On2 Technologies
Encyclopedia
On2 Technologies formerly known as The Duck Corporation, was a small publicly-traded company (on the American Stock Exchange
), headquartered in Clifton Park, New York
, that designs video codec
technology. They created a series of video codecs called TrueMotion
(including TrueMotion S
, TrueMotion 2, TrueMotion RT 2.0, TrueMotion VP3
, 4, 5
, 6
, 7
and 8
). In August 2009, Google
offered to acquire On2 Technologies for $106.5 million in Google stock, subject to stockholder approval. On February 17, 2010, stockholders of On2 Technologies voted to approve the merger at Google's increased offer of $133M.
that was used by some games for FMV
sequences during the 1990s. The original office of the Duck Corporation was founded in New York City by Daniel B. Miller, Victor Yurkovsky, and Stan Marder. Miller became CEO of newly renamed On2 Technologies until Doug McIntyre was hired in late 2000, when Miller resumed his role as CTO. CEO's after McIntyre included Bill Joll and Matt Frost.
After Miller's departure in 2003, newly promoted CTO Eric Ameres moved the primary engineering office to upstate NY's capital region. After Ameres' departure in 2007 Paul Wilkins served as co-CTO with Jim Bankoski. Wilkins was founder of "Metavisual" which was acquired by On2 in 1999 to bring the VP3 codec to market. The VP3 codec became the basis of On2's future codecs as well as the basis of the open source Theora video codec.
In 1995, The Duck Corporation raised $1.5M in venture funding from Edelson Technology Partners.
In 1997, they raised an additional $5.5M in a venture round primarily financed by Citigroup Ventures.
In 1999, The Duck Corporation merged with Applied Capital Funding, Inc., a public company on the American Stock Exchange. The merged entity was first renamed On2.Com and then On2 Technologies, trading on the AMEX as ONT. ONT's price peaked at a little over $40 per share, briefly giving the company a market cap in excess of $1B.
On 5 August 2009, Google
announced its intention to acquire On2 for $106.5 million.
On 7 January 2010, Google increased its takeover offer to $133.9 million, with the shareholders scheduled to vote on the proposal on Feb 17 2010.
On 17 February 2010, stockholders of On2 Technologies voted to approve the merger. Shareholders will receive 1/1000 of a share of Google stock for every On2 share, plus 15 cents.
On 19 February 2010, completed the acquisition of On2 Technologies
On 21 December 2010, the duck.com domain was made to point to Google's own search site, raising questions of infringement of the Duck Duck Go search trademarks.
compression technology into the open-source community including their patents on the technology. The technology lives on in the form of Theora
. In May 2010, after being acquired by Google, the VP8
codec was licensed under a BSD license.
was selected for use as the Macromedia
Flash 8 video codec. This apparently stems from a deal made in the second quarter of 2004 with revenue in that quarter of $US 1.4 million for the licensing agreement. In related news, On2 announced on April 5, 2005 that it had acquired the Flix Flash video encoder technology from Wildform, Inc. On2 added support for Flash 8 video output to the Flix 8 product line that they released on September 13, 2005.
". On2 claims that VP7
is superior to the recent H.264/AVC standard, based on claims of comparative technical capabilities and licensing costs. This claim has been disputed by the developers of x264
, a popular H.264 encoder.
On August 13, 2007, On2 announced the addition of H.264 support to its On2 Flix
product line.
format called the EVD
(Enhanced Versatile Disc) format. Then in April 2004, On2 announced that its business relationship with E-World had soured, and that On2 would file multiple breach of contract claims against E-World in arbitration proceedings. The arbitrator reached a conclusion on March 10, 2005, according to SEC filings by On2 on March 14, 2005. The arbitrator dismissed each of On2's claims and ruled that E-World owed nothing to On2 and had not breached the contract. It seems unlikely that On2 will ultimately get any significant payback from the EVD initiative, although some contract relationship remains in effect.
A number of less highly visible deals with other customers and partners seem to have worked out more amicably than the Chinese DVD project. Recent announcements have related to deals with Apex Datacom, IWAPI Inc., Vividas
, Digital Witness, XM Satellite Radio
, PowerLinx, and LeapFrog Enterprises
. In particular, the company indicated that it expected to recognize some revenue from the Leapfrog deal in the third quarter of 2005 and also made optimistic statements about the future with XM Satellite Radio.
