Weekly Edition
Return to the Press pageRecent Features
| |||||||||||||
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal)
Glyn Moody looks at
the FSF's PlayOgg campaign. "I'm a big fan of Richard Stallman and
his work -- even though, the first time I interviewed him,
he proceeded to criticise my questions before answering them, not a
journalistic experience I'd had before. Without his vision and sheer
bloody-mindedness in the face of indifference and outright hostility, we
would not have the vast array of free software we enjoy today."
(Log in to post comments)
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 15, 2007 18:38 UTC (Fri) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link] Summary/translation of the article: the MP3 patents may run out in four years (or maybe not; it might take longer than that), and in the meantime, nobody's been sued over LAME, so we (Glyn, that is) are just going to assume that this means that there won't be any trouble in the future, either, even though we have nothing to actually base that idea on.
I agree with Glyn that the campaign should've been launched much earlier, but patents that run out "maybe even in 2011" and the hope that patent holders will not "go bonkers and sue everything in sight during the last years of their patents" aren't enough to convince me that MP3 is a safe choice - not for an end user (who is pretty much safe, of course), that is, but for distributors.
So this really seems a bit naive to me, to be honest, and the criticism seems unjustified.
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 15, 2007 19:05 UTC (Fri) by pheldens (guest, #19366) [Link] Plus, it would still lead userbase attention to the format, and theora.
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 15, 2007 19:10 UTC (Fri) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link] In 4 years I imagine that FLAC will be a much better alternative to either, if it isn't already. Maybe we should really be pushing the hardware manufacturers to support FLAC or some other lossless format instead of wasting our breath on inferior lossy formats.
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 15, 2007 20:50 UTC (Fri) by ccchips (guest, #3222) [Link] Don't assume any patents will "run out." Remember, the patent clause was written with the same slippery sneakiness as the copyright clause, which means that Congress can pretty much do whatever it chooses with patent expiration dates, especially if enough rich people ply enough money in the right direction.
A lot of laws and "political doubletalk" are written that way, which is why, if someone wishes to fight for freedom, it's hard for me to naysay them.
I guess what I'm saying is that complacency is near the end of the chain to slavery. I have great praise for the ogg vorbis and ogg theora projects, because the people involved were willing to stand up and do what they felt was right for the sake of freedom.
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 16, 2007 22:27 UTC (Sat) by jonth (subscriber, #4008) [Link] Congress only controls the US patent system (last time I checked).
;-)
mp3 patents. Posted Jun 17, 2007 9:34 UTC (Sun) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link] Don't assume any patents will "run out." Remember, the patent clause was written with the same slippery sneakiness as the copyright clause, which means that Congress can pretty much do whatever it chooses with patent expiration dates, especially if enough rich people ply enough money in the right direction.The difference is that patents (even much more valuable ones (think pharmaceuticals) that the MP3 patents) routinely run out in something less than eternity. The industry is used to it happening and does not cry to lawmakers. What I would like to see is a competent analysis of when that exactly happens for a) MP3 b) MPEG2 (the second which because of its wide use in DVDs and broadcasting is arguably still the most important video compression format). I once tried to figure it out for MP3 and the answer was around 2015 based on the patents Fraunhofer claims, but there are others that affect MP3, and I am not a patent or MP3 guru. Some of those patents with later expiration may not affect all uses of MP3. This is (one of the many) problems with patents. Even when you know that some technology is patent covered and want to avoid it until it is clear, it is damn near impossible for a layman to figure out when that happens.
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 15, 2007 22:53 UTC (Fri) by lutchann (subscriber, #8872) [Link] I would think that from a patent risk perspective, MP3 is the better choice. Since it's such a hugely popular standard, everybody holding patents in fields related to audio processing and compression has already gone through their portfolios very carefully to see if they could possibly have anything that could be used to extract royalties from MP3 implementors. And, odds are, if there are any potential patent rights left to be exploited, they're going to be tested against an MP3 licensee with a LOT of exposure--like Microsoft.
On the other hand, Vorbis support is yet quite rare compared to MP3. So if there are any patents out there that could apply to Vorbis, either they haven't been found yet or the patent holder is biding their time until the format becomes more widespread. Thus, in my view, the legal risks in supporting Vorbis are completely unknown, compared to MP3 which by this point has had all the potential patent problems pretty well flushed out.
