Welcome to Doom9's Forum, THE in-place to be for everyone interested in DVD conversion.

Before you start posting please read the forum rules. By posting to this forum you agree to abide by the rules.

 

Go Back   Doom9's Forum > Video Encoding > New and alternative video codecs

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Old 14th July 2016, 14:16   #221  |  Link
mandarinka
Registered User
 
mandarinka's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 729
Quote:
Originally Posted by BadFrame View Post
they won't give up their patent cash cow business model of : 'pick a bunch of patents from the pool, implement a slight improvement on the current video codec standard, charge royalties, rinse and repeat' : without a fight
It is fine to be a fan of royalty free codecs, but I think you give the MPEG technology a little bit too small credit.
HEVC isn't just a small slight improvement. And are we forgetting already that VP9 is basically just a copy of HEVC with some nerfs (worse reference structure, weird hacky b-frames, lack of weighted prediction or SAO, IIRC)? On2 still did it the usual way: take ideas from the MPEG standard, and obfuscate them a bit to not be directly exposed to patent lawyers.

And currently, VP9 is the format that AV1 is being built on! So I'd say we should get a bit more mature on the freetard/fanboy feelings toward MPEG. Not to mention when the best video coding technology to this day (x264) was based on their codec.


Also, MPEG-LA royalties are sane and okay. It is the greedy companies that split off from MPEG-LA pool that went overboard and caused a SNAFU.
mandarinka is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 14th July 2016, 14:42   #222  |  Link
dapperdan
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 201
Quote:
Originally Posted by mandarinka View Post
... So I'd say we should get a bit more mature on the freetard ...
Yes, maturity is definitely required here.


Quote:
Originally Posted by mandarinka View Post
Also, MPEG-LA royalties are sane and okay. It is the greedy companies that split off from MPEG-LA pool that went overboard and caused a SNAFU.
MPEG is not the same as MPEG-LA (despite the confusing name), but it is MPEG policies (e.g. being patent-blind) that create the opportunity for both MPEG-LA and competing entities to stuff the proposals with their patents without any credible legal requirement to give access to the patents under sensible terms.

This has continually caused problems, e.g. the big drama when Apple held Quicktime 6 hostage until they dropped per-use royalties on AAC all the way up to the current HEVC nonsense (which again caused Apple remove any mention of HEVC from their iPhone page). You know it's gone too far when Apple, who generally have no big issue with patent encumbered formats, is calling you out.

Last edited by dapperdan; 14th July 2016 at 14:48.
dapperdan is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 14th July 2016, 20:31   #223  |  Link
BadFrame
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Posts: 98
Quote:
Originally Posted by mandarinka View Post
HEVC isn't just a small slight improvement.
Actually, considering how old h264 is and the amount of extra cpu time HEVC needs in order to actually see those benefits, I can't say I'm overly impressed with the improvements. That said this will most likely hold just as true for AV1.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mandarinka View Post
And are we forgetting already that VP9 is basically just a copy of HEVC with some nerfs
Need something to back this up with.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mandarinka View Post
On2 still did it the usual way: take ideas from the MPEG standard, and obfuscate them a bit to not be directly exposed to patent lawyers.
Need something to back this up with.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mandarinka View Post
And currently, VP9 is the format that AV1 is being built on!
From what I've read, it's built on VP10, which was supposed to be the VP9 successor, and is now to become AV1.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mandarinka View Post
So I'd say we should get a bit more mature on the freetard/fanboy feelings toward MPEG.
Are you seriously pretending to be mature while using words like 'freetard' ? And then accusing others of being 'fanboys' while sounding like a MPEG LA advertising pamphlet...

Quote:
Originally Posted by mandarinka View Post
Not to mention when the best video coding technology to this day (x264) was based on their codec.
No argument that h264 is a great codec, but with the vast pool of patents at the MPEG LA disposal, and the hinderance they pose for alternate codecs to appear which in turn could have been better had they not have to work around what is often ridiculously broad patents, it's not surprising.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mandarinka View Post
Also, MPEG-LA royalties are sane and okay.
That's your opinion.
BadFrame is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 15th July 2016, 03:03   #224  |  Link
Quikee
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 41
Quote:
Originally Posted by BadFrame View Post
Depending on your definition of success, I think I disagree, as my definition would be replacing jpeg as the de facto (lossy) image format. Given how mobile is increasingly becoming the way people consume web content, I think the chance of gaining the necessary traction without hardware decoding is very unlikely.
I would agree if we would talk about a video codec but for image codec I can't say that hardware support is the deciding factor. Of course it is important that the codec is designed with hardware implementation in mind as it can't be successful otherwise but I don't think it would be the feature that is important initially.