On April 4, 2000, On2 buys Quickband, Inc.("Quickband"), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, acquired substantially all of the assets of DVD Mags, Inc. ("DVD Mags"), a California corporation in the business of aggregating and producing short-form entertainment content for distribution across digital and traditional channels (the "Quickband Acquisition"). The Quickband Acquisition was effected pursuant to an Asset Purchase Agreement ("Purchase Agreement") dated as of March 9, 2000 by and among the Company, Quickband and DVD Mags.
In April 2003 AOL
has bought broad licensing rights for VP5 and VP6 codecs. More recently, On2 licensed its technology to AOL for use in an IP-based video telephony product, to Tencent Holdings of China for use in its instant messaging products, and to Saver Corporation of Japan to enable new Flash 8 mobile video applications.
On December 1, 2005, On2 announced that Skype
had licensed current and future versions of its video compression software and had integrated it into the Beta version of Skype 2.0. No financial terms were disclosed relating to the deal.
In May 2007, On2 announced an agreement to acquire Finnish Hantro Products, a provider of video codecs for chips for wireless devices.http://www.hantro.com/ The acquisition was finalized on November 1, 2007.
In November 2008, On2 announced that it would partner with Zencoder
to create Flix Cloud, a high-capacity online video encoding service using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
(EC2). Flix Cloud launched in April 2009.
American Stock Exchange
NYSE Amex Equities, formerly known as the American Stock Exchange is an American stock exchange situated in New York. AMEX was a mutual organization, owned by its members. Until 1953, it was known as the New York Curb Exchange. On January 17, 2008, NYSE Euronext announced it would acquire the...
), headquartered in Clifton Park, New York
Clifton Park, New York
Clifton Park is a town in Saratoga County, New York, United States. According to the United States Census Bureau, the 2009 population estimate for Clifton Park was 36,469. The name is derived from an early land patent...
, that designs video codec
Video codec
A video codec is a device or software that enables video compression and/or decompression for digital video. The compression usually employs lossy data compression. Historically, video was stored as an analog signal on magnetic tape...
technology. They created a series of video codecs called TrueMotion
TrueMotion
On2 TrueMotion Video Compression is a series of video codecs created by On2 Technologies Inc..- History :According to the company itself, development started in the early 1990s. The first versions of the codec were mainly targeted at and used for full motion video scenes in computer games....
(including TrueMotion S
TrueMotion S
TrueMotion S is a proprietary lossy video compression format and video codec developed by The Duck Company, now known by the name On2 Technologies....
, TrueMotion 2, TrueMotion RT 2.0, TrueMotion VP3
VP3
On2 TrueMotion VP3 is a lossy video compression format and video codec. It is an incarnation of the TrueMotion video codec, a series of video codecs developed by On2 Technologies....
, 4, 5
VP5
On2 TrueMotion VP5 is a proprietary lossy video compression format and video codec. It is an incarnation of the TrueMotion video codec, a series of video codecs developed by On2 Technologies.It was announced by On2 Technologies in February 2002...
, 6
VP6
On2 TrueMotion VP6 is a proprietary lossy video compression format and video codec. It is an incarnation of the TrueMotion video codec, a series of video codecs developed by On2 Technologies. This codec is commonly used by Adobe Flash, Flash Video, and JavaFX media files.- Overview :The VP6 codec...
, 7
VP7
TrueMotion VP7 is a video codec developed by On2 Technologies as a successor to earlier efforts such as VP3, VP5 and TrueMotion VP6. It is a codec with both VFW and DirectShow support that On2 Technologies claims has better compression than leading competitive codecs such as MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1.-...
and 8
VP8
VP8 is an open video compression format released by Google, originally created by On2 Technologies.After purchasing On2 Technologies in early 2010, Google has provided an irrevocable patent promise for underlying patents for the VP8 format, and released a bitstream format specification under a...
). In August 2009, Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
offered to acquire On2 Technologies for $106.5 million in Google stock, subject to stockholder approval. On February 17, 2010, stockholders of On2 Technologies voted to approve the merger at Google's increased offer of $133M.
History
While known by the name The Duck Corporation, they developed TrueMotion S, a codecCodec
A codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a portmanteau of "compressor-decompressor" or, more commonly, "coder-decoder"...
that was used by some games for FMV
Full motion video
Full motion video based games are video games that rely upon pre-recorded TV-quality movie or animation rather than sprites, vectors, or 3D models to display action in the game. In the early 1990s a diverse set of games utilized this format...
sequences during the 1990s. The original office of the Duck Corporation was founded in New York City by Daniel B. Miller, Victor Yurkovsky, and Stan Marder. Miller became CEO of newly renamed On2 Technologies until Doug McIntyre was hired in late 2000, when Miller resumed his role as CTO. CEO's after McIntyre included Bill Joll and Matt Frost.
