Theora is a royalty-free, open standard, lossy video compression technology being developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation alongside their other open media efforts, most notably the Vorbis audio codec and the Ogg container.

libtheora is a reference implementation of the Theora video compression format being developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation.

Theora is derived from the proprietary VP3 codec, released into the public domain by On2 Technologies. It is broadly comparable firstly in design and bitrate efficiency to MPEG-4 Part 2, early versions of Windows Media Video, and RealVideo, and secondly in open standards philosophy to the BBC’s Dirac codec.

Theora is named for Theora Jones, Edison Carter’s Controller on the Max Headroom television program.

Playback

Embedded by HTML 5

As originally recommended by HTML 5, these browsers support Theora when embedded by the video element:

• Mozilla Firefox 3.5 and later versions
• Google Chrome as of version 3.0.182.2
• SeaMonkey as of version 2.0
• Opera 9.5 experimental video builds and pre-alpha builds of Opera 10.50
• Future versions of Konqueror

Browser plugins

• Annodex plugin via OggPlay
• Cortado, a Java based applet
  • Itheora, a PHP wrapper for Cortado
• Mv Embed HTML 5 video tag wrapper for numerous plugin types.
• VLC media player browser plugin for IE or Firefox

Supporting media frameworks

• DirectShow with use of DirectShow filters
• GStreamer supported via Theora module, supports GStreamer based applications eg. Totem and Songbird
• Phonon
• QuickTime with use of Xiph QuickTime Components

Supporting applications

• FFmpeg (own implementation)
• Helix Player
• Miro Media Player (formerly known as Democracy Player)
• MPlayer and front-ends
• Songbird
• VLC (native support)
• xine and all libxine-based players like Kaffeine

Related posts:

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2. Firefox 3.5 supports open video formats The new Firefox 3.5 now supports open video formats. What does this mean ? Firefox now supports Theora, which is a truly free and open video format for the internet. This means that we would have to do away with...