Subject: [rtcweb] Google statement on codecs

From: Justin Uberti <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2012 17:14:30 -0700

We believe that the WebRTC effort represents an unprecedented opportunity
to establish a new real-time communications platform. Like the web
platform, it is built on freely available components, providing
state-of-the-art quality to all developers, big or small, with no need for
technology licensing. This approach has worked wonders for the web, and we
hope for the same result with WebRTC.

Therefore, we believe the sole mandatory-to-implement video codec in WebRTC
should be VP8, the only viable royalty-free option. We believe it provides
superior quality, which is why we are increasingly using it in our own
products. We are also strongly committed to the future of VP8; we continue
to invest heavily in its development, and we have a clear record of
vigorously defending our technology.

On the audio side, we believe that Opus should be the default
mandatory-to-implement audio codec, assuming the remaining licensing issues
can be resolved. Opus delivers excellent quality,  from narrowband to
fullband, for streaming and realtime, making it an ideal choice for a
baseline codec. We also recommend that G.711 be mandatory, for
compatibility with the vast universe of PSTN equipment.

Given the ability to deliver a royalty-free platform with no compromises on
quality, we see no reason to include mandatory royalty-bearing codecs.

---

From: "Timothy B. Terriberry" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2012 17:27:50 -0700

Justin Uberti wrote:
> Given the ability to deliver a royalty-free platform with no compromises
> on quality, we see no reason to include mandatory royalty-bearing codecs.

+1

As Brendan Eich, Mozilla's CTO, outlined in his article 
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/03/video-mobile-and-the-open-web/ back in 
March, we believe very strongly in keeping WebRTC unencumbered.

---

From: Lorenzo Miniero <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2012 03:34:30 +0200

Il giorno Sun, 29 Jul 2012 17:27:50 -0700
"Timothy B. Terriberry" <[email-masked]> ha scritto:

> Justin Uberti wrote:
> > Given the ability to deliver a royalty-free platform with no
> > compromises on quality, we see no reason to include mandatory
> > royalty-bearing codecs.
> 
> +1
> 
> https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/03/video-mobile-and-the-open-web/ back
> in March, we believe very strongly in keeping WebRTC unencumbered.

+1

Lorenzo

> _______________________________________________
> rtcweb mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rtcweb

-- 
Lorenzo Miniero, COB

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

---

From: Maire Reavy <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2012 18:44:31 -0700

> in March, we believe very strongly in keeping WebRTC unencumbered.

Absolutely!  And that stance hasn't changed.

Mandating encumbered codecswould force open-source projects to violate 
the spec (by not implementing a mandatory codec).  For this reason and 
the reasons Justin cites, we believe Opus, G.711 and VP8 are the best 
mandatory-to-implement choices for the spec.

-- 
Maire Reavy <[email-masked]>, _<[email-masked]> _
Mozilla

---

From: Ralph Giles <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2012 20:13:43 -0700

+1

 -r

---

From: Cameron Byrne <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2012 20:14:41 -0700

+1

CB

---

From: Randell Jesup <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2012 01:08:03 -0700

>> mandatory-to-implement choices for the spec.

Not that anyone will be surprised, as I'm tech lead for WebRTC at 
Mozilla and point person on much of the IETF stuff for it, but +1 from 
me as well.  Non-free MTI codecs would be a massive problem for 
Linux/BSD distros and other open source projects, as well as Mozilla.

-- 
Randell Jesup
[email-masked]

---

From: Serge Lachapelle <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2012 11:13:06 +0200

As the Product Manager for Chrome's WebRTC project and one of the
instigators of the whole WebRTC concept (I even named it WebRTC because
webrtc.org was available), I whole heartedly support Justin's statement.

His statement reflects our whole team's commitment to a thriving
communication platform, open for everyone.

/Serge

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 10:08 AM, Randell Jesup <[email-masked]>wrote:

> Not that anyone will be surprised, as I'm tech lead for WebRTC at Mozilla
> and point person on much of the IETF stuff for it, but +1 from me as well.
>  Non-free MTI codecs would be a massive problem for Linux/BSD distros and
> other open source projects, as well as Mozilla.
>
> --
> Randell Jesup
> [email-masked]
>
>
> ______________________________**_________________
> rtcweb mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/**listinfo/rtcweb<https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rtcweb>
>

-- 
Serge Lachapelle | Product Manager | [email-masked] | +46 732 01 22 32
Google Sweden AB | Kungsbron 2, SE-111 22 Stockholm | Org. nr. 556656-6880

Apparently, this footer is required in Europe. Apologies. This email may be
confidential or privileged.  If you received this communication by mistake,
please don't forward it to anyone else,please erase all copies and
attachments, and please let me know that it went to the wrong person.
 Thanks.

