Re: [Wikitech-l] H.264
On Sat, Nov 2, 2013 at 6:55 AM, Brion Vibber wrote: > If all this makes you want to just punch patents in the nose and run away, > that's understandable... > :/ it does. It really does. *-- * *Tyler Romeo* Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2016 Major in Computer Science ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] H.264
On Sat, Nov 2, 2013 at 12:35 AM, Tyler Romeo wrote: > On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 5:41 PM, Matthew Flaschen >wrote: > > > So this does not change anything in my view. > > > Actually it changes something pretty important. This means that now all > major browsers will have H.264 support. MediaWiki may not be able to encode > its own videos in H.264, but we can still serve existing H.264 videos. So > if somebody uploads an MP4 to Commons, that video can be served without > having to transcode it into another less efficient format. > Just serving the same bits back out that you saw uploaded isn't enough; just as with still photos we need to be able to convert formats and resize to fit appropriate bandwidth and processing limits. As with still photos, we want to archive the highest-resolution, highest-quality source material (today that generally means pre-compressed .mp4 files at up to 1080p HD)... but for most viewers we'll actually ship a lower-resolution, lower-bitrate transcode. Also keep in mind that the announced Cisco H.264 codec is video only; most .mp4 video files include *audio* tracks encoded in AAC, another patent-encumbered part of the MPEG-4 family. There may or may not be further announcements from Mozilla about audio codecs -- we can only wait -- but Cisco's involvement appears to be specific to WebRTC, and they claim no plans to provide a licensed AAC codec or otherwise support general .mp4 file playback. If all this makes you want to just punch patents in the nose and run away, that's understandable... -- brion ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] H.264
On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 5:41 PM, Matthew Flaschen wrote: > So this does not change anything in my view. Actually it changes something pretty important. This means that now all major browsers will have H.264 support. MediaWiki may not be able to encode its own videos in H.264, but we can still serve existing H.264 videos. So if somebody uploads an MP4 to Commons, that video can be served without having to transcode it into another less efficient format. *-- * *Tyler Romeo* Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2016 Major in Computer Science ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] H.264
On 10/31/2013 05:26 AM, Brion Vibber wrote: We're churning through some internal discussion with legal on if and how how this affects our potential options... Note that the specific thing announced there doesn't include a licensed AAC *audio* codec which would be required to generate audio and video+audio files playable on current browsers from Apple and Microsoft... so while an interesting development in the codec wars, we don't expect it to immediately change much for us. Also, my understanding is that while some people at the Foundation have thought about supporting proprietary *formats* (as an exception to our support for open standards), we would still use open source software for them. Cisco is basically paying licensing fees for a proprietary codec, but it only applies to someone if they use their binaries. Although Cisco's upstream codec will be open source (BSD), the license is not valid if you build your own binaries (which you have to do if you make even a simple change, or just to verify what you're running). Since we (and third parties) would not be able to control the binaries we ran, it is not open source in a meaningful sense. I don't think we should use such software to run the site, all the more so for key user-facing functionality like media. We could still rebuild Cisco's BSD code, but the patent license would not be valid (let alone for third parties). So it's the same position as if we just decided to use e.g. the open source x264, then somehow find a one-off solution to the licensing problems. So this does not change anything in my view. Speaking only for myself, Matt Flaschen ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] H.264
On 10/31/2013 08:02 AM, Lukas Benedix wrote: Maybe you want to read this article: http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/61927.html lbenedix Thanks for the pointer. I somewhat understand where he is coming from. However, it is still disappointing. "Open source projects get licensed (if partial and restricted) access to H.264" does not really ring true to me. Apparently the founder of Xiph now considers H.264 unavoidable/essential functionality (that seems to be what he means by "we're taking it"), at least for now. But if your software requires downloading a binary blob for key functionality, it's not really open source. This also really illustrates why open standards and open source are better. Weird workarounds like downloading codecs at runtime are not needed for open standards. The fact that the Cisco codec is open source is irrelevant, since if you build it yourself, the patent license does not apply. Speaking only for myself, Matt Flaschen ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] H.264
