Tale of a codec optimisation: doing things the GNU/Linux way
Encoding is a CPU-intensive operation. Whilst encoding, using optimised code is crucial. In this short article I will explain how I gained a 300% speed boost when encoding DVDs and will show how having the program’s sources and being able to talk to the maintainers sometimes really, really helps. Welcome to doing things “the GNU/Linux way”.
What’s in a codec
Ever since Gej cracked Microsoft’s almost-MPEG4 compliant codecs and named them DivX, people have tried their damnedest best to package video in the most efficient way: retaining quality and reducing size. This led to a rewrite of the DivX codec under the name ProjectMayo. It generated two forks: one called DivX, proprietary and closed, edited by DivX Networks, with Windows, MacOS and (obsolete) GNU/Linux versions available in binary form. The other, keeping up the work from ProjectMayo, called itself Xvid and was aimed at creating a GPL-licensed MPEG-7-compliant encoder, distributed in source form “for educational purposes”. (It is forbidden to distribute the binary in those countries where MPEG-4 is patented, but patents don’t apply to source files, as they describe mathematical formulas, and in most countries those aren’t patentable.)
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