

Native Sorenson Playback Comes to Linux 341
Pivot writes: "With the release of Xine v0.9.11a, it is now possible to play back Quicktime movies encoded with the Sorenson SVQ1 encoding natively. There are still some minor issues with sound, and still no support for SVQ3 encoding, but overall this is a major achievement. Downloads are at xine.sf.net. I wonder what apple will do about this." Note: you may have to cut and paste that "movies" link into a new tab or browser.
For anyone not in the know... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:For anyone not in the know... (Score:2)
Licensing? Patents? (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone care to explain what the team did about
these little problems?
Re:Licensing? Patents? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Licensing? Patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Licensing? Patents? (Score:2)
Re:Licensing? Patents? (Score:2, Insightful)
please contact me (Score:3, Informative)
Not your average couch potato (Score:4, Funny)
Man, that must have been uncomfortable!
Re:Licensing? Patents? (Score:2)
As I understand it, patents don't just prevent you from distributing competeting products that do the same thing the patented product does, but also prevent you from making and using them yourself. So if I create a Widget and patent it, you can't make or use a widget even for personal use without my approval.
Of course, I don't have any idea what protects the Sorenson stuff (copyright or patent), but if it is a patent, you may have already infringed just by having your player.
Then again, IANAL, so it's probably all wrong
Re:Licensing? Patents? (Score:4, Interesting)
2) Laws are hard to remove once they are in place.
3) The only way to get real discussion on bad laws sometimes is to defy them.
4) It is not unethical per se to break a law. It's just that laws are generally made to prohibit unethical behaviour.
If the letter of the law also has the side-effect of prohibiting some ethical behaviour, what do you do? You do what your conscience permits and take responsibility for your own actions.
By the way, to head off any stupid straw-man arguments like "what if you think it's OK to kill children?", forget it. Stick to the point. If you have a real reason to believe it is OK for big corporations to restrict what ideas humans can think and write and implement in code, let's hear it.
Personally, I think it would be easier to defy the abuse of patents in this way than to defy the abuse of copyright law. It should be harder to make the case that someone is "stealing" something they wrote *themselves*.
Re:Licensing? Patents? (Score:3, Interesting)
There comes a point when people need to protest a government that no longer adaquately represents them. One such protest is to disobey laws that are viewed as bad or unjust. If enough people (see aformentioned founding fathers) protest then there can be change.
I will use decss on my PC because I think the DMCA is a bad law. To that end I also will not pirate any DVD's. My rights should be covered over fair use, but my actions are deemed illegal by the DMCA. I choose not to follow it.
Oh and to keep this on topic, software patents are bogus and should not be honored either. Copyrights (and copylefts for that matter are valid), but to patent software is stupid.
Re:Licensing? Patents? (Score:2)
If you don't recognize that text, go smack your history teachers. Unless, of course, you're not an American, and then you might very well consider the Declaraton of Independence a quite uncivilized document. In that event, I say that you are welcome to your opinion, and you are welcome to try and enforce that opinion on me. Bring friends. Lots of them.
Re:Licensing? Patents? (Score:5, Interesting)
From: Arpi
To: ffmpeg-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
Date: Yesterday 23:02:26
Hi,
I've just examined xine's fresh working SVQ1 decoder. It's implemented in a ~60k
Looking at the source, it looks like SVQ1 is a tricky h263 variant - as gerard also noticed some time ago. They crypted (don't worry, just order
change and some xor) the first 4 bytes of the header, to hide it's a h263 one. Ah, and they replaced the patented DCT by recursive VQ.
And, they use YVU9 (chrominance 4x4 subsampled) instead of YV12 (2x2 subsampling).
So, as you can see, the SVQ1 guy who wrote the native decoder, replaced the sorenson patented stuff with something free..
Re:Licensing? Patents? (Score:2)
Linux is catchings up... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2, Insightful)
Lack of (certain niche) applications certainly hurts Linux, but it's NOT the Linux community's fault. And I guess if the companies don't want to target their products for us Linux users, then too bad for them, it's lost business for them, not for me.
