- From: Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>
- Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2007 10:02:48 -0700
- To: Doug Schepers <doug.schepers@vectoreal.com>
- Cc: "public-html@w3.org" <public-html@w3.org>
On Apr 5, 2007, at 8:55 AM, Doug Schepers wrote: > Has Xiph done an exhaustive due-diligence patent search on Theora? > I know that rights to VP3 have been waived, but we don't want any > nasty surprises. > > Maybe the big players could help with this, by devoting some > resources to finding and promoting the best unencumbered video format? > > I'm cool with Ogg Theora if it turns out to be unencumbered, but > I'd also be open to any other suggestions. For me, the key factors > are that it should be royalty-free, able to implemented across > devices (such as on a mobile phone), and compatible with SMIL (is > this a real consideration?). For those who haven't followed the <video> discussion on the WHATWG list: Apple is wary of the incremental patent risk of any new video codec. Like Microsoft, we have deep pockets and are a likely infringement lawsuit target for any submarine patents. We would personally prefer the MPEG-4 family of codecs (AAC, MPEG-4 Part II, H.264) to be a common baseline. Most large companies already use MPEG-4 pretty extensively (both Windows Media and QuickTime support it, it's in many consumer electronics devices). And the availablity of hardware implementations (both programmable DSP and more power-efficient hardwired circuitry) makes it much more appealing for mobile applications. We don't think it's appropriate to mandate it in the spec, though, in part because the non-RF nature of the applicable patents is a problem for free software browsers. Regards, Maciej
Received on Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:03:19 UTC