Yet another case of "the popular choice is the safest."
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 15, 2007 20:39 UTC (Fri) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688) [Link] Ogg is a container. So "Play Ogg what?" Ogg Vorbis? I agree with martinfick that it should be Ogg FLAC. Drives are getting bigger and bigger and space won't be that much of a concern. Might as well have lossless audio. Users won't care about Ogg Vorbis since MP3 is good enough. Developers might not care about Ogg Vorbis because the licensing isn't that much and the cost will be passed on to the customer. The licensing won't change the price of the product enough that someone could compete on price between Vorbis and MP3.
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 15, 2007 20:58 UTC (Fri) by ccchips (guest, #3222) [Link] I disagree. It would be nice to have a hardware device that is really tiny, but can hold a large music library or audio book library. I telecommute, and I have come to like these 2 GB flash/MP3 drives. However, I find I have to reload them at least once a month if I want to refresh my listening experience (which means one less write operation to that drive, since I fill them quite full--plus the time and effort required to reconfigure.)
So, yes, I think we should support "lossy" formats because of just that issue.
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 19, 2007 16:37 UTC (Tue) by Soruk (guest, #2722) [Link] I have an MP3 player that plays from (up to) 512MB SD cards. I'd like to find a player that can do the same but also supports Vorbis (and if I'm really lucky, FLAC). The ability to swap out the card for another one to change the music line-up is why I chose this thing. Not to mention it was dead cheap, and the prices of cards is also falling all the time.
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 15, 2007 21:08 UTC (Fri) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] There's also Ogg Theora--are you going to advocate that we use and stream uncompressed video as well?
There are quite a few reasons for using a lossy format--not every application has a fat pipe and a large storage medium available, and even those that do might want to economize for other reasons. So, it seems a bit shortsighted to blithely dismiss Vorbis and Theora as useless just because your chosen application (local music archival, from what I can guess) doesn't appear to need them at the moment.
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 15, 2007 22:15 UTC (Fri) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688) [Link] I did not dismiss Theora because we are only talking about audio. Do you want to talk about video? That is a separate discussion with separate needs and points to address.
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 15, 2007 22:41 UTC (Fri) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688) [Link] > So, it seems a bit shortsighted to blithely dismiss Vorbis and Theora as> useless just because your chosen application (local music archival, from > what I can guess) doesn't appear to need them at the moment.
I dismiss Vorbis because it's far too late to push Vorbis with any success in the problem space that it's meant to address.
From an end user's perspective:
From a developer's perspective:
For the above two, compare the problem with GIF and the solution of PNG. PNG is the far better solution but GIF is so ingrained in the consciousness of users and web developers that even today many people don't know what a PNG file is. PNG wasn't good enough to unseat GIF as a much used format even with the patent issues. Graphics software continued to ship with ability to make GIF files, paying the licensing fees that are passed to the customer.
Now Ogg FLAC is in a good position to be a new format for lossless sound storage. There is no dominant format in that problem space at the moment. It makes larger files but that is becoming less of a problem (although like others pointed out there are reasons for small files). I can buy a music player with a 60 or 80 GB drive in it today. Even six years ago 80 GB was a huge drive to have in a home machine. Now it's common or even small. Six more years from today portable music players will have a huge amount of storage, so much storage that the larger sizes of Ogg FLAC will not be an issue. An end user would be able to store as much Ogg FLAC music on one of those future music players as they today store on a 60 GB music player using AAC or MP3.
Theora is another matter too. I think Theora has a good chance to become a definitive video format since there is too much conflict right now with all the MPEGs, QT supported formats, Flash video, etc. But Theora needs solid codec implementations. I downloaded the Microsoft Windows Theora codecs from illiminable.com (which was recommended by the FSF to view a Richard Stallman speech video a year or two ago. They crashed my media player and wouldn't work correctly for very long. They would bring down the media player (any of them) after a few minutes. I've since updated and still have problems. That doesn't make me feel comfortable with making and distributing videos in Theora format if my friend's video players will crash.
