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

"Slava Borilin" <Borilin@spiritdsp.com> Tue, 02 June 2009 17:34 UTC

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From: Slava Borilin <Borilin@spiritdsp.com>
To: stephen botzko <stephen.botzko@gmail.com>, Henning Schulzrinne <hgs@cs.columbia.edu>
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Subject: Re: [dispatch] [AVT] Proposal to form Internet Wideband Audio Codec WG
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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