Google juices VP8 open source video codec

Google has released a new SDK for its open source and royalty-free VP8 video codec, promising faster encoding and improved video quality. Mountain View has not changed the VP8 format, merely the software around the format. The new SDK is known as "Bali", and it's the second major update to the platform. According to a Google …

[The Unexpected Bill]

There is a reason for the names...

...and while I cite Wikipedia on this, it does seem to be backed up by actual verifiable fact. On2 Technologies was known early on as The Duck Corporation.

http://www.duck.com/ now redirects to Google, check the IA Wayback Machine if you don't believe me.

[M Gale]

Duck video!

I'm pretty damned sure I remember that. Used to compress a lot of early PSOne/Saturn/Mega CD-era FMV, back when it was called "FMV" and not just "Video".

Nice to see where it ended up. Shame to see the MPEG LA doing an SCO.

[I am the Walrus]

Lets just hope...

There's nothing in here that falls fowl of those patent pirates?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here...

This one is yours!

[John Bailey]

Well..

Apparently MPEG-LA are under DOJ investigation for trying to stifle competition, so their patent request may backfire on them..

Smaller trolls.. Who knows.

[Anonymous Coward]

-1-2-3

The naming scheme is not that surprising - On2 was formerly known as The Duck Corporation

[HMB]

Quality Improvement

Just what VP8 desperately needed.

All the VP8 previews I'd seen so far looked crap because VP8 fuzzed up the images. It'd be a wonderful thing if Google have fixed this.

Keep it up Google and remember not everything is about speed (that's what my girlfriend keeps telling me).

[Anonymous Coward]

Speed Kills

The encoding speed has been a major weakness for VP8 even though it rarely ever got used as a stick to beat it with during the interminable discussions about HTML5 video codecs. Strange really, they missed a trick and now Google's mostly fixed it.

Good to see Google's team has got its priorities straight. Though probably partially because they've got the whole Youtube back catalogue to work through and every 1% speed increase could translate into years of video encoding time and large sums of money saved for them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't wait for the Peking release

Though that'll probably be the last one, too.

The big'un with the suspiciously stuffed large pockets, there's a good lad.