Submitted by “We are pleased to announce a new stable release of libtheora,
the Xiph.org Foundation’s reference implementation of the royalty-free Theora video
format. This new release, version 1.1, codenamed Thusnelda, incorporates all of the recent encoder improvements we have been making over
the past year, though some of the code had its genesis all the way back in 2003.
It also brings substantial speed and robustness improvements to the 1.0 decoder.” For a more visual run-down of the changes, check out Mozilla’s excellent article.
1.1 is really a great encoder. I really hope Theora will be everywhere soon.
Agreed. Great affort. I love it when high quality, freely available software makes its way into the world. When it comes to IT freedom – we actually live in pretty good times.
It should indeed, by rights, be everywhere.
Theora is the only current, competitive video codec that “currently complies with the W3C patent policy.”
http://hacks.mozilla.org/2009/09/theora-1-1-released/
http://lockshot.wordpress.com/2009/07/30/whats-the-problem-with-ogg…
Edited 2009-09-27 10:51 UTC
better quality + smaller file size = awesome
Not to nit-pick, but they specifically indicate that it’s better quality *OR* smaller file size
Edit: ok, yeah, that’s nitpicking..sorry
Edited 2009-09-25 23:46 UTC
A good advance, but there is a lot to do still.
Awesome; I truly believe that if they can get Theora to at least 95% of what h264 can do, but royalty free – then for those being pillaged by h264 patent holders, Theora might offer a way out in the future.
With the new Theora out of the way, I hope they improve Ogg as well because right now it lags behind AAC and MP3 when it comes to quality versus size. If they can over take MP3 but 95% of what AAC can deliver then it’ll strike another blow against MP3 and AAC.
With that being said, they really do need to fix their plugins; their Quicktime one is horrible, and their Directshow one is non-existant. Its all very nice creating wonderful file formats but if the plugins for popular media players is missing, its not going to matter one iota.
Ogg is a container format, not a codec. I assume you’re talking about the Vorbis audio codec?
(BTW, this raises another point: Why do Ogg Theora+Vorbis video files have a music note icon in Gnome?)
Also, (smaller file size | higher video quality) = also awesome 🙂 Pity that my home media box that I just recieved yesterday doesn’t do Theora!
Good question; I would have thought something like a piece of film with a slight curl in it would be more suitable for a video file type.
It may be related to file names, as .ogg is assumed to be audio aswell as .oga, while .ogv is video. It was found that people didn’t like the same extension/mimetype for both video and audio files, so they registered new mime types but had to retain some legacy for the current market of media players, so .ogg is kept for audio files.
MP3 has never been a state-of-the-art audio codec. Just good enough for most people.
Vorbis (the audio codec used mostly in ogg container) has been ahead in quality for years. It was the video that was missing, and with this release I guess that Theora is probably close enough to h.264 (and probably ahead of DivX and the like).
I agree in the plugins/tools thing, though. It is still not easy to encode/decode theora videos with the usual programs.
True, but LAME has done a pretty good job squeezing every last bit of quality out of the format
From what I understand, the next version of Ogg Vorbis will incorporate AoTuV enhancements. The problem I have though; the devices that support the format leave alot to be desired.
The dream device for me is something that brings Songbird + CD Ripping + Ogg Vorbis Support + Reliable syncronising on a flash based device that has an expansion slot with 64GB being the installed flash memory as standard
Videolan is ok for transcoding – I tend to record all my videos in lossless format, then do the encoding afterwards – I find that if I encode on the fly the fans on my laptop speed up and thus I end up with the sound of a jet engine in the background.
Maybe in the future Videolan transcoding component can be modified or possibly a new front end created so that mere mortals can do ripping, transcoding, encoding etc. via an easy to use interface.
Edited 2009-09-26 13:38 UTC
Actually, from what I understand, Vorbis development has stopped apart from the efforts of AoTuV and others like him.
Still, it has features MP3 doesn’t (like 5.1 channel support, finer-grained VBR, better metadata) and sound quality is still excellent. I don’t know how well it fares against AAC, but the last time I looked they (AAC, MP3 and Vorbis) were generally indistinguishable at 128 kbps.
Yes, I know the metadata is an Ogg thing, not a Vorbis thing.
