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

stephen botzko <stephen.botzko@gmail.com> Tue, 02 June 2009 18:13 UTC

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Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:13:13 -0400
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From: stephen botzko <stephen.botzko@gmail.com>
To: Slava Borilin <Borilin@spiritdsp.com>
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Cc: dispatch@ietf.org, avt@ietf.org, Roni Even <Even.roni@huawei.com>, hsinnrei@adobe.com
Subject: Re: [dispatch] [AVT] Proposal to form Internet Wideband Audio Codec WG
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>>> i think this is probably false alert.
I would hope so.  I think its important that the characterization testing
(however it is done) prevent the standardization of a codec that is
sub-standard.

So I'd prefer Henning's last risk item to be that "a standardizable codec
might not result".

Steve B.

On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 1:33 PM, Slava Borilin <Borilin@spiritdsp.com> wrote:

>  I do not beleive the one that will come wil be low quality.
> at least people from the potential contributors (at least Skype, Speex,
> SPIRIT) are already pretty-good in the commercially exploiting their own
> codecs on the market.
> i think this is probably false alert.
>
> regards,
> Slava Borilin
>
>
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* stephen botzko [mailto:stephen.botzko@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Tuesday, June 02, 2009 9:32 PM
> *To:* Henning Schulzrinne
> *Cc:* Roni Even; dispatch@ietf.org; Jason Fischl; avt@ietf.org;
> hsinnrei@adobe.com; Slava Borilin
>
> *Subject:* Re: [AVT] [dispatch] Proposal to form Internet Wideband Audio
> Codec WG
>
> >>> - the quality of the codec may not be competitive
>
> I think its very important that the codec quality be competitive.  People
> expect excellence from IETF standards  Standardizing non-competitive codecs
> because they are cheap does not seem to be a good choce.
>
> Steve B.
>
> On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 12:15 PM, Henning Schulzrinne <hgs@cs.columbia.edu>wrote:
>
>> I view this as a trade-off. If we pursue this, there are risks:
>>
>> - nothing may come of it since there are no experts willing to help
>> - somebody will claim IPR on the resulting work
>> - the quality of the codec may not be competitive
>>
>> However, if we don't do this, we are stuck with the status quo, which is
>> not all that satisfactory. Thus, unless there are significant costs for
>> "innocent bystanders", I see this as a risk worth taking. In the worst case,
>> we are no worse off than we are today. In all other cases, we'll have an
>> additional choice for a wideband codec, even if it's not "the best", just
>> "good enough". After all, most people use G.711 today, which has a really
>> hard time making that claim.
>>
>> Most real work in the IETF is done by very small teams, typically less
>> than 10, so as long as we have a handful of people that are willing to
>> contribute, this can work. It might even work better, since you may get
>> fewer people who have half-baked opinions - we may skip the binary vs. XML
>> debates...
>>
>> We can set some ground rules ("must be tested with packet loss of 5%") and
>> then see what happens. Compared to most network protocols, the likely
>> negative impacts (such as security or congestion control issues) of even a
>> badly-designed codec are pretty limited.
>>
>> Henning
>>
>>
>> On Jun 2, 2009, at 11:57 AM, Roni Even 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:jean-marc.valin@octasic.com]
>>> Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 6:14 PM
>>> To: Roni Even
>>> Cc: 'Slava Borilin'; avt@ietf.org; 'Jason Fischl'; dispatch@ietf.org;
>>> hsinnrei@adobe.com
>>> 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:* avt-bounces@ietf.org [mailto:avt-bounces@ietf.org] *On Behalf
>>>> Of *Slava Borilin
>>>> *Sent:* Monday, June 01, 2009 11:50 PM
>>>> *To:* jean-marc.valin@octasic.com
>>>> *Cc:* avt@ietf.org; 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
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Audio/Video Transport Working Group
>>> avt@ietf.org
>>> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/avt
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Audio/Video Transport Working Group
>> avt@ietf.org
>> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/avt
>>
>
>