Open MPEG-4 Codec Contest 115
chrizzzz wrote to us about the opencodex.com contest to write a Open MPEG-4 Codec. They've got an industrial sponser now, so the first team/person to do it wins 50,000$US. The contest page has speifics about the project.
lets see how long it takes for the mpaa to notice (Score:1)
:-(
I would be afraid to submit code there for obvious reasons.
Re:I just finished writing and debugging it... (Score:1)
Re:lets see how long it takes for the mpaa to noti (Score:1)
Yeah, the guy who wrote cp lost his house over it.
Ummm... Ogg anyone? (Score:1)
Re:Patents? Project Mayo? (Score:1)
(But don't post too loudly, or the download site will get slashdotted!
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
Re:For such a big prize.. (Score:1)
Re:Conflicts with the GPL?!? (Score:1)
Re: Quicktime plug-in? Yuck (Score:1)
Er, I think it didn't originally have headers. Or it doesn't have headers that are as extensible as Quicktime's format. But maybe I should have just stuck to the BMP (RGB? BGR?) analogy that I was sure of.
Re:Quicktime plug-in? Yuck (Score:1)
You might be able to leverage that when writing a codec.
Re:Pointless (Score:1)
Fifty thousand dollars (Score:1)
Oh come on. There's much easier ways to get fifty thousand dollars. For example, here's a method that always works for me.
Send $1 to each of the names below. Then erase the last name, put your name at the top, and repost.
BTW: Don't break the chain! The last guy who broke the chain mysteriously lost a lot of karma soon afterwards.
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Re:nice (Score:1)
__________________________________________________ ___
nice (Score:1)
this, and all the files are in
__________________________________________________ ___
Re:This is *so* getting claimed... (Score:1)
I hate to say it, but the above poster may have something there. For something like this, we need a "killer download" instead of a "killer app". Something that the vast majority of people would want to see enough that they'd overcome their natural disinclination to install software to be able to see it. Generally, that implies one of the following:
Barring any of that, we'd need an agreement from some reasonably influential company (e.g. Paramount) to release online trailers and such in the new open format, which brings us back to square one again.
One other point about the porn route -- being the equal-opp people we are, we'd have to make sure that there's something for everyone. Ms. Portman in her skivvies is one thing, but does little for the female and gay male contingent who'd prefer, say, Ewan MacGregor. ;)
Any other ideas? Are there other routes? And within the suggestions above, how would one go about implementing one or more on a practical level?
-TBHiX- ;)
My own inclination, of course, is "Angelina Jolie's Hands-On Guide to Stripping and Overclocking Your Athlon System."
Real origional (Score:1)
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Re:Write it in Java (Score:1)
Re:It's sponsOr, not sponsEr (Score:1)
quote
"has speifics about"
endquote
come on guys...
Re:How long till this spreads? (Score:1)
cy
Re:This is really cool (Score:1)
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The need for an open source multimedia framework (Score:1)
What's needed is a standard method for decoding a stream of data using a variety of plugins that can be pushed to a display and audio output.
Such a system would need to playback video that covers everything from low bandwidth streaming through to DVD quality. So support for MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4. There are a few other codecs that are important including Sorenson (Quicktime's primary codec these days) and Microsoft's MPEG-4 Version 3 implementation (the high quality compression format that DivX is hacked from). It would also be nice if Real playback was possible, but I imagine that is very proprietery and secret...
Isn't KDE or GNOME doing something about multimedia?
Re:About time .. for a spell check! (Score:1)
Ryan
That was before MSFT supported MPEG-4 (Score:1)
Hey, it worked before.
Re:Damn... (Score:1)
Prove to me this isn't a hoax. (Score:1)
This will hurt open source if people take it seriously. The rules aren't well defined, so there is sure to be controversy over who wins.
It will be worse if the contest folks don't show up with the money in a timely way.
Re:wait a minute.. (Score:1)
You certainly cannot playback an mp3 from any random byte. It has to be started from the begining of a block. There's a header for each block with the playback information.
FYI, you can put mp3 audio data in a wav file. "WAV" is only a file structure.
Re:Not That Great (Score:1)
And yes, I do think it would be trivial. There isn't more support for these things under linux because those with the abilities don't care. In fact, alot of programmers get rather pissed every time they get close to linux with anything remotely complicated. Gfx work under *NIX has always been a pain in the ass.