After Miller's departure in 2003, newly promoted CTO Eric Ameres moved the primary engineering office to upstate NY's capital region. After Ameres' departure in 2007 Paul Wilkins served as co-CTO with Jim Bankoski. Wilkins was founder of "Metavisual" which was acquired by On2 in 1999 to bring the VP3 codec to market. The VP3 codec became the basis of On2's future codecs as well as the basis of the open source Theora video codec.
In 1995, The Duck Corporation raised $1.5M in venture funding from Edelson Technology Partners.
In 1997, they raised an additional $5.5M in a venture round primarily financed by Citigroup Ventures.
In 1999, The Duck Corporation merged with Applied Capital Funding, Inc., a public company on the American Stock Exchange. The merged entity was first renamed On2.Com and then On2 Technologies, trading on the AMEX as ONT. ONT's price peaked at a little over $40 per share, briefly giving the company a market cap in excess of $1B.
On 5 August 2009, Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
announced its intention to acquire On2 for $106.5 million.
On 7 January 2010, Google increased its takeover offer to $133.9 million, with the shareholders scheduled to vote on the proposal on Feb 17 2010.
On 17 February 2010, stockholders of On2 Technologies voted to approve the merger. Shareholders will receive 1/1000 of a share of Google stock for every On2 share, plus 15 cents.
On 19 February 2010, completed the acquisition of On2 Technologies
On 21 December 2010, the duck.com domain was made to point to Google's own search site, raising questions of infringement of the Duck Duck Go search trademarks.
Open source
In late 2001, On2 released their VP3VP3
On2 TrueMotion VP3 is a lossy video compression format and video codec. It is an incarnation of the TrueMotion video codec, a series of video codecs developed by On2 Technologies....
compression technology into the open-source community including their patents on the technology. The technology lives on in the form of Theora
Theora
Theora is a free lossy video compression format. It is developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation and distributed without licensing fees alongside their other free and open media projects, including the Vorbis audio format and the Ogg container....
. In May 2010, after being acquired by Google, the VP8
VP8
VP8 is an open video compression format released by Google, originally created by On2 Technologies.After purchasing On2 Technologies in early 2010, Google has provided an irrevocable patent promise for underlying patents for the VP8 format, and released a bitstream format specification under a...
codec was licensed under a BSD license.
Flash 8 codec
In 2004, On2's VP6VP6
On2 TrueMotion VP6 is a proprietary lossy video compression format and video codec. It is an incarnation of the TrueMotion video codec, a series of video codecs developed by On2 Technologies. This codec is commonly used by Adobe Flash, Flash Video, and JavaFX media files.- Overview :The VP6 codec...
was selected for use as the Macromedia
Macromedia
Macromedia was an American graphics and web development software company headquartered in San Francisco, California that produced such products as Flash and Dreamweaver. Its rival, Adobe Systems, acquired Macromedia on December 3, 2005 and controls the line of Macromedia...
Flash 8 video codec. This apparently stems from a deal made in the second quarter of 2004 with revenue in that quarter of $US 1.4 million for the licensing agreement. In related news, On2 announced on April 5, 2005 that it had acquired the Flix Flash video encoder technology from Wildform, Inc. On2 added support for Flash 8 video output to the Flix 8 product line that they released on September 13, 2005.
VP7 alternative to H.264
On March 9, 2005, On2 announced another generation of codec design that it calls "VP7VP7
TrueMotion VP7 is a video codec developed by On2 Technologies as a successor to earlier efforts such as VP3, VP5 and TrueMotion VP6. It is a codec with both VFW and DirectShow support that On2 Technologies claims has better compression than leading competitive codecs such as MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1.-...
". On2 claims that VP7
VP7
TrueMotion VP7 is a video codec developed by On2 Technologies as a successor to earlier efforts such as VP3, VP5 and TrueMotion VP6. It is a codec with both VFW and DirectShow support that On2 Technologies claims has better compression than leading competitive codecs such as MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1.-...
is superior to the recent H.264/AVC standard, based on claims of comparative technical capabilities and licensing costs. This claim has been disputed by the developers of x264
X264
x264 is a free software library for encoding video streams into the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format. It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.-History:...
