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Subject: Re: [AE] lossless codec in a container roundup
From: Brendan Bolles <brendan@fnordware.com>
In-Reply-To: <list-5146758@media-motion.tv>
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2013 13:21:06 -0700
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Message-Id: <040BF1F2-64C1-42B5-A8C7-213E8344B539@fnordware.com>
References: <list-5146758@media-motion.tv>
To: "After Effects Mail List" <AE-List@media-motion.tv>

On Jul 18, 2013, at 12:17 PM, Stephen van Vuuren wrote:

> It=92s not a Mac vs. PC. It=92s the utter lack of cross-platform =
professional codec that all companies share responsibility for.


OK, I'm trying to keep my mouth shut about an unfinished, un-annouced =
thing, but I can't do it.

I've recently made open source plug-ins for the WebM and Ogg Theora =
formats.  You can read about and download them here:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/5465653
http://forums.adobe.com/message/5475472


These are basically open source movie formats to compete with H.264 in =
the HTML5 standard.

But upon looking into Ogg, I saw that it supports a series of other =
codecs:

http://www.xiph.org/


One very interesting codec is Dirac, which was made by the BBC.  It =
supports lossy and lossless compression, 16-bit even.  It uses wavelets =
like JPEG 2000, so it also appears to do the auto-proxy thing you can do =
with JPEG 2000.

I plan to add some other codecs as well, such as PNG and OpenEXR, so =
you'll be able to render linear float to a movie format.

But the key is that this is an open movie format and I'm releasing the =
plug-ins as open source.  You can already see the code for the WebM and =
Theora plug-ins on GitHub.  So you will not have the Microcosm problem, =
or even the problem with QuickTime being a closed format.  It will be =
completely open for people to port to any platform.


Now, I still have a lot of work to do on this project!  But for now you =
can try out the Theora and WebM plug-ins and give me feedback (you'll =
have to render your AE project through Media Encoder).

BTW, WebM's new codec, VP9, should be adding some features that may be =
useful to us, like alpha channel support and maybe even lossless/10-bit.

It has always bothered me that people were storing their pixels in =
proprietary formats.  I've made plug-ins for a variety of still image =
formats, and now I'm going after movies.  Stay tuned.


Brendan