[MEncoder-users] Patent free codec

[Rich Felker]

On Sun, Aug 21, 2005 at 02:20:08PM +0200, Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
> 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.

Yes, it's a complete lie. Typical xiph propaganda.
Vorbis, while very good (opposite of theora :) is probably also
patented (even if after-the-fact) since it has some algorithms in
common with windows media.

> 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.

Definitely not. Wavelets are not at all patent-free.

Rich