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

[Malcolm Caldwell <malcolm caldwell ntu edu au>]

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'

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

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.

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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