[MEncoder-users] Patent free codec

[Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski]

On Sunday, 21 August 2005 at 10:53, Antonio wrote:
> --- Julio César Carrascal <jcarrascal at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > It's there a codec that isn't encumbered by US
> > software patents? I was
> > just wondering if I could play anything with mplayer
> > if compiled with
> > flags to exclude patented algorithms.
> The only one is Theora (video encoder) that came with
> Vorbis in a ogg container.
> http://theora.org/

AFAIK that's not true, despite their saying so.
That's because most of the algorithms in video encoding
are patented and you can't develop a similar codec without
using them. And Theora is similar to MPEG-4.

I'd say Dirac and Snow could be patent-free.

R.

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