On 10/31/2013 10:57 AM, Greg Grossmeier wrote: Also good reading on the topic, from one of the main authors of Opus (the best audio codec available, and it happens to be big F Free) and long time Wikipedian Greg Maxwell: http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/571978/3226db9ce394bf07/ Thanks, that was a great read. The success of Opus leaves me hopeful that the Daala video codec could be a turning point. Thanks, Matt Flaschen ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] H.264
> On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 9:57 AM, Antoine Musso wrote: > > Le 31/10/13 10:10, Magnus Manske a écrit : > >> http://gigaom.com/2013/10/30/mozilla-will-add-h-264-to-firefox-as-cisco-makes-eleventh-hour-push-for-webrtcs-future/?t=t > >> > >> So, should we support this format now? (not advocating, just curious) > > > > Can we get a summary? > > Summarizing http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/61927.html: It seems that > there's a yearly cap on the licensing fees for H.264. So Cisco is > paying the cap, and then anyone can download binaries implementing the > codec from them for free. Also good reading on the topic, from one of the main authors of Opus (the best audio codec available, and it happens to be big F Free) and long time Wikipedian Greg Maxwell: http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/571978/3226db9ce394bf07/ (LWN Subscriber link, join if you like good reporting in this area) "Codec licensing amounts to a billion-dollar tax on communication software. In addition, it is used as a weapon between battling competitors, so it even affects people in countries without software patents." quoth Greg. Other Greg. -- | Greg GrossmeierGPG: B2FA 27B1 F7EB D327 6B8E | | identi.ca: @gregA18D 1138 8E47 FAC8 1C7D | ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] H.264
On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 9:57 AM, Antoine Musso wrote: > Le 31/10/13 10:10, Magnus Manske a écrit : >> http://gigaom.com/2013/10/30/mozilla-will-add-h-264-to-firefox-as-cisco-makes-eleventh-hour-push-for-webrtcs-future/?t=t >> >> So, should we support this format now? (not advocating, just curious) > > Can we get a summary? Summarizing http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/61927.html: It seems that there's a yearly cap on the licensing fees for H.264. So Cisco is paying the cap, and then anyone can download binaries implementing the codec from them for free. But there's no redistribution allowed, and of course you have to use some binary library, so presumably Firefox would ask to download the H.264 codec much like it does if you're missing the Flash plugin and go to a page that uses Flash. All in all, ugh. -- Brad Jorsch (Anomie) Software Engineer Wikimedia Foundation ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] H.264
Le 31/10/13 10:10, Magnus Manske a écrit : > http://gigaom.com/2013/10/30/mozilla-will-add-h-264-to-firefox-as-cisco-makes-eleventh-hour-push-for-webrtcs-future/?t=t > > So, should we support this format now? (not advocating, just curious) Can we get a summary? -- Antoine "hashar" Musso ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] H.264
Maybe you want to read this article: http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/61927.html lbenedix m Do 31.10.2013 10:26, schrieb Brion Vibber: > We're churning through some internal discussion with legal on if and how > how this affects our potential options... > > Note that the specific thing announced there doesn't include a licensed AAC > *audio* codec which would be required to generate audio and video+audio > files playable on current browsers from Apple and Microsoft... so while an > interesting development in the codec wars, we don't expect it to > immediately change much for us. > > -- brion > > > > On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 2:10 AM, Magnus Manske > wrote: > >> http://gigaom.com/2013/10/30/mozilla-will-add-h-264-to-firefox-as-cisco-makes-eleventh-hour-push-for-webrtcs-future/?t=t >> >> So, should we support this format now? (not advocating, just curious) >> ___ >> Wikitech-l mailing list >> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > ___ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] H.264
We're churning through some internal discussion with legal on if and how how this affects our potential options... Note that the specific thing announced there doesn't include a licensed AAC *audio* codec which would be required to generate audio and video+audio files playable on current browsers from Apple and Microsoft... so while an interesting development in the codec wars, we don't expect it to immediately change much for us. -- brion On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 2:10 AM, Magnus Manske wrote: > > http://gigaom.com/2013/10/30/mozilla-will-add-h-264-to-firefox-as-cisco-makes-eleventh-hour-push-for-webrtcs-future/?t=t > > So, should we support this format now? (not advocating, just curious) > ___ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
[Wikitech-l] H.264
http://gigaom.com/2013/10/30/mozilla-will-add-h-264-to-firefox-as-cisco-makes-eleventh-hour-push-for-webrtcs-future/?t=t So, should we support this format now? (not advocating, just curious) ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
