Subject: Re: [rtcweb] Codec Draft

From: Rob Glidden <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:10:15 -0800

Cary:

I have not seen a specific follow up text, but video codec requirements 
section appears overtaken by events and should be changed.

Here is proposed text that will hopefully reflect consensus spirit:

...
3.2. Video Codec Requirements
If the MPEG-LA issues an intent to offer H.264 baseline profile on a 
royalty free basis for use in browsers before March 15, 2012, then the 
REQUIRED video codecs will be H.264 baseline. If this does not happen by 
that the date, then the REQUIRED video codec will be VP8 [I-D.webm].

The REQUIRED video codec will be a royalty-free codec which has been 
specified by a recognized standards process such as MPEG or other 
due-process standards group and provide reviewable substantiation of its 
royalty-free status.
...

For background, see:

MPEG news: a report from the 98th meeting, Geneva, Switzerland 
<http://multimediacommunication.blogspot.com/2011/12/mpeg-news-report-from-98th-meeting.html>
ISO/IEC MPEG to select from two options for royalty-free video 
<http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/ISO-IEC-MPEG-to-select-from-two-options-for-royalty-free-video-1392734.html> 

Royalty-Free MPEG Video Proposals Announced 
<http://slashdot.org/submission/1875776/royalty-free-mpeg-video-proposals-announced>
MPEG Plus or Patent Pool Lite? MPEG Mulls Royalty-Free Proposals 
<http://www.robglidden.com/2011/12/mpeg-plus-or-patent-pool-lite-mpeg-mulls-royalty-free-proposals/>
Half of MPEG-2 Patents Expire in 2012 
<http://www.robglidden.com/2011/12/half-of-mpeg-2-patents-expire-in-2012/>

Rob

  Re: [rtcweb] Codec Draft

------------------------------------------------------------------------

  * /From/: "Bran, Cary" <Cary.Bran at plantronics.com
    <mailto:[email-masked]>>
  * /To/: Stephan Wenger <stewe at stewe.org <mailto:[email-masked]>>
  * /Cc/: "rtcweb at ietf.org <mailto:[email-masked]>" <rtcweb at
    ietf.org <mailto:[email-masked]>>
  * /Date/: Thu, 3 Nov 2011 22:00:26 +0000
  * /References/: <E37C139C5CB78244A781E9E7B721527B5485F6 at
    USSCMB03.plt.plantronics.com
    <mailto:[email-masked]>>
    <CAD841DD.330F9%stewe at stewe.org
    <mailto:[email-masked]>>
  * /List-id/: Real-Time Communication in WEB-browsers working group
    list <rtcweb.ietf.org>

------------------------------------------------------------------------

After further review, I think I get your point, my apologies if I caused 
any confusion.

What I meant to say was that I believe we have captured areas where we 
have consensus in the draft.  Obviously at this time there is no 
consensus as to which audio/video codecs will be mandatory to implement 
yet.     To be clear here, in the draft we put in a proposal for a 
mandatory to implement codec and we should have qualified it as an open 
issue, where we have no consensus.

Stephan, if you or anyone else, has a proposal as to what to add to the 
list, we would be more than happy to add it to the document and 
correctly label the areas where we have no consensus in an attempt to 
facilitate the discussion.

Regards,

-Cary

*From:*Bran, Cary
*Sent:* Thursday, November 03, 2011 2:02 PM
*To:* 'Stephan Wenger'
*Cc:* rtcweb at ietf.org
*Subject:* RE: [rtcweb] Codec Draft

Good points Stephan.

I agree that more discussion is needed and all I am proposing here is a 
document to capture the groups collective thinking.  I will defer to the 
chairs to decide on timing.

Cheers,

-Cary

*From:*Stephan Wenger [mailto:stewe at stewe.org]
*Sent:* Thursday, November 03, 2011 1:28 PM
*To:* Bran, Cary; rtcweb at ietf.org
*Subject:* Re: [rtcweb] Codec Draft

Hi Cary, WG,

Cary, how did you come to your conclusion that the WG has achieved 
consensus on a subject like this:

    If the MPEG-LA issues an intent to offer H.264 baseline profile on a

    royalty free basis for use in browsers before March 15, 2012, then

    the REQUIRED video codecs will be H.264 baseline.  If this does not

    happen by that the date, then the REQUIRED video codec will be VP8

    [I-D.webm].

Or this

    WebRTC clients are REQUIRED to implement the following audio codecs.

