Theora

theo	This is a video codec. The name to use at the command line is theo. This codec can be used inside the ogg and matroska containers.

Theora is an open video codec based on On2's VP3 codec, open sourced in 2001.

It's being developed by the Xiph.org Foundation of Ogg and Vorbis fame. If you want to be sure there are no legal issues with your software, Theora is a good choice, although it's technically not as advanced as MPEG-4 or WMV9.

Version 1.0 of the codec has been released in 2008 November, in 2009 September version 1.1 came out, improving the encoding quality while preserving full compatibility. The video format is frozen (has been since 2004, but there are buggy videos produced by old encoders around and not playing well) so it's safe to produce Theora files for future use.

Theora uses the Ogg container format and is usually combined with Vorbis audio.

Theora files can be streamed using the Icecast 2 streaming server, available for most recent Linux distributions.

VideoLAN ships Theora support. There are also builtin support or plugins for other media players such as Xine, MPlayer, Helix and Windows Media Player. See the Theora FAQ for more info.

Links

• Offical website
• Icecast streaming server
• Ogg Direct Show Filters lets you play Theora files in many Microsoft Windows applications, including Windows Media Player.