Re:Not That Great (Score:1)
The likely "winner" will be a team of people, not a single god-like programmer.
Re:man, I'd hate to come in second place... (Score:1)
Re:Doesn't make sense... (Score:1)
Explain to me... (Score:1)
Oh, and if there's any informative replies, mod THIS up so that everyone can see! haha :)
Mike Roberto
- GAIM: MicroBerto
opensource revenue stream (Score:1)
Re:the standard (Score:1)
stream...
Damn... (Score:1)
Re:Wrappers versus Codecs (Score:1)
I work with digital media for my tuition, and codec choice is half the game. On the user side of things, oftentimes I have found that exotic codecs will need to be downloaded and installed seperately before the 'AVI' or 'QT' movie can be played.
Re: codecs. .
The idea behind this contest is a good one. In light of the relative excellence and popularity of codecs like sorenson, we need something like this or the *nix's will be cut out of the streaming media revolution. (cliche, but true--everyone's gotta have it these days.)
s
"No Open Source Allowed" (Score:1)
There are a few other codecs that are important including Sorenson (Quicktime's primary codec these days)
I wouldn't be surprised if Sorenson were patented up the ass [goatse.cx].
Reminder: Don't click ass if you don't want to see ass.<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
the standard (Score:1)
Re:How long till this spreads? (Score:1)
Sponsor? (Score:1)
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Re:Not quite (Score:1)
No, you just need an exception (Score:1)
Not quite (Score:1)
Re:Not That Great (Score:1)
Well, admittedly I don't know what it would take to write a codec, encoder, ripper, or whatever. But if it really is only a "few bored weekends" then of course it would be worth it. You sure it would be that "trivial"? If it was there would be a lot more support for this stuff on Linux. Anyone know what exactly is involved in writing a codec? Basically it's just floating point number crunching yes?
KidSock
Not That Great (Score:1)
50k really isn't that much to the person who's qualified enough to write what the're talking about. The winner(s) would have to be quite skilled in c in which case then certainly make we'll over 50k/year so it's probably not worth the hassle. Anyone else is probably dreaming if they think their semester course in c is going to be enought to write something that can win.
Make the pot bigger!
KidSock
Re:Quicktime plug-in? Yuck (Score:1)
Because the QuickTime player is the de facto standard on Apple systems. It would be nice if you could play DiVx (or however it's capitalized) inside of it.
Re:It's sponsOr, not sponsEr (Score:1)
Nope. I'm looking for Ispell implemented in perl, not interfaced to in perl. It would be better if it were all done in perl so that slashcode would not need external libraries or programs to run. Not that I have any idea if it needs them now.
Also, to those who are worried about the dictionary [slashdot.org], if it were Ispell-ish then you could have any number of dictionaries. I leave which dictionaries should be implemented as an exercise to the reader, and the /. staff. It would, of course, also need some way to store dictionary additions for users. I suspect this last point is the reason it hasn't been implemented.
Re:This is *so* getting claimed... (Score:1)
Quicktime plug-in? Yuck (Score:1)
That sucks. I don't think I'm alone in saying that the Quicktime player really, really sucks (this subject came up before, and I was definitely not alone). It's bug-ridden, and the interface blows.
I have a feeling this is more political than practical, which I find very annoying. Yes, I know a lot of people don't like Microsoft, but there is no question that Media Player is way better. If you're going to pick a proprietary player, why not pick the one that is 1) more useful to more people, and 2) technically better.
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Re:Quicktime plug-in? Yuck (Score:1)
Because the QuickTime player is the de facto standard on Apple systems. It would be nice if you could play DiVx (or however it's capitalized) inside of it.
Although I wasn't particularly worried about the Mac (heh), but isn't Media Player available for the Mac as well?
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Re:This is *so* getting claimed... (Score:1)
What we need is a clip of some hot babe willing to take off a decss t-shirt for the open source cause, encoded with this codec. Porn is allways how standards get established, thats why vhs won our over beta.
Re:Nevermind MPEG! (Score:1)
And we aren't going to get decent playback performance unless there's some hardware acceleration available in X, which there isn't. But why bother with that now, when we can't touch any decent codec.
Re:stop complaining! (Score:1)
Re:man, I'd hate to come in second place... (Score:1)
Because for the same price of hiring one decent programmer for six months they can get a bunch of suckers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H people to write software for them and then pick and choose which implementation to use.
