Sorenson Media#Sorenson Spark

In 2003 Sorenson released its VP-100 model stand-alone videotelephony product for users with hearing loss. It was designed to output its video to a deaf user's standard television set in order to lower the cost of acquisition. It also provided a remote control, and a video compression codec designed for improved video quality and ease of use with a Video Relay Service (VRS). The product received favorable reviews{{by whom|date=July 2017}} and is used at educational facilities for the deaf{{which|date=July 2017}}, and elsewhere{{where|date=July 2017}} in the deaf community.Fitzgerald, Thomas J. [https://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/18/technology/for-the-deaf-communication-without-the-wait.html For the Deaf, Communication Without the Wait], The New York Times, December 18, 2003.

Following the introduction of similar videophones by other electronics manufacturers, the availability of high speed Internet, and sponsored video relay services authorized by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in 2002, VRS for the deaf underwent rapid growth in the United States.

In May 2005 Sorenson Media split off a new company, Sorenson Communications, which focuses on products for the deaf or hard-of-hearing communities while Sorenson Media would focus on video compression software.{{cite news |last1=Nii |first1=Jenifer K. |title=Sorenson Media to split |url=https://www.deseret.com/2005/4/27/19889291/sorenson-media-to-split/ |work=Deseret News |date=April 27, 2005}} In April 2022 the private investment firm Ariel Alternatives acquired a 52.5% ownership stake in Sorenson Communications which valued Sorenson at $1.3 billion.{{cite news |last1=Politis |first1=David |title=Utah-Based Sorenson And Its New Owners Go All-In On Serving Diverse Communities |url=https://newsroom.siliconslopes.com/news/utah-based-sorenson-and-its-new-owners-go-all-in-on-serving-diverse-communities/ |work=Silicon Slopes Newsroom |date=June 6, 2022}}{{cite web |title=Sorenson Announces Change in Ownership |url=https://sorenson.com/press-releases/sorenson-announces-change-in-ownership/ |publisher=Sorenson Communications |date=April 4, 2022}}

Sorenson codec may refer to any of three proprietary video codecs:

Two versions of Sorenson Video were released, both using SVQ1 as their FourCC.

Version one first appeared with the release of QuickTime 3 on March 30, 1998. The backward-compatible version two was released with QuickTime 4 on March 11, 1999, which mainly included minor improvements and optimizations to the Developer Edition of the encoder, so encoded movies would be backwards compatible with the QuickTime 3 release. Changes for version two were only made to the encoder, not to the compression format. This format uses a YCbCr 4:1:0 chroma subsampling, which means every block of eight pixels share the same color components, which can cause color bleeding across pixels. This was solved in version 3 and the Spark version which both use the more common YCbCr 4:2:0 subsampling. FFmpeg supports decoding of Sorenson Video since 2002, encoding of SVQ1 was added in 2004 for 0.4.9-pre1.FFmpeg.org [https://ffmpeg.org/general.html#SEC6 FFMpeg General Documentation - Video Codecs]. Retrieved on 2009-08-09.

Version two was given wide exposure from the release of the teaser trailer for Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace on March 11, 1999.

The official specifications of the codec are not public. For a long time the only way to play back Sorenson Video was to use Apple's QuickTime or MPlayer, which used DLL files extracted from QuickTime for Windows.

This incompatible version of Sorenson Video uses SVQ3 as its FourCC.

