codec quality

Posted Dec 13, 2007 14:29 UTC (Thu) by mjr (guest, #6979)
In reply to: codec quality by DonDiego
Parent article: Specifying codecs for the web

I still see "crap" coming only from the horse's ass, not the mouth it referenced.

Anyway, suit yourself, but flaming on about crap is rather trollish of you. Nobody is or would
have been stopping you or anyone from using any codec you like regardless of the baseline
recommendation whose sole purpose would be to ensure achievable compatibility across all
browsers from everyone without active threat from outside.

Well, actually, somebody is stopping you. Not us or the W3C, though, but rather the MPEG LA
gang of Nokia and friends. If you're worth their time.

Of course, some of us are hardly worth anyone's time anymore. How lucky.

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codec quality

Posted Dec 14, 2007 1:30 UTC (Fri) by DonDiego (guest, #24141) [Link]

You seem to be taking issue with my use of the word "crap". I'll retract that term and let the horse - Monty - speak for himself:

<xiphmont_> Vorbis still stands up nicely.  Theora, OTOH, is a a bit embarrassing.
<xiphmont_> rather, it's a bit embarrassing until you look at the code, then it's alot embarrassing.
<xiphmont_> and that's 70% 'really fucking stupid encoder, really On2, be ashamed' and 40% 'format design flaws'.  It's so bad it adds up to 110%.
<xiphmont_> I plan to help Theora limp along not too embarrassingly until it can be replaced for real-- possibly 2-4 years.
<xiphmont_> Theora is actually fixable tho.  The amount of low-hanging fruit is staggering.
<xiphmont_> I mean, an entropy backend that results in *more* bits being written than went in?  It's just... wow.

That statement is taken from #mplayerdev on freenode.

Now ad hominem attacks are not going to take us anywhere. I am afraid you are attacking the messenger bringing you bad news.

There are some inconvenient truths that need to be faced:

Theora is not going to make it into the W3C recommendation. A lack of patent encumbrances is not enough to get it there.
Theora is not good enough to compete with the current generation of video codecs nor with the last.
There is no assurance that Theora is free of patent encumbrances.

The sooner these facts are accepted the sooner solutions that have a better chance of succeeding can be found.