[FFmpeg-devel] vp8: decoder rewrite, spec cleanup

[Diego Biurrun]

On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 01:47:38PM -0400, John Koleszar wrote:
> 
> I know that there are people out there who have started rewriting the
> vp8 decoder and others that are looking at the spec, and I wanted to
> start thinking about how we could work together. We know both the spec
> and the decoder need significant refactoring and rewriting. I also
> know that the best way to get the spec into shape is to do a fresh
> implementation. So here are my thoughts:
> 
> I want to get as much energy going on this upstream as possible. We're
> going to be actively working on the decoder, and I'd love to see other
> people get involved. Certainly some people will do private rewrites,
> and having a second independent implementation is a good thing. Even
> if you choose not to work with us on the code, please consider working
> with us on the spec. Having a proper spec for this codec would help
> everyone. It's going to be in our git repository RSN (Monday?) and
> patches are certainly welcome. Or even just discussion on what's
> lacking specifically -- just share your thoughts in some form while
> they're fresh in your mind.

I suggest that you work with us on getting a native decoder into FFmpeg.
It's the natural place for such a decoder, we have ample experience and
an extensive and optimized infrastructure is in place.  Also, a decoder
in FFmpeg will directly benefit all FFmpeg users, which at this point
means 100% of the FOSS world and 50% of the rest of the world.

> Also, if you have any other ideas on how we could work with the open
> source video community, I'd love to hear them. The webm-discuss@ list
> is a good place for these topics, technical topics should remain on
> codec-devel at . We want to work with everybody and be good citizens, but
> please bear with us; we're new to working in the open source
> environment and it will take some time to come up to speed.

You are on the right track.

I would suggest that you remain open to changing the libvpx API and
even the VP8 bitstream for the time being.  The project is still young
and could benefit from extensive changes.  If you value backwards
compatibility too highly, go for VP9.  Nothing is set in stone yet,
you should not miss that window of opportunity.

Another thing I would suggest is looking into releasing the other On2
codecs into the open.  We are not only interested in VP8, we want free
implementations of everything (VP4, VP5, VP6, VP7, AVC audio).

Diego