Standardization of Distribution Codecs??

y2kwizard · Post by **y2kwizard** » Sat Dec 28, 2002 12:25 pm

Hello all. I"m just wondering if, in the future, we will basically have one standardized codec that everyone uses. What is the probability of this?

I ask this because I figure that EVENTUALLY, computers will become fast enough that they can play raw video files easily, computer hard drives will become large enough that they can very easily hold hundreds of hours of raw video, Internet connections will become fast enough to send raw data files on, and server space will become cheap enough that anyone can afford hundreds of gigs of space.

Does anyone think that eventually we'll just have one codec that everyone uses for his distribution?

klinky · Post by **klinky** » Sat Dec 28, 2002 12:35 pm

Newer better faster ^_^

By the time we get hard drives and internet connections fast enough to transfer uncompressed DVD resolution files. We'll all be editing using some sort of multi-megapixel format by then ^_^

Ahh yes, and that will defintely not transfer easily over the internet uncompressed.

Also it's not that bad, right now you have MPEG1, DivX, XviD & Real. As for audio. It's currently MP3 or OGG. :\

Just get ffdshow and realplayer(yeah right

)

Personal preference plays a role in this as well...

~klinky

burntoast · Post by **burntoast** » Sat Dec 28, 2002 12:36 pm

Perhaps. The internet, PC, and technology itself is evolving at a steady pace. I think that people will be able to even create an all-powerful codec that will surpass the rest, but I dunno if it will be standardized. Maybe DivX or MPEG will come out with something nasty, like a codec that can read other encoded vidz.

That would be nice. Very nice. Anyway, we'll have to give whoever about twenty years before something major occurs... unless someone really tries to make a standardized codec. I'm hoping for the best, but for now, I'll be usin XviD.

klinky · Post by **klinky** » Sat Dec 28, 2002 12:38 pm

Also I should chime in that most of the codecs available now are based off of a standard :} Known as MPEG-4 :O

~klinky

Mechaman · Post by **Mechaman** » Sat Dec 28, 2002 3:34 pm

The important phrase is "based on". MPEG-4 is not nearly as clean-cut as MPEG-1 was, and most teams are operating in a "pick and choose" manner--generally whichever part they've had a brainstorm on, and handwaving the rest.
Plus, most of the companies are still operating like it was the 90's; that they'll be able to sit back and make bundles off of licensing and patents once it "becomes the codec of choice"; cf. DivX Networks, 3ivx, Microsoft, and others. Real seems to have gotten the hint, witness their new direction in streaming server code.

Personally, I'm rooting for Ogg and Xiph to win, and using XviD to encode in the meantime. ffdshow may be the wave of the future; one-point of decoding, with no need for the end-user to fiddle with settings.

To the original poster: why? Sure, you can flip uncompressed video around everywhere, but there's no point to using that much bandwidth, 90% of which will not be needed by the end user.

RadicalEd0 · Post by **RadicalEd0** » Sun Dec 29, 2002 8:54 pm

its like klinky said, maybe in 6 years we'll be able to store and play uncompressed RGB video at DVD res, but by then we'll be ripping HDDVDs which uncompressed would be about 8.5 gigs per minute. 2hr movie = 1tb
then 6 years later they'll have like super-HD 20 million x 500 thousand whatever :p

y2kwizard · Post by **y2kwizard** » Sun Dec 29, 2002 11:35 pm

HOWEVER...you've gotta agree that there's no point in having video with like 3 trillion by 4 trillion pixels....there's going to be a Golden Resolution SOMEtime....maybe in 300 years or something...but there will occur a point at which there's no use in going any higher with the res.

At THAT point, I'm asking, will we have some sort of standardized codec thingie? Bah. Being inarticulate is the curse of meh.

RadicalEd0 · Post by **RadicalEd0** » Sun Dec 29, 2002 11:49 pm

I've wondered that for a long time, and it comes down to the question of what the maximum resolution at a certain distance that someone with 20:20 vision is capable of discerning. Whatever that is is where the resolution race will end.

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Mon Dec 30, 2002 1:13 am

RadicalEd0 wrote:I've wondered that for a long time, and it comes down to the question of what the maximum resolution at a certain distance that someone with 20:20 vision is capable of discerning. Whatever that is is where the resolution race will end.

It won't end until we can take full advantage of hardware like this.

RadicalEd0 · Post by **RadicalEd0** » Mon Dec 30, 2002 1:17 am