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Examining the HTML 5 Video Codec Debate
Ars Technica has a great breakdown of the codec debate for the HTML 5 video element. Support for the new video element seems to be split into two main camps, Ogg Theora and H.264, and the inability to find a solution has HTML 5 spec editor Ian Hickson throwing in the towel. "Hickson outlined the positions of each major browser vendor and explained how the present impasse will influence the HTML 5 standard. Apple and Google favor H.264 while Mozilla and Opera favor Ogg Theora. Google intends to ship its browser with support for both codecs, which means that Apple is the only vendor that will not be supporting Ogg. 'After an inordinate amount of discussions, both in public and privately, on the situation regarding codecs for and in HTML5, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that there is no suitable codec that all vendors are willing to implement and ship,' Hickson wrote. 'I have therefore removed the two subsections in the HTML5 spec in which codecs would have been required, and have instead left the matter undefined.'"
Do we use an inferior standard or a closed standard?
Maybe "implementation dependent" is the term we're after.
Let the market decide. Too bad we've already been down that road and it wasn't pretty at all...
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Ars Technica has a great breakdown
Oh, I totally agree. The best articles always insert two lolcats into their page so that we get a better idea of what's going on.
Did I miss something or is it still 2006?
and let the content providers decide.
The Internet Book Database
It seems like Apple has something against implementing any Xiph codec... FLAC and Vorbis support in iTunes is nonexistent, and even with the QuickTime plugin, iTunes still doesn't have proper tagging support. And now refusing to add Theora support in Safari?
Perhaps someone on the Xiph board did something to one of Apple's Media guys when they were kids or something?
-Pope Peter Porker, S.O.W., K.M.K.R., U.G.O.A., F.S.G.S.D.
"Apple is the only vendor that will not be supporting Ogg"
Except IE, which doesn't support, and has not announced plans to support, anything. Until they decide what they're going to do, it really doesn't matter what everyone else is doing.
Doesn't Microsoft feel a need to push WMV? being slow to adopt HTML5 is not in their best interest. Favoring Silverlight and ignoring HTML5 will comeback to haunt them. For all we know Silverlight might end up a failure!
Plus according to at least one report, IE is becoming less significant.
http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-US-monthly-200807-200907 *
*Stats are US-centeric.
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Apple and Google favor H.264 while Mozilla and Opera favor Ogg Theora.
Right, while convenient, that doesn't strike me as a very comprehensive list of "major browser vendors".
sic transit gloria mundi
They could have simply specified that a browser must support ONE of the two options, h.264 or Theora. This would have at least provided a reference to websites, such that they can guarantee that they need support no more than two codecs. Without a standard, they can't necessarily guarantee that a browser will support either. A third party browser may come by and decide to implement nothing but MJPEG since it isn't specified.
I mean, there are legitimate concerns in both camps. Theora's hardware support is non-existent, and h.264 has expensive licensing fees. So why not allow browser manufactuerers to pick the one that best suits their position, rather than leaving it undefined entirely?
A guarantee of at least one of two being supported is better than no guarantee at all.
The best reason I have seen so far as to why Apple/Google favor H.264 is because their current products have H.264 hardware encoders in them. Switching to ogg/theora would hit battery life hard in these devices since it would have to be done in software. While I agree that its a selfish reason, its a reason better then "cause we want it". I would really like to see Theora succeed though, an open standard for web would be a beautiful thing
So put that in your pipe and grep it
Really? Why does the HTML5 spec care what codecs are used? Why doesn't it just provide a way to specify which codec the author used to encode the media file, and let the browser prompt the user to get it if needed?
Edith Keeler Must Die
Fucking Apple. You can't trust those turtleneck wearing fascists.
At least they're supporting something, unlike Microsoft which isn't supporting any HTML video element.
I know that "lesser of two evils" isn't exactly a good argument, but it's not nothing..
http://xiph.org/quicktime/
Adds support for Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora to QuickTime (which is used for nearly all media playback on OSX). Easy to install (but could be made easier easily - such as making into a .pkg), and makes Safari 4 work with <video> and Theora.
Also, can we please stop whining about this in relation to the HTML5 spec? HTML has never specified file formats for media/objects (<img>, <object>) and it should *not* start now.
Not fascists, but it is frustrating to see them so stubborn about such a Good Idea when they've been the leaders of innovation for over a decade.
I guess the problem is that they won't be making tons of money off an obscure and clever design.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
O rly?
This is what made me click the link to TFA.
Lolcats are still in, dude. They'll never go away. They'll enter the lexicon and become so ingrained that you only need the text, not the picture.
(Ya rly)
Apple has been a leader at finding innovative ways of pounding you in the ass for a long time...
To see who wins.......
