Dirac (video compression format)

Dirac (and Dirac Pro, a subset standardised as <a href="/facts/Society_of_Motion_Picture_and_Television_Engineers/lwCdWynu">SMPTE</a> VC-2) is an open and <a href="/facts/Royalty-free/jygPgwe5">royalty-free</a> <a href="/facts/Video_compression_format/Dmzykxmn">video compression format</a>, specification and software <a href="/facts/Video_codec/psfSuqg7">video codec</a> developed by <a href="/facts/BBC_Research_%2526_Development/quEKy1jS">BBC Research & Development</a>. Dirac aimed to provide high-quality video compression for <a href="/facts/Ultra_High_Definition_Television/k60od3B2">Ultra HDTV</a> and competed with existing formats such as <a href="/facts/H.264/soCzKcmJ">H.264</a>.
The specification was finalised in January 2008, and further developments were only bug fixes and constraints. In September of that year, version 1.0.0 of an <a href="/facts/I-frame/nv0LBArA">I-frame</a> only subset known as Dirac Pro was released and was standardised by the <a href="/facts/Society_of_Motion_Picture_and_Television_Engineers/lwCdWynu">SMPTE</a> as VC-2. Version 2.2.3 of the full Dirac specification, including <a href="/facts/Motion_compensation/6BM2Ylxn">motion compensation</a> and inter-frame coding, was issued a few days later. Dirac Pro was used internally by the BBC to transmit HDTV pictures at the <a href="/facts/2008_Summer_Olympics/G6YvB62G">Beijing Olympics</a> in 2008.
Two <a href="/facts/Open_source/7X9rCdz4">open source</a> and royalty-free <a href="/facts/Video_codec/psfSuqg7">video codec</a> software implementations, libschrodinger and dirac-research, were developed. The format implementations were named in honour of the theoretical physicists <a href="/facts/Paul_Dirac/6bt5yRdk">Paul Dirac</a> and <a href="/facts/Erwin_Schr%25C3%25B6dinger/wCprepF2">Erwin Schrödinger</a>, who shared the 1933 <a href="/facts/Nobel_Prize_in_Physics/o6w1nCbr">Nobel Prize in Physics</a>.

Dirac (video compression format) open-in-new

Dirac (video compression format)