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Programming IT Technology

Open MPEG-4 Codec Contest 115

Posted by Hemos from the must-have-open-standards dept.
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.
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Open MPEG-4 Codec Contest More

Open MPEG-4 Codec Contest

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  • He is a scary possibility. What if the mpaa sues the contest organizers and throws teh authors in prison for copyright voliation. Since the decss case has shown that providing a service that can be used to for ilegal services is now a crime.

    :-(

    I would be afraid to submit code there for obvious reasons.
  • Steempy yoo idiooot!

  • Yeah, the guy who wrote cp lost his house over it.

  • Ummm... Ogg anyone? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    With all of the recent legal difficulties relating to multimedia coming to the forefront these days it seems obvious to me that contributing to the development of another implementation of an "open" codec such as mpeg is not necessarily the greatest idea. Given all that has happened lately with codecs such as mp3, aac (yes, I know they are audio codecs but that's not the point), and others, doesn't it seem obvious that furthering these formats in any way is at best somewhat risky and could actually hamper future research and development of other free software? I do feel that there is definately a need for a free, cross-platform, high quality video codec, but I don't think mpeg-4 is the way to go. Why not work on an open source, patent free project like Ogg? As far as I know, there has already been some development on a video codec for the Ogg project and it seems that there are some very good ideas that are being planned. If vorbis is any indication of the kind of results we can expect from the rest of the Ogg project, then this, at least to me, definately seems to way to go. I say to hell with mpeg and all the patents and legal bs... let the open source community develop a REAL free opensource codec, and watch the corporations weep. If anyone is actually interested in this I would suggest the Ogg Project Homepage [xiph.org] as a starting point.
  • Well, I'm going to check it out because the AVI plug-in claims to already play MPEG4-encoded files (.ASF).

    (But don't post too loudly, or the download site will get slashdotted! ;)
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
  • I don't think this would be a GPL violation. Plugins are under the category of dynamically linked code which RMS has stated is not a violation of the GPL.
  • just dual license it.
  • Whoops. My apologies.
    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.
  • IIRC the format for MPEG 4 is based on QuickTime. That means the container format has info about how to interpret the contents, instead of e.g. the WAV format, which just has data without information about samples/sec, bits/sample, endian, etc.

    You might be able to leverage that when writing a codec.

  • Because, it'll be released under the GPL when complete. Then, it can be brought to Linux and other free operating systems immediately, and not at Apple's leisure (once a non-Quicktime player is wrapped around it). We need free codecs and we need them now.

  • 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.

    1. Sloppy
    2. The Natelie Portman naked and petrified guy
    3. The penis bird guy
    4. The hot grits guy
    5. Anonymous Coward
    I guarantee it, you'll have fifty thousand dollars in no time, all from just a $5 investment.

    BTW: Don't break the chain! The last guy who broke the chain mysteriously lost a lot of karma soon afterwards.


    ---

  • Re:nice (Score:1)

    by Evro ( 18923 )
    yes, I know that, but stuffit is not known as a web-standard cross-platform file format. No, I don't know what is, but a gz or zip would not have been so hard anyway.

    __________________________________________________ ___

  • nice (Score:1)

    by Evro ( 18923 )
    The codec must be in the form of an Apple Quicktime plugin

    this, and all the files are in .sit (Mac StuffIt) format... I guess they only want the extensive Mac hacking community working on this one.

    __________________________________________________ ___

  • 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:

    1. A release of a video by an extremely popular source, strictly in that codec. Sort of the video equivalent of Stephen King publishing an online-only book. This requires, of course, getting said popular type to do this. Not that easy.
    2. Porn. Like it or (like me) lump it, it has a high eyeball count for the time and money required to produce it. Still, for this, you couldn't just ask Dani Ashe or Asia Carerra (both noted cyber-active porn icons) to "donate their services" for the cause... it's too easy to find similar stuff in a non-codec form. You'd need to offer something that would be popular AND not easily available from other sources. Judging from troll postings around here, something on the order of Natalie Portman's first nude video shoot ought to do it. ;)
    3. Something underground, a la "The Blair Witch Project" if it was released as a netmovie first.