No sense spending money obfuscating, perverting "standards" or extending, if they can halve the amount, just with a few days/weeks waiting...
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
I'm not sure why we can't implement support for both or even more codecs. Can anyone tell me why this isn't possible?
The way I figure it, if both is supported, and agreement to assist in implementing support for the other can be reached and as long as the spec is documented, adding the functionality to the browsers should be trivial to any group capable of creating and maintaining a modern browser. We could actually implement a plug in scheme that allows functionality to be snapped in on the fly.
What am I missing with this?
Also, I'm not sure I like the idea of video in my HTML. First, most of the player implementations so far seem to lack significant things like volume controls, pause, start and stop buttons. That or you are stuck with a small screen developed for some other resolution and there is no way to resize it even if just enough to read the credits in the video. Do both and do it right.
apple, go fuck yourself.
</flamebait>
weinersmith
If they can pick one that 80% of browsers will support, say Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer, then all the small players like apple and opera will support it eventually or their users will start to complain.
I only see the real problem is if the two largest vendors cannot agree. Let the small players go jump in a lake.
It would be nice if Apple would go ahead and support OGG Vorbis and OGG Theora. Can any lawyerly folk give an idea of the worst possible scenario here? Someone steps forward claiming to have patented something in OGG, and Apple is forced to either strip support or pay a licensing fee?
On the other hand, their method of supporting the video tag seems somewhat reasonable. It looks like any format that Quicktime supports, Safari will support in the "video" tag. It's not hard to go download the OGG Theora codec online, and then Quicktime will support it. Same with DivX and Xvid and anything else.
No, it doesn't really solve the problem of having a single video format that you can assume everyone can play, but it's sort of a reasonable way of approaching the problem IMO. Too bad the government can't just take patents as eminent domain with some kind of pre-set compensation for the inventors. I kind of feel like we'd all be better off if the issues surrounding H264 could just be settled once and for all, without waiting for the patents to run out.
I completely agree that they need to specify this in the HTML5 specifications. The thing is, and I can almost absolutely guarantee that Google, Mozilla, and Opera will cooperate here, if they specify a format, the three will eventually conform to it. Apple and Microsoft are the outliers here, but Microsoft doesn't seem to care very much about W3C's specifications to begin with, and Apple has been steadily moving toward being incredibly W3C-compliant over the past several years, so I don't really see where the problem is.
If the companies can't agree, that's their problem. W3C isn't supposed to be an intermediary between the browser developers, it's supposed to be pushing each of them to support better standards. Apparently they need to be reminded what their mission statement is.
To lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web.
Making a specification for a standard video codec does that. Being indecisive doesn't.
You can use a single block of HTML below to provide video for everyone using the new tag:
Video For Everybody
It works on older browsers too, falling back on built in players or even flash if it has to. You simply provide it one .mp4, and one .ogg file and it uses which is best.
Don't let this bickering stop everyone from moving to the video tag as soon as possible, which may then see further solution on a final standard.
I have to say though, the hardware support aspect to me makes h.264 support a must. I also think Apple should support ogg too, but Mozilla really needs to support this de-facto standard for video (it's not just Apple using this in hardware).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The Snow codec is still unfinished, however if Google could put some effort into it perhaps we'd have an unencumbered standard that has as good quality as H.264. Why Google? Because the have the resources, are interested in open standards and open source, and would benefit from the lower bandwidth required. Also, whatever they convert YouTube to will become supported by everyone one way or another. ATM is looks like they're going 264 because Theora doesn't have the same quality per bit.
Pick one. Anything is better than insert-proprietary-vendor-lockin-format-here.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
The HTML spec is as much documentation of how things are currently done as it is a prescription for how they should be done. It has almost always lagged implementations by several years.
If anybody wants to win this one, they should use video on their own sites, or upload videos to other sites, that use their preferred codec. Better yet, put in a trouble ticket that the browser is broken. They'll fix it.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Well, with a "submarine" patent, the patent holder will typically wait until the "invention" is in common use, THEN sue for retroactive damages. Those sorts of awards can get very expensive.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
We're stuck with Flash video because Apple's iPhone doesn't support Flash? Is that right?
I agree that someone needs to take his head out of his ass.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Make OGG required as part of the spec and 264 as optional.
If you want people to use your browser, implement both.
For those running websites... if you can afford the licensing fees for H.264 you can afford the storage of OGG as a fallback should 264 not be available in that browser.
IE hasn't supported most of the other standards for... ever - and no one threw in the towel at that did they? Write the best standard as you can and let the market hash things out - if they're smart they'll support it in their products. But don't let some insignificant players make you take your ball and go home like some baby throwing a tantrum. How pathetic.
If HTML5 had required Theora support, there'd be two or three months delay and then all the ASICs you could shake a stick at would be there.
