VP3 Combines With Vorbis to Create Open-Source Multimedia Platform

On2 Technologies Inc., an industry leader in compression technology,has entered into an agreement with the Xiph.Org Foundation, developersof Vorbis, the popular open-source audio codec, to be the prime sourceof support, distribution, and further development of VP3.

In addition, with On2's support, Xiph will integrate VP3 into theirOgg Multimedia Framework, providing a full-featured, open-source,royalty-free alternative to expensive solutions such as MPEG-4.

On2's VP3.2 video compression technology is the world's mostefficient, open source video codec available. VP3 allows for highquality video at the lowest possible data rates while still retainingthe video's full frame-rate. The power of this codec is validated bythe fact that it is available in internet video players made by Appleand RealNetworks.

Vorbis is the first of a family of Ogg multimedia coding formatsoffered by the Xiph.Org Foundation, a company devoted to creating andmaintaining open standards in multimedia. Vorbis is a fully open,non-proprietary, patent-and- royalty-free, general-purpose compressedaudio format for mid to high quality audio applications.

"This is the first full multimedia platform available to the opensource community. In December, VP3 was recognized as having thepotential to become 'the MP3 of video' on Intel's website, and thatpotential will be enhanced by combining with an audio codec of greatpower and range, like Vorbis. Additionally, having TrueCast 5, itscorresponding video player and On2's VPVision Personal Video Recorder(PVR) application makes this a turnkey solution. This makes multimediawork FREE of the licensing fees that have plagued the MPEG-4initiative," said Douglas A. McIntyre, President and CEO of On2Technologies.

"Of course, there's a lot more to it than killing off the licensefees," said Xiph.org Foundation CEO Emmett Plant, "It's also aboutgiving people the ability to download, modify and distribute the VP3source code with wild abandon. We're extremely happy to be working withOn2 on this project. We're not just developing a great multimediaplatform, we're doing it in a way that will satisfy and empower theopen source community."

VP3 has been available to the open-source community since September,2001, and over 20,000 companies and software developers have registeredto download the license and source code. In the same amount of time,Ogg Vorbis has been downloaded over 250,000 times.

"The integrated solution with Xiph combines the premiere open-sourceaudio and video technologies. Xiph will take over primaryresponsibility for continued development and improvement of themultimedia open-source project, and On2 will have an arms-lengthrelationship with a trusted organization that has very strongcredibility in open-source development," said Dan Miller, On2Technologies Founder and CTO. "We think this is the next step in seeingVP3 and Vorbis propagate as widely used formats for the distribution ofdigitally encoded multimedia content."