The Xiph.Org Foundation has just announced the release of Theora 1.0. Theora is an open source video codec designed to be a royalty free alternative to high compression formats like MPEG-4.
Theora is based on the proprietary VP3 codec developed by On2 Technologies, but is licensed under a BSD-style license. This means it doesn’t have any of the common open source restrictions on commercial software like forcing derivative works to also be released under as open source.
Even though the format itself has been unchanged since 2004, as the first official stable release Theora 1.0 is still a major milestone. In order to attract the interest of commercial software and especially hardware developers stability, or at least the perception of stability, is an important consideration.
Another aspect of Theora its developers hope will be significant is its relatively low CPU footprint. That makes it particularly suitable for mobile devices like smartphones and portable media players.
Still, it remains to be seen if it can truly become an industry standard (in any industry). It may be that the widespread support for standards like MPEG-4 ASP (DivX, XviD, Nero Digital, etc,… ), MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), and VC-1 already in place will prove more of a factor than any perceived benefits to Theora.
Result for: MPEG
Vivitar has announced the upcoming launch of the DVR565HD High Definition Camcorder which should hit retailers by the end of April.
The company did not give all that much information on the upcoming camcorder but did say it will “record in H.264/MPEG4 high definition at 720p with a Frame rate of 30 frames per second, plays back at 1080i and comes complete with HDMI cable for playback on HD Ready TVs.”
The device will be available in two colors, silver and black and will be “compact in shape and size”. The camcorder will have a 3-inch flip out color display, “a rechargeable lithium ion battery and will support SD cards up to 4GB.”
More information when it becomes available.
Result for: MPEG
Flickr, the well known photo sharing site, has announced that it will begin offering video Streaming in an effort to rival the dominant market leader, YouTube.
Flickr, which is owned by Yahoo!, made the announcement today but with a hitch. Movies will be Limited to only 90 seconds long and 150 MB in size. The movies will be shown as thumbnails next to user’s uploaded photos.
All Flickr visitors “will be access all of the tools for videos that they can currently for photos - namely users can add comments, captions, comments, geotags, and privacy restrictions so only friends or family may view their videos.” The videos can also be embedded on other sites.
Flickr’s staff said the new decision was based on the fact that an increasing number of digital cameras and DSLRs offer video recording. Although it will now offer video streaming, the company insists it does not want to be the next YouTube and instead wants a more personal touch for friends and family to upload short movies.
“People aren’t using YouTube to share their personal short-form video clips”, said a Flickr spokesperson.
“Ninety seconds helps us define that rebroadcasting commercial content is not what this site is for”, added Neilson.
The only other hitches are that only “pro” subscribers will have the ability to add videos and the site only supports AVI, MPEG, and MOV formats.
