Has this codec been implemented within the BBC and is it still current today ? Dirac sounds like a planet from Dr Who !
Pro video blog…Produced by Philip Johnston DoP/Editor
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Fours years old, yet still news to me.
News to me also but interestingly enough apart from the BBC no one else seems to use it and are the BBC still using it !
I remember the early excitement about Dirac, but just like MP3 vs Ogg, VHS vs Betamax,the lower system seems to have won, the wavelet compression system required quite a bit of horsepower. Like Apple’s Pixlet codec, it had its applications at the very high end, but didn’t get traction at the low end.
At the time, there was a lot of consternation over patents and licenses for various codecs including H.264. Most of us would never have to worry about it, but fees kicked in at 10,000 transmissions. The BBC has such a huge implementation, and have to work at such a scale, that these fees could rapidly mount up into millions. It was felt that, with the brainpower to ‘roll their own codec’, it was a better investment than paying all those royalties, and to own the technology rather than rely on third parties with wrinkles in their licensing systems.
Feast your eyes (not) on the H.264/AVC FAQ:
http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/FAQ.aspx