[ 2004 Mar 20 - alpha 3 release ]

I'm happy to announce at long last the release of theora alpha 3. This incorporates all the bitstream changes we wanted to make both for future encoder improvements and to permit lossless transcode of VP3 content. This is an important milestone for us on the road to a stable release.

As this is an alpha release we are again providing sources only. See the files section of downloads. This version requires libogg 1.1 or later and libvorbis 1.0.1 or later.

Also new in this release are a set of experimental tools in the win32 directory contributed by Mauricio Piacentini. This includes a transcoding tool for avi-encapsulated vp3 video which also works on linux.

We hope to not make any further incompatible bitstream changes, but this is still alpha code. Don't use this for content you're not ready to re-encode!

Thanks to everyone who contributed!

[ 2004 Jan 26 - status update ]

There hasn't been much progress of late. Derf has been working on a new encoder, and in doing so came up with some suggested bitstreams changes to increase the scope for future encoder improvements. These will be integrated into the reference encoder and released as 'alpha 3' for testing.

The main hold-up for the beta release is still a draft spec. Everyone's waiting for this because it means the format will be frozen and encoded files will be supported by future versions of the reference implementation. So if you want to help things along pull out the code and help with the documentation, or donate something to help pay for the work.

[ June 9, 2003 - Theora alpha 2 release ]

The libtheora reference implementation has reached its 'alpha 2' milestone. A lot of bugs have been fixed and new features added, including all the planned changes to the bitsteams format.

This is more of an internal milestone than a public release, but we are making a source tarball available for convenience. Nevertheless we recommend using the cvs version if possible. This release also requires cvs libogg and libvorbis to compile; you might try the cvs nightly tarball if you don't already have these checked out. You will need to build and install the 'ogg' and 'vorbis' modules.

[ May 8, 2003 - VP3 Legacy Codec binaries ]

Mauricio Piacentini has been maintaining the original VP32 sources upon which theora is based. He's pooling his efforts with Xiph a bit and has decided to keep his work in xiph.org cvs, in the 'vp32' module where the code was originally released. We hope this will help concentrate efforts related to theora and bring additional focus to both projects.

He is also making his binary builds for Quicktime 6 and Video for Windows available on this site. Please visit the legacy VP3 page for file links and complete information.

[ May 7, 2003 - Status update ]

Things have been slow for some time, so we just wanted to say what's been happening. Monty's been busy with unrelated contract work since finishing the zero-copy libogg, and no one has stepped up to act as maintainer in the meantime. We've been working on a wiki todo for theora and for xiph generally. So feel free to look (and contribute) there.

[ January 13th, 2003 - Test Suite ]

We've posted a test suite for your encoding pleasure. Feel free to post comments and questions to the Theora mailing lists.

[ December 16th, 2002 - Robot Roll Call ]

The first part of Theora Alpha Two, the delicious Video Layer FAQ is now available on the FAQ page, written by Dan Miller. The second part is libogg hacking, the results of which will be posted just a little after December 27th. Alpha Two is really more of an informational release than a big downloadable install-fest, so don't fire up the testbeds just yet.

Welcome to theora.org, the official website for Ogg Theora, a video codec and integration project maintained and supported by the Xiph.org Foundation for the benefit of all humankind.

What is Theora? Theora will be a video codec that builds upon On2's VP3 codec. While Ogg Vorbis has reached 1.0, Theora is currently being integrated into the Ogg multimedia framework, as well as being optimized from the VP3 codebase at its heart.

Theora will be released in June of 2003, with three major milestones, the first being released today, September 25th, 2002. Today's piece is available for download in the 'theora' module of the Xiph.org CVS repository, as well as a UNIX tarball available here.

There's a lot of useful information under the hood, so please have a look around by using the navigation links at the top of the page. If there's anything you think that we need on this page, please contact us and let us know what you'd like to see.

For the legal terms on the usage of the VP3 codec, please check out the CVS page. If you would like to help sponsor the development of Theora and other open technologies from the Xiph.org Foundation, please consider a donation! More information is available at this link.

Thanks for stopping by, and happy hacking!