Opus free audio codec officially became IETF standard

The algorithm description and reference implementation in C is now contained in RFC 6716 . This is a big victory for open standards. The impressive characteristics of the Opus codec have already been published on Habré ( one , two ). It is completely free for any use. The codec is included in the 15th version of Firefox browser, in the near future its support will also appear in Skype - the work on integrating Opus into Skype is almost complete. This is not surprising, since Mozilla and Skype (that is, now Microsoft) are the main developers of Opus.




Rumors that Google is not happy with the new codec are unfounded. According to one of the developers of Opus, Jean-Marc Valin, Google has been a great help in the development and testing. In a message from Google on July 29 on the WebRTC mailing list, Opus was named the preferred codec for standardization. In the September 7 draft of the WebRTC standard, Opus support is mandatory for all WebRTC-compatible browsers. This means that Google Chrome, and Opera, and Internet Explorer will have to support it.
')
Opus codecs will be included not only in browsers. The next stable version of Debian can be installed from standard repositories. Opus support GStreamer, FFMpeg, foobar2000, K-Lite Codec Pack, LAV filters. VLC player 2.0.4 will be released with Opus support. Work is underway to turn on Opus in Mumble voice chat and firmware for Rockbox audio players.

The sick question of many open technologies is patent claims. For example, the MPEG LA consortium issued a statement that 12 companies that belong to it have patents that may violate the VP8 video codec promoted by Google. Similar claims against Opus were made by Qualcom and Huawei. Representatives of the xiph.org Foundation (an organization created to jointly develop and promote open multimedia standards, including Opus, on the Internet), argue that

"... this is an ordinary attempt to shake off easy money, considering that legal fights will cost us too much and it will be easier to pay. This is abuse of the law and we have already filed complaints. Qualcom’s response to our appeal is that" We have right, and the rest we do not care.

The good news is that the claims referred to specific patents. Our lawyers checked them, and came to the conclusion that everything is clean. We would not publish a code or standard in which we would have to write in small print about licensing fees. "