Apple use H.264 and so their iPod/iPhone/et al demand an ASIC for it. But until Apple wanted one, there wasn't one.
For full systems (notepad/tablet/laptop/PC) there would be a mod to the graphics card driver and there would be hardware accellerated Theora. Two weeks tops.
But there WILL NOT be a patent free H.264 for another 17+ years.
Odd you forgot about that beam in the path of the Free Market when it comes to the bloody PATENT. Very free market, that is...
I could swear I already saw this a few days ago here, on Slashdot. And indeed:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/07/02/184251/Browser-Vendors-Force-W3C-To-Scrap-HTML-5-Codecs?from=rss
That way everyone will implement both, and they can compete on technical merits.
It doesn't really matter. Microsoft isn't supporting the <video> tag in HTML5.
Do we really want to lock it in to a particular codec now? Newer and better audio/video codecs are released more frequently than new versions of the HTML spec.
Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?
The HTML standard should contain a codec that is widely used by "people". I have yet to use OGG or come across a site that offers OGG format.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Your iAttitude doesn't show the proper level of respect for Steve Jobs iPenis. I suggest you straighten up before you are sent to iRe-education camp.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Did you read their reasons for avoiding H.264? If H.264 goes into the spec, who's going to pay the licensing costs for Opera to "conform" to the spec? Who's going to pay for the licenses of those that derive their own web browsers from Mozilla or Chromium sources? The reasons companies have for preferring NOT to implement a codec aren't necessarily technical.
We survived fine without explicit HTML standardization on JPEG, GIF and PNG. We'll be fine here too.
If the companies can't agree, a spec isn't going to make them agree. Everyone has their reasons for not implementing a codec. Putting a requirement into a spec isn't going to magically solve any of those concerns. It makes it slightly easier for some people to point their fingers and say "they're bad for not following the spec!!1" but it doesn't actually help solve any problems. If anything, it creates a new problem as people try to make their own implementations of the spec, only to discover that they don't interoperate with anyone else because everyone is ignoring that one little part of the spec. If your spec includes stuff that half of your implementers will ignore, deliberately, with full knowledge of the ramifications, then perhaps you should revisit your approach to the spec.
There's nothing that says this can't be revisited later. But for now, it's quite clear that implementers will not implement a common video codec. So what exactly is the point of mandating a common codec in the spec?
No standard is, arguably, better than H.264 since this way at least Firefox and Opera can claim to be standards-compliant without paying any kind of fee.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
the reason is that by having developers pick a new format, then clients will have to buy new equipment, which has it built in.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If the H.264 folk were smart they'd encourage browser vendors to support H.264 and license it to them for free. Why? Because that would ensure that H.264 becomes the dominate standard, and open the floodgates to users creating and uploading and playing H.264 video.
In the meantime, the H.264 group makes its money off the hardware guys, as now every computer, notebook, phone, and media device will need low-power dedicated H.264 hardware decoders.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Can there not just be support for both?
If a browser vendor doesn't implement them both then it's their market share that will suffer, so browser vendors really would have no choice.
So... Why not implement both standards?
As Microsoft still has 90%+ of the installed OS base and IE6 shows no signs of being dead, if they don't support the VIDEO tag in Windows 7, or support it only with their own VC1 codec, that will effectively set both efforts (VIDEO and Theora) back at least 5 years.
-- Sig down
and a poster child against software patents. It's *very* expensive for small players, it's incompatible with free media, the terms are almost impossible to comprehend (or at least you need several "IP" lawyers on staff), plus you aren't even assured that you won't be sued in Texas by some scum sucking, syphillitic pus-drinking, rotting corpse-devouring and worm-infested defecation-eating patent troll.
Microsoft's blessing was a must when they had 95% market share. Right now they have no more than 70% and it is steadily declining - by the time HTML5 is available, they might not matter any more. Moreover the majority of their market share is just uninformed. All it takes now is one really big "killer site" like Youtube not supporting IE, and their share will plummet into the low 20s.
Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.
They're not content with having hardware makers pay, they charge for encoding, decoding and software, if they can get away with it.
The spec can say "EITHER OGG OR H.264".
Sites will have to serve up both, or make a choice.
Or, you know, just use OGG. It's free. Apple can comply or GTFO and sit with MS in the timeout corner.
The HTML spec is supposed to be a guideline, not a log of who fucked up, in what way, and how.
H.264 is a standard. It just cost money to implement. A lot of standards are like this, including things like different bus standards on the PC. Many people who write these standards are also the people with the patents. H.264 reeks of this. So many little features that make it harder to implement and don't gain any decent bit rate at all, but are patented...
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
Stop spreading lies and misconceptions, you dumb twat.