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a problem, but the crappy sound support (OSS, Alsa will be better), non-existant color management (X says: what's that?), poor font support (-including-a-strange-30-year-old-craptacular-nam
"window managers" making window placement a quirky and non-standard thing, etc. -- are all much more serious problems.
I like Linux, it runs on my home computers 24/7. But, as Linus recently noted, "all the interesting stuff is on the desktop" -- it's where the most work is needed at the current time.
How many things in X will we need to fix?
* font support
* color management
* alpha blending support
* usable configuration (Think Mac, Windows, even BeOS)
* changing resolutions on the fly
* vnc (or other RFB) server support, so I can view my desktop -- the one shown on the monitor -- from another computer.
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2, Interesting)
VNC: DOn't they already have a VNC client/server for X? If not, why not just use X itself? (Doah!)
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:3, Offtopic)
The Unix VNC server is actually a modified version of Xfree86 3.x, using a memory framebuffer instead of video hardware.
However, it would be nice to have a version of VNC that plugged into Xfree 4.x and exported the existing display. X has hooks for this, so it should be possible w/o modifying X or producing a special version of it (like with the current Xvnc server). This would allow the viewing of the current desktop from another machine. Yes, X is a networked display, and can display apps running on another machine. But that's not the same as what VNC does for a Windows machine (for instance), or what VNC exporting an existing X session would do.
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:3, Interesting)
x0rfbserver [hexonet.de]
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:3, Interesting)
The only other thing X keeps track of is the size of the root window. I propose that the server send a ConfigureNotify event to whoever is listening to the root window (probably the window manager) indicating the new size. The window manager can then respond to this by moving and resizing windows (using whatever rules it wants) to get the resized display. Of course the window managers will need to be rewritten but I expect this would happen very quickly.
The only other thing is the screen size macros on the Display object. It would also help if xlib was changed so requesting the screen size either did a round trip or a signal was added to indicate that the local copies need to be updated. However I don't think this is vital and it can be ignored as most applications don't use the screen size for anything except to figure out the resolution.
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
It should be possible to change the size of the desktop of a running X server programmatically, without editing the config file and restarting X (and all of your apps).
YAXSP (Re:Linux is catchings up...) (Score:4, Informative)
Oh man. Yet another "X sucks" troll. I have no idea why I waste my time with these, but here goes... (and in HTML, no less :-)
I could really stand folks spending 15 minutes doing research before writing these critiques. OTOH, I guess I was successfully trolled, so what do I know?
Re:YAXSP (Re:Linux is catchings up...) (Score:3, Interesting)
Does Xft give me access to ligatures and kerning pairs? Does it give me access to outlines for my drawing app? Does it give me access to full fonts I can embed in my PS/PDF output?
There are a bunch more features that would be nice, but the mere ability to do AA fonts on screen does not equal real font support.
Re:YAXSP (Re:Linux is catchings up...) (Score:2)
> kerning pairs?
Not sure, but I think so.
> Does it give me access to outlines for my
> drawing app?
Yes.
> Does it give me access to full fonts I can
> embed in my PS/PDF output?
Yes.
Xft gives the client full access to Truetype font data via Freetype 2. With that, you can do pretty much whatever you want.
Re:YAXSP (Re:Linux is catchings up...) (Score:3, Insightful)
SO your post comes down to, "We can use freetype to render truetype fonts." Yeah, okay, what about the -ugly-and-wierd-font-descriptors-it-uses?
Re:YAXSP (Re:Linux is catchings up...) (Score:2, Informative)
What about them? Users usually don't see these, programmers do.
The only reason you'd need to look at them (that I can think of offhand anyway) is if you're *trying* to find out what foundry made your font. ("Damn it, I want adobe times, not BSR times!") And in that case, I can't think of an equivalent way to find the same information under MacOS or Windows, so X's solution is clearly better.
Re:YAXSP (Re:Linux is catchings up...) (Score:2)
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
The existing stuff is powerful. You may not like the UI, but the foundation is not bad.
color management
Fair enough
Alpha blending support
This is in already
Usable configuration
There are plenty easy-to-use front ends for this. Try installing a random distro...Mandrake or RH.