---

From: "Fabio Pietrosanti (naif)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2012 11:15:28 +0200

What's the Microsoft position on WebRTC in general?

Are they going to dump/skip/sabotage-it or are they going to participate?

If they will participate, will they try to leverage skype/msn codecs
compatibility?

Fabio

On 7/30/12 11:13 AM, Serge Lachapelle wrote:
> webrtc.org <http://webrtc.org> was available), I whole heartedly support
> Justin's statement. 
>

---

From: "David Benham (dbenham)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2012 16:57:14 +0000

Justin

When one receives/signs the MPEG-LA license for the H264 AVC pool, all of the patents (about 8 pages worth) are listed so that the licensee knows what they are covered for and what they are not.

However, am not able to find a list of patents currently licensable/owned by Google that are included in the royalty free VP8 bitstream spec or implementation license from Google.    Can or has Google published the list of patents minimally covered by your VP8 licenses?

With that info, given adopter’s experts could make a risk assessment as to what might exist but *not* be covered by the VP8 license from Google.

From: Justin Uberti [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2012 5:15 PM
To: [email-masked]
Cc: Harald Alvestrand
Subject: [rtcweb] Google statement on codecs

We believe that the WebRTC effort represents an unprecedented opportunity to establish a new real-time communications platform. Like the web platform, it is built on freely available components, providing state-of-the-art quality to all developers, big or small, with no need for technology licensing. This approach has worked wonders for the web, and we hope for the same result with WebRTC.

Therefore, we believe the sole mandatory-to-implement video codec in WebRTC should be VP8, the only viable royalty-free option. We believe it provides superior quality, which is why we are increasingly using it in our own products. We are also strongly committed to the future of VP8; we continue to invest heavily in its development, and we have a clear record of vigorously defending our technology.

On the audio side, we believe that Opus should be the default mandatory-to-implement audio codec, assuming the remaining licensing issues can be resolved. Opus delivers excellent quality,  from narrowband to fullband, for streaming and realtime, making it an ideal choice for a baseline codec. We also recommend that G.711 be mandatory, for compatibility with the vast universe of PSTN equipment.

Given the ability to deliver a royalty-free platform with no compromises on quality, we see no reason to include mandatory royalty-bearing codecs.

---

From: "Kevin P. Fleming" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2012 13:51:06 -0500

> If they will participate, will they try to leverage skype/msn codecs

At least one of the Skype codecs (SILK) has already been integrated into 
Opus and we're hoping it will be part of the WebRTC codecs list. If I 
remember the discussions from the CODEC working group properly, the 
version of it in Opus is even better than SILK itself was, so there's 
really no reason for SILK to be used in new applications.

-- 
Kevin P. Fleming
Digium, Inc. | Director of Software Technologies
Jabber: [email-masked] | SIP: [email-masked] | Skype: kpfleming
445 Jan Davis Drive NW - Huntsville, AL 35806 - USA
Check us out at www.digium.com & www.asterisk.org

---

From: Basil Mohamed Gohar <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2012 00:44:22 -0400

+1

-- 
Libre Video
http://librevideo.org

---

From: Stefan Hakansson LK <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2012 11:13:17 +0200

On 07/30/2012 02:14 AM, Justin Uberti wrote:
...
> mandatory-to-implement audio codec, assuming the remaining licensing
> issues can be resolved.

What are the remaining licensing issues? Any plan/schedule for resolving 
them? (I guess this in a way belongs to the codec WG, but is also 
relevant for rtcweb if Opus is going to be MTI).

---

From: David Singer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2012 15:12:20 -0700

>>> mandatory-to-implement choices for the spec.

There are open-source implementations of encumbered codecs (e.g. x264); and I expect that there are proprietary codecs that are believed to be unencumbered :-).  Let's not confuse the two classes.

David Singer
Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.