Mpeg-2 licensing issues?

[dave]

I can't comment on the technical or licensing aspects, but as a user
this excites me to no end! Great idea! Here's to hoping you're able to
pull this off!

dave




On 10/15/05, Hein-Pieter van Braam <hp at syntomax.com> wrote:
> Hey list,
>
> Does anyone have any idea on what exactly requires an mpeg2 license for
> distribution? Would it, for instance, be possible to promote the 'mplex'
> tool to main? (it would have to be separated from the rest of the
> mjpegtools package)
>
> The thing is: I've got a little idea, and I did some digging around, and
> it's pretty easy to do.
>
> The idea is to add the capability to nautilus-cd-recorder to create
> video DVD's. Basically, it should detect that there are only video files
> on a disk, and offer to burn the files as DVD video disks, and convert
> the files on the disk to dvdauthor compatible mpeg2, generate menus, and
> burn the disk like normal.
>
> This is rather trivial from a code point of view, but not so from a
> licensing point of view. My idea is to use gstreamer for the actual
> reencoding of the video and audio stream, and simply use available video
> and audio codecs for it. So a 'virgin' ubuntu install won't actually be
> able to encode to mpeg2, since I don't think you are allowed to ship
> one, but, the tool could complain (in a sensible way) that it's not
> available, and perhaps open up synaptic to install it from
> universe/multiverse?
>
> The thing is, to have it work at all, you need a good multiplexer, and,
> currently, the only real solution to it is to use mplex from the
> mjpegtools, as it is the only piece of code that manages to multiplex
> the streams and not loose a/v sync.
>
> So I can either rip out the relevant peices of code from mplex (bad,
> duplicated code) or try to promote mplex to main (better, provided it
> isn't in some weird licensing mumbo jumbo)
>
> note that mplex doesn't have a whole lot of knowledge of the mpeg2
> format, and it is most certainly not an encoder.
>
> anyway, what do you all think about the idea?
>
> comments on both the licensing stuff and the overall idea of the
> extension are welcome! :)
>
> All the bits and pieces to do this are 'out there' and, I think it would
> be a VERY nice addition to main, as it would be a great 'wow' feature
> for dapper imho :)
>
> - TMM
>
>
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