- #AMBE CODEC SOFTWARE FREE FOR FREE#
- #AMBE CODEC SOFTWARE FREE CODE#
- #AMBE CODEC SOFTWARE FREE LICENSE#
- #AMBE CODEC SOFTWARE FREE FREE#
I think it’s a great idea to release source code from day 1. In other words design the codec to help as many people as possible, rather than designing it to make a small number of people wealthy.
#AMBE CODEC SOFTWARE FREE FREE#
It’s easy to replace that 1% early in the codec design process – we simply make royalty free a priority rather than maximising royalties. All these techniques are also in Speex which sounds about the same at 8 kbit/s. G729 does not hold patents on linear prediction, or vector quantisation, or CELP, or Line Spectrum Pairs, or pitch prediction. Then when that codec is standardised we are stuck paying them royalties for bit-exact interoperability reasons.
I would imagine they explicitly search for a novel technique in order to lock up their codec. Where the patents come in is that some one gets a good quality codec working using some clever technique in 1% of algorithm, then they patent that 1%. Most of the underlying technology in modern speech codecs (DSP fundamentals, quantisation, LPC, pitch prediction etc) was published in the 60’s and 70’s. There usually alternative ways to perform a given operation if an annoying patent is in the way.
transforms, vector and scalar quantisation. A lot of the algorithms involved in codecs are just well known math, e.g. Speex has shown it’s possible to build a patent free codec.
Well, it looks like we have a chance to fix that. What has held Speex adoption back is lack of standardisation – people have been forced to use royalty based codecs like g729 for bit-exact interoperability reasons. And yet it works, pushing out royalty-based code in many many thousands of cases, and it’s now part of the Linux kernel (try doing that with closed code). I recall much of the same FUD about patents when developing this algorithm.
#AMBE CODEC SOFTWARE FREE FOR FREE#
Why can I get a first class operating system like Linux for free but have to pay to use a tiny bit of software on it like g729?
#AMBE CODEC SOFTWARE FREE LICENSE#
The license fees benefit no-one but the people receiving the royalties. My experience as both a codec designer and a business entity using codecs is that codec royalties are a useless tax on business and telecommunication. I have also run small businesses that use speech codecs and experienced first hand the pain of trying to use codecs like g729 with $40k license fees. I helped found the Speex project and have been a minor contributor over the years. My name is David Rowe, I have a PhD in the field of speech compression and 20 years experience in design and real time implementation of speech codecs and other DSP algorithms. What follows is a post I made to the IETF codec mailing list: The debates on the mailing list address some persistent issues in codec development: patents and royalties. Jean-Marc Valin (primary author of Speex and part of the CELT team) has made me aware of a proposal for developing a royalty-free audio codec under the banner of the IETF.
0 kommentar(er)
