Hacker News Reader

> MPEG is not free. A license is required for using MPEG.

For MPEG-1 this is not true anymore. All patents have expired. It's also far less computationally expensive and easier to implement/integrate than more modern codecs. This makes MPEG-1 a "good enough" solution for (e.g.) short video clips in a game.

Disclaimer: I wrote pl_mpeg[1], so my opinion is biased.

[1] https://github.com/phoboslab/pl_mpeg

View on HN

Fun fact: The PlayStation2 (and maybe PS1?) had an "MDEC" coprocessor that was basically a JPEG decoder chip. So, in one game we used low-rez MJPEG streams for the characters' pop-up, talking-head, conversational clips. The were small enough to keep in the 32MB of main RAM for zero-latency and free to decode any frame on the fly as needed.

and maybe PS1?

Yeah it started on the PS1, as you say:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27699899

lol. Been a long time since I worked on a PS1 ;)

Motion JPEG was once the bain of my existence - the very first DSLR's to get video recorded in mjpeg (it was an afterthought tacked on - they had no idea it would revolutionise an industry). Many of the free decoders were quite crap and did not do a good job when you were trying to squeeze every last bit of detail out of a 720P mjpeg stream - there was one significantly better one which I am forgetting the name of now. It was paid but I got a hold of it eventually somehow (as a broke college student) through a friend or class. One plus of it however from what I remember is that the format would play on even the crappiest hardware performance wise

Reply on news.ycombinator.com