Consider that we don't need to decompress images at constant rate of at least 21 FPS so even most mobile should be able to handle it reasonably fast and if you factor the download time I think it wouldn't in most cases cause a considerable lag at page loading.
Quikee is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 15th July 2016, 03:59   #225  |  Link
Quikee
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 41
Quote:
Originally Posted by mandarinka View Post
It is fine to be a fan of royalty free codecs, but I think you give the MPEG technology a little bit too small credit.
HEVC isn't just a small slight improvement.
I agree MPEG did a good job with HEVC, however they were totally agnostic regarding patents and I think they need some "beating" for this mistake and I think AOM with AV1 will do this. This will force them to require some patent commitments from participants or their technology won't be adapted in the standard. Maybe we would also see a standard that is partially or completely royalty free.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mandarinka View Post
And are we forgetting already that VP9 is basically just a copy of HEVC with some nerfs (worse reference structure, weird hacky b-frames, lack of weighted prediction or SAO, IIRC)? On2 still did it the usual way: take ideas from the MPEG standard, and obfuscate them a bit to not be directly exposed to patent lawyers.
I'm not an expert and don't have a much knowledge of video coding techniques but at least I find VP9 "hacky b-frames" quite ingenious solution. It generally makes the decoder agnostic of what kind of frame (past or future) is currently decoding as this is not part of the bitstream. A future frame is only flaged for not showing and I think this makes it a more flexible concept than b-frames. You could also have a frame that is neither past nor the future by maybe a hybrid of more frames - however I don't know if this would be beneficial.

libvpx doesn't exploit all the possibilities that the format has to offer and I think it would come much closer to the quality of HEVC if an alternative implementation emerges and starts exploiting such things (my hope is Eve will better show what VP9 is capable of).
Quikee is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 15th July 2016, 17:07   #226  |  Link
mzso
Registered User
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 930
Quote:
Originally Posted by BadFrame View Post
I believe the only realistic option would be if AV1 was also offered as a image codec, Intel, AMD, ARM, NVidia are all aboard to support the AV1 codec, and Android SoC manufacturers like Qualcomm, Samsung will of course support it, and it's royalty free which means it can gain traction on the web and in apps (as in being supported).
Hopefully people in the AOM come to the same conclusion, and they'll pester IETF into standardizing a still image format too.

Last edited by mzso; 15th July 2016 at 17:16.
mzso is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 15th July 2016, 17:21   #227  |  Link
mzso
Registered User
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 930
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quikee View Post
I agree MPEG did a good job with HEVC, however they were totally agnostic regarding patents and I think they need some "beating" for this mistake and I think AOM with AV1 will do this.
It's countries like the US that truly need a good beating, because they allow software patents. There wouldn't be any need for this pathetic comedy with "free" formats and patented formats. They could just take HEVC and improve upon it...
mzso is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 15th July 2016, 18:14   #228  |  Link
mandarinka
Registered User
 
mandarinka's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 729
IMHO the only problem with HEVC is that payments got too high because of HEVC Advance and then Technicolor or which company it was that went rogue as the third party. The mistake was not having/enforcing binding agreements that would guarantee sane royalties/terms of use.

Otherwise, I don't see a problem with codec not being completely beer-free if it means better technology/compression (and indirectly, incentive for further development). H.264 showed it works well, although some people think it is some catastrophe or something.

Last edited by mandarinka; 15th July 2016 at 18:17.
mandarinka is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 15th July 2016, 21:34   #229  |  Link
BadFrame
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Posts: 98
Quote:
Originally Posted by mandarinka View Post
I
Otherwise, I don't see a problem with codec not being completely beer-free if it means better technology/compression (and indirectly, incentive for further development).
I disagree with the notion that software patents and the subsequent royalty fees are somehow the main driving force for better technology, if this was the case we would never have seen great audio codecs like Opus and FLAC, and had it not been for having to navigate around the broad video encoding patent minefield, efforts like Daala would have had an entirely different outlook.

Instead I'd argue that in reality software patents obstructs and slows down technology, and I think the MPEG LA pool is a perfect example of that, they dictate when and how much progress in video codecs will be made available by holding a vast array of encoding techniques locked under what is again aggressively broad software patents.

IMHO we'd be further along in video encoding if we did not have software patents, as we can see with AOM's effort with AV1 and what Google has done all along with the VP series, there is huge commercial incentive beyond cashing in on royalties to improve technology, and yet again even this effort is hampered by software patents, and will likely be attacked by software patents as MPEG LA fights to keep their business model of piecemealing video encoding progress.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mandarinka View Post
I
H.264 showed it works well, although some people think it is some catastrophe or something.
I don't think it's a catastrophe, but I also don't think the system works 'well'.