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 15, 2007 23:10 UTC (Fri) by lutchann (subscriber, #8872) [Link] I think Theora has a good chance to become a definitive video format I doubt it. Leaving aside the fact that the format itself is archaic and completely uncompetitive against WMV9 and H.264, what do you see as the usage scenario where Theora will be favored? Historically, users got their hands on digital audio in uncompressed formats, either off CDs or captured from analog by their sound card, so they had their choice of codecs to store or transmit their content. That's why the "popular vote" gave us MP3 instead of ATRAC or something weird that manufacturers tried to push. But that doesn't happen for digital video. You get digital video from already-compressed sources, like DTV (MPEG2), HD-DVD and Blu-ray (MPEG2, H.264 and WMV9), digital camcorders (MPEG2, H.264), etc. And for re-encoding to a lower bitrate, the popular vote is probably going to be in favor of one of the more efficient and widely-implemented formats. So, if you think Theora has a chance, how do you see it happening?
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 16, 2007 3:01 UTC (Sat) by i3839 (guest, #31386) [Link] Only things that could save Theora, as I see it, are the following:
- An update to improve it.
- Cheap hardware en/decoders for Theora.
- Improved libtheora, one that takes advantages of multiple CPUs, is more readable, and faster.
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 17, 2007 12:53 UTC (Sun) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Theora was DOA.Technically speaking; it sucks.
It's nice because it's creators don't want to extract royalties for it's use, but that's the only positive thing about it.
As video codecs go it's entirely outclassed by pretty much any and all relatively modern video formats. As far as compression quality goes it's taking you back to mpeg1 days. Even the original Divx stuff is better then Theora.
"Bad quality" means that your going to spend much much more CPU time and have much much larger files then the same video of same quality in some other format.
This is why it has not attracted much attention and why it's encoding and decoding stuff is still very unoptimized.
Vorbis is nice because when it was created it was superior in almost all respects to mp3, which is the defacto standard for audio compression. However nowadays almost all audio codecs are superior to mp3.
Instead of MP3 vs Vorbis, the discussion should be AAC vs Vorbis or something like that, which is much less clear. MP3 is propelled by pure inertia and it will die in due course with no effort from anybody in free-software land.
If people want to focus on free software video codecs your going to have to much much better then Theora.
There are a few promising things out there.
I am no expert, for that you'll have to talk to the mplayer folks who actually know this stuff inside and out.
But 2 ones I know about are Snow from FFMPEG project. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_(codec)
Both offer compression quality that are better then today's H.264 stuff.
Then there is also Tarkin, which development was dropped in favor for Theora, which may or may not have been a mistake.
I certainly do appreciate having theora and the fact that simply because the license it is usefull, but other then that there are much better alternatives out there.
Dirac + Vorbis + Ogg type of thing can offer serious potential.
Mplayer and FFMPEG/libavcodec stuff is very good. It is up there with the best of commercial offerings you can find anywere and it's used even in Windows, like VLC is.
Open source and Free software has the ability to compete with the best anybody else has created, but it still needs to be better. But if it is better people will start to adopt it without question.
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 16, 2007 0:07 UTC (Sat) by xorbe (subscriber, #3165) [Link] Some showstoppers for FLAC vs MP3
People will have devices that hold large amounts of space, but they will also own tiny devices, and won't want to shift formats.
Backups.
Time of transfer, why should I wait 5x longer for a little bit extra quality that most others don't even notice?
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 16, 2007 15:15 UTC (Sat) by hchristeller (guest, #4246) [Link] Hardware is getting fast enough that converting to lossy formats on the fly is less and less of a issue. I'd much rather buy music online in FLAC format, store it that way in my main archive, and convert it when loading onto a portable device.
In my living room, I want to hear the FLAC version. When I plug in my current portable player, it can be converted to MP3. If I buy an iPod, converting to AAC should be transparent to me.
The problem is not converting from lossless to lossy, or even handling multiple lossy formats. The problem is DRM, which requires certain formats and blocks conversion. The market seems to be solving the DRM problem.
I'm happy to use Ogg Vorbis, but switching to it is not the answer. Switching to FLAC is. I see a parallel with FLOSS; distribution in binary format is less important than providing source. We don't need music distributors to support Ogg Vorbis, we need them to support FLAC, which we can compile to whatever format our player needs.
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 19, 2007 16:34 UTC (Tue) by xorbe (subscriber, #3165) [Link] > I'd much rather buy music online in FLAC format, store it that way in my main archive, and convert it when loading onto a portable device.
You're just not shopping at the right web sites.