    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." ;)

  • How much do you think they would give me if I wrote them some html for a new web page that doesn't look like a rip off of MacNN [macnn.com].
    --------------------------------------
  • Just because its in java, doesn't mean it won't be overhacked.
  • not to mention another, even more brutally obvious mistake.

    quote
    "has speifics about"
    endquote

    come on guys...
  • exactly, like the previous poster say. This codec difficulty thing is all true, until Ogg Vorbis come alone and shock the world. Basically it's an one man army taking down the whole mp3 developming team.

    cy

  • Damn straight. I wonder if you can get the cash value of that iMac to use toward a more versatile machine, a down payment on a car or another semester at GT. Be careful who you give your code to, this whole thing reeks of Apple.
    --
  • The lack of a decent open source multimedia framework is IMHO holding back Linux etc from making a real dent in the multimedia market. Apple have Quicktime, and Microsoft have DirectShow (which is a DirectX enabled version of ActiveMovie which was a 32bit evolution of Video for Windows).

    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?
  • First of all, they made a spelling mistake, not a grammar mistake. Second, you made a grammar mistake and a spelling mistake. Third, you aren't funny so fuck off.

    Ryan
  • Embrace and extend.

    Hey, it worked before.

  • Ummm...this is MPEG-4, the next generation video compression cocec, not MPEG-1:Audio Layer 3 (MP3)
  • Where does the $50,000 come from?

    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.

  • Well, sort of... MP3 files do have a header. It's not the same thing as a wav file, however. There's nothing in a wav data segment to tell you anything about it's format. However, if you know the data is 44.1/16bit/stereo, you can play it back from any byte (+/-).

    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.
  • You missed the point. To those highly skilled and highly paid software gurus for whom 50k is "nothing", it would be trivial. The fact of the matter is, those people don't do anything for free -- even though there's a 50k$ payoff, it'd still be "free software".

    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.
  • If by "well over 50k/year" you mean 2x or 3x, then you're on target. Skilled programmers can make anywhere from 50k to 250k per year depending on who they work for, what they write, and where they are. I would submit that even if you made 250k, making 50k for a "trivial" bit of code would be worth the time. (If you're that skilled, it's not a hassle; it's a few "bored" weekends.)

    The likely "winner" will be a team of people, not a single god-like programmer.
  • Oh, you mean actions like posting rants as an AC? Good point, I stand corrected.
  • Duh??? MPEG-8 sucks... the opensource community should just keep right on going to MPEG-128. Thats would be way cooler
  • What's the story on MPEG-4? I thought it kinda WAS going to be open? No? Please explain the scoop on that.

    Oh, and if there's any informative replies, mod THIS up so that everyone can see! haha :)

    Mike Roberto
    - GAIM: MicroBerto

  • should top the list of ways to sponser an open source project.
  • You obviously haven't tried to _edit_ a pre-existing MPEG
    stream...
  • About TIME!
  • VERY TRUE!

    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. . .Sorenson truly is a great codec. It could be argued that Sorenson 2 compresion beats the stuffing out of anything out there (though only in 4:3 aspects). However, it also true that it ignores the *nix platform completely.

    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

  • 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
    ( \
    XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
  • And apple makes up about 10% of the computer population. Hardly a standard when most professional video is done on SGI's using MPEG. Quicktime blows big time.
  • I've been wondering... who's the industry sponsor?

    --
  • Do you have any evidence of that?
  • I'm too lazy to dig up the FSF's page on this topic, but you can write GPL'ed plugins for proprietary apps; you just need to include an exception in the license.
  • AFAIK, Apple has announced that QuickTime 5 will support MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 (or support them better than QuickTime 4), but they have not announced MPEG-4 support. If anybody has proof that I'm wrong, please correct me because I'd like to see MPEG-4 support as much as the next guy.