Now, I (and I assume you) want to see the best video compression technology possible, in my/your hands as soon as possible, MPEG LA's business model of controlling video compression progress through software patents means we will get what they deem is enough of a step forward to create enough demand for them to kickstart a new codec and royalties cycle, rinse and repeat, continously artificially limiting progress in order for them to milk as much royalties as possible.

Take AOM as a comparison, since their model is not based upon royalties at all, there's no reason whatsoever for them to artificially limit the capacity of their codec, in fact the better the codec is, the more money they save on bandwidth, and the more attractive their services are to customers, but here again the sad concept of software patents rear it's ugly head, as it will limit what AV1 can provide, just as it limits video compression progress as a whole.
BadFrame is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 16th July 2016, 01:18   #230  |  Link
mandarinka
Registered User
 
mandarinka's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 729
Quote:
Originally Posted by BadFrame View Post
I disagree with the notion that software patents and the subsequent royalty fees are somehow the main driving force for better technology, if this was the case we would never have seen great audio codecs like Opus and FLAC, and had it not been for having to navigate around the broad video encoding patent minefield, efforts like Daala would have had an entirely different outlook.

Instead I'd argue that in reality software patents obstructs and slows down technology, and I think the MPEG LA pool is a perfect example of that, they dictate when and how much progress in video codecs will be made available by holding a vast array of encoding techniques locked under what is again aggressively broad software patents.

IMHO we'd be further along in video encoding if we did not have software patents, as we can see with AOM's effort with AV1 and what Google has done all along with the VP series, there is huge commercial incentive beyond cashing in on royalties to improve technology, and yet again even this effort is hampered by software patents, and will likely be attacked by software patents as MPEG LA fights to keep their business model of piecemealing video encoding progress.



I don't think it's a catastrophe, but I also don't think the system works 'well'.

Now, I (and I assume you) want to see the best video compression technology possible, in my/your hands as soon as possible, MPEG LA's business model of controlling video compression progress through software patents means we will get what they deem is enough of a step forward to create enough demand for them to kickstart a new codec and royalties cycle, rinse and repeat, continously artificially limiting progress in order for them to milk as much royalties as possible.

Take AOM as a comparison, since their model is not based upon royalties at all, there's no reason whatsoever for them to artificially limit the capacity of their codec, in fact the better the codec is, the more money they save on bandwidth, and the more attractive their services are to customers, but here again the sad concept of software patents rear it's ugly head, as it will limit what AV1 can provide, just as it limits video compression progress as a whole.
You insist that the non-royalty-free codecs limit the pace of overall development of compression. I don't think that is a clearly demonstrable thing at all. Note that while the technology they (MPEG etc) develop is patented, that doesn't mean it is exclusive and other development projects can't use it. If you look into the past, that was not the case - Real (RV40), Sorenson (SVQ3 IIRC?) licensed H.264 IP for their own incompatible codecs. They were allowed to do exactly what you think the baddies make impossible - make their own thing on top of MPEG IP. So as long as you accept to pay, you are not really left out and barred from using the stuff to do your own innovation on top of it.

I would much rather see efforts like AV1/Daala to happen this way, together with the commercial development, so that the best of all camps can be combined. I'd say that it is those projects limiting themselves from use of patented technology, rather then the patented technology makers limiting them, strictly speaking.

Of course, it is very unlikely that Xiph/Mozilla/On2 will change their policy and license patented stuff for themselves (well, Google did that, for VP8/9, actually), given how their whole goal is to be royalty free. But it is their choice, not result of somebody harassing them into it and denying them the option to do otherwise.
mandarinka is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 16th July 2016, 05:47   #231  |  Link
Jamaika
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 697
Quote:
Originally Posted by BadFrame View Post
I disagree with the notion that software patents and the subsequent royalty fees are somehow the main driving force for better technology, if this was the case we would never have seen great audio codecs like Opus and FLAC, and had it not been for having to navigate around the broad video encoding patent minefield, efforts like Daala would have had an entirely different outlook.
...but there are some suggestions.
Video streaming services and video creation companies pay licensing fees for not only the hours and hours of movies and TV shows that viewers watch but also the basic coding technology that enables files to be created and displayed. The cost to license this technology has become a major impediment to innovation for companies trying to make content easily available to millions (billions!) of consumers, which is why Adobe is proud to join the Alliance for Open Media.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mandarinka View Post
Of course, it is very unlikely that Xiph/Mozilla/On2 will change their policy and license patented stuff for themselves (well, Google did that, for VP8/9, actually), given how their whole goal is to be royalty free. But it is their choice, not result of somebody harassing them into it and denying them the option to do otherwise.
Adobe Joins Alliance for Open Media to Develop Next Generation Video Platform
Not only for himself royalty free.
Along with other members like Amazon, Cisco, Google, Intel Corporation, Microsoft, Mozilla, Netflix, and many others, Adobe is working to develop technology for open video compression and delivery across numerous devices. As a member of the alliance, Adobe will collaborate with industry leaders to create a leading edge and royalty-free video codec. Bottom line: this means faster and higher resolution video is on its way at a lower cost to the consumer.