> If I buy an iPod, converting to AAC should be transparent to me.
I loaded Rockbox onto my iPod Nano that plays my Ogg Vorbis files.
> I'm happy to use Ogg Vorbis, but switching to it is not the answer. Switching to FLAC is.
Add tracks to basket -> expert mode -> FLAC (2c/MB)
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 16, 2007 8:24 UTC (Sat) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] I donno.
Ogg Vorbis is already widely used. It's already supported by a wide number of hardware.
The vast majority of what I listen to are ogg vorbis and flac. I listen to ogg streams on the internet and can pick and choose hardware players from a few different manufacturers that support flac and ogg vorbis directly.
Sure MP3 is 'standard' and is more popular, but it is also vastly obsolete, outclassed by a wide variety of more modern audio formats.
And it's not just 'oh a slight increase in sound quality' between MP3 and everybody else... That better quality means that you have smaller files with the same sound quality and cheaper bandwidth bills for the same sound quality.
This can be important for internet radio.
The best thing you could probably do for Ogg Vorbis is promote hardware and make software that makes dealing with Ogg Vorbis encoding/decoding/streaming/etc much easier and cheaper then anything else aviable.
Also pushing and getting Ogg-specific features that mp3 can't match.. such as embedding multiple sound streams and video streams in a single container.
The trouble is probably lack of application support and standards, but it's possible to do things like... say setting up a bittorrent share that provides single Ogg Vorbis files that contain multiple languages or support effective surround sound.
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 16, 2007 20:11 UTC (Sat) by Erich_J_Ritzmann (guest, #39670) [Link] I hate to rain on the parade.
Like everyone in this forum, I use open codecs on Linux. However, I don't always use Linux.
The biggest computer based music player, iTunes, does not support Ogg Vorbis. I was able to
The corollary to iTunes is the iPod. Same story -- iPod does not come with Ogg Vorbis support.
As for streaming, specifically internet radio... I used to enjoy listening to that -- in MP3 format
My experience with some of the open, patent free players has also been plagued with some of
I certainly don't want to discourage free codecs. However, I do think that it is an uphill
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 16, 2007 20:28 UTC (Sat) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] Almost all Windows users I know use Winamp, which supports Vorbis fine.
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 17, 2007 8:41 UTC (Sun) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] *shrug*
Don't use nasty proprietary products like Itunes and Ipods. What else can I say? That's nasty stuff and Apple is a nasty company that makes money by convincing users that their stuff is superior while at the same time limiting those users in ways that maximize the profits for themselves.
Apple has specificly designed Itunes to not support Ogg Vorbis. People have complained in the past about it and podcasters and such have complained, but Apple doesn't give a crap. They like AAC and don't want to support a rival format.
Anyways there are audio players that are better then Ipods, like most of the stuff coming out of COWON/Iaudio (which supports Vorbis and Flac generally). To bad people have been suckered in by the slick advertising.
......
As far as Internet radio; what needs to be done is for people to get together and setup a alternative pricing agency that sets a reasonable price for using music in streaming online stuff.
If you get a orginization like those that back "Creative Commons" to setup a database of artists who pre-agree to this pricing structure then it could save Internet music radio.
Of course you won't get 'mainstream' artists and such joining up, but I don't see that as any great loss. If I want 'mainstream' I'll just turn on the real radio. I listen to Internet radio because I want to hear something different. There are plenty of indie music folks and publishers like Magnatunes that would make it worthwhile, I expect.
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 17, 2007 11:24 UTC (Sun) by Erich_J_Ritzmann (guest, #39670) [Link] People tend to use whatever works. If proprietary works better than free, then that is what willget used, all other factors held equal.
iTunes and iPod have captured three quarters of the portable music market over the past five
Apple is primarily a business. It is a business which uses and contributes to open source as one
The bind that Apple found itself in, was that consumers wanted a certain amount of openess
For most people, I expect that getting rid of the DRM will be good enough to increase their
Music interests are quite diverse and many of us have our ecclectic mixes. Creative Commons
A less attractive internet radio stream is based on commercial and community radio stations.
When it seemed they'd turn a blind eye to my streaming of their signal, I set up ICES and ICECAST
The best music I'd ever listened to was on a pure internet radio stream. Alas, they got shut down
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 17, 2007 12:29 UTC (Sun) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] ""For most people, I expect that getting rid of the DRM will be good enough to increase their market penetration. However, if a few of us got together and convinced Apple that FLAC and Ogg Vorbis support will increase sales, I suspect they will not ignore a business case.""