     [...]

    o  Opus [draft-ietf-codec-opus]

I may have missed it in the flood of emails on this reflector, but I do 
not recall having seen any discussion whatsoever towards a decision 
between the two video codecs mentioned, let alone a decision made on 
commercial constraints and an attached timeline.  Please note that I 
could most likely agree to the video codec issues as drafted, with the 
exception of the timeline, which is IMO overly and unnecessarily ambitious.

Similarly, I do not recall a sufficiently in-depth discussion about 
audio codecs (though there has been a bit more discussion on the 
reflector in this regard).  I find it strange that we consider making an 
declared-as-royalty-bearing audio codec mandatory, without even having 
the slightest idea of the licensing terms beyond the RAND terms offered. 
  Strangely, we are not providing the right holder with a timeline 
similar as the one used for H.264.  Perhaps we should work with the 
Qualcomm guys to see whether they would be willing to provide an RF 
license with a field of use restriction to webrtc.  As the very minimum, 
I would request the opus codec being profiled such that most obvious 
matches between patent claims offered under royalty bearing RAND terms 
and opus encoder and decoder as to be used in webrtc be eliminated.

To summarize, without having those (and perhaps a few more) points 
discussed in public on the reflector, I believe that it is too early to 
adopt your draft as a WG draft.

Stephan

*From: *"Bran, Cary" <Cary.Bran at plantronics.com 
<mailto:Cary.Bran%20at%20plantronics.com>>
*Date: *Mon, 31 Oct 2011 22:25:48 +0000
*To: *"rtcweb-chairs at tools.ietf.org 
<mailto:rtcweb-chairs%20at%20tools.ietf.org>" <rtcweb-chairs at 
tools.ietf.org <mailto:rtcweb-chairs%20at%20tools.ietf.org>>
*Cc: *"rtcweb at ietf.org <mailto:rtcweb%20at%20ietf.org>" <rtcweb at 
ietf.org <mailto:rtcweb%20at%20ietf.org>>
*Subject: *[rtcweb] Codec Draft

Hello WebRTC chairs,

I have updated and submitted a 02 version of the WebRTC Codec draft: 
http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-cbran-rtcweb-codec-01.txt

I believe that this draft is representative of areas where the working 
group has achieved consensus and at this time I would like to ask that 
the 01 draft be adopted as a working group document.

I look forward to your feedback.

Regards,

*Cary Bran*

Senior Director Advanced Software Technology and Architecture

Office:  +1 831-458-7737     Cell: +1 206-661-2398

*Plantronics*Simply Smarter Communications^(TM)

345 Encinal St., Santa Cruz, CA 95060

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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For further information about Plantronics - the Company, its products, 
brands, partners, please visit our website www.plantronics.com 
<http://www.plantronics.com>.

_______________________________________________ rtcweb mailing list 
rtcweb at ietf.org <mailto:rtcweb%20at%20ietf.org> 
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rtcweb

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CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail transmission, and any documents, 
files or previous e-mail messages attached to it, may contain 
information that is confidential and/or legally privileged. If you are 
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the intended recipient, please DO NOT disclose the contents to another 
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information contained in or attached to this transmission for any 
purpose. If you have received this transmission in error, please 
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Rob

---

From: "Bran, Cary" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:18:52 +0000

Many thanks Rob!

I will update the wording and send out the 02 draft to the mailer by end of week.

Cheers,

-Cary

From: Rob Glidden <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:10:15 -0800
To: "[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>" <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>>, "Bran, Cary" <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>>
Subject: Re: [rtcweb] Codec Draft

Cary:

I have not seen a specific follow up text, but video codec requirements section appears overtaken by events and should be changed.

...
3.2. Video Codec Requirements
If the MPEG-LA issues an intent to offer H.264 baseline profile on a royalty free basis for use in browsers before March 15, 2012, then the REQUIRED video codecs will be H.264 baseline. If this does not happen by that the date, then the REQUIRED video codec will be VP8 [I-D.webm].

The REQUIRED video codec will be a royalty-free codec which has been specified by a recognized standards process such as MPEG or other due-process standards group and provide reviewable substantiation of its royalty-free status.
...

