior or at least comparable to other modern codecs.

The open source codecs to possibly look out for are Dirac from the BBC and Snow from the FFmpeg people.

Also as far as the 'patent-free'-ness of theora goes... It is protected by patent granted to it by the original creators of V3, but unfortunately it's still infringing on just as much stuff as any other mpeg* codec. So if they are encumbered, then so is Theora.

This is to bad and I wish I understood this earlier, then I wouldn't of looked like such a.. not-to-smart-guy.