________
Entranced by anime since late summer 2001 and loving it ^_^
What difference does it make? People who watch videos on iPhones and iPods are going to buy them through iTunes. Furthermore, Apple's proprietary phones have equally proprietary web sites to go with them anyway. And until HTML5 actually gets widely adopted, all those Apple products are going to be obsolete anyway; Apple has plenty of time to build Ogg hardware into their devices if they really care.
The reference implementations of Ogg Theora and Vorbis are both BSD licensed as you can see here and here.
Stop spreading lies and misconceptions, you dumb twat.
Could you point me to a hardware implementation of the decoder? Could you point me to a reference spec? The fact of the matter is that h264 is already entrenched with hardware decoding support on a number of devices meaning that OGG format would have to be done in software which would reduce the battery life of devices that had h264 hardware decoding.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
We're talking about video embedded in web pages, for a standard that will take years to become adopted (long before Apple's non-removable batteries are dead). If HTML5 adopts Ogg today, you're going to see H.264 hardware also support Ogg in less than a year.
Since it is under a BSD style license it doesn't require either the GPL of the LGPL code so your whole argument disappears into a void of stupidity.
And yes they published the spec of the format and yes it is up to date. And yes it isn't a standard from whatever standards body you like this week which in practice means you don't have to pay for it.
because someone snatched them while he wasn't looking. All but one of the big players got on board and that one has the second lowest market share.
So, why not set both in the standard and, if Apple doesn't want to support it fully then they don't have to.
It won't be the first time a standard was selectively supported by a major vendor.
POSIX,anyone? Various SQL revisions? Fortran? Any frickin' number of standards?
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Add both as standards..Why not?
Again you fail at the simplest of things. Where would one expect to find a specification for a free format? Probably under "Documentation", right? And what would you know it is in fact there: http://www.theora.org/doc/. But even if there weren't that wouldn't even matter, since there is a BSD licensed reference implementation of the decoder which would do well enough as a specification.
Now as for that hardware thing -- no, Theora does not and probably will never have hardware decoding support and that is a reasonable reason for excluding it from being a requirement for the HTML5 standard. As are the bandwidth issues; Youtube is bleeding enough money already.
But what I do not get is why you suddenly get all defensive. Did Xiph.org kick your dog or what?
I am not affiliated with Xiph.org in any way what so ever. I just happen to be able to read what it says on their webpage loud and clear. Something that you seem to fail at.
________
Entranced by anime since late summer 2001 and loving it ^_^
Why can't we farm out the decoding to an external media player that advertises support for the codec? Granted it would be a bit more work to get vendors working together, but it would allow a lot more flexibility in the end.
was not only that I was quoted in TFA, but that my quote was illustrated with a lolcat.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
What about allowing eith a type="MPEG-2" method or a new codec="Theora" and putting on the the browser software to determine how and what to play? Its not great but it makes embeding a video much simpler to the layman and opens the doorway for an open source codec to come in the future and nestle its way into the hearts of nerds everywhere. Somebody put together a committy to build an Open Source internet video codec that is designed from the ground up to work with todays internet.
Sure it could. It could also say "EITHER PNG OR GIF", but it doesn't. How much interoperability does this actually buy you? A de facto standard isn't all that different from a de jure one, and they made a point not to standardize on image formats, so maybe it's OK to let this one go too? IMO, this isn't as bad as people seem to be making it out to be. You already have an incentive to choose H.264 or Ogg, because if you're putting content out on the web, you probably want it to be viewable by as many people as possible. Standardizing on "A OR B" doesn't, IMO, improve the world in any measurable way.
This is a bit flippant and suggests that you don't understand the nature of the objections to using Ogg.
Because otherwise you end up with the case that no one codec works in all browsers, so websites will have to support both formats by encoding all their videos twice.
Because people shouldn't have to be prompted to install codecs in order to view in-browser videos.
etc
Then why not skip all the bullshit and put both codecs in the spec, and only those codecs in the spec and tell the browser developers to get over it. Both codecs are free, so it's not like any vendor is going to be out a significant amount of money to implement either. Give the right to choose to those who make use of the Internet. If a particular web designer prefers Ogg over H.264, then let him use it by making sure that every browser that sports "HTML 5 compliance" will support it. Same for those who prefer H.264. Why does there have to be a concrete bias hard-coded into the spec?
"This is a bit flippant and suggests that you don't understand the nature of the objections to using Ogg."
No, THIS is a bit flippant, and suggests you don't understand the importance of a specification that can be easily and freely implemented, or, barring that, one that is complete.
If you say "A OR B" then that means web sites know to provide AT LEAST one stream in either A or B, because they know any browser claiming to support the video tag will support the stream. If not, it's a BROWSER ERROR.
