Xiph.Org, the organization known for developing video and audio codecs Daala, Opus, FLAC, Vorbis and Speex, has presented a new edition of the free codec Theora 1.2, formed 15 and a half years after the last update. The codec is distributed under a free license without collecting license fees (royalty-free). The Theora video compression format is usually used together with the Vorbis audio codec in Ogg containers and can work in variable and fixed bitrate modes. In terms of encoding quality, Theora is close to H.264 and DiVX. The reference implementation of the codec is distributed under the BSD license.
The main focus of the new release was to improve coding performance and efficiency. At the bitstream level, Theora 1.2 is fully compliant with the Theora video coding format standardized in 2004. The API and ABI interfaces of the new version also retain full compatibility with previous Theora releases. Theora 1.2 includes a 190-page specification, API documentation, a draft specification of RTP extensions for streaming, and reference implementations of the encoder and decoder.
The main change in Theora 1.2 is a new implementation of the reference encoder, codenamed "Ptalarbvorm". The new implementation significantly improves performance and provides higher compression levels. At the same time, the files created by the new encoder are fully compatible with the decoders offered in previous versions.
In addition, Theora 1.2 optimizes the reference decoder, adds support for the RISC OS platform, and significantly improves support for the ARM architecture. Optimizations for ARM CPUs and TI C64x+ DSPs are added. Three levels of encoding speed are offered (the old level 2 is renamed to 3, and a new intermediate level is offered instead of the second).
Source: opennet.ru
