[Wikipedia-l] Re: Theora bitstream frozen...

Tue Jun 22 03:16:21 UTC 2004

Timwi wrote:

> The quantification "almost nobody" applies now, but for how much 
> longer? Ogg Vorbis has taken off quite remarkably. I think Wikipedia 
> should help boost the popularity of these open-source formats, 
> *especially* when they are the only free alternative to proprietary 
> competitors.

I've personally never actually seen a Vorbis-encoded file anywhere 
except Wikipedia, and non-techies I know typically don't know what to do 
with them when I send them, especially since apparently they don't play 
in the installations of Winamp many people have (I don't use Windows, so 
have no idea if more recent versions of Winamp include a Vorbis codec in 
the default download package).  Basically everyone still uses mp3, with 
AAC second place, and I've even seen more MPC than Vorbis, though that 
may not be representatives (codec-elitists tend to like MPC for being a 
subband, rather than transform, codec, which apparently makes pre-echo 
artifacts like those you find in MPC/AAC/Vorbis much less of a problem).

At the very least I think we should wait until a reasonably functional 
player is available for all major operating systems, so even if people 
can't play them by default, they can go somewhere and acquire software 
to play them.  Even more preferable would be to have reasonably 
functional encoders available for all major OSes as well, so people 
could actually contribute the videos.  (Vorbis does meet both these 
criteria.)

-Mark