Changing resolutions on the fly
You can change resolutions even more easily than in Windows, via ctl-alt-kp+ and ctl-alt-kp-. Also, apps in DGA mode can change resolution and (IIRC) color depth, though only for the DGA mode. The color depth thing isn't really an issue any more -- no one runs in anything but 24/32 bit color.
vnc server support
If not already done, this is really easy to do -- you can dump an X desktop image easily, and feeding it into VNC isn't rocket science.
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
changes the viewport, not the size of the desktop.
no one runs in anything but 24/32 bit color
Not true.
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2, Informative)
>Configure your X for multiple resolutions, and switch between them with ctrl-alt +/-
But when you change resolutions in Windows you actually change the resolution of the desktop, not just the monitor. XFree86 just scrolls the large image which can be very annoying. The desktop must be atleast as large as the highest resolution mode defined.
Also Windows and MacOS can change colour depth on the fly. X can't (Even eXceed on Windows complains when you change colour depth).
>>> vnc (or other RFB) server support, so I can view my desktop -- the one shown on the monitor from another computer
>VNC was made by AT&T, had has clients & servers for almost every platform, including linux
The Unix VNC server does not mirror the current display. It provides a seperate remote display. On Windows VNC lets you use the current display which can be very usefull. I wish the Unix VNC server could provde this feature.
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:3, Informative)
Try x0rfbserver [hexonet.de] This does what you want. It's been around for years and years.
VNC's approach of setting up a separate display is a design feature, designed to take advantage of X's natural ability to support more than one output display. You can also start the regular old AT&T VNC server such that it also starts X in the same session, giving you the same effect as x0rfbserver. This has been there since day one with VNC.
I only wish the Windows and Mac versions of VNC let you start a session that *didn't* control the current display. This is a failure of the design of the windowing systems under Windows and MacOS. Please don't attribute your lack of knowledge of VNC as a failure in the design of the X Window System or the Unix version of VNC.
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
I have no idea how to start "the regular old AT&T VNC server" so that it exports the existing
How do you do it?
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
My recomendation is that XFree86 be changed so the "old" interface claims there is exactly one 24-bit truecolor visual. It will claim this no matter what the memory on the screen is. If you have set it to 8-bit mode then the server does dithering to a color cube. All X programs can handle this nowadays. There would also be a "new" interface that lets a program peek at the actual memory layout and contents of the colormap on 8-bit displays.
The main speed requirement is for image buffers. I would also support a fixed set of image buffer types no matter what the display really uses: 1,2,4,8,16 bit monochrome, 8 and 16 bit versions of rgb and rgba, and a 16-bit format that matches the 5-6-5 format used by many XFree86 displays. All programs can assumme they have exactly this set of image formats and can continue using the current X interface.
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:3, Informative)
>> font support
Already prety damn decent, if you use freetype 2.1.1
Yes, some display support has improved. How about printing? How about font installation? How about obtaining font metrics and outlines from the font system -- oh, wait, you have to ask X for the path and then read the font file yourself, that's right, duh.
>> alpha blending support
Keith has also included this in his set of X updates, alpha support is included
Where? Link? I'd love to see it. All I've seen to this point is his "twm" demo, which was slow and limited (according to Keith).
>> usable configuration (Think Mac, Windows, ven BeOS)
Actualy redhat, mandrake, etc are comming a long way with this. (admitedly not there, but closing in)
This must be one of those invisible features. How do you install a driver, change the refresh rate, color depth, resolution, etc. without editing
>> changing resolutions on the fly
Configure your X for multiple resolutions, and switch between them with ctrl-alt +/-
This does not change the resolution of the display, only the size of the viewport.
>> vnc (or other RFB) server support, so I can view my desktop -- the one shown on the monitor from another computer
VNC was made by AT&T, had has clients & servers for almost every platform, including linux
I'll refer you to my other post about this... see below.
Most of the stuff you mention is pure FUD, or outdated.. (so outdated that you should be comparing linux to windows95 then)
Please research a bit more before trying to spread more FUD
It's not FUD, and you're actually the one who's mostly wrong, not me. Plus, you're a little touchy, aren't you? I mean, X isn't a sacrament or anything, and I'm not even suggesting that it has to be replaced.