  • 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


  • 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

  • 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.

    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.

  • You, of course, are looking for Lingua::Ispell [uwinnipeg.ca].

    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.

  • Throw in more money for a contents site that just use this new codec.

  • 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.


    --

  • 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?


    --

  • once the codec is created, how can acceptance be encouraged

    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.
  • You mean play all those proprietary codecs for which you can't even obtain documentation for under NDA? Quicktime 4 stuff ain't gonna happen. Sorenson and Apple won't let anyone have at that. Not even M$ can play those, you have to use Apple's player. And M$ asf ain't gonna happen either. That one's the M$ proprietary MPEG4 standard. And Real Networks won't let anyone get at realvideo. Even for the Intel Indeo codec, you have to sign an NDA. With just the one xanim guy coding at it, it's not going to get very far. So what's there left to play? I guess there's MPEG1 and MPEG2, but those files are HUGE.

    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.
  • Well, that's what these MPEG4 contestants are trying to do. They're trying to make an open GPL'd codec based on the MPEG4 reference. I was just trying to explain to the guy why this matters. Designing your own codec from scratch is supposedly really really hard. But I don't think we have to, we can use the MPEG4 reference codec. Assuming that there aren't patents we'd be infringing on, of course. The cable modem guys have said they wanted to come up with an open MPEG4 codec to use for streaming video. Not for normal TV broadcasts, MPEG2 is better for that. There was a previous slashdot article on that. So the other advantages of doing MPEG4 then is that there is already a lot of demand for an open codec and there is a lot of industry acceptance of MPEG4.

  • ...after all that work, and still not see a dime. Why don't we just find someone who's willing to do this work for $50k

    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.

  • But when I read the prize included a free Macintosh, I threw the code away.
    --
  • Free OSs don't need a codec, they need a free version of the quicktime API allowing other quicktime codecs and applications to be ported to linux easily.

    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.
    ---
    >80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
  • But how many studios (or whatever takes care of those nowadays) are likely to release their trailers for your codec?

    Correct answer: Um, I wanted to come up with a clever counter to "A fucking whack." but I've got nothing...

  • Whether it's for MP3, MP4 or any other non-free multimedia medium, developing new software in support of monopolistic or patented file types is like taking another step back from freeing ourselves from "can't see past the ends of our dollar bills" companies. Why do we continuously support companies that will eventually (if not now, later) pull the same sort of crap that Microsoft or Freunhofer or CDDB did? Want to make a permanent difference? Help develop free as in beer and speech solutions that none of us will ever have to "illegally" hack to do what we want them to do. For example: Ogg Vorbis Audio and Soon to Be Video Encoder [vorbis.com], and FreeDB [freedb.org].

    Peace.

  • I think it's at http://heroine.linuxave.net/quicktime.html Is it possible to make an open mpeg4 codec? There are some issues with mp3 audio (that's why vorbis exists) but mpeg4 video is okay? I don't have a clue today (-night).
  • and a Kotex is something you found in your mother's purse when you were little.

    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.

  • Ummm..the quicktime 5 format IS the MPEG-4 codec.

  • Excellent! (Score:2)

    by pb ( 1020 )
    If there's one thing I miss on Linux, it's good Codec support. I'd love to see a good, high-quality encoder come out of this, much like the LAME project did for mp3's.

    ...and if an open one is written, I'm sure all the other free OS people will be very happy too...
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
  • Hmm. Whether you like Quicktime or not, I'm not sure if this will fly.

    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.
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
  • They insist that it be released under the GPL but that it also must be available as a QuickTime plug-in as well as a plug-in to all kinds of proprietary software?