Saying "Support what you want, I dunno, fuck this, I give up" means that the big boys will support H.264 in the browser and on the site, and smaller sites will have to pony up for licensing or have a bunch of people who can't play their shit. IE will take even longer to get <video>support. Etc.
There is NO REASON to leave something like this unspecified in a specification. The goal is to make shit work for all. Intentionally backing off like this sucks a big one.
..isn't that Apple is holding things up. It's that they're holding things up because of lack of decoding hardware for a tiny device. Wait a minute, who the fucks watches video on a tiny screen?
Developers, don't answer that. Yes, I know your handheld device can play the video. I'm sure you're very proud.
I'm asking the users. Are there any? I know many iPods have shipped, but what are you people doing with them? You're watching video on them? Really?
No, really: who the fuck is watching movies on a 3 inch screen? And if that's you, are you actually happy with it? When you want to watch some video, your first instinct is to reach for your battery-powered thingie?
This obscure corner case is what is going to hold video back for everyone (including the desktop users and PVR users) for 20 years, until the patents expire?!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Unless there is a miracle and Software Patents are deemed illegal, Firefox will never support H.264. Being tri-licensed at least the GPL/LGPL would prevent Mozilla from licensing H.264.
But the converse is not necessarily true. Just because it isn't in the spec doesn't mean that web site authors do NOT know that H.264 or Ogg are the two codecs supported (individually) in all web browsers. This isn't like some ambiguity in HTML rendering here where there can be as many implementations as there are interpretations, in as many combinations as there are ambiguities and browsers. You can either choose to support a codec, or choose not to. Anyone in the position to be making such a decision is going to be intimately aware of the codec options that are out there, what other browsers support, and what web sites make available.
I'll turn the implication in my previous post into an outright question: Why haven't we standardized on "GIF OR PNG" in the HTML spec too? Do you believe that is necessary? If not, why <video> and not <img>?
A specification that is lacking is exactly as useless as a specification that is ignored. So long as companies feel they have a reason to avoid Ogg, it doesn't matter a bit whether or not the specification says Ogg must be supported. There is no law saying implementations must follow the spec. This is why I perceived your statement as flippant: there is more to the question of whether or not to implement Ogg than how "free" it is. You come across sounding like an open source fanboy when you suggest the solution to the problem is to use the "free" solution. "Like, OMG, duh!" Things aren't quite that simple.
I assume you're talking about leaving the codec question undefined? Wouldn't saying "H.264" or "H.264 OR OGG" in the specification potentially lead to this same result? Are you advocating for a more specific standard, or for Ogg specifically?
Related - the open source Perian enables QuickTime application support for additional media:
File formats: AVI, DIVX, FLV, MKV, GVI, VP6, and VFW
Video types: MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivx, H.264, Sorenson H.263, FLV/Sorenson Spark, FSV1, VP6, H263i, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Snow, NuppelVideo, Techsmith Screen Capture, DosBox Capture
Audio types: Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), and MPEG Layer I & II Audio, True Audio, DTS Coherent Acoustics, Nellymoser ASAO
AVI support for: AAC, AC3 Audio, H.264, MPEG4, and VBR MP3
Subtitle support for SSA/ASS and SRT
Animoog.org
Can anyone explain to me why the browsers vendors canÂt simply use the existing codecs in the OS? They could(and should) use Direcshow for Windows, Quicktime for MacOSX and Gstreamer/ffmpeg for Linux?
"Both codecs are free"
No, they're not. H.264 is patented and you have to pay royalties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing
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Except that most browsers don't include Flash support, and browsers do exist on platforms for which there is no Flash.
Which platforms that contribute to a significant number of video views are you talking about? If it's Wii, then you already have to encode the video twice because Internet Channel supports only H.263 (FLV), not H.264.
What interests me is the fact that in these discussions about Theora being an old and antiquated codec, nobody seems to know about Dirac, which is a modern video codec quite comparable to H.264 developed by the BBC.
Dirac is specifically designed to be free in the sense we love, and they have specifically checked to make sure it doesn't violate any patents, etc.
It is supported in recent versions of FFMPEG, and since VLC 0.9.2. Support for it is maturing quite fast, and I don't understand why Mozilla didn't include support for it in their HTML5 video implementation.
Since Opera implements <video> with GStreamer, it should already support Dirac if you have the support installed.
If the video element is implemented in a way content providers like iTunes and YouTube are not happy with
Let me say it again: YouTube is not a content provider any more than Google Docs; it is a hosting and search provider. YouTube's users provide the works that YouTube displays to viewers.
The main difference between theory and practice is that in theory they are the same but they are not in practice.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Since it's vendor-driven, it's going to be exactly what the vendors can agree upon - no more, and no less.
That sounds pretty worthless.....
On the contrary, many if not most good standards are written this way.