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
This does not change the resolution of the display, only the size of the viewport."
Ah...yes, it does. It does both, depending on what you've set for your allowed states. It moves from state to state.
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2, Troll)
Also, I think you've overlooked one VNC project named x0rfbserver. This runs an rfb server (the VNC protocol) on display 0 of your X server. Therefore it shares the current desktop over VNC (just like VNC on Windows and the Mac). This project has been around for years (I stumbled across it probably 5 years ago or thereabouts).
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
I only ever change my resolution -- ahem, viewport size -- to watch too-small pr0n videos, anyway.
-jhp
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
OK...that's cool, and perhaps things such as the RH installation X configuration churns out the ModeLine info just for completeness's sake or to simplify the code that writes the configuration file, but...given that that's the case, and that I will presumably never bother with a monitor that doesn't do DDC again, what's the least I can get away with putting in the configuration file to minimize changes when I do change monitors?
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:3, Informative)
DDC. Yes, XFree86 supports DDC level 1 and level 2. Look in XFree86.0.log and you'll see XFree86 talking to your monitor, discovering refresh rates and supported resolutions, then populating your modelines with what it found. It's all automatic and has been for at least a year.
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
You really need to update your linux installs. XFree86 4.0 uses DPMS, no more modelines needed. You can still use them if you have an older monitor of course. XFree86 is up to 4.2 already... Also if you use Mandrake you can run drakxconf to configure your X server. It's also somewhere in their Control Panel equivalent. I prefer the XF86Config-4 editing myself, you can do things like create your own modelines, configure different pointing devices so the Wacom stylus only works in drawing programs, you know the things you can't do in MS Windows.
Configure your X for multiple resolutions, and switch between them with ctrl-alt +/-
This does not change the resolution of the display, only the size of the viewport.
No it has always changed the resolution, if you're monitor can only do 1024x768 and you ask it to do 1280x1024 then it will just change the viewport, but this is something you have to specify by editing the XF86Config-4 yourself, the GUI configurations won't let you set a viewport larger than what your monitor supports.
Maybe you've upgraded the Xserver and always kept your old XF86Config? You should try just using the default, it seems your machines are massively misconfigured. Try switching to Mandrake where you want a desktop linux, it will even import your MS Windows fonts if you have it installed. (Through drakfont, but you probably just want to get used to drakconf which launches all the different configurators you'll want.)
I might agree that Linux isn't a Desktop OS, but Mandrake is much easier to use than MS Windows, it's just no Mac. And as far as configuration it has both beat handily. The only real weakness you've enumerated is the color management, that is still up to individual applications. Though it seems that applications that need it, like Gimp, can figure out the parameters they need. Why don't you write this and submit it as a patch to X11? The hardest part is probably finding the docs on reading the monitor spec files from Windows and converting them into some a more readable format.
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
Until someone demonstrates how to configure X so that actually changes resolution, and doesn't just pan around a fixed-sized framebuffer with a varying-size viewport, I won't believe it's possible.
Maybe you've upgraded the Xserver and always kept your old XF86Config? You should try just using the default, it seems your machines are massively misconfigured.
It's funny how people on
I'm running redhat 7.2 with Xfree86 4.2
$ rpm -q XFree86
XFree86-4.2.0-6.62
Here's my (largely system-generated) config file:
So, perhaps you could enlighten us all one some web page somewhere as to how X should be properly configured by brainy experts such as yourself.
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
It's funny how people on
man XF86Config
Seriously do a Google search, this is a discussion site, the details of your particular configuration don't go here. I had a similar problem once in '95 with a slackware install, I don't remember what the problem was, but this was before DPMS. The solution is probably simpler now. I don't run RedHat 7.2 my suggestions probably would miss something or seem rude because you already have part of it right.
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
DPMS is related to power saving, not querying.
There is support for this...see matrox-i2c.
Frankly, given that I can run at a higher reresh rate by ignoring what my monitor says I should run at, I'm pretty happy with things as they are.
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
XRender is only for fonts. The translucent menus in KDE are a hack.
I hope Keith achieves all the good stuff he wants to, because it'll really improve X. And I hope he does it quickly.
