FFV1 and Archives:
A short history about almost everything

by Peter B.
(pb@av-rd.com)

 

FFV1/MKV Symposium - Berlin (July 2016)

FFV1 Timeline

  • 2003: Created in Open Source project "FFmpeg"
  • 2006: Bitstream frozen (version 1)
  • 2009: Picked up for preservation
  • 2010: Funding improvements
  • 2012: Added 14bit RGB, Multithreading, SliceCRC
  • 2013: Official release of "FFV1.3"
  • 2014: PREFORMA Project
  • 2016: Standardization in progress

2010

January 2010

  • Started with the idea to use image file formats instead of codec+container
  • Started development of workflow-system "DVA-Profession" for ingest

February 2010

  • Dropped idea of image files, due to performance and video property-support issues
  • Returned to lossless codecs + container: HuffYUV

March 2010

  • Found FFV1 and Lagarith in MSU test results
  • Dropped it at first, because marked experimental
  • Reconsidered FFV1, due to its excellent properties: technical, speed, size, open-source license and FFmpeg-support

April 2010

  • Detailed evaluation of FFV1 suitability for long-term preservation
  • Contacted FFmpeg-devel mailing list, requesting official status of FFV1
  • Found out it was stable since April 2006
  • FFV1 back as #1 candidate

April 2010

  • Ran tests with SD-PAL 4:2:2 (=our main use case)
  • Final consent to use FFV1 as preservation format at Mediathek
  • Hermann Lewetz presented our findings at IASA-AMIA 2010
  • Ran tests as future option for "HD-and-beyond"

July 2010

  • Mediathek hired Niedermayer for multi-threading implementation = FFV1.2 development started
  • FFV1 mentioned in paper "Bewaring en Ontsluiting van Multimediale Data in Vlaanderen"
    (ISBN 9789020989441, LannooCampus)
  • Continued testing of improvements + providing feedback, during whole development phase

October 2010

  • LibAV fork of FFmpeg

2011

March 2011

  • End of workflow/ingest testing phase: start of official "real" archive material ingest

April 2011

  • I contacted Dave Rice
    (with a DV question ;))

August 2011

  • DVA-Profession v1.0 released

2012

April 2012

  • Dave brought in idea for CRCs in bitstream (on @ffmpeg-devel) = FFV1.3 development started.
  • FFV1.2 superseeded and dropped.

August 2012

  • Georg Lippitsch added >8 bpc for RGB
    (Request by Austrian Film Archive)

Unspecific month(s) 2012:

  • More talks, discussions with other institutions - and continued presentations about practical usefulness of FFV1
  • Additional co-funding of FFV1 improvements: NOA, Austrian Film Archive

September 2012

  • FFV1.3 test results quite satisfactory, yet testing was not finished.

October 2012

  • FFV1.3 support merged in LibAV
    (Big thanks to Luca Barbato!)

2013

August 2013

  • Bitstream frozen and official release of FFV1.3 as "production stable"

2014

February

  • Meeting Emanuel Lorrain and Bert Lemmens from PACKED
  • Hearing that PREFORMA is considering FFV1 as option

April

  • Dave, Jérôme and PREFORMA

2015

May 2015

  • Tessa Fallon opened FFV1/MKV discussion thread on IETF dispatch@ list.
  • First release of MediaConch
  • FIAT/IFTA CfP: "Is FFV1 the new JPEG2000?"

December 2015

2016

January 2016

  • First mention of FFV1.4 plans
  • Start of discussion on cellar@ietf.org about features of FFV1.4

March

  • Reto Kromer mentions FFV1 in keynote speech at JTS (Singapore)

July 2016

  • FFV1/MKV Symposium in Berlin ;)

It was quite a journey...

From:

I'd love to see a free codec being promoted as the format for long term video archives. Currently, it's chaos in the archive world, because there is no standard or best-practice at the moment.
Peter B. (April 22nd, 2010)

To:

All I can say now is "It just works". We really had no problems at all. We have digitized (mostly from U-matic) in uncompressed YUV 4:2:2 10 bits and PCM 24 bits, 48 KHz and then converted to FFV1/MKV.
Etienne Desautels (July 13th, 2016)

#NoTimeToWait

Questions?

License and Credits

This presentation is available under a Copyleft License:

Creative Commons "Attribution-ShareAlike"
(CC-BY-SA)

Peter Bubestinger-Steindl:
p.bubestinger@das-werkstatt.com
pb@av-rd.com