Re: [rtcweb] selecting codec for RTCweb?

Stephan Wenger <stewe@stewe.org> Mon, 05 September 2011 23:46 UTC

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Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2011 15:27:42 -0700
From: Stephan Wenger <stewe@stewe.org>
To: Harald Alvestrand <harald@alvestrand.no>, rtcweb@ietf.org
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Subject: Re: [rtcweb] selecting codec for RTCweb?
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On 9.5.2011 13:12 , "Harald Alvestrand" <harald@alvestrand.no> wrote:

>On 09/05/2011 07:09 PM, Stephan Wenger wrote:
>> In this context, Alex and myself drafted and presented in Quebec
>> 
>>http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-wenger-rtcweb-layered-codec-00.
>>tx
>> t, which argues against mandation of codec technologies not supporting
>> scalability.  I have not seen any significant discussion in Quebec or on
>> this mailing list about codec selection, though there was some initial
>> noise on this topic during the BOFs.
>The other consideration that has been raised is, of course, the issue of
>license-insisted-on versus practiced-without-a-license codecs (I won't
>call them "license required" or "license free"; that would be
>presumptuous.)
>
>I believe we need a baseline codec that is "good enough", but I have
>neither a clear picture on how to quantify "good enough", nor a
>conviction that the scalability advantages raised in draft-wenger are
>important enough to tilt the balance.

Hi Harald,

What you write above is IMO a reasonable position only if you are
convinced that "practiced-without-a-license" has a sustainable mid-to
long-term perspective.  With respect to VP8, I'm not convinced, for a
number of reasons, some of which I could talk publicly about when asked
(though I prefer not to load up this list with my arguments, and,
therefore, don't volunteer them now).  Based on my current knowledge, I
could accept H.261 and H.263 as being "practiced-witout-a-license", but
those two are probably not considered "good enough" anymore by many here.
Btw., I like your "practiced-without-a-license" formulation, but note that
H.264 and its profiles (including commercially highly relevant profiles
such as High Profile) is occasionally also practiced without a license, as
a few open source projects in this field indicate.  Whether this is a
particularly good business choice depends on the business model of the
person making or using H.264 based systems.  Similarly, there are (and
have been for a while) indications that VP8 could soon fall in the
"license-insisted-on" category, in which case the prudence of practicing
VP8 without entering in license(s) also depends on the business model...

Stephan

>
>          Harald
>
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