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2, Informative)
Not true. I suggest you check the Developers Guide to XRENDER [eax.com] before making false statements. Even a perfunctory glance at the screenshots on the page show alpha blended geometries other than fonts.
And I am quite sure for KDE 3.0.1 KDE->Control Center->Look and Feel->Style->Effects->Menu Translucency Type has an option for "XRender Blend". XRender, not just for fonts anymore.
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
It's still a translucency hack, but Xrender provides hardware support for the mathematical operations. The relevant piece of the desktop image is picked out and then some mechanism, rather it be software or Xrender accelerated, blends the static desktop image with the image to be overlayed with the weights assigned and generates a new static image based on the results. This is an improvement over the background-only translucency of the various terminals, and works for about 97% of the people who like it (as eyecandy), but it doesn't actually let you monitor dynamic content beneath the tranlucent section. Try opening a translucent menu over a scrolling page or animated gif or something and you'll see what I mean. I guess even with practical applications, the content being monitored is usually static, but we can't just proclaim, "look, true translucency, we can quit now this looks fine."
All this said, between XRender, Xft2, XVideo, DRI, and Xmovie extensions, really good things can be done on the desktop level with X, while keeping the networking core that is so useful so often...
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
Yes, alpha blending and all.
Pan
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:2)
While QuickTime is mainly discussed as a compression technology, it is important in a lot of other ways in the authoring industry. Many major video applications use QuickTime as an API for video capture, editing, compositing, etcetera. Avid, Media 100, After Effects, Premiere, CineStream, Cleaner, Squeeze, HipFlics, and many others all use QuickTime. Probably 80% of everything you see on TV was a QuickTime file at at least one point in the authoring processs. And QuickTime's depth is hugely underestimated for those who look at it merely as a player technology.
One great example of QuickTime is the reference movie. This is a movie that is made up of references to media in other files, potentially with transforms attached to it. Think of it like a frameserver, but with all the information needed to serve living in a media file itself, without any requirement for another application.
Describing Apple's attitude as "refuses to port" is erroneous. Apple's response to a number of UNIX vendors over the years has been "We're happy to port QuickTime to UNIX, but you'll have to pay for it." It'd be at least $20M for Apple to do, and probably many times that. And then there is the ongoing testing. Apple does regression
There is a huge amount of low-level things that QuickTime relies on, like low latency access to sound cards, Y'CrCb native blitting to video cards, etcetera. Even if they did port it, it would probably only work on distributions it specifically targeted which had the stuff in the kernel it needed. And there is a TON of machine-specific optimization in there - this isn't a GCC and Go kind of thing.
Re:Linux is catchings up... (Score:3, Insightful)
And a working Sorenson codec available for Linux is a good step toward closing some of those gaps.
The ripple effect on other Free systems (Score:2, Funny)
freebsd guy
Here's a good idea. (Score:2, Funny)
And in related news ... :) (Score:2, Funny)
Codeweavers CEO Jeremy White announced that it was considering filing for bankruptcy. "Our main source of income was the large body of Linux users who needed a way of viewing all the movie trailers released by Apple, and the large body of work from the adult entertainment industry, only in Sorenson encoded Quicktime", said White. Later he explained, "That drove the sales of our Crossover Plugin product. We anticipate that the release of Xine's native Linux Sorenson Quicktime player will effectively destroy our market. It is therefore prudent for us to protect what assets we currently have by filing for bankruptcy".
GPL questions (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple has filed a lawsuit [zdnet.co.uk] against Sorenson because of the license between them and Sorensen regarding Sorensen Video. Therefore I have to assume that the methods behind Quicktime are NOT available to just anyone to use.
And this is released under the GNU General Public License [gnu.org] which says:
If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
Now while Quicktime is already available on Linux [codeweavers.com] in that case there's a license agreement [oreillynet.com]. Where is that with Xine?
Re:GPL questions (Score:2)
This product uses an open-source free alternative to the Sorenson code to acheive the same outcome. Having implemented their own algorithm, they're not using any patented one, and the portion of the GPL you picked out doesn not pose a problem.