On the bright side this would make a great project for a college-level graphics class... It could help someone's tuition.
I just finished writing and debugging it... (Score:1)
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Quicktime isn't just a file format (Score:1)
Also the QuickTime Player may suck, but that's only one player. The player is a simple application which tells quicktmie to play quicktime data or play a URL like rtsp://blah.com/somemovie.mov
People who complain about the player just don't get it.
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>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
Re:This is *so* getting claimed... (Score:1)
Correct answer: Um, I wanted to come up with a clever counter to "A fucking whack." but I've got nothing...
Another Step Away From Being Free (Score:1)
Peace.
Re:Quicktime - yes, there is a linux version.. (Score:1)
A codec is an encoder, a codex is a modem, (Score:1)
Okay, so the thing originally shows up as a Quicktime plug-in. As long as the source is open we can fix that. I suspect the media player version will be released a day later.
Re:Not quite (Score:1)
Excellent! (Score:2)
...and if an open one is written, I'm sure all the other free OS people will be very happy too...
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
Re:Quicktime plug-in? Yuck (Score:2)
Can you make a module for a proprietary program under the GPL? Wouldn't it have to be LGPL'ed?
Someone enlighten me on this one, 'cause I'm not positive about it.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
Conflicts with the GPL?!? (Score:2)
I seem to recall there was some debate about GPL'd browser plug-ins, and I forget how the IANAL's sorted it out? Does anyone know if these plug-ins might violate the GPL?
Re:This is *so* getting claimed... (Score:2)
There are likely intellectual property issues that will scare away any potential commercial use of an Open Source MPEG4 codec.
Re:The need for an open source multimedia framewor (Score:2)
This is *so* getting claimed... (Score:2)
Linux multimedia is definitely hampered by the lack of a reasonable codec that everyone can use to view stuff. So there are people likely at work on this already. Add a $50K bounty, and suddenly a lot of dusty projects are going to get a good polish-up, IMUO. ;)
OTOH, once the codec is created, how can acceptance be encouraged? If Quicktime players refuse to include it (for example), we're back to square one, aren't we?
-TBHiX-
Ug (Score:2)
Re:Patents? Project Mayo? (Score:2)
http://mpeglib.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
Re:I think a few of us are missing the point here. (Score:2)
It's not at all obvious to me what they actually want.
They obviously know about the ISO MPEG-4 source since they provide it, and this is freely licenced. You still need to licence the MPEG-4 patents though, as you still would if you reimplemented the CODEC yourself.
It's also rather bizarre that they have provided the Microsoft (was that publically released?!) MPEG-4 source in addition, since anyone getting anythign from it will probably be infringing on Microsoft's copyrights and patents.
So what's the goal here? If you want an MPEG-4 implementation and are willing to say "screw the patents" then just use the ISO source. Reimplementing it won't help. Given that MPEG-2 has similar patent issues yet MPEG-2 open source CODECs are available without (yet) any heat from the patent owners, I'd say just use it!
IANAL.
Re:As a BeOS user, all I can say is... (Score:2)
Re:Nevermind MPEG! (Score:2)
Re:As a BeOS user, all I can say is... (Score:2)
Sorenson is doesn't work on BeOS, never WILL work on BeOS, and nearly all the internet's MPEGs are encoded in it. Understandably, I am eccstatic (see I probably spelt that wrong as well!) about anything that will help get rid of it. I thought "fuck Sonorson (okay, I spelt it wrong, sue me)" got it across, but apparently you don't seem to understand subtlety (probably spelt THAT wrong as well!)
man, I'd hate to come in second place... (Score:2)
Write it in Java (Score:2)
Write it in Java!! If there is one thing I can't stand it is playing around with over hacked C. I developed a pure Java MPEG-1 video browsing and searching enviornment [umass.edu] this summer. Java is a godsend. Take one look at the Berkely MPEGPlay code and you would know why. It will be a lot more usefull to the general public who want to tinker with new algorithms.
How long till this spreads? (Score:2)
And is this where we want OSS development to be headed, where coders will develop not for personal desire or want to enhance their machines in one way or another, but by looking for the high-paying projects?
My version... (Score:2)
wine
Awwww yeah! Come to daddy!
