TAK codec (Any news, seems silent for some time) Options

[johnsonlam]

Hi Guys,

Thomas seems going silent for a period of time, any news or other developers working on TAK related GUI or something like "TAK drop"?

Also want to ask, any media player can DIRECT decode the HDCD signal inside TAK yet?

Thanks.

[TBeck]

Well, mixed feelings here...

First reaction was a bit shocked and somehow relieved, quite ambivalent overall. Some brainstorming (first thoughts, unfiltered):

It feels a bit strange to see source code implementing my ideas with a foreign copyright notice not even mentioning me. Would i be allowed to use it?

On the other hand there is quite a lot of respect for the work of the reverse engineer. And probably someone has to have good reasons to invest so much time. I take it as a compliment for TAK's performance.

I said, i am feeling a bit relieved. That, because it was anyhow my plan to release the source code of the decoder, but given my current time constraints it was quite uncertain when this could happen. If this reverse engineered version is making users happy, i am happy too.

I haven't investigated the source code for compliance, no time for it now. But i am interested into a reliebale and fast implementation. Therefore i *will* (do i really like to feel forced?) have to contact the developer and send him my decoder source code (as soon as i have tidied it up).

What does this mean for future developments?

Well, possibly less freedom for me to implement new ideas breaking backwards compatibility. But this only, if we can't establish a good contact between me and the decoder developer.

Thomas

[Porcus]

I haven't investigated the source code for compliance, no time for it now. But i am interested into a reliebale and fast implementation. Therefore i *will* (do i really like to feel forced?) have to contact the developer and send him my decoder source code (as soon as i have tidied it up).

If you don't like the thought of 'being forced to', then you might consider as an argument the fact that ffmpeg has shipped with tools that should certainly not be considered state-of-the-art. The AAC encoder is likely the best example.
If your best guess is that users who encounter issues with ffmpeg will blame ffmpeg and not TAK, you might just wait and see. If your best guess is that TAK will get the blame, then ... well, you would feel 'forced' to contribute a repair.

I still think that a compression format without source code should be considered undocumented though

[C.R.Helmrich]

If you don't like the thought of 'being forced to', then you might consider as an argument the fact that ffmpeg has shipped with tools that should certainly not be considered state-of-the-art. The AAC encoder is likely the best example.

I guess you mean the old encoder. From http://ffmpeg.org/: "September, 28, 2012, FFmpeg 1.0, ... AAC encoding via libfdk-aac"

Looking forward to a verified open-source decoder implementation of TAK. Seems like a good piece of engineering.

Chris