Re: [video-codec] The Can Has Landed

Trying to reply in the spirit intended, here's what I would say with a
devil's advocate hat on just for fun:

Daala seems like an extremely important research project to develop a
next-generation coded video representation that will also be free of
practical licensing obstacles.

But what are the merits of an IETF working group performing this kind of
high-risk, high-reward research, versus doing something much more boring
like "writing a specification for VP9 to enable interoperable
implementations, and then iterating on that technology"?

Google said in May 2013 that "a draft bitstream specification is well
underway." For whatever reason, they still haven't published it yet. (There
is also no independent implementation of a decoder written by a
non-Google-employee, afaik, much less of an encoder.)

But the VP9 format is certainly specifiable given effort, and the licensing
situation is probably about as well-understood as Daala's will ever be,
given the MPEG LA license.

So the devil's advocate question would be, if the problem is that "video
will never be a first-class citizen on the Net so long as it is only
available to the 'haves' who are able to license the required commercial
technology," is rallying around VP8/VP9 (perhaps with an actual
high-quality spec) perhaps a better/safer approach?

-Keith
On Mar 19, 2015 8:33 AM, "Monty Montgomery" <xiphmont@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello to everyone interested in Daala, NetVC, and the run up to
> the netvc BoF on Tuesday at IETF92 in Dallas!
>
> While I'm mentioning the BoF I'd also like to remind folks that
> the Hackathon on Saturday and Sunday includes NetVC and a decent
> portion of our own Daala team will be there.  Physical attendance
> at the hackathon required registration that's already closed due
> to the limits of the room, but the Daala team will be in the
> #daala IRC channel on Freenode the whole time, pretty much like
> we always are... online participation is always welcome and
> encouraged!
>
> And now to the pep talk...
>
> In 2013, Cisco announced the OpenH264 licensing hack as a step
> toward ending a long-standing and frustratingly non-technical
> roadblock to WebRTC: h.264, though dominant, is unlicenseable
> by Free and Open Source entities.   I wrote at the time that although I
> supported the practical aspects of the OpenH264 deal, "Licensing
> caused this problem, and more licensing is not a solution. [...]
> We've merely kicked the can down the road and set a dangerous
> precedent for next time around."*
>
> We're now standing where the can takes its first bounce.
>
> NetVC is our collective opportunity to reverse that precedent and
> to give the Internet and Open Web the only fundamental Free
> technology it lacks: a fully modern video codec with no
> 'permission required' strings attached.  The elevator pitch here
> is very simple: We must make for video what Opus is for audio.
> Video will never be a first-class citizen on the Net so long as
> it is only available to the 'haves' who are able to license the
> required commercial technology.
>
> Judging by the relative calm of the netvc mailing list, I don't
> think we (the proponets of netvc) face the same kind of
> controversy this time around as we did at the time of 'codec'
> BoFs.  That's a bit ironic, actually, as a video codec is a
> substantially more challenging technical undertaking.
>
> I do think there likely is some quiet skepticism-- there would
> have to be-- and so I'd like to invite the skeptics and Devil's
> Advocates to speak up here in the days before the BoF.  I doubt
> it will shorten the lines at the microphones, but perhaps the
> arguments will be more focused and better honed at that time.
>
> I'm not saying 'speak now or forever hold your peace'.  I'm just
> trying to shift the discussions that would normally start in
> a cramped uncomfortable room to the mailing list a little early.
>
> Cheers,
> Monty
> of Xiph Moz Daala
>
> * http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/61927.html
>
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