Re:GPL questions (Score:2)
Too late:
20.6.2002: xine-lib/xine-ui 0.9.11 has been released. This should fix most bugs, add a few new decoders (including a native sorenson/svq1 video decoder), and it will possibly be the last xine release before another big architecture update.
A player for mpeg1/2 video streams, avi files, DVD and VCD that synchronizes video and audio playback - currently in beta stadium, but already usable.
* Development Status: 4 - Beta
* Environment: X11 Applications
* Intended Audience: Developers, End Users/Desktop
* License: GNU General Public License (GPL)
* Natural Language: English
* Operating System: FreeBSD, Linux, SunOS/Solaris
* Programming Language: Assembly, C
* Topic: Display
Not the latest Sorenson codec (Score:4, Informative)
But hey, if you *really* want to watch that those old "Phantom Menace" or "Braveheart" trailers again, this is just the ticket.
Re:Not the latest Sorenson codec (Score:2)
Sorry - it was cool at the time to watch the postage stamp sized clip under X over and over
Back to Windows (Score:2)
Re:Back to Windows (Score:3, Informative)
How did they get the Sorenson codec? (Score:2)
Anyways, now that we have the decoder, I suppose the *encoder* will come shortly so we can produce quicktime movies that can be used across all platforms!
Re:How did they get the Sorenson codec? (Score:2)
You can, you just can't use the Sorenson codec without licensed software. Remember that QuickTime is an open multimedia platform, well documented and widely supported. Most QuickTime movies use the Sorenson codec because of its quality. You're free to use something else.
Re:How did they get the Sorenson codec? (Score:2)
I wouldn't mind buying Sorenson Broadcaster boxes at $199 each, and sticking the CD on the side of my server's cases. That way, I can prove I'm a licensed user, but I use Linux as the server instead.
I wonder if that strategy would be legal?
Re:How did they get the Sorenson codec? (Score:5, Informative)
Seems like basic (well, not really basic) reverse-engineering, Jean-Michel.
Will codec authors resort to patents (Score:2)
MS has done it with streaming ASF or WMA (can't remember which)...obviously not a good trendsetter...
Re:Will codec authors resort to patents (Score:2)
Apple. (Score:5, Interesting)
Probably heave a sigh of relief, as they realize that the open source programmers who've been pestering them for a codec they can't give away won't be back.
I'm more concerned about what Sorenson will do about this, to be honest.
--saint
In related news... (Score:2, Funny)
-- -- -- -- --
Thru WineX. Needs just one more letter to make it a Native Sorenson Playback, but everybody knows, it's just a give or take
OT: Fullscreen tip if Xine is skipping frame (Score:2, Informative)
But here is one problem that I ran into which others who are out setting it up may see, along with the poorly documented solution. At full-screen at a high resolution I was dropping frames. If my Gv driver was working right, this shouldn't happen. But with other drivers it will. So drop the resolution.
But if you change the resolution of X with Ctrl-Alt-- (the last - being the one on your number pad), fullscreen mode will take up the full original size of X. To alter this behaviour you can launch the preferences (second button on left of control bar) or edit ~/.xine.config to set gui.use_xvidext to true. NBow fullscreen will be the size that X is, and it is easier to avoid dropping frames.
Cheers,
Ben
PS Despite the legal issues, finding and installing DeCSS is not very hard, and lets you use Xine to handle regular DVDs as well.
Can Xine keep up with Quicktime evolution? (Score:2)
But...can they keep up with Apple and Sorenson when it comes to Quicktime evolution? Is their implementation a linux/windows bridge like codeweavers, or do they actually have a native implementation of Sorenson v1? If it is the latter, how will they keep up with Apple's and Sorenson's release of v3, 6, etc? It seems to me that unless we have some sort of productive partnership with these companies, we'll always be a day late.
Re:Can Xine keep up with Quicktime evolution? (Score:2)
I would say that open source hackers have no chance to keep up with Apple, but it looks like Apple's strategy has shifted to using open standards. Open source implementations of MPEG-4 were actually released before Apple's. (Too bad MPEG-4 is patented out the wazoo.)
