[MPlayer-dev-eng] HW for open standard video and audio formats

[Svante Signell]

On Thu, 2005-04-21 at 22:32 -0400, Rich Felker wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 21, 2005 at 06:22:47PM -0700, RC wrote:
> > On Thu, 21 Apr 2005 19:45:01 -0400
> > Rich Felker <dalias at aerifal.cx> wrote:
> > 
> > > While you're at it, add MP3. It's just as open as Vorbis and Theora
> > > and snow...
> > 
> > Vorbis/Theora are untested in court, and debatable, but probably
> > legal.
> 
> This is a blatent lie. Theora uses the EXACT SAME ALGORITHMS as
> mpeg1/2. Vorbis uses lots of the same algorithms as mpeg audio and
> WMA. (Yes Vorbis probably is the prior art but that doesn't stop
> M$/etc. from patenting the algorithms later...)

So you mean that going for Theora is the same as MPEG2? But MPEG2 is licence bound! 
Just ask all euipment manfacturers.

> > MP3, however, is clearly patented, and will be some time before
> > the patent expires in the USA.
> 
> This is no different from everything else. Everything is patented
> because patent offices are incompetent at doing their job of verifying
> the claims made in patent applications. If you hire a competent patent
> researcher and have them look at ANY NONTRIVIAL PROGRAM they will find
> it infringes on numerous (albeit invalid by obviousness and prior art)
> patents.

This is the whole point. I prefer to use algorithms that even if they
are patented prior art does exist, making the patents invalid. In worst
case this has of course to be tested in court :-(
What about patents that are freely available to open source projects.
IBM hav such patents. Any in the area of video/audio codecs? 

So even if I go for NUT, which video and audio codec to use?
What licence does the NUT spec have?
Additionally, maybe we should also try to make a SW implementation of
the NUT container format for mplayer...
What about multi-channel audio?

Svante