Wonder, will it be free plugin like to VP9?

Last edited by Jamaika; 16th July 2016 at 06:15.
Jamaika is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 20th July 2016, 09:46   #232  |  Link
dapperdan
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 201
Daala update from IETF 96:

https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/96/...96-netvc-4.pdf

And video (Daala section starts 1 hour in):

http://recs.conf.meetecho.com/Playou...pter=chapter_1

Probably the headline is that "main development switched to AV1, Daala is primarily being used as a testbed to implement ideas that then get moved to AV1, though it might be revived as a standalone codec at a future date when some of the techniques they've come up with have matured".
dapperdan is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 20th July 2016, 14:15   #233  |  Link
littlepox
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2012
Posts: 218
In short, daala is dead.
littlepox is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 20th July 2016, 15:00   #234  |  Link
LigH
German doom9/Gleitz SuMo
 
LigH's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Germany, rural Altmark
Posts: 6,753
If so, then it should be buried gracefully, having delivered useful experience for the next step in the evolution of codecs...
__________________

New German Gleitz board
MediaFire: x264 | x265 | VPx | AOM | Xvid
LigH is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 20th July 2016, 17:38   #235  |  Link
mandarinka
Registered User
 
mandarinka's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 729
Quote:
Originally Posted by LigH View Post
If so, then it should be buried gracefully, having delivered useful experience for the next step in the evolution of codecs...
To a large degree however, many of its lessons just say what doesn't work and that it is not at all easy to beat established technology (Mpeg, VP9) with new (or more precisely, not used yet) ideas.
mandarinka is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 20th July 2016, 17:55   #236  |  Link
littlepox
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2012
Posts: 218
Another thing is the design of encoder is much more challenging than design of format. Today, if I am to encode a video without x264/x265, honestly, I'd use Easy Real Producer. I've seen how it beats those crappy H.264/H.265/VP9 encoders.

R.I.P. daala, hope AV1 can fulfill its destine.
littlepox is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 21st July 2016, 12:58   #237  |  Link
mzso
Registered User
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 930
Quote:
Originally Posted by LigH View Post
If so, then it should be buried gracefully, having delivered useful experience for the next step in the evolution of codecs...
More like delivered useful experience in circumnavigating obvious solutions to problems that are already patented.
mzso is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 21st July 2016, 13:13   #238  |  Link
Nevilne
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 134
Which they succeeded at... don't get the hostility of people here.
Nevilne is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 21st July 2016, 13:46   #239  |  Link
mandarinka
Registered User
 
mandarinka's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 729
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nevilne View Post
Which they succeeded at... don't get the hostility of people here.
In case you meant me by the "hostility", I have been "fan" of it probably longer than almost all people on the internet. I followed the development (or preparation) maybe since 2011 or so, since time when there were no demos or public announcements yet, only Xiph wiki page and talk in #Theora.

The only "hostility" is in me not caring about the topic of "encumbered" or "free" things, which lots of people here put into the front. I just want to see technical progress regardless of whichever party will bring it about. Daala was quite interesting in that regard (at least in theory), whereas On2's stuff, not much - hence lack of respect from me.

The fact that lots of stuff projected for Daala failed in practice is true, though (sadly). Their attempt to reconcile intra prediction with lapping/OBMC is probably the most important part there, because it has lead to problems for the whole codec, need to add 1-2 loopfilters that the design originally didn't mean to use etc. Their lapping itself had a tough ride, for a long while they didn't even know if it they should really keep it (I am not up to date on how that ended up). These things are what I meant when I said that thing about nature of Daala's lessons. It doesn't mean I hate them/it. I'm not even disappointed in the sense that I would blame them or think they did a bad job. I know that this happens when you do scientific work - you go through number of theories but most of them are ruled out as wrong, with positive results/inventions being rare.

The jury is still out on AV1, but currently it seems like it will mostly inherit On2 DNA, so I don't expect much there. Hopefully Xiph/Mozilla will still manage to influence it in a good way, though.

Last edited by mandarinka; 21st July 2016 at 13:53.
mandarinka is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 21st July 2016, 14:29   #240  |  Link
Jamaika
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 697
Quote:
Originally Posted by mandarinka View Post
The jury is still out on AV1, but currently it seems like it will mostly inherit On2 DNA, so I don't expect much there. Hopefully Xiph/Mozilla will still manage to influence it in a good way, though.
To this day I don't know what codec Daala improved the codec AV1. I have no way of comparison VP10 vs AV1. You may find that they are comparable in quality.
Jamaika is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 22:05.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.