They have. Like I said people complained that Apple specificly denied to support Ogg Vorbis in their software.
It doesn't cost them anything. And their ipod hardware is perfectly capable of supporting it, as rockbox proves. There are no royalties, no costs, and software is already aviable for them to easily use with licenses that cater to Apple's properietary nature.
The only reason Apple does not support it is because they do not want to support it. People have been asking this for a long time and in relatively large numbers.
I don't think you understand how much market share Ogg Vorbis already has. Until Apple came along with Itunes it was probably the second most popular lossy format aviable. It is widely used by fairly savy people and is widely used as the format in many games and other such things. Unreal Tournament, Grand Theft Auto, etc etc.
And FLAC is probably the most popular lossless format around. It is widely known and used among people savy enough to care and understand the differences between lossy vs lossless.
""People tend to use whatever works. If proprietary works better than free, then that is what will get used, all other factors held equal.""
Ya except it's not all other factors equal. In fact it's very unequal.
""A less attractive internet radio stream is based on commercial and community radio stations. They already pay the man, as it were. My local community station streams in Window Media format. Even as a donor, when I contacted the station manager on the issue, I was told that the vast majority of the listeners are able to listen using that, and that M$FT even offers a "free" download for Mac users. MP3 was out, simply because of the costs. And, only the hacker community is interested in other codecs. ""
Of course they already pay. And 'the man' has decided that even though they pay they are going to have to die. Suprise!
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2002-07-21-r...
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 17, 2007 22:43 UTC (Sun) by Erich_J_Ritzmann (guest, #39670) [Link]
Thanks for the extra bit of USA news. The laws are slightly different here than there, I'm sure...
>>""For most people, I expect that getting rid of the DRM will be good enough to increase their
>They have. Like I said people complained that Apple specificly denied to support Ogg Vorbis in
Exactly. And in spite of recent announcements indicating a trend away from it, DRM is still a
I would probably buy an iPod if it supported the extra codecs. If you and I and a few thousand
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 18, 2007 14:32 UTC (Mon) by frodonl (subscriber, #16826) [Link] And some people install Rockbox on their iPod... :)
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 22, 2007 10:56 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Installing Rockbox on an iPod hardly qualifies as `hacking'. It's pretty trivial, and the new wizzy installer makes it completely trivial.
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 17, 2007 17:31 UTC (Sun) by Richard_J_Neill (subscriber, #23093) [Link] Ogg has a huge advantage over Mp3 for classical music, namely gapless playback. mp3 allegedly supports this, but it doesn't usually work very well. So, consider a symphony: 4 movements, 4 files, but where there should never be a break in the sound. ogg just works better.
Something else that's neat: the following is perfectly valid:
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 17, 2007 19:28 UTC (Sun) by h2 (guest, #27965) [Link] Wow, nice little bit of information, thanks. I've been wondering about true gapless playback for a while now, not to drift offtopic (well, this is lwn.net, so why not?), but can you explain how to rip say a classical cd with 4 movements into a gapless playlist, what tools and playback methods are required?
Does flac also support this?
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 18, 2007 14:09 UTC (Mon) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] To get gapless playback with Vorbis and FLAC, you just need to rip & encode as you normally do. Playback should just work. The silence between tracks is an MP3 artifact.
Old copies of XMMS and a few other players would reset the audio hardware between tracks, causing a tiny bit of silence or, in the worst case, a brief pop, even with gapless tracks. As far as I know, all modern players have long since fixed this bug.
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 18, 2007 15:19 UTC (Mon) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link] wp:gapless should answer your question without problems...
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal) Posted Jun 18, 2007 11:12 UTC (Mon) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link] Having working gapless playback would for me be a real reason to switch away from xmms (which I presume just cannot do it). Which player would actually be able to provide this nice feature?
Apple controls this show. Posted Jun 21, 2007 16:02 UTC (Thu) by dwheeler (guest, #1216) [Link] With the massive market share of iPods, right now Apple has significant control over this show. If the iPods would _natively_ play Ogg Vorbis and FLAC, and iTunes sold those formats, I think the upswing would be massive.
|
|||||||||||||