Re: Better Video Codecs - was Re: [GnomeMeeting-list] ideas..

[Damien Sandras <dsandras seconix com>]

Le jeudi 15 décembre 2005 à 15:36 +0930, Malcolm Caldwell a écrit :
> Just on the the whole 'better video codecs' thing.
> 
> I will be brutal and say that gnomemeeting will only every be a 'voip
> client that can also basic video' until there are better video codecs.
> h263 at the last, h264 to be a bit more modern, and theora to be 'open
> source'
> 

That is right.

> We cannot afford to wait until Craig and Robert implement video plugin
> codecs.  This might never happen.

That is right too.

Any contributor willing to do it?

> 
> While on the subject: gstreamer is gaining rtp packetisation abilities.
> Perhaps gstreamer could help implement codecs in gnomemeeting?  Or
> perhaps even video codecs?  gstreamer is lgpl.
> 

Not necessarily.

> On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 15:42 +0100, Conrad Beckert wrote:
> > Hi Damien,
> > 
> > > Patents are not on the code, they are on the technics, so it is certainly not legal,
> > > at least in the US. In Europe, it is still a bit "vague".
> > Fortunately, the EU-parliament rejected the proposal for computer implemented
> > inventions in July 2005. That happened after long struggle and intense
> > lobbying by civil liberty groups such as e.g the http://www.ffii.org/ To keep
> > our freedom, we have to use it to show that it is valuable :-) Otherwise we
> > will loose it sooner or later.
> > 
> > The codec issue is a rather big one when it comes to videoconferencing, since
> > 1- Image quality H.261 is inferior to what the usual suspects the e.g.
> > Messengers have to offer.
> > 2- most SIP User Agents like e.g. xten, wengophone or the Java
> > sip-communicatior don't support H.261 anymore - so you can't issue a video
> > call from/to these clients using Gnomemeeting
> >  - the same goes for hardware phones / conference systems
> > 3- as someone on this mailing list mentioned and I was told by a person
> > related to deaf/hearing impaired people: it's hard to "talk" in sign language
> > over it (but this is actually a nice application for video telephony.)
> > 
> > > However, there is a licensing problem. x264 is GPL, and OPAL/OPENH323 ...
> > > x264 should add an exception clause for OpenH323/OPAL in their license.
> > Well, ffmpeg is LGPL which means that you can link it as a library. Check out
> > ther legal pages http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net/legal.php
> > 
> > Having compiled ffmpeg a while ago, I remember, that there is a "GPL" compile
> > option which means, that it disables all codecs which are non LGPL compatiple.
> > I wonder what's the case with H.263 (which would be a quantum leap to have it-
> > though it's not 264)
> > 
> > I also wonder how the Wengo guys and java sip-communicator folks solved their
> > legal problems concerning 263. (these are open source projects as well - some
> > GPL)
> > 
> > Another idea, which would solve point 1 and 3 but not 2 above: use Theora.
> > Check this out: http://www.tipic.com/tipicim - it's an open source Video
> > Jabber messenger using Theora as video codec. Perhaps opal/Gnomemeeting could
> > benefit. This would do to video what Speex did for audio - a decent free
> > codec.
> > 
> > 
> > Greetings
> > Conrad
> > 
> > 
> > > --
> > >  _      Damien Sandras
> > > (o-
> > > //     GnomeMeeting: http://www.gnomemeeting.org/
> > > v_/_    FOSDEM 2006 : http://www.fosdem.org
> > >         SIP Phone   : sip:dsandras gnomemeeting net
> > >                       sip:600000 gnomemeeting net
> > >
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> > >
> > >
> > 
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-- 
 _      Damien Sandras
(o-     
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