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 Serato Video General Discussion
ON2 Technologies VP6/VP8 Encoder
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ON2 Technologies VP6/VP8 Encoder

Culprit 5:18 PM - 9 March, 2009
[vids.myspace.com]

600k birate / 96 audio, and not h.264. It's encoder was VP6. ON2 tech claims its better than hd h.264 and less cpu intensive. This is new to me, so im asking around if anyone has any experience with this encoder.

[www.on2.com]
Culprit 5:26 PM - 9 March, 2009
downloadable samples direct [www.on2.com]
a-swift 5:28 PM - 9 March, 2009
I thought ON2 was a decent encoder. These guys have been around a LONG time and they were the first people I really saw do low bitrate video really well. Unless something has changed recently, VP6 is proprietary technology which means it will be dead in the water compared open technology.

H.264 is an open standard. ANYONE is free to make software to encode it, display it, transcode it or whatever they want to do with it. There is even an excellent source code reference for H.264 with the x264 project and in fact, most software that does anything with H.264 uses x264 at some point (including ffmpeg).

H.264 is ratified as a required standard for both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray DVD. Various HD broadcast systems also use H.264 as their encoding method, so it is implemented everywhere from usb encoder sticks to set top cable and satellite boxes & regular old Blu-Ray DVD players. Not to mention the billions of H.264 compatible phones, ipods, etc.

H.264 is everywhere and on top of that, it looks pretty damn good from iPod to big screen. If VP6 is going to make a dent against H.264, it had better be damn good on all those fronts.
nik39 6:03 PM - 9 March, 2009
Quote:
H.264 is an open standard. ANYONE is free to make software to encode it, display it, transcode it or whatever they want to do with it.

Are you sure? I think you still have to pay patent/license fees to the mpeg consortium.
a-swift 6:37 PM - 9 March, 2009
Quote:
Quote:
H.264 is an open standard. ANYONE is free to make software to encode it, display it, transcode it or whatever they want to do with it.

Are you sure? I think you still have to pay patent/license fees to the mpeg consortium.


people who SELL hardware do have to pay license fees yes. but you're missing the point. with or without license fees, open technology is better than proprietary technology.

redhat and suse have license fees too but the technology is still open. my post wasn't a discussion about cost.
Culprit 7:28 PM - 9 March, 2009
I dont think these guys will offer much competition to the h.264 format, but could provide an alternative (if supported in vsl). Dumb question then, if serato were to support it then they would have to pay licensing fee's?
nik39 10:45 PM - 9 March, 2009
Quote:
people who SELL hardware do have to pay license fees yes.

I don't think this is correct either. It's the same reason why you don't see any officially compiled version of ffmpeg, lame etc.


Quote:
open technology is better than proprietary technology.

No doubt about that.
a-swift 12:35 AM - 10 March, 2009
Quote:
Quote:
people who SELL hardware do have to pay license fees yes.

I don't think this is correct either. It's the same reason why you don't see any officially compiled version of ffmpeg, lame etc.


Quote:
open technology is better than proprietary technology.


No doubt about that.


i don't understand nik39. i just double checked, the license for x264 is GPL. this is the reference implementation of H.264, if it's GPL, how is it not free?
nik39 1:15 AM - 10 March, 2009
Quote:
i don't understand nik39. i just double checked, the license for x264 is GPL. this is the reference implementation of H.264, if it's GPL, how is it not free?

That's the tricky thing. The source can can be GPL and freely available, but as soon as you provide a binary you may have to pay license fees.

en.wikipedia.org < lame license stuff

Quote:
Patents and legal issues

Like all MP3 encoders, LAME implements some technology covered by patents owned by the Fraunhofer Society and other entities.[1] The developers of LAME do not license themselves the technology described by these patents. Distributing compiled binaries of LAME, its libraries, or programs which are derivative works of LAME in countries which recognize those patents, may be considered infringing on the relevant patents.

The LAME developers state that since their code is only released in source code form, it should only be considered as a description of an MP3 encoder, and thus does not infringe any patent by itself when released as source code only. At the same time, they advise obtaining a patent license for any relevant technologies that LAME may implement before including a compiled version of the encoder into a product.[2] Some software is released using this strategy; companies use the LAME library, but obtain patent licenses.


And here lame.sourceforge.net < lame, tech faq's:

Quote:
6. Does LAME use any MP3 patented technology?

LAME, as the name says, is *not* an encoder. LAME is a development
project which uses the open source model to improve MP3 technology.
Many people believe that compiling this code and distributing an
encoder which uses this code would violate some patents (in the US,
Europe and Japan). However, *only* a patent lawyer is qualified to
make this determination. The LAME project tries to avoid all these
legal issues by only releasing source code, much like the ISO
distributes MP3 "demonstration" source code. Source code is
considered as speech, which may contain descriptions of patented
technology. Descriptions of patents are in the public
domain.

Several companies plan on releasing encoders based on LAME, and
they intend to obtain all the appropriate patent licenses. At least
one company is now shipping a fully licensed version of LAME with
their portable MP3 player.


Esp. for x264, read this one osdir.com < I think it's from the x264 mailing list

Quote:
> Please, let us know how much, to pay or not

[b]Aside from the x264 license requirements, you should also consider that
you need a license to a number of H.264 patents.[/b] Please have a look at
www.mpegla.com . Depending on the type and scale of your
application, you may qualify for an automatic patent license exemption.
Even if you do need to get it, it is generally not very expensive.