Judging submissions -- what criteria? (Score:2)
Will occasional jumpy video and/or audio during playback disqualify a submission? How will such a measurement be quantified -- or will it be a strictly subjective determination? Would a partial implementation be acceptable in any way (the MPEG-4 standard is fairly extensive from what I can gather)?
If two or more submissions all "work" OK, what criteria will be used to distinguish and rate/rank them? Is this, too, something perhaps yet to be decided? Does the submission date/time take precedence?
Unless and until there are some very clear answers to these sorts of questions, I'd caution anyone against devoting too much time to it, unless you're absolutely not doing it for the money. You may find out that they awarded the prize to Mr. Heeza Good Friend rather than Ms. Sheez Justa Stranger...
Andy
Some of the code sucks (Score:2)
The Microsoft code comes with a copyright notice in every file, which reads as follows:
Ming-Chieh Lee (mingcl@microsoft.com), Microsoft Corporation
Wei-ge Chen (wchen@microsoft.com), Microsoft Corporation
Bruce Lin (blin@microsoft.com), Microsoft Corporation
Chuang Gu (chuanggu@microsoft.com), Microsoft Corporation
(date: March, 1996) in the course of development of the MPEG-4 Video (ISO/IEC 14496-2).
This software module is an implementation of a part of one or more MPEG-4 Video tools as specified by the MPEG-4 Video. ISO/IEC gives users of the MPEG-4 Video free license to this software module or modifications thereof for use in hardware or software products claiming conformance to the MPEG-4 Video. Those intending to use this software module in hardware or software products are advised that its use may infringe existing patents. The original developer of this software module and his/her company, the subsequent editors and their companies, and ISO/IEC have no liability for use of this software module or modifications thereof in an implementation. Copyright is not released for non MPEG-4 Video conforming products.
Microsoft retains full right to use the code for his/her own purpose, assign or donate the code to a third party and to inhibit third parties from using the code for non MPEG-4 Video conforming products.
This copyright notice must be included in all copies or derivative works.
Copyright (c) 1996, 1997.
A quick look at the code looks disappointing; too few comments, and C++ written with a C programmer mentality. This is more of an illustrative implementation than production code; there's lots of memory allocation and deallocation within inner loops, and some things that obviously should be inlined are not. I doubt that this code will play in real time.
Or GPL with a Clause 10 exception. (Score:2)
<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
No sync because of covert-channel protection? (Score:2)
Some operating systems are not capable of providing synchronized multimedia because of features built into them to thwart covert channels [google.com]. For example, their schedulers jitter the CPU time values so one process can't use the amount of CPU time it uses as a covert channel to leak classified information to another process.
UNIX® systems and GNU systems are in general not affected by this feature.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
It's sponsOr, not sponsEr (Score:2)
Re:Explain to me... (Score:2)
Re:It's sponsOr, not sponsEr (Score:2)
Actually, the thing to do there would be to write a spell-checker module for perl that didn't suck (I did a quick search on CPAN [cpan.org] and didn't find anything, which doesn't mean there's nothing there, nor that there's nothing there that doesn't suck) so that it could be used in slashcode.
Re:Quicktime plug-in? Yuck (Score:2)
Errrrm
"The QuickTime file format, as explained in this book, has been incorporated by reference into the ISO/IEC 14496:1999 (MPEG-4) standard, published as of December 1999. The MP4 file format, developed by Apple Computer and IBM Corp., is designed to present a flexible and extensible format that facilitates the interchange, management, editing, and presentation of media. A presentation may be local to the system containing the presentation, or it may be via a network or other streamed delivery mechanism."
-- Inside QuickTime: QuickTime File Format [apple.com]
You might be able to leverage that when writing a codec.
Codecs are completely orthogonal to the MPEG-4 file format
Re:nice (Score:2)
Stuffit Expanders for Windows, [aladdinsys.com] DOS, [aladdinsys.com] and Linux [aladdinsys.com] can all be found here. [aladdinsys.com]
Is that technically possible? (Score:2)
.sig =
Re:Nevermind MPEG! (Score:2)
Re:Quicktime player? Yuck (Score:2)
Once, I downloaded a QT file that Media Player (Windows 2000) couldn't play the audio to. So I fed the QT file into Cool Edit. My suspicions were confirmed; instead of audio and video being interleaved at an incredibly tight interval, there were about 1-second snippets of sound separated by video bursts. I cropped out the video part and ba-boom, I had a funny as hell South Park sound byte!