Ideally a standards committee has an even mix of users and implementers and the resulting standard is a negotiated balance between what all sorts of different users want and what all sorts of different implementers are willing to implement. From the implementer's side this is important not only to encourage quick implementation but also to ensure the standard can be efficiently implemented From the user's side this is important not only to make the standard easy to use but also to ensure it covers all the important use-cases.
It would be nice if Congress could pass a law for proposed standards to give patent trolls a 6 (or 3) month period to announce any infringement or forever hold their peace.
I believe there is already such a defense at equity, called estoppel by laches. It's not as strong for copyrights and patents as it is for trademarks, but it's still available.
Likewise, simply because the MPEG LA controls the licensing of KNOWN patents for H.264 doesn't mean there are no patent trolls ready to file a lawsuit once it gets adopted as a standard.
Unlike non-profits such as Xiph, major corporations such as Apple own patents that they can use to counter-sue patent holders that show up late to the MPEG-LA party.
Microsoft hasn't commented, which isn't the same as supporting neither. However, considering that silverlight 3.0 is slated to support H.264, I suspect that says a lot by itself.
Silverlight 3's Raw AV pipeline should be able to support Ogg Theora/Vorbis:
http://on10.net/blogs/benwagg/Silverlight-3-Beta-Whatrsquos-New-for-Media/
Someone's already working on a port of the Ogg wrapper and Vorbis for Silverlight and Moonlight:
http://veritas-vos-liberabit.com/monogatari/2009/03/moonvorbis.html
My video compression blog
Is that google has become evil.... Apple has always been evil to one extent or another, but for the most part i trusted google... now if youtube only supports h.264 then basically they have a method for elimating firefox and opera as competitors. Yay google.
When the spec specifically says "you can have 2 video formats in the one video tag". Why not just support a crappy version in ogg (i.e. low res), low enough that its 25% of the size of the original h264 version. At least mozilla's legs wouldn't get cut off. It would also be a challenge for theora - i.e. google could say "a 1 meg h264 video is like this, make a 250k theora start to look good and maybe we'll balance those numbers a bit".
A 25% hit on storage for google would not be a killer and its a shame it couldn't see its way to doing just that.
Ultimately we can only assume google's motive is "Death to firefox and open standards"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Mod this offtopic or nonsense.
Whether or not it can or can't is completely irrelevant for the reason given by apple.
Apparently, the use of the Offtopic moderation reason on Slashdot has suddenly grown much more strict over the past few days. Let me connect it directly to the article. In the Ars article, Ryan Paul wrote:
The situation around H.264 is more certain for two reasons: First, its developers are certain that they can counter-sue anyone who brings patent claims against them, which assures destruction for any patent troll. Second, it has been implemented long enough on high-profile public web sites and in publicly available hardware that patent trolls' claims would likely be estopped by laches. The situation around Theora is less certain for Apple because there is no such developer that can assure destruction, and there is no such track record of having sat implemented with no actual lawsuit.
I'm quite interested by this debate, mainly because my music is in OGG-Vorbis and I'm quite encouraged by the idea that major browsers might starting supporting a similarly open standard. It has to be a good thing.
(you can read more about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogg_controversy)
It seems that Apple and Nokia are against Ogg Theora, whereas Mozilla and Google are pro-Theora.
Apple and Nokia's main arguments: H.264 is better (for example, consumes less bandwidth), there are no good hardware implementations around, and there is a risk of submarine patents.
I don't believe these objections for a minute. Apple is simply against an open format because they're lobbying for control of the market. This is clearly underlined by past behaviour (blaming music companies for the use of DRM in iTunes is a brilliant piece of deflection, but I can't believe anyone who understands the business world would really buy that).
Technical superiority is not that important: clearly Google would not be in favour of Theora if there weren't other overriding concerns of open standards. A.N.Other format can always come along. We just need something that works ok, is simple to implement, and nice and open so everyone gets the same experience on the web.
If hardware implementations were really an issue, we'd have every hardware manufacturer in the world complaining about it. No, hardware implementations follow standards and popularity - we'll get great hardware designs if necessary. It's not a problem.
The patent issue just seems to be FUD. A great example of why such patents shouldn't be permitted, but as it is every single piece of software is open to such problems.
I'm not an Apple-hater, I admire the iPhone's interface (I own one) and some of their design work is awesome. But they need to open up - if they try to lock things down in this way, long-term they will lose (see Microsoft's decline, particularly in the browser market) and we're all going to suffer. For God's sake, anyone want to see the introduction of Flash on the iPhone? Thought not. Apple fans - please do everyone a favour and convince the company to change tact.
I see no problem. Apple doesn't want to support OGG, I couldn't care less. They'll come around eventually if it becomes popular.
And third, you seem to confuse "high profile web sites" with high profile companies.
