Sorenson Or Vp6 Codec

Sorenson Media was established in December 1995 to address market demand for rich online media content by developing innovative, cost-effective video encoding technology citation needed that significantly reduced bandwidth requirements while preserving the highest video quality. citation needed Originally called Sorenson Vision, the company developed technology licensed and ultimately acquired from Utah State University. The company first unveiled its codec compression and decompression tool at a developer s preview at MacWorld Expo in January 1997.

Sorenson Media has been instrumental in bringing Internet video to QuickTime and to associated applications on the Windows and Macintosh platforms and due to their licensing agreement with Apple were committed to improving the online video experience for content creators, managers and consumers alike. Since its release, Sorenson Media s video encoding technology has been used in Apple Computer s trailers web site and clip for studios such as Disney, Lucas Film, MGM and Paramount and iTunes music videos before the switch to the industry standard H.264 format.

3 Technical service for the deaf

Sorenson Media is led by its chairman and founder James Lee Sorenson, based on his previous experience in industries ranging from Internet video and telecommunication services to private equity, medical devices, large-scale investment and real estate development citation needed. Its president and CEO is Marcus Liassides, who obtained experience in several facets of the digital media industry, including expertise in over-the-top OTT video platform development. 1

Sorenson Video - Apple bundled QuickTime 3 components for decoding and basic encoding

Sorenson Video Pro - Apple distributed, full featured, two-pass VBR QuickTime developer encoding component 2

Sorenson Squeeze 4 - a Windows and Macintosh full featured encoding application

Sorenson 360 5 - an online video platform OVP

Squeeze Server - a server-based live encoding application

Technical service for the deaf edit

Significant improvements in video call quality of service for the deaf occurred in the United States in 2003 when Sorenson developed its VP-100 model stand-alone videophone specifically for the deaf community. It was designed to output its video to a deaf user s standard television set in order to lower the cost of acquisition. It also provided remote control and a powerful video compression codec for unequaled video quality and ease of use with a Video Relay Service VRS. Favourable reviews quickly led to its popular usage at educational facilities for the deaf, and from there to the greater deaf community. 6

Coupled with similar high-quality videophones introduced by other electronics manufacturers, the availability of high speed Internet, and sponsored video relay services authorized by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in 2002, VRS for the deaf underwent rapid growth in the United States. 6

Sorenson codec may refer to either of three proprietary video codecs:

Two versions of Sorenson Video were released, both using SVQ1 as their FourCC.

Version one first appeared with the release of QuickTime 3 on March 30, 1998. The backward-compatible version two was released with QuickTime 4 on March 11, 1999, which mainly included minor improvements and optimizations to the Developer Edition of the encoder, so encoded movies would be backwards compatible with the QuickTime 3 release. Changes for version two were only made to the encoder, not to the compression format. This format uses a Y CbCr 4:1:0 color space, which means every block of eight pixels share the same color components, which can cause color bleeding across pixels. This was solved in version 3 and the Spark version which both use the more common Y CbCr 4:2:0 color space. FFmpeg supports decoding of Sorenson Video since 2002, encoding of SVQ1 was added in 2004 for 0.4.9-pre1. 7

Version two was given wide exposure from the release of the teaser trailer for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace on March 11, 1999.

The official specifications of the codec are not public. For a long time the only way to play back Sorenson Video was to use Apple s QuickTime or MPlayer, which used DLL files extracted from QuickTime for Windows.

This incompatible version of Sorenson Video uses SVQ3 as its FourCC.

This version was released with QuickTime 5.0.2 on July 1, 2001. It was available exclusively for QuickTime. 8 9 Apple QuickTime later focused on other compression formats and moved Sorenson Video 3 to a separate group called legacy encoders. 10 According to an anonymous developer of FFmpeg, 11 reverse engineering of the SVQ3 codec Sorenson Video 3 revealed it as a tweaked version of H.264. 12 The same developer added support for this codec to FFmpeg. FFmpeg supports decoding of Sorenson Vector Quantizer 3 fourcc SVQ3 and Sorenson Vector Quantizer 1 fourcc SVQ1 starting with version 0.4.7, released in 2003. 13

Sorenson Video 3 comes with Sorenson Squeeze. 14

Sorenson Spark is an implementation of H.263 for use in Flash Video and Adobe Flash files. FFmpeg uses FLV1 FourCC and Adobe frame identifiers of 0x21, 0x22 and 0x23.