For background, see:

MPEG news: a report from the 98th meeting, Geneva, Switzerland<http://multimediacommunication.blogspot.com/2011/12/mpeg-news-report-from-98th-meeting.html>
ISO/IEC MPEG to select from two options for royalty-free video<http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/ISO-IEC-MPEG-to-select-from-two-options-for-royalty-free-video-1392734.html>
Royalty-Free MPEG Video Proposals Announced<http://slashdot.org/submission/1875776/royalty-free-mpeg-video-proposals-announced>
MPEG Plus or Patent Pool Lite? MPEG Mulls Royalty-Free Proposals<http://www.robglidden.com/2011/12/mpeg-plus-or-patent-pool-lite-mpeg-mulls-royalty-free-proposals/>
Half of MPEG-2 Patents Expire in 2012<http://www.robglidden.com/2011/12/half-of-mpeg-2-patents-expire-in-2012/>

Rob
Re: [rtcweb] Codec Draft
________________________________

  *   From: "Bran, Cary" <Cary.Bran at plantronics.com<mailto:[email-masked]>>
  *   To: Stephan Wenger <stewe at stewe.org<mailto:[email-masked]>>
  *   Cc: "rtcweb at ietf.org<mailto:[email-masked]>" <rtcweb at ietf.org<mailto:[email-masked]>>
  *   Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2011 22:00:26 +0000
  *   References: <E37C139C5CB78244A781E9E7B721527B5485F6 at USSCMB03.plt.plantronics.com<mailto:[email-masked]>> <CAD841DD.330F9%stewe at stewe.org<mailto:[email-masked]>>
  *   List-id: Real-Time Communication in WEB-browsers working group list <rtcweb.ietf.org>

________________________________
After further review, I think I get your point, my apologies if I caused any confusion.

What I meant to say was that I believe we have captured areas where we have consensus in the draft.  Obviously at this time there is no consensus as to which audio/video codecs will be mandatory to implement yet.     To be clear here, in the draft we put in a proposal for a mandatory to implement codec and we should have qualified it as an open issue, where we have no consensus.

Stephan, if you or anyone else, has a proposal as to what to add to the list, we would be more than happy to add it to the document and correctly label the areas where we have no consensus in an attempt to facilitate the discussion.

Regards,

-Cary

From: Bran, Cary
Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2011 2:02 PM
To: 'Stephan Wenger'
Cc: rtcweb at ietf.org
Subject: RE: [rtcweb] Codec Draft

Good points Stephan.

I agree that more discussion is needed and all I am proposing here is a document to capture the groups collective thinking.  I will defer to the chairs to decide on timing.

Cheers,

-Cary

From: Stephan Wenger [mailto:stewe at stewe.org]
Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2011 1:28 PM
To: Bran, Cary; rtcweb at ietf.org
Subject: Re: [rtcweb] Codec Draft

Hi Cary, WG,

Cary, how did you come to your conclusion that the WG has achieved consensus on a subject like this:

   [I-D.webm].

Or this

    […]

I may have missed it in the flood of emails on this reflector, but I do not recall having seen any discussion whatsoever towards a decision between the two video codecs mentioned, let alone a decision made on commercial constraints and an attached timeline.  Please note that I could most likely agree to the video codec issues as drafted, with the exception of the timeline, which is IMO overly and unnecessarily ambitious.

Similarly, I do not recall a sufficiently in-depth discussion about audio codecs (though there has been a bit more discussion on the reflector in this regard).  I find it strange that we consider making an declared-as-royalty-bearing audio codec mandatory, without even having the slightest idea of the licensing terms beyond the RAND terms offered.  Strangely, we are not providing the right holder with a timeline similar as the one used for H.264.  Perhaps we should work with the Qualcomm guys to see whether they would be willing to provide an RF license with a field of use restriction to webrtc.  As the very minimum, I would request the opus codec being profiled such that most obvious matches between patent claims offered under royalty bearing RAND terms and opus encoder and decoder as to be used in webrtc be eliminated.

To summarize, without having those (and perhaps a few more) points discussed in public on the reflector, I believe that it is too early to adopt your draft as a WG draft.

Stephan

From: "Bran, Cary" <Cary.Bran at plantronics.com<mailto:Cary.Bran%20at%20plantronics.com>>
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2011 22:25:48 +0000
To: "rtcweb-chairs at tools.ietf.org<mailto:rtcweb-chairs%20at%20tools.ietf.org>" <rtcweb-chairs at tools.ietf.org<mailto:rtcweb-chairs%20at%20tools.ietf.org>>
Cc: "rtcweb at ietf.org<mailto:rtcweb%20at%20ietf.org>" <rtcweb at ietf.org<mailto:rtcweb%20at%20ietf.org>>
Subject: [rtcweb] Codec Draft

Hello WebRTC chairs,

I have updated and submitted a 02 version of the WebRTC Codec draft: http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-cbran-rtcweb-codec-01.txt

I believe that this draft is representative of areas where the working group has achieved consensus and at this time I would like to ask that the 01 draft be adopted as a working group document.