The point is that if a party outside the MPEG-LA pool really wanted to press the H.264 issue, it would probably have announced plans to sue Google, which operates the YouTube video hosting service.
You really missed the point of what I said there. I specifically said it's not a reason to *not* use Theora, but it's a reason to be concerned. There may be unknown patents that cover something in Theora that is *not* used in H.264 as well - and vice versa.
It's also a bit of risk management with choosing one codec and supporting it (the one that's *already* supported by the OS) so they won't be potentially double-liable for patent infringement (or liable for different sets of unknown patents).
Theora's also, from all of what I've seen, a significantly worse codec than H.264 - specifically in the area of high-definition video. It's fine at low sizes/bitrates (such as if it were to be used on YouTube - but they already have all videos in H.264 format, before HTML5 was arguing over codecs), but Apple *does* use a large amount of high-definition video for movies on iTunes, and movie trailer downloads.
It would also require them partially abandoning the codec they've already chosen to put their support behind in their operating system, or to at least (possibly messily) shoehorn in support for another codec into the various iPods (with, as others have mentioned, either a severe hit to battery life, or only supporting it on new devices with possibly-expensive Theora decoding chips - say what you will about Apple, but they generally keep pretty good backwards compatibility from one device to another).
Is it right? Perhaps not. But there are reasons for it to make sense from at least a business point of view.
Oh yeah, music playback on battery-powered devices totally makes sense, because we have cheap, good wearable speakers. But until we have cheap, good wearable displays that, unlike an iPod's screen, actually take up more than a few arcseconds of the user's field of view, battery-powered video playback is a niche app.
The iPod's software is not a serious part of the video market -- not merely a drop in the bucket (compared to the systems with power cords) but a drop that everyone else can point at as a shitty user experience. W3C gave Apple way too much say on this issue, at least as far as the iPod is concerned.
Safari on desktops? Ok, Apple's opinion counts, so let them put forth their pretense of being worried about submarine patents (as though it's a factor in Theora but not h.264), but W3C should have laughed them out of the room over the hardware decoder issue.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Except video for everybody is not _a_ video for everybody it is different videos for different people.
But it's only two videos.
No more flv videos. No more wmv files. It's way better than the mish-mash we have now because you only have to provide two files and you really do have "video for everybody" without having to worry about what they are using, what they have installed - or even if they are on an iPhone or not!!
It frees you from having to do ANY browser detection in javascript or server side, and that is a huge win.
One single format would be desirable but it's not realistic. Frankly I am a happy camper if we only have two standards moving forward. Having a commercial format that's well supported is great because of hardware support, and having an open standard keeps everyone honest.
The real beauty of this thing is that if everyone starts using "video for everybody" then every single video gets transcoded to ogg. That is the goal after all, right? All video in an open format so you don't have to worry about lockdown? That accomplishes this goal even at the same time as users with commercial devices get good performance and smaller files. It's a win/win.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You don't seem to get it.
It's not ONLY A OR B, it's AT LEAST A OR B. If they want to add other stuff on top, that's great.
If OGG is required, any browser can go ahead and support H.264 as well, or whatever the fuck else they want. Sites can be confident that if a browser supports the video tag, they will be able to supply an OGG stream and have it work.
If the browser doesn't follow the spec, either be nice and supply other common formats as well or tell your users to fuck off. Your choice.
I'm advocating a more specific standard.
I'm advocating OGG because it's a good codec AND it's free.
HTML 5 should require OGG support for the video tag. If a browser wants to implement H.264 as well, fine. If a site wants to supply H.264 content, fine. If a site wants to NOT supply OGG content, fine. If a browser wants to ONLY implement H.264, then they're out of spec. Don't let them claim to support the video tag when they don't.
A spec should not be written with any regard to the jackassery of those who are unwilling to implement it. The fact that a browser doesn't conform does not make the spec useless, it makes the browser useless. The fact that you think otherwise is a perfect example of how backwards this whole scenario is.
Get your head out of your ass. Mozilla is not neutral. They're sticking with Theora as hard as Apple is sticking with H.264. At least Apple has a good reason which is 50 million iPhones and iPod Touches with an H.264 decoder chip which can't decode Theora. The only reason Mozilla doesn't want to use H.264 is because they don't want to have to pay licensing fees.
IMHO pushing open source codec is plain ridiculous. The H264 is a open standard which is widely used. Note that H264 is a sucessor to MPEG2 which is used for 20 years now.
Changes in this area are happening every 20 years and there is a place for only one codec. It is very well standarized and so on. The guys who wants to standarize the HTML 5 doesnt really know what means to standarize over many years and what standards are made for.
Everything goes in the direction of H264 Part 10 (The open one version), even latest FLASH PLAYER is licencing H264 codec from MAIN CONCEPT.