Well, I’ve never been able to produce mp3 files that compare favorably with the quality/size of Vorbis, and that’s using the latest lame and vorbis-tools. AAC on the other hand can hang Vorbis up to dry in the sun if you use a high-quality encoder (faac doesn’t count by a long shot), and even the one in Quicktime can give Vorbis a run for its money if you use the right parameters.
I guess it depends on the setting; I tend to put the quality of variable encoding to maximum and have the VBR set to -q 8 (using XLD on my Mac). Mind you, on my iPod Touch I use XLD for encoding AAC using true VBR set at quality 100.
It is unfortunate though given how much of a hand held device that iPod Touch is that Apple doesn’t allow programmers to create audio and video plugins for the music player included with iPod Touch. Plugins for audio formats other than AAC and MP3, and the ability to synchronise via an established protocol (MTP) would be nice, but unlikely to happen anytime soon
I think you might find that this new encoder does bring Theora right into the same ballpark of performance as h264.
http://www.h-online.com/open/New-encoder-library-for-Ogg-Theora-ope…
The new, backwards-compatible Thusnelda encoder is designed to allow Ogg Theora to achieve contemporary encoding efficiency.
Ogg is just a container, the Xiph.org audio codec is called Vorbis. Vorbis out-performs mp3 when it comes to quality-versus-size, but I don’t know about AAC. Even though there are hardware decoder chips available for Vorbis, many portable players do not include this support in hardware, and if they support it at all then they include only a software decoder, which uses up battery power at a considerably higher rate.
Perhaps this lack of inclusion of hardware support in many portable players is what you are alluding to, because there is certainly no “gap” to be made up insofar as the codec itself is involved.
I have no comment on Apples failings with respect to implementation of Xiph.org codecs. There is no such problem in, say, VLC.
Edited 2009-09-27 10:26 UTC
Looking good; just having a look at GNOME 3.0, Fedora 12, Ubuntu 2009.10 and rumours of 2010.4 – it’ll be interesting to see how things develop. Hopefully as the desktop experience improves, the ability to encode videos will be made easier (HAL removal is working well, hopefully Xorg will finally be moved to libudev along with all remaining components – one less battery sucking daemon sitting in the background).
Maybe as the number of netbooks with moblin Linux increases, the demand for ogg vorbis support will increase – are there any royalty free, DRM free music services using ogg instead of mp3 or aac? i haven’t had an investigation so I am wondering.
‘they’ being a directed point made regarding the lack of decent plugins from Xiph developers for Apple Quicktime and Microsoft Media Player.
Edited 2009-09-27 13:37 UTC
Surely it is up to Apple and Microsoft to properly support Quicktime and Microsoft Media Player respectively. Just as it is up to VLC developers to support VLC.
If VLC can take a Xiph.org codec reference implementation and make it work well in VLC, why is a similar task apparently beyond the abilities of Apple and Microsoft?
There are some sites using HTML5 and Theora.
Here are two:
http://tinyvid.tv/
http://openvideo.dailymotion.com/en
Here is Xiph.org’s list of Music sites with ogg vorbis music:
http://www.vorbis.com/music_links/
Enjoy.
Edited 2009-09-27 14:35 UTC
Actually, VLC’s implementation of Vorbis needs a bit of work, particularly when handling lower quality content at 22.05 khz or below. It will often clip off the beginning second or so of the file, and rewind and fast forward act very erratically (rewind won’t go back after a certain point and fast forward will actually take you several minutes backwards). It’s been an issue for years and still is as of the latest vlc.
I suspect it’s a case of “don’t want to” rather than “can’t,” because of four words: “Quicktime” and “Windows Media Video.”
I suspect it’s a case of “don’t want to” rather than “can’t,” because of four words: “Quicktime” and “Windows Media Video.” [/q]
Precisely.
I am reminded of a phrase (perhaps an urban legend, I don’t know) I have seen sometimes on the web:
“Windows isn’t done until Lotus won’t run”.
Wasn’t there a successful lawsuit against Microsoft for Windows 3 (which used to run on top of DOS) such it was discovered that if Windows on starting up detected an underlying DRDOS instead of MSDOS it would simply (deliberately) quit?
It could easily be a similar story here, one might surmise.
