Theora has had ample time to try and beat h264, they haven’t and I personally doubt it’s possible (there are just too many patents they have to avoid). Theora has the advantage of being newer and being in an area with fewer patents and should hopefully be able to provide the efficiency of h264 at the very least. It’s really the only way if Mozilla wants to h ave any chance of making a difference.

Leaving it in the sidelines while wasting money and time on Theora is useless.

And given that Theora is, sad to say, a rather crappy codec (most relatively recent blind comparison tests I’ve seen have shown that Theora pales in comparison to h264 at most bitrates), it looks like there’s no sign of any good truly open source codec emerging any time soon. The simple fact is Theora is never going to succeed when they are actively competing against h264 (Apple and Flash) or even VC-1 (WMV).

I had high hopes for Dirac, but if it is so crap, I guess we’re still going to have to wait.

The best possible way to solve this problem at this point is for MSFT and everyone else to compete intensely driving the price down.

WMV is a very inexpensive codec to use and is not at all encumbered with patent issues like the ISO codec.

This threat has been charged at free software companies before, most famously at the Linux operating system. All that can be said is what Xiph has stated, that an exhaustive legal study has been done, no patents appear to be violated, and anyone disputing the claim should step forward. The source code is all available, so there should be little difficulty for patent holders to find problems, if any exist.

Yet, for decades, they have received no claim of infringement!

Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora were built for the express purpose of being free from patent restrictions. You’ll need some evidence, if you are going to seriously claim their entire mission is groundless.

That said, your idea that Firefox and Theora can somehow be “killed” makes me wonder if you know much about how these open source projects work.

Also, this announcement does not mean Dirac will be left in the cold. In fact, Dirac can be used within an Ogg format, so it is an easy next step after the framework is put into place.

But something is better then nothing…

PS: to all the “Dirac is for high rate and HD” crowd, I thought HD and high-bandwidth are the “wave of the future” anyway!

Firefox 4 will be x264“theora + vorbis” powered one.
( tri licence to be quattro licence?

I like the foundation did Right investment.

Lords of FORGE cheers

The Theora codec is very lightweight compared to Dirac and should fit the niche of ‘easy, fast, simple, general purpose vide codec for anything’ for a good while. Dirac is still finding its legs, but the format has been designed for a higher-rate sweet spot. Dirac is most efficient coding high-rate video, Theora is most efficient at mid- and low-rate (especially low).

That just shows how clueless Mozilla is about patent issues intrinsic to video codecs.

If Mozilla is going to try to forge their own path with open-source twaddle rather than adopt standards with several open-source implementations and an established ecosystem, they deserve whatever they get.

First, Mozilla shouldn’t be creating and distributing their own media playback architecture any more than they should be distributing printer drivers — it’s no only another distraction of the kind that seems to be impacting what should be Mozilla’s mission, but there are people and companies doing this better than Mozilla will ever be able to. The browser should simply use what’s available.

Second, your comment presumes that Mozilla is stupid enough to do it without a license, and I’m sure that’s not the case. Look to Apple as a model of a company who’s distributed AVC decoders for free for many years with QuickTime and iTunes installs. Surely Mozilla can work something out with MPEG-LA if the standard license agreement doesn’t work for Mozilla’s business model.

” We couldn’t ship it in Firefox, for example.”

Good, because you shouldn’t. You should focus on making Firefox suck less on the PC before Chrome eats your lunch there, and before Opera completely pre-empts any mobile opportunities.

“The codec quality argument really only matters for people pumping out a lot of HD video.”

That’s just crazy-talk. AVC/H.264’s greater efficiency is nice for HD, but where it’s crucial is mobile.

“…Theora works great, and doesn’t carry the risk of license fees down the road that H.264 has.”

That’s hilarious. Nobody’s gone after Theora yet because nobody of any consequence knows about it. If hell froze over and Theora did become popular, prepare to be sued out of existence by the companies who own the patents it steps on.

I’m sure the Webkit crew will also be on board with this standard.