Dirac is an open and royalty-free video compression format, specification and system developed by BBC Research at the BBC. Schrödinger and dirac-research (formerly just called "Dirac") are open and royalty-free software implementations (video codecs) of Dirac. Dirac format aims to provide high-quality video compression for Ultra HDTV and beyond, and as such competes with existing formats such as H.264 and VC-1.