Considering the QT4 player, I've only seen it on a mac (where it should be), and I am proud to say that the likes of it have never tainted my Win2000 machine. I do like Media Player, but I use Winamp for mp3s, since it has the oscilloscope readout. By the way, does anyone know of a codec (Winamp DLL or otherwise) that lets you directly open the .cin files for Quake2? I hate going into 320x240 software just to properly view the cinematics (anti-aliasing stinks with movies, except in the Q3 .roq files)
Re:wait a minute.. (Score:2)
Re:Write it in Java??? UGGGHHHH!!! (Score:2)
A video player or codec coded in Java is worthless, especially for such a high-compression high-raw-datarate format such as MPEG-4. What I want is LESS Java, not more. I'm sick of all these stupid Java applets, codecs and source files tainting my screen and critically delaying running times.
One of the worst Java applets ever created is the "Punch the Monkey" banner ad. That one seems to render and run FASTER on a slower processor. That's violating at least a few guidelines!
Pointless (Score:2)
Cheap labor (Score:2)
Re:Nevermind MPEG! (Score:3)
Re:How long till this spreads? (Score:3)
Video codecs probably are not good targets for bounty driven programming though. First of all to really develop a codec takes a very substantial amount of knowledge of signal processing theory, human perception, code optimization and numeric methods - at least if you want a USEFUL codec to be the result. In this case maybe things are a bit easier, the target, MPEG4, is already a documented algorithm. For a from-scratch codec I'd expect that Open Source proponents would call the project vapour-wear before the research phase was even close to completion.
I'd be glad to be proven wrong, but I've yet to see a good quality codec come out as Open Source. Calling it a good codec because it's open isn't good enough in this case.
Wrappers versus Codecs (Score:3)
Likewise AVI can be a wrapper for a number of film formats, from MPEG1 thru VOB thru DivX
MPEG 1 AVIs work right now under aKtion, the KDE medis player.
Re:This is *so* getting claimed... (Score:3)
Provide the content, and people will download your codec to watch it, trust me here.
How many Windows users installed QuickTime just to watch {Phantom Menace | X-Men | LOTR | etc.} trailers?
Correct answer: "A fucking whack."
Re:Quicktime plug-in? Yuck (Score:3)
Erm, the standard player relates to QuickTime in approximately the same way that WinAMP relates to the MP3 specification. It's just an app that calls the movie-playing APIs. Don't like it? Write your own.
No, I'm not being sarcastic. I did exactly that [qdesign.com] for QDesign last summer.
LAMP! (Score:4)
It uses Windows DLLs for CODECs and can play AVI, MPEG2, MPEG3, SMPEG, QT...
Nevermind MPEG! (Score:4)
How are we supposed to be a serious platform for graphics and content if we can't even play the stupidest movie clips? (/RANT)
Patents? Project Mayo? (Score:5)
If it's not only something similar in quality to MPEG-4 but uses MPEG-4 itself, what about all the patents? From earlier
On a similar note, can anybody say what the guys at Project Mayo [projectmayo.com] are doing? Sounds very mysterious, but the line Our members include the creators of DivX
It would be great to have a codec that is cross-platform, free, open-source, and performs well. And please don't put it into QuickTime -- I know that it's only a 'wrapper format' for all kinds of content, but I don't want to be forced to use that stupid QuickTime player anymore. Design the codec as a library in a way that you can make a QuickTime plugin from it if you want to. Give it a file extension of its own, so that all
For such a big prize.. (Score:5)
As another person mentioned, they plan on releasing this code under the GPL (not LGPL) which will be violated when the program is run through the QuickTime interface that is a requirement of winning!
Also, by not forcing people to be MPEG4 compliant (according to the rules your code must be MPEG4, or something with 'better quality'), the resulting codec may not be open standards compliant, which in many ways nullifies its existence...Do we really want open platforms like Linux to still have their own different set of codecs? I guess having a 'different' codec beats having obsolete ones... but most web sites (etc) will use something more standard, regardless of quality. Unless the codec is SUPER COOL and ported to many platforms, in which case the author could likely make much more than $50k off of it by other means.
Lastly, I looked through the site and didn't find any information on how this will be judged. Image quality alone? Or code quality? Or time to code? Anyone?