[theora-dev] Suggestions for Theora

[xiphmont at xiph.org]

Jesus guys, be civil.  Yes, he's not a huge tech geek and he's
conflating what piece of software does what.  When software works
well, end users don't pay alot of attention to how it works, they just
use it.  I assume he's coming from a Mac, and so he's not being
willfully obtuse, he's just been pampered by a system that's actually
well integrated.

>> 1) Theora should have a feature like adobe flash does that enables direct
>> end user to end user peering which decreases a server's bandwidth usage and
>> cost. Read here:

This and several of the other features you suggest Ryan are not
actually handled by the codec.  They're the job of software built on
top of the codec.  That doesn't mean it's not a fine idea, just that
the system is not as monolithic a you perceive.

I am amused though that you advocate p2p in 1) then demand we make we
make it impossible in 3) :-)

>> 2) Theora should have a plugin for the safari web browser that runs on the
>> Apple iPhone/iPhone3G/iPhone3GS and the iPod Touch 1st and 2nd generation.
>> The operating systems on all of these are the same and I think it's a type
>> of Mac O/S.

It's not MacOS, the system is an embedded ARM with a custom SDK.

>> 3) Theora should have a feature that disables print screen and video
>> recording software from capturing Theora videos.

Provably impossible, and I would advocate strongly against even trying.

>> Alot of webmasters have
>> their videos stolen by people using printscreen and video capture software,

I will point out I've personally been the author of some of that software :-)

>> so Theora should have a feature where when a person pushes the Printscreen
>> key on their keyboard, and pastes the image, the image will just be a white
>> blank box.

[well, with Xv it will currently be a black box ;-]

 When a person uses a video capture software and tries to record a
>> video playing in the Theora player, it will just be a blank white box.
>> Everything else on the screen be will captured, except the Theora player.
>> This will solve alot of copyright problems webmasters have with their
>> videos.

Ah, the forces of copyright reeducation have gotten to you too.  First
off, this has nothing to do with copyright, nor does the law support
or mandate this sort of feature in any way.  As it subverts Fair Use
(which is protected by copyright law), I'm not particularly
sympathetic to all the ruckus being made about it.

I'm also quite active in advocacy groups such as the OVA that actively
oppose this sort of thing, so I doubt you're ever going to convince
me.

That said, it's also something that has nothing to do with the codec.
You're looking for mandated DRM.

>> 4) Theora should have a feature where when a user plays a video using the
>> Theora player, the video will be compressed so the file size is smaller and
>> it will be faster to load. The quality of the video should remain the same.

Uh... that's exactly what Theora does.  That's what a codec does.  A
Theora video is already a thousand times smaller than the original.

>> For example, some 2 hour 16:9 Widescreen High definition 1080p videos are
>> 4Gigabytes in size, so Theora should compress this 4GB video into 100MB
>> without losing any quality.

The 4GB video is already compressed (you realize that the original
video, before it is compressed to fit one one DVD, would require
hundreds, right?)  You can compress further, but you will have to lose
quality to do it.

>> 5) Theora should be integrated into the next version of Internet Explorer
>> for Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7.

We have absolutely no control over that.

Hm, I'm beginning to think I really did just get trolled.

Monty