Regards,

Cary Bran
Senior Director Advanced Software Technology and Architecture
Office:  +1 831-458-7737     Cell: +1 206-661-2398
Plantronics  Simply Smarter Communications™
345 Encinal St., Santa Cruz, CA 95060

________________________________

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail transmission, and any documents, files or previous e-mail messages attached to it, may contain information that is confidential and/or legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, or a person responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, please DO NOT disclose the contents to another person, store or copy the information in any medium, or use any of the information contained in or attached to this transmission for any purpose. If you have received this transmission in error, please immediately notify the sender by reply email or at privacy at plantronics.com<mailto:privacy%20at%20plantronics.com>, and destroy the original transmission and its attachments without reading or saving in any manner.

For further information about Plantronics - the Company, its products, brands, partners, please visit our website www.plantronics.com<http://www.plantronics.com>.
_______________________________________________ rtcweb mailing list rtcweb at ietf.org<mailto:rtcweb%20at%20ietf.org> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rtcweb

________________________________

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail transmission, and any documents, files or previous e-mail messages attached to it, may contain information that is confidential and/or legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, or a person responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, please DO NOT disclose the contents to another person, store or copy the information in any medium, or use any of the information contained in or attached to this transmission for any purpose. If you have received this transmission in error, please immediately notify the sender by reply email or at privacy at plantronics.com, and destroy the original transmission and its attachments without reading or saving in any manner.

For further information about Plantronics - the Company, its products, brands, partners, please visit our website www.plantronics.com<http://www.plantronics.com>.

Rob

________________________________

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---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:26:12 -0800

On 12/13/2011 12:10 PM, Rob Glidden wrote:
> Cary:
>
> I have not seen a specific follow up text, but video codec 
> requirements section appears overtaken by events and should be changed.
Rob,

I think that's a very optimistic spin on events.
> REQUIRED video codecs will be H.264 baseline. If this does not happen 
> by that the date, then the REQUIRED video codec will be VP8 [I-D.webm].
>
> due-process standards group and provide reviewable substantiation of 
> its royalty-free status.

If you mean that the required video codec should be the output of the 
ISO MPEG IVC or WebVC efforts, remember that:

1) Neither of these efforts will be available until 2013 - IF everything 
goes according to plan. It is entirely possible that neither of these 
efforts will deliver an outcome.
2) Neither of these efforts has any guaranteed outcome in terms of 
resulting video quality.

So I'm afraid I have to be counted as "not part of the consensus" for 
the text you suggested.

I still hope that we'll sooner or later make a positive statement about 
what we actually need in a baseline video codec in terms of quality, 
industry support, stability of specification or royalty-free status; so 
far, all attempts to start debating what we actually require have died 
without even a whimper.

                          Harald

---

From: Lorenzo Miniero <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:59:58 +0100

Hi Rob,

I'm not at all an expert in this debate so I'm not sure what "royalty
free basis for use in browsers" means: does this mean you would be
allowed, royalty free, to decode/encode H.264 baseline streams if your
encoder/decoder is the browser itself? Wouldn't this only work if such
a stream would only flow between two browsers untouched, that is, no
content adaptation/transcoding/overlays/mixing on the server side if
needed? Service and Content providers would still need a licence if I
got it correctly, or am I missing something?

Lorenzo

Il giorno Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:10:15 -0800
Rob Glidden <[email-masked]> ha scritto:

