<nettime> mpeg-4 update

[oliver frommel <oliver {AT} firstfloor.org>]

hi,

this is more focused on technical stuff. however as many people are into 
streaming these days and there's also a political issue, here it is ..

there's a fairly complete free package for the encoding of mpeg-4 
audio/video files out. it is called mpeg4ip and was written by some
cisco engineers but is not a cisco product. as you might know mpeg-4 is 
still covered by a load of patents so this is another issue one has to 
face when trying to get into mpeg-4 streaming (eg. it is not really 
possible to actually write a free aac audio encoder/decoder without the 
violation of such patents, or pay the license fee of course). 
(see http://www.everwicked.com/content/MPEG4IP_Guide/mpeg4ip-09.php for a 
short survey of legal troubles you might get into)

the good thing is that there is also a streaming server out there, 
namely the darwin streaming server by apple which can stream quicktime and
mpeg-4. the mpeg4ip packagage also contains two players, so now you have 
a complete solution for streaming with a perspective outside of realnetworks
and microsoft. however there's still an issue of "it politics" about 
adopting a patent-laden technology like mpeg-4 as free software solution.

read peter marsk-moller's email to the vorbis' developers' list 
for more on these issues (he did ogg/vorbis support for mpeg4ip)
(http://www.xiph.org/archives/vorbis/200209/0046.html)

and btw, i think that the "helix community" project by realnetworks is 
just a joke. eg. the "helix dna client" (then "community version" of the 
familiar realplayer) will feature only a codec for mp3 as source code.
all real codecs are provided binary only - talk about "open source".
(http://www.helixcommunity.org/content/tech/client.html)
this looks like another company trying to jump on the "open source" 
bandwagon, not more.


other links to topics mentioned above:

* mpeg4ip 
 http://mpeg4ip.sourceforge.net/

* ogg/vorbis for mpeg4 
 http://www.maersk-moller.net/mpeg4ip/

* apple's darwin streaming server
 http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/qtss/

* nice intro to mpeg4ip 
 http://www.everwicked.com/content/MPEG4IP_Guide/index.php

* internet streaming media alliance
 http://isma.tv

* aac licensing faq
 http://www.aac-audio.com/licensing/LicensingFAQ.html

greetings
oliver

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