Re: Codecs for <video> and <audio>

On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 9:30 AM, Sierk Bornemann<sierkb@gmx.de> wrote:
> Knowing, that currently there has been a HTML WG survey about how to deal
> with the wording in the HTML 5 spec concerning the video codecs, especially
> OggTheora/OggVorbis (versus H.264), I want to ask, if Sun's attempt to offer
> a solution to that tricky problem via the royalty-free Open Media Commons
> (OMS) initiative under the leading role of Sun Microsystems is far out any
> discussion and far out any deeper investigation? Would it not be worth to
> draw closer attention to also that attempt, whose goal is to solve exactly
> that problem the HTML WG curls around since a long time? What about further
> and more backing and foster that initiative in what they are doing?
>
> FYI:
>
> OMS Video, A Project of Sun's Open Media Commons Initiative
> http://blogs.sun.com/openmediacommons/entry/oms_video_a_project_of
>
> Open Media Commons
> http://www.openmediacommons.org/
>
> Open Media Stack Video Specifications
> http://www.openmediacommons.org/collateral/OMS-video-specs.html
>
> Open Media Stack - Video Specification V0.91 (June 9, 2009), Updated video
> specification for OMS now available for community review
> http://www.openmediacommons.org/collateral/OMS-video-v0.91.pdf
>
> Crawling the archives of the HTML WG concerning <audio> and <video>, I
> haven't found any closer discussion, that nearer considers this OMS attempt
> as a possible solution.
> My question is: why? Or better: why not?
> Why only focus on Ogg Theora|Vorbis versus H.264? What is the point, that
> disqualifies OMS from being further discussed (or better: discussed at all)
> as a viable royalty-free alternative to the two well-known but disputed
> favorites?

OMS is very new and really, to the public, doesn't exist yet. With OMS
we have all the problems of Theora, plus a lack of uptake (i.e. tool
support, published sites etc), which Theora is now really getting. OMS
is so new that it hasn't even been published in an open specification
and as open source code yet, so we cannot even experiment with it in
the community yet.
Like Theora, no relevant standards body has given it it's blessing.
While that is really the only thing that's missing for Theora
(according to some recent discussions), OMS has years of tool
development, community improvements, and community support to catch up
on first. We don't even know where OMS stands wrt image quality in
comparison to the other video codecs. However, if OMS turns out to be
a better codec than Theora or Dirac, it stands a chance to be a
follower within a decade.

Regards,
Silvia.

Received on Wednesday, 29 July 2009 03:13:49 UTC