Robert Scott Horning wrote:
Rob Church wrote:
>On 23/08/06, Michael R. Irwin <michael_irwin(a)verizon.net> wrote:
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>>I have a query into WikiCommons but I could not find any definitive
>>procedure or policy regarding which file formats are accepted there and
>>which are not.
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snip
I wrote a reply to a similar thread on Foundation-l a
little over a year
ago, and I'd like to point out that video file formats are simply a
licensing nightmare. While Ogg Vorbis is the "most free" of common
video formats, it is hardly the most widely used. Another "animation"
format is MNG, which is a variation of the PNG format, however that
format is more for things like a free replacement of animated GIFs....
not what I think you have in mind.
Correct. I can get with a couple of stills in the lesson I am currently
working on but a smooth nice animation would really grab the student's
attention and show how engineering approximations move analysis from the
intractable real world to properly simplied solvable analysis scenario.
I did have a long and hard discussion with the Ogg
Vorbis creators back
when they got started, where I complained about their licensing issues.
They originally had a very pecular propritary license that was mostly
free, but something more like the Microsoft "open source" license, that
allowed you to look but any changes to the format specs had to be given
back to the developers. They have since changed the spec licensing
arrangements, and have dropped any royalty requirments.
I would urge a little bit of caution though with the Ogg Vorbis concept
as there are apparently some patents that it might violate, and it is
within the realm of possibility that this file format might have the
same situation happen to it that also happened to the CompuServ GIF file
format where a 3rd party can "claim" ownership of all content using this
file format. This is one of the huge issues that is facing software
developers with the proliferation of stupid patents jaming up the U.S.
court system (and soon to be the EU court system as well).
Aha! Good to know. Thanks for valuable information.
Stay away from MPEG file formats if you want them to be
free to use for
students. The act of even hosting them on a web server can cause huge
liabilities, even though there is a "non-commercial use" clause in some
MPEG licensing agreements. These are completely incompatable with the
GFDL, much as CC-by-SA-NC is also incompatable, and for the exact same
reasons. MPEG also sucks the karma out of you if you have to ever deal
with it, which is exactly why the motion picture industry is so
supportive of the format. I speak from experience here.
Also valuable.
You seriously would not believe the money that has gone
into the
development of the MPEG file formats and related concepts like
DVD-Video.... you would think it was some kind of Manhattan-style
military project and other stuff that would just turn your stomach.
Actually I would. In the U.S. big business thrives on a diverse
business ecology. I spent a lot of money producing a lot of multimedia
content which is now encumbered by obsolete proprietary formats and
difficult to use or resuse. A lot of other multimedia developers did
the same. As a result of conflicting difficult multimedia formats
much of the initial surge into this area has stalled. Eventually the
big guys will find it a nonprofitable area (with exception of a couple
of key areas like video games on ataria and xbox) and we will be back at
square zero defining commonly available standard formats.
Other video file formats are even more propritary, such
as Quicktime
(owned by Apple), Windows Media (Microsoft), and RealVideo. We simply
can't use these.
So just about all other alternatives are really messed up. I think this
is one situation where some hard work is going to be needed and that
Wikimedia projects, and perhaps Wikiversity in particular can play a
huge role in helping to define the multimedia file formats that are
going to be widely used. Believe it or not, this is bleeding edge
technology and concepts here, where we are discussing "free content"
video. It shouldn't be, but it is. I have spent over a decade in
researching free (as in GPL, GFDL compatable) multimedia file formats
and I am as close to a leading expert on the subject as can be found.
Thank you for the information Robert. I appreciate your sharing the
expertise. Makes me feel less silly when google searches come up
empty. Perhaps I shall need to establish a "Art of Illusion" portal or
user group sooner rather than later. It is a java based open source
animation package currently lower scale than 3DSMax but providing a
similar type of development environment. Last time I checked it was
not yet importing 3DSMax but the lead developer was very interested in
assisting anyone who wanted to tackle a plugin for that purpose.
I will do some further research. Eventually this expensive animation I
have will be used effectively for some purpose!
Regards,
mirwin