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

[stephen botzko <[e-mail]>]

>>> - 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 <[e-mail]>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:[e-mail]]
>> Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 6:14 PM
>> To: Roni Even
>> Cc: 'Slava Borilin'; [e-mail]; 'Jason Fischl'; [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] [mailto:[e-mail]] *On Behalf
>>> Of *Slava Borilin
>>> *Sent:* Monday, June 01, 2009 11:50 PM
>>> *To:* [e-mail]
>>> *Cc:* [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
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Audio/Video Transport Working Group
>> [e-mail]
>> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/avt
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
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> [e-mail]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/avt
>