I thought the free-enterprise theory was that proprietary software companiens were supposed to try to put the MOST functionality into their code in order to attract customers? Yet we seee, apparently, the exact opposite … they deliberately refuse to support stuff which would give their customers some freedom and actual choice. Hmmmmm.
For a little more musing on the topic of how proprietary offerrings seem to give you so much less functionality for so much more money, here is an interesting review of the upcoming Windows 7 (Professional) versus some other possible choices of operating systems.
http://www.psy-q.ch/blog/articles/2009/09/13/win7-review-from-free-…
I hope that this review illustrates what I mean. The issue of the media player is discussed.
Apparently, Windows 7 messes up even the very simple text editor included:
It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. A lot of people have to put up with this sort of stuff.
Hehe…
Getting ASCII files locked into a Microsoft text editor definitely is an achievement.
If I were given the task to do it, I would not know how to pull this off.
The Microsoft Windows text editors have been the worst editors out there anyway, but topping that sad score really makes me think Microsoft is well on it’s way to hell.
In this case, they don’t even have to actively block Ogg video – by simply not supporting it, Microsoft and Apple can ensure that it will be used less than their respective formats. Which I think is short-sighted, since they’ve both already lost to Flash video for the vast majority of web video (thanks to the same sort of stubbornness).
The joys of vertical integration.
Indeed. This attitude makes them both a sitting duck for criticisms such as the following: “Media file support is very weak out of the box. The included media player appears to be a resource hog and can only play very few media formats. It couldn’t identify a Matroska file correctly, and then failed to download the appropriate codecs, even though it acted as if it could. A third-party player (like VLC) is necessary if you have any sort of variety in your media collection.”
In fact you can easily create a long deficiency list for Windows:
Here is a start:
Support for current and emerging web standards in the default web browser is very weak.
Support for different media file formats is very weak.
Support for various types of office file format is weak or non-existant.
There is no support included for viewing or generating PDF files.
Support for different filesystem types is exceedingly week.
Filesystems that are offered do not support per-file execute permissions.
The partitioner included in the setup disk is very limited.
No support for backup and restore of disk partitions.
There is no support in the bootloader for booting multiple OSes of different types.
Security is lax in not requiring a local user to enter a valid password for escallation of priveleges.
Adding or updating functionality often requires a system reboot.
The included text editor is extremely weak, offers limited functionality, and it is broken.
The included wordprocessor applet is extremely limited.
There is no included spreadsheet functionality at all.
Included support for email is weak.
No support for USB 3.0.
Poor support for OpenGL.
No support for multiple desktops.
Requires a capable and expensive video card for even modest performance.
Incomplete support for 64-bit operation.
Inconsistent GUI, inconsistent theming.
Limited support for multiple user accounts.
Support for “legacy” hardware is very limited.
No support for software development included (no compilers or interpreters).
No permission is given to debug system code.
The owner of the machine is not the trusted user, and there is a “kill switch” called “WGA”.
There is a backdoor for the OEM.
Windows supporters act a bit like guppies stranded on the beach when you point out such things to them.
Then they mod your post down.
Edited 2009-09-28 05:23 UTC
What’s killing those codecs really is the inexistent support on PMPs. When you have to transcode every single vorbis file, you can’t be happy with the codec.
To the windows hater above, but you compare GNU/Linux or *BSD + hundreds of packages versus naked Windows on half of your points (PDF, word processing, spreadsheet…). Some of them are just funny too(inconsistent gui/theming, are you kidding me? The WGA complain is for piracy advocates, the backdoor is just conspiracy theory, and yes windows has only one user account).
Some are valid (IE limited support for web standards, no “real” multiple desktops, limited boot management, limited filesystem support), yet they are pretty tech-savvy and are of little impact to the average user — except for IE.
You may hate MS all you want, but at least try and be fair in your comparisons.
Edited 2009-09-28 07:41 UTC
You can boot any OS from the NT bootloader, it’s just a bit awkward.
Imagine what would happen if they included Office.
NT and later supports multiple desktops natively but you’ll need a 3rd party program (like sysinternals “Desktops”) to make use of it.
There’s no limited support, it’s fully functional. The problem is the many number of applications that fail to work with it.
Imagine the outcry is MS included Visual Studio.