As Apple began to embrace MPEG-4 and move away from other proprietary codecs, Sorenson Media licensed Sorenson Spark Sorenson H.263 to Macromedia, which was included with Macromedia Flash MX v6 on March 4, 2002. 15 16 Sorenson Spark is the required video compression format for Flash Player 6 and 7.

Macromedia later tried to find a better video codec. Starting with Flash Player 8 released in September 2005, the preferred video codec became VP6. 17 18 Sorenson Spark can be still used in the Adobe Flash CS4 Professional 2008 for Flash Video files alongside H.264 and VP6. 17 According to Adobe engineer Tinic Uro, Sorenson Spark is an incomplete implementation of H.263. 18 19 It differ mostly in header structure and ranges of the coefficients. 12

FFmpeg in 2003 added encoding and decoding support for Sorenson H.263. 20

Sorenson Media Appoints Digital Media Industry Veteran Marcus Liassides as CEO media release, BusinessWire.com website, October 18, 2003.

Terran Interactive, Inc. 1998 Codec Central - Sorenson Video, Retrieved on 2009-08-09

Squeeze, Retrieved on 2009-08-09

Sorenson Squeeze CrunchBase Profile. Retrieved 2011-03-08.

Sorenson 360 CrunchBase Profile. Retrieved 2011-03-08.

a b Fitzgerald, Thomas J. For the Deaf, Communication Without the Wait, The New York Times, December 18, 2003.

FFmpeg.org FFMpeg General Documentation - Video Codecs, Retrieved on 2009-08-09

Sorenson Media 2001-07-02 Sorenson Media Announces the Availability of Sorenson Video 3 Exclusively for QuickTime, Retrieved on 2009-08-09

Apple 2000-10-10 Apple Releases QuickTime 5 and QuickTime Streaming Server 3 Public Previews, Retrieved on 2009-08-09

Apple Mailing Lists - batch export: where is sorenson ., Retrieved on 2009-08-09

Deconstructing H.264/AVC at the Wayback Machine archived July 24, 2008 on DrunkenBlog, July 28, 2004.

a b Larsson, Benjamin 2009-03-17. h263-svq3 optimizations. FFmpeg-devel Mailing list. Retrieved 2009-08-09.

FFmpeg Changelog, Retrieved on 2009-08-10

Sorenson Media SV3 Pro Codec, Retrieved on 2009-08-09

Adobe 2002-03-04 Macromedia - Press room : Macromedia and Sorenson Media Bring Video to Macromedia Flash Content and Applications

Adobe LiveDocs About the Sorenson Spark codec, Retrieved on 2009-08-09

a b Adobe Flash CS4 Professional Documentation - Digital video and Flash, Retrieved on 2009-08-09

a b Kaourantin.net 2005-08-13 The quest for a new video codec in Flash 8, Retrieved on 2009-08-10

Sorenson Spark. MultimediaWiki. Retrieved 2009-11-03.

FFmpeg.org 2003 FFmpeg 0.4.8 Documentation - Video Codecs at the Wayback Machine archived December 7, 2003, Retrieved on 2009-08-10

Sorenson Video Codec, Version 3 - format description by the Library of Congress

Sorenson Video 1 - MultimediaWiki

Sorenson Video 3 - MultimediaWiki

Sorenson Spark - MultimediaWiki

Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php.title Sorenson_Media oldid 698057045

Categories: Software companies based in CaliforniaCompanies based in Carlsbad, CaliforniaVideo codecsVideotelephony.

Flash Video Encoders

Sorenson Media was established in December 1995 to address market demand for rich online media content by developing innovative, cost-effective video encoding.

Flash video FLV was at one time the most popular video format on the internet. The Flash 8 F8 presets in Squeeze use the On2 VP6 codec which is more advanced than.

On2 VP6-E codec. Sorenson Spark opened the possibility of video playback within a Flash movie, you should use the On2 VP6-E or Sorenson Spark codec.

Dec 08, 2011  Format Description for Sorenson_3 -- Bitstream encoding for video developed by Sorenson Media, Inc. The SIGGRAPH education page states that the codec.

Flash Video is a container file format used to Flash Video FLV files usually contain material encoded with codecs following the Sorenson Spark or VP6 video.