I think guys who are pushing this are just plain fanatics of opensource and they do not understand the openness of standards etc.
No, most users of iPods and iPhones would not ditch them for something else. All of Apple's mobile devices don't support flash of any kind and that has not stopped many people from buying them.
Hardware de/encoders can easily support both with no significant extra cost or battery usage.
Correct. They COULD.
Right now, they DO NOT. In ANY of millions upon millions of devices shipped. Nor can they.
You need some hardware support in place before you can start moving it to be a real standard, that's all there is to it.
That's why mp4 MUST be in any final standard.
Now I also think you MUST have an open format for the standard. Which is why you need ogg.
Therefore, you MUST have both in the standard. Therefore, use "Video For Everyone" and the real standard will be OGG and MP4, side by side. That's good enough I figure for the reasons you'd want either format.
If everyone started supporting this dual path publishing, then before long any video site would HAVE to support ogg because some significant portion of users would expect it. In the end that should be the ultimate goal, that every single video be available in Ogg. Who cares if it's ALSO in a commercial format too?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I tried the Video For Everybody on my recently (last night) ubuntu installed laptop. It prompted me to install the proper software (yay ubuntu) but it picked up the h.264 decoder and mpeg-4 AAC decoder. Is there anyway that I could easily get it to try ogg thera first.
If you're using Mozilla (seems likely) it seems like that would be a bug in the way that "video for everybody" code fragment works - which browser (and version) were you using? I'd be happy to send on a report to them about something working oddly...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
isn't it an irony that firefox 3.5 crashes with the vido link you provided ?
(a) It works on my Mozilla 3.5 (on a Mac).
(b) If any input causes Mozilla to crash, how is that anything but a bug in Mozilla? A browser should not crash period, no matter what markup it is fed (it is of course allowed to look like crap).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Will you pony up the 5Million per year? And if the fees are hiked up next year?
If I were Mozilla I certainly would pay that fee out of the giant pile of money (100+ million/year) they get from having Google as the home page.
It would further increase uptake of Mozilla and is as noted required to be a serious platform...
If I were Apple I would also adopt ogg. But Mozilla stands to gain a lot more by licensing mp4 than Apple would licensing Ogg.
Opera is a trickier question since I'm sure they cannot afford it... but if everyone uses the code I sent it doesn't matter, because there's always an Ogg version.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm a bit baffled by this statement. I suspect you've misunderstood something I've written. I'm certainly not advocating "A or B, at the exclusion of everything else."
I think I understand now. You seem to think a spec is the place for you to force everyone to do what you want them to do (adopt a free video codec). You seem to be under the mistaken belief that the spec carries the force of law, or that some magical property of the spec will make browsers useless until they follow the spec. Every browser out there ignores something that's codified in a spec today. IE in particular does this quite a lot, yet it still has a clear majority in the browser market. Are you really suggesting that IE is useless? Or is it just useless to you?
I believe that a spec is the place to encourage interoperability. This means the spec must necessarily reflect reality, not a utopia. "Gosh, it would be nice if everyone did X, so let's prescribe X" is stupid if everyone is already doing Y, but it's smart if nobody is doing anything yet. If people have already decided what they're going to do, the spec should reflect that, not prescribe something entirely different. You can't achieve interoperability if you ignore reality, because people must ignore the parts of the spec that disagree with reality if they want interoperability. This makes (these parts of) the spec useless.
So, saying "at least H.264 or Ogg" is (IMO) better than saying "at least H.264" or "at least Ogg", because the latter two will disagree with reality, and will need to be ignored by implementers. But saying "at least H.264 or Ogg" is like saying "at least PNG or GIF", and we don't have that in the HTML standard either. If you wish your argument to be consistent, you should advocate for that as well (along with audio formats). I personally don't believe codecs and file formats are necessary for the HTML spec, for reasons I've already given (and for the same reason I find adding "at least GIF or PNG" silly).
You write a lot, but you say very little.
If a browser doesn't want to implement the spec, fine. The spec is just a spec. I don't think it's magical or anything.
But if you write a browser, claim it supports the video tag / HTML 5, and it DOESN'T, as defined by the spec, then you're a piece of shit.
The point of a spec is interoperability. That means there needs to be a consensus. The problem with dictating Theora (or H.264!) is that several vendors aren't willing to implement it.
It would absolutely be better to specify a required format, if everyone were willing to implement it. If not then you get "piece of shit" vendors or vendors implementing "HTML5 except for Theora" -- in either case you don't accomplish anything by adding it to the standard.
Then those vendors who can't choose any of the codecs in the spec should not label themselves as supporting the spec.
Simple as that.
And then the spec becomes less useful because fewer vendors implement it.