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'''Sorenson Media''' was American software company specializing in [[video encoding]] technology that closed in February 2018. Established in December 1995 as Sorenson Vision, the company developed technology which was [[license]]d and ultimately acquired from [[Utah State University]]. The company first announced its [[codec]] (compression and decompression tool) at a developer’s preview at [[MacWorld Expo]] in January 1997.
One of the company's best known products is the Sorenson Video codec licensed to [[Apple Inc.]] for their [[QuickTime]] 3.0 software. Since its release, Sorenson Media’s video encoding technology was used in Apple's [[Trailer (promotion)|trailer]] web site and [[video clip]]s for film studios such as [[Disney]], [[Lucas FilmLucasfilm]], [[MGM]] and [[Paramount Pictures|Paramount]]. as well as Apple's [[iTunes]] music videos, before the switch to the industry standard [[H.264]] format.
The company is led by its chairman and founder James Lee Sorenson; its president and CEO is Marcus Liassides<ref>[http{{cite press |url=https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20131008005667/en/Sorenson-Media-Appoints-Digital-Media-Industry-Veteran |title=Sorenson Media Appoints Digital Media Industry Veteran Marcus Liassides as CEO (media release)], |website=BusinessWire.com website, |date=October 18, 2003.}}</ref> until being run into the ground by leaving only a chat box to communicate with them on the web site that they never respond to.
== Products ==
* Sorenson Video -{{snd}} Apple bundled QuickTime 3 components for decoding and basic encoding
* Sorenson Video Pro -{{snd}} Apple distributed, full featured, two-pass VBR QuickTime developer encoding component<ref>Terran Interactive, Inc. (1998) [http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/video/codecs/Sorenson.html Codec Central - Sorenson Video],. Retrieved on 2009-08-09.</ref>
* Sorenson [[H.262|MPEG-1/2]]
* Sorenson [[MPEG-4 Part 2]]
* Sorenson [[H.264]]<ref>[http://www.sorensonmedia.com/video-encoding/ Squeeze],. Retrieved on 2009-08-09.</ref>
* [[Sorenson Squeeze]] -{{snd}} a [[Microsoft Windows]] and [[Macintosh]] encoding application
* Sorenson 360<ref>{{cite news|url= http://www.crunchbase.com/product/sorenson-360|title=Sorenson 360 CrunchBase Profile|accessdate=2011-03-08}}</ref> -{{snd}} an [[online video platform]] (OVP)
* Squeeze Server -{{snd}} a server-based live encoding application
* Sorenson Server 2
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 [[color space]], which means every block of eight pixels share the same color components, which can cause [[Color bleeding (computer graphics)|color bleeding]] across pixels. This was solved in version 3 and the Spark version which both use the more common YCbCr 4:2:0 [[color space]]. [[FFmpeg]] supports decoding of Sorenson Video since 2002, encoding of SVQ1 was added in 2004 for 0.4.9-pre1.<ref>FFmpeg.org [httphttps://ffmpeg.org/general.html#SEC6 FFMpeg General Documentation - Video Codecs],. Retrieved on 2009-08-09.</ref>
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.
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.<ref>Sorenson Media (2001-07-02) [httphttps://www.sorensonmedia.com/news/?n=239 Sorenson Media Announces the Availability of Sorenson Video 3 Exclusively for QuickTime],. Retrieved on 2009-08-09.</ref><ref>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],. Retrieved on 2009-08-09.</ref> Apple QuickTime later focused on other compression formats and moved Sorenson Video 3 to a separate group called "legacy encoders".<ref>[http{{cite mailing list |url=https://lists.apple.com/archives/QuickTime-API/2008/Feb/msg00223.html |title=Apple Mailing Lists - batch export: where is sorenson ?], Retrieved on |accessdate=2009-08-09}}{{dead link|date=March 2018}}</ref> According to an anonymous developer of [[FFmpeg]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/000312.html |title=Deconstructing H.264/AVC |accessdate=2013-10-19 |deadurl=bot: unknown |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724011629/http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/000312.html |archivedate=July 24, 2008 |df= |work=DrunkenBlog}} on DrunkenBlog, July 28, 2004.</ref> [[reverse engineering]] of the SVQ3 codec (Sorenson Video 3) revealed it as a tweaked version of [[H.264]].<ref name="almost">{{cite mailing list | url=http://ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2009-March/073288.html | mailinglist=FFmpeg-devel | first=Benjamin |last=Larsson | title=h263-svq3 optimizations | date=2009-03-17 | accessdate=2009-08-09}}</ref> 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.<ref name="ffmpeg-changelog">FFmpeg [http://www.ffmpeg.org/changelog.html Changelog],. Retrieved on 2009-08-10.</ref>
Sorenson Video 3 comes with [[Sorenson Squeeze]].<ref>Sorenson Media [httphttps://www.sorensonmedia.com/video3/ SV3 Pro Codec],. Retrieved on 2009-08-09.{{dead link|date=March 2018}}</ref>
=== Sorenson Spark ===
Sorenson Spark is an implementation of [[H.263]] for use in [[Flash Video]] and [[SWF|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 [[Adobe Flash Professional|Macromedia Flash MX]] v6 on March 4, 2002.<ref>{{cite press |work=Macromedia<!--Adobe?--> (|date=2002-03-04) [http|url=https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/macromedia-and-sorenson-media-bring-video-to-macromedia-flash-content-and-applications-76246007.html Macromedia - Press room : |title=Macromedia and Sorenson Media Bring Video to Macromedia Flash Content and Applications<!-- Bot generated title -->]}}</ref><ref>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],. Retrieved on 2009-08-09.</ref> 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]].<ref name="cs4" /><ref name="incomplete-h263">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.</ref> Sorenson Spark can be still used in the [[Adobe Flash Professional|Adobe Flash CS4 Professional]] (2008) for Flash Video files (alongside [[H.264]] and VP6).<ref name="cs4">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.</ref> According to Adobe engineer Tinic Uro, Sorenson Spark is an incomplete implementation of H.263.<ref name="incomplete-h263" /><ref name="multimediawiki-spark">{{cite web | url=http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=Sorenson_Spark | title=Sorenson Spark | publisher=MultimediaWiki | accessdate=2009-11-03}}</ref> It differs mostly in header structure and ranges of the coefficients.<ref name="almost" />
FFmpeg in 2003 added encoding and decoding support for Sorenson H.263.<ref>FFmpeg.org (2003) {{cite web |url=http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net/ffmpeg-doc.html |title=FFmpeg 0.4.8 Documentation - Video Codecs |accessdate=2013-10-19 |deadurl=bot: unknown |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20031207173601/http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net/ffmpeg-doc.html#SEC19 |archivedate=December 7, 2003 |df= }}, Retrieved on 2009-08-10</ref>
== See also ==
== External links ==
* [httphttps://www.sorensonmedia.com/ sorensonmedia.com].
* [{{cite web |url=http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000066.shtml |title=Sorenson Video Codec, Version 3] -}}{{snd}} format description by the Library of Congress
* [http{{cite web |url=https://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=Sorenson_Video_1 |title=Sorenson Video 1 - |website=MultimediaWiki]}}
* [http{{cite web |url=https://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=Sorenson_Video_3 |title=Sorenson Video 3 - |website=MultimediaWiki]}}
* [http{{cite web |url=https://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=Sorenson_Spark |title=Sorenson Spark - |website=MultimediaWiki]}}
{{Compression Softwaresoftware Implementationsimplementations}}
{{Compression formats}}
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