With the release of Flash 8 and the switch to On2 VP6 as the preferred codec, many producers are facing the decision of which encoder to use for Flash video. We faced this decision ourselves in 2005. Having used the Sorenson Squeeze encoder with Flash MX we were keen to know which tool would continue to give us the best possible quality. Our choices were:

- The Macromedia later Adobe Flash Video Converter www.macromedia.com/software/flash/flashpro

- The On2 VP6 plugin for Sorenson Squeeze www.sorensonmedia.com

- Flix Pro, the encoder utility provided by On2 Technologies www.on2.com

There are also many other encoders on the market but these three appear to offer the best quality and reliability. If you are more concerned about budget than quality or features, try the free Super Encoder.

Macromedia/Adobe Flash Video Converter

This is a separate application which comes bundled with Flash 8. It is the encoder that most people use simply because it entails no extra cost.

We found that the Flash encoder is very easy to use and produces good quality video in most cases. However it has the serious limitation of lacking 2-pass encoding. 2-pass encoding allows the application to analyse the video file before encoding it, resulting in higher-quality encoded video. 1-pass encoding can be adequate for video which is fairly consistent, but sudden changes such as cuts can take the application by surprise and result in unnecessarily poor quality shots.

Encoding settings in Flash Converter are adequate without being spectacular. You can control basic settings such as maximum data rate, keyframes and cropping, but there are no bells or whistles.

Cue points can be added and edited easily with The Flash 8 Video Converter.

We tried a variety of input files which had been created with different codecs and Flash 8 Video Converter handled them all even files from our old Miro DC30.

Overall, the Flash 8 Video Converter is a good tool which is only let down by the lack of 2-pass encoding. Some people feel that this is not a serious issue but we believe that it is. In many of the tests we ran, the difference in image quality was significant.

Although Sorenson Media no longer provides the main codec for Flash video, the Sorenson Squeeze application can be upgraded with a plugin to include the On2 VP6 codec. This effectively keeps Sorenson Squeeze current for Flash producers. Unfortunately the plugin costs about the same as the entire Flix application available from On2 Technologies, and no free trial is available so you have had to pay for the plugin just to test it. For this reason we decided to abandon Sorenson and try Flix which does have a free trial.

It s worth noting that the Sorenson Spark codec does still have some advantages over On2 VP6, for example it requires less processing power for the end user. It is also compatible with Flash Player 7, whereas VP6 requires Flash Player 8. However we don t feel that the advantages are enough to warrant using this codec On2 VP6 is clearly better quality.

If you already own Sorenson Squeeze, it will be slightly cheaper to purchase the VP6 plugin than to purchase Flix Pro. However if you are starting from scratch, it is quite a lot more expensive to buy both Sorenson Squeeze and the plugin.

At the time of writing January 2006, a new version of Squeeze is due with a free upgrade for v4 users. The new version will include:

- Linked FLV now the default for swf or embedded FLV

- New Flash player templates/skins with documentation

- Cross platform, Windows and Mac

- The VP6 plugin sold separately or bundled

Sorenson Squeeze is a very nice program to use, with an excellent interface, lots of options and productive workflow.

NOTE September 2006 : I have just been alerted to this bog entry which claims there is a limit to the number of files which can be encoded per month with Sorenson Squeeze. I recommend that you take this into consideration.

Flix Pro is the flagship Flash encoding application provided by the company who makes the codec, so you would expect it to be at least equal quality to any other option. Certainly, the addition of 2-pass coding is a dramatic improvement over the Flash 8 Video Converter. Cue points are supported.

However it s not all good news. In a series of test clips we found that Flix did not cope well with clips that were created with older codecs. Frequently it claimed to have finished encoding but the resulting clip had no video. The same clips were processed by Flash 8 Video Converter without a problem.

The user interface is fairly ordinary. There are no serious problems but it s not as nice to use as either Flash 8 Video Converter or Sorenson Squeeze. We couldn t avoid the impression that this application is less mature than Sorenson Squeeze.

Despite the drawbacks, Flix Pro provides much better quality video than Flash 8 Video Converter.

The lack of 2-pass encoding makes Flash Media Encoder a poor choice for anyone wanting the best quality. On the other hand, lack of cue point support is an issue for both Flix and Sorenson. Both companies are moving to solve this issue when they do, they will both be clearly ahead of Flash Media Encoder.

Sorenson Squeeze provides the best workflow and productivity, although at this stage we cannot vouch for the quality of the video. The price is slightly higher but this is probably justified.

Flix Pro provides excellent quality video and will be perfectly adequate for most users, but power-users may find the interface and limited options frustrating.