What's up with this awful skin? (Score:2)
Re:What's up with this awful skin? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What's up with this awful skin? (Score:2)
This is NOT clean-room implemented (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is NOT clean-room implemented (Score:2)
Re:This is NOT clean-room implemented (Score:3, Insightful)
Patent protection is valid against reverse engineering. Clean room implementations are irrelevant. What needs to be shown is that the functionality is accomplished without using any of the methods in the patent. This is true whether the person making the decoder knew of the methods or not. This is 'working around' a patent.
Clean-room reverse engineering is useful for making work-alikes of copyrighted methods. In those cases, copyright protects specific expression, and not methods. So, using a different specific expression to accomplish the same methods is fine. The same algorithms can be used.
MPEG 4 on Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
MPEG-4 is really sweet stuff. Just as a test today, a friend and I encoded an entire full-length movie that was captured via FireWire DV and encoded it into a 653MB MP4 file using QuickTime 6 on OS X. I was amazed at the quality. It blew away MPEG-1/VCD, DivX, and even Sorenson in video quality, and the audio quality was quite good too, all while fitting on a single 700 MB CD-R.
I would love to see DVD players support MP4 playback from burned CD-R's. The quality is actually good enough that you can sit back and watch a movie distributed on a single CD and just enjoy it without being annoyed by poor quality video and audio.
MP4 will really revolutionize video... if the licensing issues don't kill it before it gets off the ground, but that is another story
Not really Apples problem (Score:2, Insightful)
This isn't redistribution however. As far as I understand it's a standard QT for Windows that's running under Linux (that's what Wine does. Makes windows apps run under Linux - right?). So it don't change anything. On the other hand someone posted that they have reverse engineered some of the binaries from QT. Depending on if it's Apples binaries or Sorensens one of the two might not like that (Sorensen most of all perhaps. Since they have an interrest in protecting their technology).
Native is evil (Score:4, Funny)
Apple is planning to leave Sorenson anyways (Score:3, Interesting)
That would be huge good news for consumers everywhere (assuming MPEG-LA gives up on the per-minute fee).
MPEG-4 codec will even the playing field (Score:3, Insightful)
That being said, doesn't MPEG-4 have some pretty herendous licensing restrictions of its own?
Slashdotter's, none the less, should be campaigning for sites to support MPEG-4 . If they want Linux, and *BSD to become fully supported across streaming sites.
Re:Does it really matter? (Score:4, Informative)
You can download a precompiled version from here [apple.com] and the source code from here [apple.com] or by checking it out of their public CVS server.
Yes, it matters a LOT (Score:2)
Yeah, so what? Apache's open source, but you still need a browser (decoder) and authoring tools (encoder). All the server does is send the data to users over the net. If you can't have a browsers, you can't even see the content, and without at least a text editor and image manipulation program you can't create any content.
In fact, when you encode video for streaming, you need to include a thing Apple calls "hinting". Normal MPEG4 and other streams do not have this. The hinting is an additional track that specifies to the server where the packet boundries out to be so that lost packets won't corrupt lots of upcoming video. The point is that most of the streaming magic happens at the encoder where the "hinting" makes most of the decisions about how to stream the video... the server does parse the data and read the hinting, but all the "real work" is precomputed by the proprietary encoder.
Re:Does it really matter? (Score:3, Informative)
As nearly as I can tell, you need to also lay out a similar wad of cash for an encoder to produce "hinted" quicktime video that's usable with Apple's free streaming server.
If someone knows of a free or cheap way to encoder or convert video to include "hinting" for use with Apple's open-source streaming server, please speak up!
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Saving the videos : how can I do it? (Score:3, Informative)
QuickTime Streaming Server [apple.com]
RTP/RTSP Tutorial [apple.com]
Re:who cares (Score:3, Insightful)
they dont compare
qt is a container
you could say qt sucks avi is better
or sorensen sucks divx is better
but not qt sucks divx is better.
Re:who cares (Score:2, Informative)
DivX on the Mac is also problematic. With third party utilities, I also get video with no sound.
Re:who cares (Score:3, Informative)
The only good this does is let linux users watch quicktime trailers (after they download no doubt).
Re:who cares (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Cross-platform? (Score:2)