Welcome to this issue of Dr. Dobb's Data Compression Newsletter! This newsletter keeps you up to date with news items, product information, and the occasional editorial aside about the world of Data Compression. Your input is always welcome in the form of comments, submissions, or original material.
MP3Stego
January 7, 2004
Correspondent Drew Scott Daniels turned up an interesting project: mp3stego.
This appears to be the sole work of Fabien A. P. Petitcolas, and naturally aims to hide information in MP3 files.
These seems like a pretty good idea—MP3 files are generally nice and big, so you could hide some fairly substantial text in a given file. Passing encoded files around using Kazaa seems like something that bad guys around the world would lap up like cream in a saucer, doesn't it?
Updated Video Codec Comparison
January 7, 2004
Somebody on Doom9 ran a nice comparison of a batch of video codecs, including the usual MPEG-4 suspects, Real, On2, and so on. An udpate was posted on New Year's Eve, but unfortunately it's not possible to do a diff—so I don't know what content is new and what is old. Nonetheless, a good article for those with a deep passion for video.
Codec shoot-out 2003 - 2nd installment
Meridian Lossless Packing
January 6, 2004
DVD-Audio is out there, although it hasn't lit the world on fire yet. But if you have a nice 5.1 or 6.1 home theater system, and you're a music afficianado, there are now quite a few remastered CDs that apparently sound pretty good in this new format.
Anyway, somehow the whole DVD-Audio business managed to get off the ground without me noticing that it was based on a lossless compression format know as Meridian Lossless Packing. It turns out that 24-bit samples at 96 Khz on 7 channels exceeds the bandwidth limitations of the DVD mechanism, in effect mandating some sort of compression.
The result is MLP, which I guess is now present in scads of DVD players out there. What's interesting is that MLP doesn't seem to have created any sort of buzz among the lossless audio community, which is always talking about FLAC, Monkey's Audio, and a few others. So either MLP doesn't have particularly good performance numbers, or it is wrapped up in deadly IP, or (like me) nobody noticed it was around.
DVD-Audio News: CES 2004: Meridian Flies the Flag for DVD-Audio
5dot1.com: What is Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP)?
IvyTV
January 6, 2004
The IvyTV project is dedicated to creating a kernel mode driver for the iTVC15 familiy of MPEG codecs. These are apparently used in a couple of the Hauppage WinTV cards. It's kind of hard to tell by just browsing the page, but this is a Linux project—I guess Windows users already have drivers to use.
Euclid Support Continues
January 5, 2004
I continue to receive angry email from people who tell me that Euclid Discoveries is soon to blow the doors off the world of data compression. Their press release is what piqued my curiousity originally, with its incredible claims. But these are nothing compared to what I'm hearing from their adherents.
Here are some choice tidbits from the correspondence:
"Sorry, but you will soon be eating your 'E words' regarding Euclid Discoveries. And, unfortunately, your reasoning on the subject is so far off-base that I'm forced to discount everything else you've ever said."
"...the principals of Euclid have sat on the MP3 standards committee for a number of years."
"The PR firm handling their publicity (and their patent firm) are the premier firm(s) in the niche. They don't take on losers. And they've seen the demo."
"These guys are the real deal. The actual public demos begin in January."
"For example the streaming media speeds of 6*T1 were reached on a 56k modem with 0 data loss. Yes I did say that using EuclidVision technology, the speed was recently clocked at 7.2 millon kbps on a 56k modem."
"This technology has been in the works for 8 yrs and has been funded totally by a small network of investors, another factor in keeping it stealth."
Of course, Euclid hasn't done anything yet except issue a single press release (and perhaps cash checks,) so it's hard to be too critical of them. I will say that on their web site the statement "By choice, we are highly stealth" doesn't quite sit right with my admittedly amateur editorial ear. But for right now, that's the worst thing I can say about Euclid. I'll be eagerly waiting for their demos, with high expectations!
Euclid Discoveries Press Release
Real Paving the Way with MS Lawsuit
January 5, 2004
Apparently when RealNetworks filed their billion dollar suit against Microsoft last month they may have found a few friends willing to help watch their back in the fight.
