Re: [dispatch] [AVT] Proposal to form Internet Wideband Audio Codec WG

["James M. Polk" <[e-mail]>]

At 11:12 AM 6/2/2009, Henry Sinnreich wrote:
>Content-Language: en
>Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
>         boundary="_000_C64AB99A3E55hsinnreiadobecom_"
>
> >This leaves the other reasons I heard for doing it at the IETF which is the
> >price of participating
>
>This is an important point.
>Given the travel constraints for some of the most valuable potential 
>contributors and reviewers, could we envisage online work until the 
>economy improves, so that an eventual BOF to start with should not 
>be starved of attendees?

Henry

this economic constraint will exist no matter which SDO this work 
eventually gets done in.

>An online BOF?
>
>There are several free online meeting tools available...
>
>How can this be done within the IETF policy?
>
>Henry
>
>
>On 6/2/09 10:57 AM, "Roni Even" 
><<[e-mail]>[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>Hi,
>I do not want to sound like someone who is for IPR (I am not), but why stop
>at codec, let's require it for all IETF work. There are IPR on IETF work
>which is must simpler, in my view, than wide band audio codecs.
>
>I think that we can start with "royalty free" even though I am not sure that
>it will accepted as part of the charter of any other work group so why pick
>on codecs which require more work.
>
>This leaves the other reasons I heard for doing it at the IETF which is the
>price of participating (cheaper than being an ITU-T member) and maybe design
>less expensive characterization tests.
>
>Roni
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Jean-Marc Valin 
>[<mailto:[e-mail]>mailto:[e-mail]]
>Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 6:14 PM
>To: Roni Even
>Cc: 'Slava Borilin'; <[e-mail]>[e-mail]; 'Jason Fischl'; 
><[e-mail]>[e-mail];
><[e-mail]>[e-mail]
>Subject: Re: [AVT] [dispatch] Proposal to form Internet Wideband Audio Codec
>WG
>
>Hi,
>
>Roni Even wrote:
> >
> > I am not sure what prevented you from doing it today at the ITU or
> > MPEG, why do you see the IETF handling it differently.
> >
> > I would also like to remind you and Jean-Marc that once you are
> > bringing work to a standard body it may require collaboration with
> > other people who will have other proposals that will also address the
> > same requirements and you may need to invest money in comparative
> > testing by independent listening labs.
> >
> > I also think that you will need to supply the codec in source code and
> > provide copy right to the IETF.
> >
>
>I am well aware that bringing work to the IETF would require
>collaboration with others. I am not seeking control over the work I am
>currently doing and would really welcome such collaboration. The idea is
>only to have the best wideband codec possible without IPR issues. Given
>the ITU and MPEG track record, I think it would be very unlikely for any
>of those organisations to work on an IPR-free codec.
>
>I also agree with Henry that "the Internet has different criteria than
>ITU-T networks may have". Internet adoption follows different patterns
>than adoption in the ITU primary target markets. For example, the
>Internet has more consumer-reconfigurable software, while the ITU has to
>deal with a lot of fixed hardware deployments. At the ITU, it makes
>sense to invest large sums of money into testing and characterisation of
>codecs because the codecs deployed there usually stay around for a long
>time and the infrastructure investments are usually very large. On the
>other hand, I would say the investments in codecs for the Internet are
>comparatively smaller and, while testing is still important, it is not
>as critical as it is for the ITU.
>
>It's also a choice one has to make. It is unlikely that companies would
>invest money in expensive testing if they are not going to obtain
>royalties in return. However, I think we may be able to define some more
>lightweight (collaborative?) testing that is sufficient and doesn't
>involve as much investments as what the ITU does. For the Internet, I
>believe an IPR-free codec that everyone agrees performs well is better
>than a patent-encumbered codec that has had more extensive testing. This
>is again another difference with the ITU: patent-encumbered codecs tend
>to hurt a lot more on the Internet because many applications (e.g.
>giving away the client) are very hard (or impossible) when one has to
>pay per-channel royalties.
>
>As for the source code issue you pointed out, all the Xiph codecs are
>already published under a very permissive open source license (BSD), so
>this would not really change.
>
>     Jean-Marc
>
> > Roni
> >
> >
> >
> > *From:* <[e-mail]>[e-mail] 
> [mailto:[e-mail]] *On Behalf
> > Of *Slava Borilin
> > *Sent:* Monday, June 01, 2009 11:50 PM
> > *To:* <[e-mail]>[e-mail]
> > *Cc:* <[e-mail]>[e-mail]; Jason Fischl
> > *Subject:* Re: [AVT] [dispatch] Proposal to form Internet Wideband
> > Audio Codec WG
> >
> >
> >
> > Agree with Jean-Marc.
> > SPIRIT is interested to contribute as well - having a dozen of proprietary
>codecs developed, including
> > one specifically desgined for internet (SPIRIT IP-MR, which is now under
>WGLC on draft-ietf-avt-rtp-ipmr-04) -
> > multi-rate, scalable, adaptive, wideband codec.
> >
> > We can also continue this work with IETF.
> >
> > Moreover, most if not all efforts coming from ITU on codecs unfortunately
>are NOT really focused on
> > internet-specific codecs (that's why several companies have had to invent)
>- as ITU preference is mainly
> > specific (i.e. cellular) networks at first.
> >
> > however, as we see the greant rise of pure "internet-basd communications"
>(skype, webex/citrix, and many others) -
> > we all (and users) are suffering from inefficiency in all currently
>"standard" codecs and ambiguity in the choice of
> > internet-targeted ones.
> >
> > Again, we probably can put together enough number of contributors to the
>WG to have the expertise.
> >
> > regards,
> > Slava Borilin
> >
> > --
> > John Lazzaro wrote:
> >
> >     A traditional response to this type of request is to note that the
>IETF
> >
> >     really doesn't have much in the way of expertise in audio codec
>design.
> >
> >     I don't see many of the regulars who present at the AES codec paper
>sessions
> >
> >     posting here on AVT (ditto ICASSP paper sessions for voice codecs).
>It's
> >
> >     a full-time job to keep up-to-date and contribute to that
> >
> >     signal-processing lore.
> >
> >
> >
> > Well, there's no reason that the IETF cannot build such an expertise
> > in audio codecs. This is actually something in which I'd be interested
> > in getting involved and I'm sure others at Xiph.Org would be
> > interested as well. We have several people with audio codec expertise
> > from working on Vorbis, Speex and (more recently) CELT. It turns out
> > that the CELT codec currently under development at Xiph actually meets
> > most of the requirements from the original proposal in being a very
> > low delay codec with adaptive bit-rate and sampling rate (up to 48
> > kHz), scalable complexity, and good robustness to packet loss. We'd be
> > willing to continue the development with the IETF. Even if not with
> > CELT, it's still like to be involved in such a new WG.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> >    Jean-Marc
>
>
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