Ogg Vorbis / Theora Language Removed From HTML5 Spec

Rudd-O writes "It's official. Ogg technology has been removed from the HTML5 spec, after Ian caved in the face of pressure from Apple and Nokia. Unless massive pressure is exerted on the HTML5 spec editing process, the Web authoring world will continue to endure our modern proprietary Tower of Babel. Note that HTML5 in no way required Ogg (as denoted by the word 'should' instead of 'must' in the earlier draft). Adding this to the fact that there are widely available patent-free implementations of Ogg technology, there is really no excuse for Apple and Nokia to say that they couldn't in good faith implement HTML5 as previously formulated."

Comments

...now that I read the changes...

[drakaan]

I see that what I just suggested is exactly the change they made. I'm fine with that...off to tag the front-page article with "badsummary"

Wierd.

[ak3ldama]

From the page:

It would be helpful for interoperability if all browsers could support the same codecs. However, there are no known codecs that satisfy all the current players: we need a codec that is known to not require per-unit or per-distributor licensing, that is compatible with the open source development model, that is of sufficient quality as to be usable, and that is not an additional submarine patent risk for large companies. This is an ongoing issue and this section will be updated once more information is available.

What part of initially suggesting Ogg Vorbis doesn't fit with the new quote? It just seems wierd. Like they could say what they mean, but not explicitly suggest Ogg.

The actual mail on the HTML-wg mailing list...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to point out what it currently happening, here is the mail from Ian Hickson from this morning:

"I've temporarily removed the requirements on video codecs from the HTML5
spec, since the current text isn't helping us come to a useful
interoperable conclusion. When a codec is found that is mutually
acceptable to all major parties I will update the spec to require that
instead and then reply to all the pending feedback on video codecs.

    http://www.whatwg.org/issues/#graphics-video-codec
"

The title of the news is a bit misleading :) In other words "temporarily removed until a consensus has been found".

FUD FUD FUD

[a known emus]

This is a point by point reply to your FUD.

• Theora is almost an order of magnitude better performing that H.261 and this is a critical difference for web video.
• No one actually knows what the patent status of any software is! ... In fact, several paid up licensees of mpeg codecs have been sued for patent infringement over these codecs *and lost*, so it's hard to argue that those codecs are better off.
• It's true that Theora isn't very widely adopted, but it has been shipped by Linux distributions for years, so there has been plenty of opportunities for people to sue over patents. Theora is used by Wikipedia, one of the most viewed websites in the world. Of course, Vorbis is orders of magnitude better on this point.
• What are you Nokia? An expensive and heavily patented codec like H.264 is not "open" in any meaningful sense. It's true that Ogg/Theora+Vorbis is not yet amazingly popular, but that is part of the point of standards. There is a chicken and egg, and first-mover takes all problem for file formats and standards help fix that problem.
• Why does HTML have an image tag? What would the world be like if images on the web required various incompatible proprietary plugins? Why should video and audio be any different from still media?

Re:FUD FUD FUD

[Just Some Guy]

And countering yours:

• From it's inventor:

  Unlike Vorbis and Speex, legitimate best-in-class codecs, Theora's coding quality is obviously poor relative to contemporary competition. This poor performance stems both from implementation and design deficiencies. As a seperate problem, Theora is also poorly integrated with Ogg due to incomplete multiplexing software and documentation on the Ogg side. Without guidance from Xiph.Org, outside development and implementation of Theora-in-Ogg has been chaotic and of low quality.

• It's safe to say that MPEG4 and it's codecs have been more thoroughly researched than Theora. Remember the FOSS mantra: "many eyes make all bugs shallow"? That applies to lots of things, such as many video producers' legal teams checking this stuff out.
• I absolutely, positively promise you that Youtube serves more video than Wikipedia, and they don't stream Theora.
• You're imagining that Theora is equivalent to H.264, etc. It's not. There's no first-mover advantage to it because it's already been overtaken by, well, pretty much everything.
• There's no standard web image format. By convention, most people use GIF and JPG (with a few PNGs sprinkled about for good measure), but that's just the way it happened to work out. I'm not sure why people have this wrong impression, but it's simply not true. Don't believe me? Read the spec yourself. If that isn't clear enough, W3 explicitly states that

  The HTML specification does not prescribe or limit which graphics format you can use.

I'm a huge FOSS buff, but that doesn't mean I have to blindly love everything pushed out the door as "freedom friendly". I don't have anything against Theora except that it's just not very competitive. I wouldn't want to see it as the official video file format any more than I'd want to see ASCII text as the official document file format; both have clear limitations when compared to their competitors.

The W3 made the right choice. As much as I like the idea of Theora, I'm glad we don't have to be saddled with the reality of it.

Re:Figures

[Bogtha]

You correctly note that current the HTML 4.01 recommendation doesn't require JPEG, PNG, etc., but you fail to note that it does specifically mention three image formats, and they are "GIF, JPEG, and PNG".

Yes, it mentions them, it doesn't recommend them. Look at what it says:

src = uri [CT] This attribute specifies the location of the image resource. Examples of widely recognized image formats include GIF, JPEG, and PNG.

It mentions them as examples to illustrate how the <img> element type is used, not in order to promote them and certainly not to "specify them as baseline standards" as Ignorant Aardvark was claiming.

And how in hell did I "fail to note" that it mentions them? I explicitly said it mentions them.

Of course, if you did mention that, it would be a lot harder to use the current recommendations treatment of images to argue that removing the mention of Ogg formats from the HTML5 draft is consistent with the way prior HTML standards have treated images.

That's simply not true. There is a world of difference between mentioning popular formats as examples and saying that vendors should implement them.

Re:mod parent up.

[Sancho]

100% correct.

I liked the idea of OGG being recommended for HTML5, but realistically, there are a lot of problems.

As a container, OGG is pretty heavyweight. It's not going to be good for mobile devices.
All off the Vorbis and Theora decoders I've seen have been extremely resource-intensive. This may well be because more attention is devoted to other codecs like XVid, and so they are more highly optimized. Nevertheless, again, mobile devices will suffer.
Quality-wise, Vorbis is pretty nice. Theora, however, is a generation behind, and rapidly losing ground. HTML5 isn't expected to be ratified for over a year. In that time, Theora's generation of codecs will be even older and less efficient to the then-current codecs. For a field as rapidly evolving as streaming video, it doesn't make all that much sense to include it. It would be like suggesting that Indeo be implemented for HTML4.

The biggest benefit to recommending OGG in HTML5 is that it would get a free format out there, but at the cost of efficiency. While bandwidth continues to grow, and computers get faster and faster, waste is still a concern, and mobile devices are becoming more popular (you have to treat these as if they were 10 year old computers with equivalent bandwidth!) OGG misses the mark in most categories--too big and bulky for mobiles, too old for new computers. It's the worst of both worlds.