, a popular H.264 encoder.
On August 13, 2007, On2 announced the addition of H.264 support to its On2 Flix
On2 Flix
On2 Flix is a family of Flash video encoding applications for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. On2 Technologies acquired Flix from Wildform, Inc. in May, 2005, shortly after Macromedia announced that it would use On2's VP6 video codec in the Flash 8 platform....
product line.
Chinese DVD project
In late 2003, On2 announced that its VP5 and VP6 codecs were selected by Beijing E-World as a video coding method to be used in a Chinese-developed competitor to the DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
format called the EVD
Enhanced Versatile Disc
The Enhanced Versatile Disc is an optical medium-based digital audio/video format, developed to provide a means for playing HDTV content using existing optical media. It was announced on November 18, 2003, by the People's Republic of China's Xinhua News Agency as a response to the popular...
(Enhanced Versatile Disc) format. Then in April 2004, On2 announced that its business relationship with E-World had soured, and that On2 would file multiple breach of contract claims against E-World in arbitration proceedings. The arbitrator reached a conclusion on March 10, 2005, according to SEC filings by On2 on March 14, 2005. The arbitrator dismissed each of On2's claims and ruled that E-World owed nothing to On2 and had not breached the contract. It seems unlikely that On2 will ultimately get any significant payback from the EVD initiative, although some contract relationship remains in effect.
Other deals
In 1997, Microsoft Corp. licensed The Duck Corp.'s TrueMotion 2.0 video codec technology to bring TV-quality video to the PC platform.A number of less highly visible deals with other customers and partners seem to have worked out more amicably than the Chinese DVD project. Recent announcements have related to deals with Apex Datacom, IWAPI Inc., Vividas
Vividas
Vividas Holdings Pty Ltd is a software company situated in Australia in August 2000....
, Digital Witness, XM Satellite Radio
XM Satellite Radio
XM Satellite Radio is one of two satellite radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Radio. It provides pay-for-service radio, analogous to cable television. Its service includes 73 different music channels, 39 news, sports, talk and entertainment channels, 21 regional...
, PowerLinx, and LeapFrog Enterprises
Leapfrog Enterprises
LeapFrog Enterprises Inc is an educational entertainment company based in Emeryville, California. LeapFrog designs, develops and markets technology-based learning products and related content for the education of infant through grade school children at home and in schools internationally.- History...
. In particular, the company indicated that it expected to recognize some revenue from the Leapfrog deal in the third quarter of 2005 and also made optimistic statements about the future with XM Satellite Radio.
On April 4, 2000, On2 buys Quickband, Inc.("Quickband"), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, acquired substantially all of the assets of DVD Mags, Inc. ("DVD Mags"), a California corporation in the business of aggregating and producing short-form entertainment content for distribution across digital and traditional channels (the "Quickband Acquisition"). The Quickband Acquisition was effected pursuant to an Asset Purchase Agreement ("Purchase Agreement") dated as of March 9, 2000 by and among the Company, Quickband and DVD Mags.
In April 2003 AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
has bought broad licensing rights for VP5 and VP6 codecs. More recently, On2 licensed its technology to AOL for use in an IP-based video telephony product, to Tencent Holdings of China for use in its instant messaging products, and to Saver Corporation of Japan to enable new Flash 8 mobile video applications.
On December 1, 2005, On2 announced that Skype
Skype
Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system...
had licensed current and future versions of its video compression software and had integrated it into the Beta version of Skype 2.0. No financial terms were disclosed relating to the deal.
In May 2007, On2 announced an agreement to acquire Finnish Hantro Products, a provider of video codecs for chips for wireless devices.http://www.hantro.com/ The acquisition was finalized on November 1, 2007.
In November 2008, On2 announced that it would partner with Zencoder
Zencoder
Founded in 2007 by Jonathan Dahl, and built by Slantwise Design and Sevenwire, Zencoder is a distributed multimedia processing system for websites that allow users to upload video. Zencoder was built with Ruby on Rails and provides a REST API for creating new transcoding jobs...
to create Flix Cloud, a high-capacity online video encoding service using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud is a central part of Amazon.com's cloud computing platform, Amazon Web Services . EC2 allows users to rent virtual computers on which to run their own computer applications...
(EC2). Flix Cloud launched in April 2009.