Hi all,

I'm Patrick Niedzielski, a developer on the Free/Open Source Software project Humm and Strumm. Humm and Strumm is a 3D, cartoon-style adventure game for Windows and GNU/Linux in which two heroes must prevent the evil Dr. Geoff from taking over the world.

For the video cutscenes, we need to decide on a format for the storage. The main choices boil down to these:

Ogg/Theora

An Ogg codec. This is a relatively old open source video codec.

Pros: It's Ogg, so it has a history. Supported by everything ever (on GNU/Linux, at least). Optimised decoder/encoder.

Cons: Not as size/quality efficient. May be under threat of patent litigation (and has no body to defend it). HD isn't exactly an option here.

WebM

Google's new open source codec. Designed by the company On2, Google has released this under a license that will soon be compatible with GPL (under which our game is licensed).

Pros: Better codec than Ogg/Theora. Supposedly unencumbered by patents.

Cons: Not many programs support it. Designed for Web, not sure how well it would work for a game. Very new, so the encoder/decoder need some work, too.

AVI

Well, yeah...I don't want to use an uncompressed format, especially since this is a downloaded game, and we only have limited space on Google Code.



The game engine will be plugin based, so it could easily switch between these codecs at a later date. My question is, which should I choose for now, for the game? The videos will be made with Blender, and converted to these lossy compression schemes with an external program.

Thanks,
Patrick Niedzielski

Quote: Original post by Patrick Niedzielski

Ogg/Theora

An Ogg codec. This is a relatively old open source video codec.
Pros: It's Ogg, so it has a history. Supported by everything ever (on GNU/Linux, at least). Optimised decoder/encoder.
Cons: Not as size/quality efficient. May be under threat of patent litigation (and has no body to defend it). HD isn't exactly an option here.

Theora is the codec, Ogg is used as the container format. Theora is considerably more recent than Ogg (and Theora is the part you care about). It certainly does support HD resolutions, and doesn't perform that much worse than MPEG-4 or DivX. Also note that the Xiph foundation negotiated permanent protection from the relevant patents, so no issues there either.

Quote:

AVI

Well, yeah...I don't want to use an uncompressed format, especially since this is a downloaded game, and we only have limited space on Google Code.

AVI is purely a container - not a codec. You are free to use pretty much whatever codec you like within an AVI file. Although you often see AVI files with uncompressed codecs, there is no reason to do so yourself - although keep in mind that most of the better video codecs (DivX, H2.64, Bink, etc.) are commercial, and require a license.

Quote: Theora is the codec, Ogg is used as the container format.

So yes, Theora is an Ogg codec.

Quote: It certainly does support HD resolutions, and doesn't perform that much worse than MPEG-4 or DivX.

http://www.osnews.com/story/19019/Theora-vs.-h.264

I mean, I don't know how much I am worried about quality. It could be that I don't need to go for this level of quality. Do you have any suggestions on whether I need to have full HD quality? I am also concerned about file size, so sacrifices can be made.

Quote: Also note that the Xiph foundation negotiated permanent protection from the relevant patents, so no issues there either.

http://www.osnews.com/story/23233/Jobs_Patent_Pool_Being_Assembled_To_Go_After_Theora

Apparently not so. Though they are also going after WebM, for this...

Quote: AVI is purely a container - not a codec. You are free to use pretty much whatever codec you like within an AVI file. Although you often see AVI files with uncompressed codecs, there is no reason to do so yourself - although keep in mind that most of the better video codecs (DivX, H2.64, Bink, etc.) are commercial, and require a license.

WAV files are also merely containers...but to encode any other form of audio than lossless (unless you use DirectShow for decoding, which supports everything) is to shoot yourself in the foot. It is for instance possible to encode MPEG-4 data in an Ogg container (to my knowledge), but doing so is not productive.

EDIT 2010-06-01T04:56Z: Found this for Linux. Not sure about legality, though, because it supports patented codecs...http://avifile.sourceforge.net/.

Thank you for your response. Do you think I should just go with Ogg/Theora over WebM/AVI-lossless?

Cheers,
Patrick

Quote: Original post by Patrick Niedzielski
http://www.osnews.com/story/23233/Jobs_Patent_Pool_Being_Assembled_To_Go_After_Theora
Apparently not so. Though they are also going after WebM, for this...

Ja, I am aware of those, but until they actually go to court to enforce their patents (and in the process reveal the patents, which are currently undisclosed), it is no more than rumour - and MPEG-LA have been known to use patent scare tactics in the past, without following through.

Quote: Thank you for your response. Do you think I should just go with Ogg/Theora over WebM/AVI-lossless?

To my mind at least, lossless video formats are a non-starter due to storage and I/O concerns.

From the patent point of view, MPEG-LA has a policy of going after *any* open codec they can, so you aren't going to find much safety from that. If it is really of great concern to you, the only 100% patent free codec of which I am aware is BBC's Dirac.

Quote: To my mind at least, lossless video formats are a non-starter due to storage and I/O concerns.

Oh yes, sorry about that. I meant lossy. ^_^"

Quote: From the patent point of view, MPEG-LA has a policy of going after *any* open codec they can, so you aren't going to find much safety from that. If it is really of great concern to you, the only 100% patent free codec of which I am aware is BBC's Dirac.

I may look into Dirac, but based on this information, I will probably go with Ogg Theora. Thanks!

Cheers,
Patrick