>   * /Cc/: "rtcweb at ietf.org <mailto:[email-masked]>" <rtcweb
> at ietf.org <mailto:[email-masked]>>
> What I meant to say was that I believe we have captured areas where
> we have consensus in the draft.  Obviously at this time there is no 
> consensus as to which audio/video codecs will be mandatory to
> implement yet.     To be clear here, in the draft we put in a
> proposal for a mandatory to implement codec and we should have
> qualified it as an open issue, where we have no consensus.
> 
> Stephan, if you or anyone else, has a proposal as to what to add to
> the list, we would be more than happy to add it to the document and 
> I agree that more discussion is needed and all I am proposing here is
> a document to capture the groups collective thinking.  I will defer
> to the chairs to decide on timing.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> -Cary
> 
> I may have missed it in the flood of emails on this reflector, but I
> do not recall having seen any discussion whatsoever towards a
> decision between the two video codecs mentioned, let alone a decision
> made on commercial constraints and an attached timeline.  Please note
> that I could most likely agree to the video codec issues as drafted,
> with the exception of the timeline, which is IMO overly and
> unnecessarily ambitious.
> 
> reflector in this regard).  I find it strange that we consider making
> an declared-as-royalty-bearing audio codec mandatory, without even
> having the slightest idea of the licensing terms beyond the RAND
> terms offered. Strangely, we are not providing the right holder with
> a timeline similar as the one used for H.264.  Perhaps we should work
> with the Qualcomm guys to see whether they would be willing to
> provide an RF license with a field of use restriction to webrtc.  As
> the very minimum, I would request the opus codec being profiled such
> that most obvious matches between patent claims offered under royalty
> bearing RAND terms and opus encoder and decoder as to be used in
> webrtc be eliminated.
> 
> discussed in public on the reflector, I believe that it is too early
> to adopt your draft as a WG draft.
> 
> Stephan
> 
> I believe that this draft is representative of areas where the
> working group has achieved consensus and at this time I would like to
> ask that the 01 draft be adopted as a working group document.
> 
> information that is confidential and/or legally privileged. If you
> are not the intended recipient, or a person responsible for
> delivering it to the intended recipient, please DO NOT disclose the
> contents to another person, store or copy the information in any
> medium, or use any of the information contained in or attached to
> this transmission for any purpose. If you have received this
> transmission in error, please immediately notify the sender by reply
> email or at privacy at plantronics.com
> <mailto:privacy%20at%20plantronics.com>, and destroy the original
> transmission and its attachments without reading or saving in any
> manner.
> 
> For further information about Plantronics - the Company, its
> products, brands, partners, please visit our website
> www.plantronics.com <http://www.plantronics.com>.
> 
> information that is confidential and/or legally privileged. If you
> are not the intended recipient, or a person responsible for
> delivering it to the intended recipient, please DO NOT disclose the
> contents to another person, store or copy the information in any
> medium, or use any of the information contained in or attached to
> this transmission for any purpose. If you have received this
> transmission in error, please immediately notify the sender by reply
> email or at privacy at plantronics.com, and destroy the original
> transmission and its attachments without reading or saving in any
> manner.
> 
> For further information about Plantronics - the Company, its
> products, brands, partners, please visit our website
> www.plantronics.com.
> 
> Rob

-- 
Lorenzo Miniero, COB

Meetecho s.r.l.
Web Conferencing and Collaboration Tools
http://www.meetecho.com

---

From: Rob Glidden <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:29:55 -0800

Lorenzo:

I agree, royalty-free sub-uses are problematic,  giving with one hand 
while taking from another.

Only way to know is to review specifics, which is why I am proposing to 
replace the phrase you quote with a more consensus-building wording 
"reviewable substantiation of its royalty-free status".

Rob

On 12/14/2011 1:59 AM, Lorenzo Miniero wrote:
> Rob Glidden<[email-masked]>  ha scritto:
>
>> Cary:
>>
>>    * /From/: "Bran, Cary"<Cary.Bran at plantronics.com
>>    * /To/: Stephan Wenger<stewe at stewe.org
>> <mailto:[email-masked]>>
>>    * /Cc/: "rtcweb at ietf.org<mailto:[email-masked]>"<rtcweb
>> at ietf.org<mailto:[email-masked]>>
>>    * /References/:<E37C139C5CB78244A781E9E7B721527B5485F6 at
>>      list<rtcweb.ietf.org>
>> *From: *"Bran, Cary"<Cary.Bran at plantronics.com
>> <mailto:rtcweb-chairs%20at%20tools.ietf.org>"<rtcweb-chairs at
>> tools.ietf.org<mailto:rtcweb-chairs%20at%20tools.ietf.org>>
>> *Cc: *"rtcweb at ietf.org<mailto:rtcweb%20at%20ietf.org>"<rtcweb at
>> ietf.org<mailto:rtcweb%20at%20ietf.org>>
>> www.plantronics.com<http://www.plantronics.com>.
>>
>> rtcweb at ietf.org<mailto:rtcweb%20at%20ietf.org>

---

From: Rob Glidden <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:36:31 -0800

Harald:

Fair points, failure is always a possibility/option.

Changing "will" to "should" addresses concern for fall-back option in 
unobjectionable, normal form, yes?

"The REQUIRED video codec should be a royalty-free codec which has been 
specified by a recognized standards process such as MPEG or other 
due-process standards group and provide reviewable substantiation of its 
royalty-free status."

Rob

On 12/13/2011 12:26 PM, Harald Alvestrand wrote:
> 1) Neither of these efforts will be available until 2013 - IF 
> everything goes according to plan. It is entirely possible that 
> neither of these efforts will deliver an outcome.
> I still hope that we'll sooner or later make a positive statement 
> about what we actually need in a baseline video codec in terms of 
> quality, industry support, stability of specification or royalty-free 
> status; so far, all attempts to start debating what we actually 
> require have died without even a whimper.
>
>                          Harald
>