This version was released with QuickTime 5.0.2 on July 1, 2001. It was available exclusively for QuickTime.Sorenson Media (2001-07-02) [https://www.sorensonmedia.com/news/?n=239 Sorenson Media Announces the Availability of Sorenson Video 3 Exclusively for QuickTime]. Retrieved on 2009-08-09.Apple (2000-10-10) [https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2000/oct/10qt5.html Apple Releases QuickTime 5 and QuickTime Streaming Server 3 Public Previews] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100919205725/http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2000/oct/10qt5.html |date=2010-09-19 }}. Retrieved on 2009-08-09. Apple QuickTime later focused on other compression formats and moved Sorenson Video 3 to a separate group called "legacy encoders".{{cite mailing list |url=https://lists.apple.com/archives/QuickTime-API/2008/Feb/msg00223.html |title=Apple Mailing Lists - batch export: where is sorenson ? |access-date=2009-08-09 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090116042531/http://lists.apple.com/archives/QuickTime-API/2008/Feb/msg00223.html |archive-date=2009-01-16 }} According to an anonymous developer of FFmpeg,{{cite web |url=http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/000312.html |title=Deconstructing H.264/AVC |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724011629/http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/000312.html |archive-date=July 24, 2008 |work=DrunkenBlog}} reverse engineering of the SVQ3 codec (Sorenson Video 3) revealed it as a tweaked version of H.264.{{cite mailing list | url=http://ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2009-March/073288.html | mailing-list=FFmpeg-devel | first=Benjamin |last=Larsson | title=h263-svq3 optimizations | date=2009-03-17 | access-date=2009-08-09}} The same developer added support for this codec to FFmpeg. FFmpeg supports decoding of "Sorenson Vector Quantizer 3" (fourcc SVQ3) and Sorenson Vector Quantizer 1 (fourcc SVQ1) starting with version 0.4.7, released in 2003.FFmpeg [http://www.ffmpeg.org/changelog.html Changelog]. Retrieved on 2009-08-10.

Sorenson Video 3 comes with Sorenson Squeeze.Sorenson Media [https://www.sorensonmedia.com/video3/ SV3 Pro Codec]. Retrieved on 2009-08-09. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131020171245/http://www.sorensonmedia.com/video3 |date=2013-10-20 }}

Sorenson Spark is an implementation of H.263 for use in Flash Video and Adobe Flash files. FFmpeg uses FLV1 FourCC and Adobe frame identifiers of 0x21, 0x22 and 0x23.

As Apple began to use MPEG-4 and move away from other proprietary codecs, Sorenson Media licensed Sorenson Spark (Sorenson H.263) to Macromedia, which was included with Macromedia Flash MX v6 on March 4, 2002.{{cite press release |work=Macromedia |date=2002-03-04 |url=https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/macromedia-and-sorenson-media-bring-video-to-macromedia-flash-content-and-applications-76246007.html |title=Macromedia and Sorenson Media Bring Video to Macromedia Flash Content and Applications}}Adobe LiveDocs [http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/mx2004/main_7_2/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html/wwhelp.htm?context=Flash_MX_2004&file=00000340.html About the Sorenson Spark codec]{{Dead link|date=November 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}. Retrieved on 2009-08-09. Sorenson Spark is the required video compression format for Flash Player 6 and 7.

Macromedia later tried to find a better video codec. Starting with Flash Player 8 (released in September 2005), the preferred video codec became VP6.Kaourantin.net (2005-08-13) [http://www.kaourantin.net/2005/08/quest-for-new-video-codec-in-flash-8.html The quest for a new video codec in Flash 8] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090206142709/http://kaourantin.net/2005/08/quest-for-new-video-codec-in-flash-8.html |date=2009-02-06 }}. Retrieved on 2009-08-10. Sorenson Spark can be still used in the Adobe Flash CS4 Professional (2008) for Flash Video files (alongside H.264 and VP6).Adobe [http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Flash/10.0_UsingFlash/WS9222D73A-676D-41cd-9222-A4884858BBA3.html#WSB70FA3A6-7C5C-4aea-9F63-25EC5C73F873 Flash CS4 Professional Documentation - Digital video and Flash]. Retrieved on 2009-08-09. According to Adobe engineer Tinic Uro, Sorenson Spark is an incomplete implementation of H.263.{{cite web | url=http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=Sorenson_Spark | title=Sorenson Spark | publisher=MultimediaWiki | access-date=2009-11-03}} It differs mostly in header structure and ranges of the coefficients.

FFmpeg in 2003 added encoding and decoding support for Sorenson H.263.FFmpeg.org (2003) {{cite web |url=http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net/ffmpeg-doc.html |title=FFmpeg 0.4.8 Documentation - Video Codecs |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031207173601/http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net/ffmpeg-doc.html#SEC19 |archive-date=December 7, 2003 }}

• Videophone

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite web |url=http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000066.shtml |title=Sorenson Video Codec, Version 3|date=8 December 2011}}{{snd}} format description by the Library of Congress

{{Compression software implementations}}

{{Compression formats}}

Category:Software companies based in California

Category:Companies based in Carlsbad, California

Category:Video codecs

Category:Videotelephony

Category:Defunct software companies of the United States