Say what?
AFAIK you cannot boot any OS that uses a root filesystem that is unsupported by the NT bootloader.
That is most of them.
The price would be prohibitive?
Ergo, no support in the base install of Windows.
Was it user accounts you meant here?
Limited support – On the desktop OS AFAIK one can only have one user account logged in at any one time, and one can only have a limited number of user accounts (I think with XP it was five).
Imagine the expense.
I meant to say for the software OEM. An update tagged by Microsoft as being an “update to Windows update” can install silently (i.e. no local user approval or even knowledge) on a Windows machine regardless of the local machine’s updates setting. If Microsoft can do that (without any knowledge of a local password for the machine), they can make Windows update temporarily accept any code at all from them and install it silently.
Edited 2009-09-28 09:53 UTC
You keep on comparing the base Windows with the fully fledged Linux or w/e.
* No you can boot ext3 and stuff, there’s some trick dding the first 512o of the root FS, but I had linux installed on ext3 with the MS bootloader numerous times.
* Install OpenOffice if you think the MS Office price is prohibitive, and you’ll get EXACTLY the same word processing and spreadsheet capabilities than Linux.
* The base Linux doesn’t even have an X server. Hell, the base Linux isn’t even an OS. Your bias is enormous on this. These are all third parties. You can get third parties on Windows too.
* Install any free compiler? Same as you’d do in Linux?
* I don’t know about that, but isn’t the problem resolved by disabling auto updates? And while you have to confirm installation, I doubt every Ubuntu user out there parse through kernel.org changelogs before installing a new kernel, even though you could put “any code” into it. There’s a question of trust. You trust (and I do too) Linus and the gang, okay. Some people out there trust MS.
You prefer Linux, good for you, it IS a very good OS (I do half my work on it), and you’re entitled to your opinion, but spreading misinformation is not the way to go for FOSS advocacy.
Edited 2009-09-28 10:07 UTC
I could have bet my house that Windows fans would not believe most of this.
I gave the start of a list of what any new desktop computer owner would actually get (and what deficiencies they would endure) if he/she bought a computer with “Windows” pre-installed versus what they would get if they bought one with a Linux distribution pre-installed.
There is no disinformation in my list at all.
Have a look here at what you get if you get a Linux distribution pre-installed:
http://system76.com/articles.php?tPath=2_8
http://www.zareason.com/shop/pages.php?pageid=4
That fact that you can remedy (at a later time, and at additional expense and/or trouble) some of the deficiencies of a bare Windows install does not negate this point.
The fact that one can add many of the same FOSS software to a Windows computer as one can get pre-installed on Linux is not a good reason to get Windows and put up with its deficiencies.
No. An “update to Windows update” sent from Microsoft can install silently on your machine (i.e. without asking your permission) even if you have “disabled” Windows update.
Given that, and given the fact that Microsoft clearly don’t trust you (e.g. EULAs, no-dissasembly rules, WGA, OGA, registration keys, the anti-copying provision brought about by the registry, and DRM in general) … why would anyone sane trust MS?
Edited 2009-09-28 10:57 UTC
This is a very common misconception that Windows fans seem to have about FOSS code, and trust.
The trust that one can have in FOSS code does not come about because “Linus and the gang” seem like good people. It does not come about because you personally can read the code (or changelogs) if you like.
No. That is not it.
The trust comes about for several reasons, some of which in order of importance are:
(1) EVERYONE can read the code. Not just you, or me, but everyone on the planet. They can all read the code. It can be shown by ANYBODY that the public source code that can be read does (or does not) make the downloadable executable. People who DID NOT WRITE THE CODE THEMSELVES but who nevertheless can read and understand code, they too can read the FOSS code … and they can know what is in it, and they use it themselves …
(2) FOSS code distributed via repositories has an impeccable record. IMPECCABLE. Over many years, for many millions of users, not one piece of malware installed on any users system via repositories.
(3) The FOSS community writes its own code, for its own use, in full public view. In what possible way, under such conditions, does it make any sense for someone to include functions that are NOT in the best interests of users of the system (considering that the FOSS authors themselves are users of the systems they write).
I could list a lot more … but the point is that the trust comes as a direct result of the FOSS open process. It is an inevitable consequence of it.
