Re: [Debconf-video] Having x265 videos for debconf 2016.

[Wouter Verhelst <w@uter.be>]

Hi Shirish,

On Sun, May 08, 2016 at 05:01:01PM +0000, shirish शिरीष wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> As a viewer I have been very much impressed by x265 and have been by
> and large consuming videos which come in those format.
> 
> Here's a comparison between the two
> 
> http://www.mediaentertainmentinfo.com/2013/10/4-concept-series-what-is-the-difference-between-hevc-h-265-and-h-264-mpeg-4-avc.html
> 
> Would there be possibility of encoding and putting videos in the video
> archive in x265 format ?

Thanks for your enthousiasm. However, as a Free Software distribution,
Debian has a preference for distributing content in formats that are not
patent-encumbered, which H.265 as well as H.264 unfortunately are. The
WebM format, produced by Google, does not have those issues[1], so we
prefer to use that instead.

WebM has two options for its video codec; VP8 (comparable to H.264 in
performance and compression level and VP9 (comparable to H.265).
Unfortunately, market penetration and encoder quality of VP9 is not yet
ready (especially if limiting ourselves to Jessie), but we will switch
to VP9 at some point in the future.

[1] Or at the very least, there are no known patents that apply to the
    WebM formats *and* that are being actively enforced.

> I know that for 60 + videos (which each debconf has) it is a tall
> order,

Nah, CPU time is not the problem. If we decide to use a more
CPU-intensive codec, we'll just have the system spend more time
processing them. This can all be automated, so it's just a matter of
saying "hi computer, here are a few dozen videos, please transcode them,
kthxbye".

[...]
-- 
< ron> I mean, the main *practical* problem with C++, is there's like a dozen
       people in the world who think they really understand all of its rules,
       and pretty much all of them are just lying to themselves too.
 -- #debian-devel, OFTC, 2016-02-12