    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?
  • Quicktime player is extensible, as is I believe Windows Media Player. The barriers to actual acceptance will most likely be the quality of the codec. Trying to get anything other than a fan-boy site like slashdot to use it won't be succesful unless there are compelling advantages to using it. The 50K bounty is no more than a signing bonus for an engineer capable of doing industry leading research in the area of video compression.

    There are likely intellectual property issues that will scare away any potential commercial use of an Open Source MPEG4 codec.

  • Agreed, but there are several in development. For example, I am working on libmedia [libmedia.org].

  • 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)

    by delmoi ( 26744 )
    I do hate quicktime, the windows player sucks ass, I'd rather use a hacked player in windows then that crap.
  • mpeglib will also let you play divX's on Linux - it wraps the Windows CODEC.

    http://mpeglib.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]

  • Total effort to do what???

    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.

  • So you like that fact that you can't watch most Quicktime movies on Linux? If I had said "Fuck Windows Media 4.0" nobody on /. would give a damn. But since Sorenson isn't an MS product, people feel compelled to defend it, regardless of whether it deserves defending. Sorenson is a proprietory compression codec that locks out a good part of the computing population from watching most Quicktime videos.
  • How are you supposed to turn into the premier platform for content and graphics by still using X?
  • Geez. Touchy touch. I know what Sorenson is, I hate it for obvious reasons, and I can't spell it. Knowing how to spell something != knowledge of it, or vice versa.

    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!)
  • ...after all that work, and still not see a dime. Why don't we just find someone who's willing to do this work for $50k - why is this contest format so popular all of the sudden?

  • 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.
  • With this, and other efforts of offering bounties or prizes for development of software, how long will it be till a good majority of OSS developnent turns into a bounty-hunt for the quickest way to a desired goal?
    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?
  • mount /dos
    wine /dos/windows/mplayer.exe <file.mpg4>

    Awwww yeah! Come to daddy!
  • Why aren't there any clear, objective criterion on their site for determining if a submission is correct and/or working satisfactorily (whatever that may be)?

    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
  • First, note that this isn't a contest to write a codec, it's a contest to interface an existing codec with QuickTime. Two simplified MPEG4 codecs are provided; an ISO version and a Microsoft version. The ISO version is a TAR file which WinZip claims is garbled. The Microsoft version is a ZIP file containing a TAR file containing a Visual C++ 5.x project, all of which will unpack and compile.

    The Microsoft code comes with a copyright notice in every file, which reads as follows:

    • This software module was originally developed by
      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.

  • Clause 10 of the GNU GPL [gnu.org] allows authors to create exceptions to the License. Guile and libstdc++ both use an exception "this library may be linked to proprietary software."
    <O
    ( \
    XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]

  • 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]
  • How about a contest to write an open source Slashdot spell checker?
  • MPEG-4 is open, but it's just a spec. If you want an implementation of it, you have to code one yourself. (ISO provides some reference code, but I don't know if it's any good.) You also have to take care of the patent licensing if you want to use it.

  • 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.

  • IIRC the format for MPEG 4 is based on QuickTime. That means the container format has info about how to interpret the contents

    Errrrm ... not really. It just means that the atom-based file structure of QuickTime is used to achieve a high level of interoperability.

    "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 ... that's the POINT of using QuickTime's format, because it's the best out there at separating them :)
  • this, and all the files are in .sit (Mac StuffIt) format... I guess they only want the extensive Mac hacking community working on this one.

    Stuffit Expanders for Windows, [aladdinsys.com] DOS, [aladdinsys.com] and Linux [aladdinsys.com] can all be found here. [aladdinsys.com]
  • I am refering to the fact that corperations have got such a strangle hold in file formats and the like (FhG's claim taht it is impossible to write an MP3 encoder/decoder with out infringing of their patents), do such patents not exists for MPEG-4? Or Did the ppl who set it up, and designed the "STANDARD" screw up, enableing us to have a way in which we can write an OPEN (beer/speech) MPEG-4 codec?