Your knowledge does not go very far. It’s perfectly possible to boot Linux, BeOS etc from the NT bootloader. I have done so myself.
No, there would be an outcry about how they are abusing their monopoly position to get everyone to use MS Office.
No, the base install support multiple desktops.
The majority of users don’t give a shit but yes, you can do fast user switching. You know, the thing the Linux/X is only now getting.
Edit: I know that’s not what you mean but really, no one cares if more than one interactive user can log in at the same time. Heck if it bothers you just install a telnet or ssh server and you can have many users logged in at the same time.
There’s no limit to how many user accounts you can have.
Imagine the complaining from 3rd party development tool vendors. What can MS include or not? If they include a browser, people complain. If they nclude a media player, there are complaints. Now you’re saying they SHOULD include dev tools and an office suite?
Damned if do, damned if you dont.
Edited 2009-09-28 13:22 UTC
Sigh! There is no way to do it with the software as supplied by Microsoft when one buys a Windows machine.
Only if one could not buy a machine without it installed. That is to say … only if it were not optional, it was part of the “Windows tax”.
Sorry, but no, it doesn’t. Buy a Windows machine, any version. Turn it on and run the OS. Only one desktop, no multiple desktops.
Regardless, it is still a limitation of Windows that one simply does not have to endure with a better OS.
Buy a Windows machine. Turn it on, and go through the initial setup. One can add no more than five users.
Only because one can’t remove it, or choose a better one, and it is years behind the competition, and it has very weak support of current web standards.
Only because one can’t remove it, and it has very weak support of current media formats.
You missed the point. The point is not what Microsoft include or don’t include … the point here is what you get as a customer when you buy a machine. On a machine with a Linux distribution pre-installed, you get far more than a machine with Windows pre-installed. That is the current market reality.
The other point is that if Microsoft did pre-install (politics aside) the equivalent functionality to make the machine at all useful, the price Microsoft would have to charge would be prohibitive.
I don’t know how Windows users put up with this. I imagine it is a bit like the story of a frog not jumping out of the boiling water if one brings it to the boil slowly.
What is even more surprising is Windows fans trying to defend it. The facts are plain … getting an alternative OS other than Windows is an immensely better deal.
Actually there are two desktops. The desktop you get when you press ctrl-alt-del is a separate desktop.
Windows includes all you need.
http://tinyurl.com/yzxa73p
There are computer shops that will sell you a unit with Office pre-installed.
So? You can add more once the OS is installed.
No, people whine because it is included.
I’m not a Windows fan, don’t use it more than necessary and in fact I very much dislike Windows and most MS products. (Un)fortunately I still have to use and understand it so I actually know how it works and what it’s limitations are (and boy there are many and they are frustrating and stupid).
What really tires me is all the people who talk a lot about things they know nothing about.
Unfortunately I’m still locked-in to H.264. My home media box doesn’t support Theora, and besides which, all the programs I’ve tried lately to create Theora videos have done something wrong (either the videos don’t play, or the Vorbis soundtrack is low-quality, or they just crash).
Isn’t it ironic that a program like Kdenlive can correctly encode to MPEG-4 or H.264, but not to Theora+Vorbis? Granted I haven’t tried this in the KDE4 version, only the older KDE3 version.
H.264 can also be GPU-decoded with VDPAU, and encoded with SMP on FFMPEG, which unfortunately puts it ahead of Theora on those counts.
I use Desktops day-to-day, but it lacks the greatness of *nix desktops. Can’t swap programs around, lingering bugs and lost shortcuts in additional desktops, and so on. It’s too bad, if I really like one thing when I’m working on linux, it is the awesomeness of WMs like wmii or ion. The exact same functionality on Windows would make me super happy
I’m done honestly, nothing good will came from this 😮
“Theora 1.1 (atschuu) Stable Release: Freetards and amateur webtards go nuts, rest of the world doesn’t care” I’m sure it’s great and all but nobody cares except those few that seems to push unfinished HTML5 tags on sites and handful of freetards who never use it. As long as people use MP3+MKV+H264 for everything they don’t care about Theora or Vorbis, it’s as intresting as 90% of tweets. Tweet: My dog just made Theora logo turd on carpet.