This article in CRN implies that at least a few other companies are ready to join in, either as plaintiffs in Real's action or perhaps pursuing similar lawsuits themselves.
Interesting notion, but it's going to take a lot of courage for anyone playing in the Windows market to join in this one.
CRN: RealNetworks Could Get Backup In Microsoft Suit
PCMag on Long Term Thinking
January 4, 2003
So, you've got a lot of pictures stored in JPEG format, some music in MP3 format, and various video files on your PC. Do you think your great-grandchildren will be able to read them all in 100 years?
Personally, I don't think they're going to be very interested, but let's keep up the fantasy that they will be. PC Magazine has a talk about those file formats, as well as some of the media issues you're going to encounter over the long haul.
Modeling EXE Files
January 4, 2003
Matt Mahoney knows his stuff. His series of PAQ compressors are unequaled among open source projects for compression ratios. But apparently, Matt is never happy with the status quo.
In this posting to comp.compression, Matt asks the group if anyone has any good ideas for modeling EXE files. One would think there has been at least some work done in this area, particularly back in the day when compressed EXEs where all the rage. See if anyone gives Matt some decent advice.
Discussion thread from comp.compression courtesy of Google
AAC at 128 Kbps
January 3, 2003
If you had a choice between storing your music at 128 Kbps in the AAC format, or 192 Kbps using WMA, which would you choose? I'm not sure what I would have to say about this, but given the question, the folks on the HydrogenAudio forums had plenty to say.
LipSynch Good
January 3, 2003
One big problem with compressed voice and video being sent over WANs is that of keeping lip-synch. It's easy for packets to arrive out of order or with different delay factors. It's also easy for your rendering software to let delays or errors creep into one stream and not into the other. When this happens, you feel as though you are watching a badly dubbed move. Very disconcerting.
Well, the folks at Cornell spawned a startup called SightSpeed, and they seem to think that they can do a lot about this in a cheap way. Check it out.
MPEG4IP
January 2, 2003
The Open Source MPEG4IP project has the following goals:
MPEG4IP provides an end-to-end system to explore streaming multimedia. The package includes many existing open source packages and the "glue" to integrate them together. This is a tool for streaming video and audio that is standards-oriented and free from proprietary protocols and extensions.
Provided are a live MPEG-4/H.261 MP3/AAC broadcaster and file recorder, command line utilities such as an MP4 file creator and hinter, and an player that can both stream and play back from local file.
They've been working on this project for many years, and I'm happy to observe that they've just now seen fit to release a 1.0 version of their software. I suspect there is a lot of useful stuff in this new package.
GPAC
January 2, 2003
Speaking of MPEG-4, another open source project in this arena is known as GPAC. The GPAC project aims to provide a clean, open, efficient implementation of an MPEG-4 codec. They point out that the reference code from the MPEG committee has numerous shortcomings, including its size and speed.
This project is still in its infancy, so you aren't likely to get something you can just drop into your commercial rendering software. But maybe this is the best time to get involved.
More on the Real Lawsuit
January 1, 2003
Last week I ran a bit reporting on the billion dollar lawsuit that Real Networks filed against Microsoft. I speculated that this may be the most effective way to compete against Microsoft: a combination of head-to-head product matchups combined with legal action at the place where they are the weakest—monopoly status.
The folks at the UK Register may not have the closest view of the US legal system, but I'm always interesting in hearing what they think about our little brouhahas.
The Register: Why Real sued Microsoft
Unmei Weighs In
January 1, 2003
I really love the VLC media player from the VideoLan project. It's what I use to play DVDs on my notebook PC, and I have never had a speck of trouble with it. I've recommended it to many other folks who seem happy with it as well. I recently got a feedback comment on my web site from somebody going by the name unmei. He had this to say:
VLC has become a very handy video player well suited for people that like to play with "new and hip" codecs and containers. Might not be the player of choice for people looking for WMP-type players as it's a bit less user friendly but it makes constant progress in all areas (usability, integration of more formats). IMHO the 3rd best video player on windows (but as I'm contact with the programmers of the other two, I might be biased and VLC could actually be "the best" :)
Always glad to print the comments of a happy user. Thanks Unmei!
That's all until next month. Write me with your feedback at [email protected]. Thanks! - mrn
