[whatwg] <video> element proposal

[Gareth Hay]

This is maybe off-topic to some degree.

What are the DRM constraints of this format?
I only ask as your organisation is embarking on an MS-DRM fueled  
online media project, and I am curious as to the position of this codec.

thanks

On 22 Mar 2007, at 12:28, Thomas Davies wrote:

> Hi
>
> Having been pointed at this discussion by Christian, I thought I'd  
> let you know a bit more about where Dirac is as a royalty-free open  
> source codec. We're certainly very keen for Dirac to be considered  
> as one of the supported video formats.
>
> Dirac has been in development for 4 years. In compression terms  
> it's about twice as efficient as MPEG2, competitive with H264 and  
> VC-1 and substantially more efficient than Theora. The Dirac  
> sourceforge site contains a full specification of the system which  
> is very nearly complete. A subset of this, relating to professional  
> profiles for TV production, has already been proposed to the SMPTE  
> for standardisation as VC-2. Assuming that there are no roadblocks  
> in this process, we intend to submit the rest of the Dirac system  
> as VC-3 (or whatever number they're up to) towards the end of the  
> year. So this time next year, there is a good chance that Dirac  
> will be an international, royalty-free SMPTE standard.
>
> When we started Dirac, our intention was that the Dirac software on  
> the website could be developed to build a real-time system.  
> However, it proved difficult to make a system that could be a  
> reference codec for testing the specification/draft standard and  
> which had real-time optimisations. So in conjunction with Fluendo,  
> we started the Schrodinger project (http://schrodinger.sf.net)  
> which is a real-time, multi-platform implementation of Dirac being  
> developed in parallel with the Dirac software. This isn't quite  
> finished yet, but we will have a compliant alpha release in the  
> next month or two. It will be alpha because although it will do  
> real-time encoding and decoding in software, it won't compress all  
> that well. The Dirac site software is being maintained as a  
> reference and demonstrator system.
>
> Our aim then is to do a beta release of Schrodinger by the autumn  
> using all the encoder optimisations in Dirac, so by the end of the  
> year we should be "there" in terms of having a really good,  
> efficient real-time encoder and decoder. Third parties can start  
> designing implementations when the spec is finalised at version 1.0  
> in only a couple of weeks from now.
>
> We have been developing Dirac hardware as well. Hardware for the  
> professional applications will be on sale in a very few weeks, and  
> we're developing a prototype hardware HDTV encoder too.
>
>
> Thomas
>
>
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