Dirac (video compression format)
Dirac (and Dirac Pro, a subset standardised as SMPTE VC-2) is an open and royalty-free video compression format, specification and software video codec developed by BBC Research & Development. Dirac aimed to provide high-quality video compression for Ultra HDTV and competed with existing formats such as H.264.
| Filename extension |
drc |
|---|---|
| Developed by | BBC Research & Development |
| Initial release | 6 March 2008 |
| Latest release | 2.2.3 23 September 2008 |
| Type of format | Video coding format |
| Contained by | |
| Extended to | VC-2 |
| Standard |
|
| Open format? | Yes |
| Free format? | Yes |
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 I-frame only subset known as Dirac Pro was released and was standardised by the SMPTE as VC-2. Version 2.2.3 of the full Dirac specification, including motion compensation and inter-frame coding, was issued a few days later. Dirac Pro was used internally by the BBC to transmit HDTV pictures at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
Two open source and royalty-free video codec software implementations, libschrodinger and dirac-research, were developed. The format implementations were named in honour of the theoretical physicists Paul Dirac and Erwin Schrödinger, who shared the 1933 Nobel Prize in physics.