[theora] Marketing stuff

[Yorn]

Hi all,

even, if this thread was not opened to discuss Theora Marketing at all. I 
however, think it is time to discuss this issue on another level:

In my view, the weakness of theora is neither the video quality to datarate 
issue nor a theora is free and open subject.

Fact is, there is only one real reason for the usage of one format over 
another: simplicity. 

1) It must be simple to view videos (e.g. via a web-browser)
2) It must be simple to produce videos

If one goal of theora is to compete with popular web formats like flash-video, 
it must be as easy as this (No plugin installation etc.). And if Theora want 
to convince somebody to change from flash to Theora, it needs good arguments.

I see the cortado player as the only serious attempt to have something in that 
direction to compete with flash. But the cortado development is stalled afaik 
even if there are a lot of things that could be improved as the quality is 
not as good as with the realplayer, mplayer etc.
Java (where the cortado player bases on) might have the potential to beat 
flash as there are a hundred times more java programmers than flash 
programmers out there and java is promesing for this kind of web applications 
because it has a huge library and much more security features than flash. 
However Java does not look as "fancy" as flash.  

To conclude: What I want to say with this text is,
- that theora is a perfect format for web-videos
- theora on the library side is well engineered to compete against other 
popular formats
- theora is not ready for the users, who could push this format to the same 
level as e.g. flash

So what Theora need are developers for this area (front ends, tools, webapps 
etc.), and more than a hand full of early adaptors to populate Theora.

Yorn

Am Montag, 10. September 2007 21:16 schrieb Maik Merten:
> Hello,
>
> I took the liberty of quickly slamming together
> http://www.theora.org/benefits/ . This is supposed to answer the "why
> should you use Theora" question in some detail.
>
> This section is not yet included in the navigation bar and I'd like to
> get confirmation that this information can be considered "canon" before
> making it "visible" (oh, and of course someone speaking the english
> language should give it a read to iron out at least the most outstanding
> language bloopers).
>
> bye,
>
> Maik
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