Multi-Platform Video Codec Seeks New Home 125
We started our journey as an
open-source
project contest in response to DivX, before
DivX networks came into
being. Due to a variety of issues (not the least of which was our
main investor pulling out and funding having to come out of my own
pocket), we mutated into a closed-source project that we intended to
distribute ourselves through the help of a third party. We finished
product development almost a year ago and have a really great
portable video codec that runs on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows.
The problem we've run into is that with the economy being as it is,
our candidates for distribution assistance have also all dried up.
We've considered just GPL'ing it and seeing what the open-source
community could do with it, but don't have anyone to oversee changes
and official versions, not to mention from the looks of the DivX 4.0
project, there don't seem to be a lot of people interested in (or
with the knowledge to) work on video codecs.
More or less, we've got a bunch of very well written CodeWarrior
projects that need to find a new home as we don't really have the
expertise or financing to sell it or even give it away. So, I'm
interested in knowing if anyone has any suggestions for what to do
with the project, or interest in taking it over (those with
experience with this kind of thing)."
If seriously interested, you can contact Eric using the mailto link at the beginning of this article.
Give it to academia (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't that where our favoriate things like fetch came from?
Ogg Tarkin (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you thought about... (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, what about companies that are working on video colaboration. Generally they have in house codecs that they write, but they are not always targeted for multiple os's.
Zro
Give it to gstreamer. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What I'd like to know is... (Score:3, Interesting)
And if Vorbis is any indication of the quality level that Monty, et al want to achieve with Tarkin, it's going to kick some serious ass.
To be on topic, if you guys aren't getting anywhere with investing, it may be worthwhile to see if the Tarkin guys are interested. I mean, if you're really thinking about giving it away anyway, maybe you can give some another project some serious help.
quality? (Score:5, Interesting)
Would that work? Because there are a lot of codecs, and unless you can show that this one is better than the others, I really don't see why people would be interested.
Au Contraire... (Score:3, Interesting)
That's helpful in getting it known, which is worth rather a lot.
The codec would not in that form be usable outside of the context of freely-redistributable software. Someone who wants to integrate it into their cool, but proprietary viewer would find that they can't, at least not with the GPL-licensed version.
That can't represents the place where they can look for their revenues.
It's not obvious that there can possibly be interest in it without there being some sort of release; the company hasn't money to spend on renting Times Square to show the world they've got a K001 Product.
Releasing under something like the GPL may be the only way to get it into use, and to get any return from it.
Screenshots? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yet another video codec. Does anyone really care?
Making money from a codec (Score:3, Interesting)
One option is to provide the compressor/decompressor for free and then offer a higher quality version of the compressor for sale. It's a tough market, though. If it's truly revolutionary, you could try selling it to Apple, Microsoft, or Real. You'll need some really good side-by-side comparisons with their current codecs and MPEG4 to get their attention, though.
Personally, I would love to see it open sourced.
Can we download a decompressor and see some demos?
And overhead (Score:3, Interesting)
The only think that makes your CODEC worthwhile... (Score:5, Interesting)
If we're going to use an algorithm encumbered by patents, we might as well use MPEG-4 [telecomitalialab.com].
However if your CODEC is not covered by any patents, then please consider releasing it under a BSD [fsf.org] or GPL [fsf.org] license.
For information on why software patents are bad for free software, please visit The League for Programming Freedom [mit.edu]