    .sig = .plan = NULL;
  • Yes, we have such a player which does play most AVI formats. It's called Avifile [divx.euro.ru] and works as a plugin for the XMPS [enst-bretagne.fr] player. It can do Intel Indeo? 5.0 & DivX formats, and GSM 6.1, MPEG-1 all layers, PCM, etc. as it's homepage claims.
  • I hate the QuickTime4 player. Nice format; if I became dictator of the IT world, I would force Apple into only refining QuickTime and give up their computer industry.

    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)

  • ...instead of e.g. the WAV format, which just has data without information about samples/sec, bits/sample, endian, etc.
    the WAV format does have a header for bits, sampling rate, and mono/stereo. It's mp3 that's headerless; kinda cool, cause if you can find a download manager that'll save the partial file (as it gets it) into the destination (not like IE and Netscape do; putting it into temp until it's complete), then you can stream it by definition (of course, assuming your connection is greater than 16K per second for 128Kbps).
  • Do you KNOW how much latency Java introduces just by the nature of Java? It's been proven that Java introduces latency; go to shugashack.com and download the Q3 1.17 DLLs (if you have Windows, of course), slap those DLLs into \baseq3\ and watch the 15% increase in performance over the QVM sources!

    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!

  • Alright they want a "QuickTime MPEG-4" codec. Quicktime 5, due this fall, will have it. Why give away 50 grand for porting something to Quicktime that will be there by the time the contest is over?
  • no comments, don't be a fool. let say 1000 people try it... you all get paid 50$ for trying... and all the benefits are going elsewhere... and the lucky 50 000$ recipient worth much more...

  • Re:Nevermind MPEG! (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07, 2000 @03:21PM (#796685)
    You're not supposed to be a serious platform for graphics and content. You're supposed to be a server. Now get me some soup, bitch.

  • Re:How long till this spreads? (Score:3)

    by substrate ( 2628 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @03:06PM (#796686)
    By and large most projects will still be done by people to fill their own personal needs, ala the linux kernel and Linus. There are some areas that are otherwise neglected where the enticement of a financial reward could really help in getting an Open Source alternative out there. I think of this a bit more like contract programming where the fruits of the labour are given to the community.

    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)

    by Nailer ( 69468 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @03:20PM (#796687)
    When most people talk about Quicktime, they mean the Sorecnsor codec. It's actually possible to create and play Quicktime movies on Linux right now - as long as they're not using Sorenson, which 98% of Quicktime films do.

    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)

    by Snocone ( 158524 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @04:17PM (#796688) Homepage
    once the codec is created, how can acceptance be encouraged?

    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)

    by Snocone ( 158524 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @04:31PM (#796689) Homepage
    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.

    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)

    by mholve ( 1101 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @05:02PM (#796690)
    There's a great player out there called "LAMP" for "Linux Animation and Movie Player." [inria.fr]

    It uses Windows DLLs for CODECs and can play AVI, MPEG2, MPEG3, SMPEG, QT...

  • Nevermind MPEG! (Score:4)

    by mholve ( 1101 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @02:56PM (#796691)
    (RANT) I'd like a simple, UNIX-based application that could just once and for all, play AVI, Quicktime and other formats that xanim won't do.

    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)

    by harmonica ( 29841 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @03:05PM (#796692)
    The codec should utilize MPEG-4v.2 video motion compressors or something of equal quality, source code available on this site.
    If it's not only something similar in quality to MPEG-4 but uses MPEG-4 itself, what about all the patents? From earlier /. discussions I remember that there are quite a few... I think it's not in the interest of those who want to create an open codec that this codec will be 'illegal' like DivX ;-).

    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 ;-) seems to make it a promising project.

    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 .xyz files will always play, everywhere! Create a small cross-platform player (maybe based on GTK) for people to download.

  • For such a big prize.. (Score:5)

    by g_mcbay ( 201099 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @03:03PM (#796693)
    This contest doesn't seem that well thought out.

    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?

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