Google Acquiring VP3 Developer On2 Technologies

R.Mo_Robert writes "BetaNews is reporting that Google is acquiring On2, the video codec company and original developers of the VP3 codec from which Theora is derived. The article suggests that this may mean Google is backing Ogg Theora as the HTML5 video standard, but this is likely not the case--with Theora already being open-source and On2 having disclaimed all rights and patents, there is no reason Google should have needed to do this to push Theora. You may recall from some time back that HTML5 no longer specifies which video codec(s) a browser should support due to there being, unfortunately, no suitable codec at this time. But Google (known for supporting H.264) practically owns Web video with YouTube in most people's minds, so their influence could really swing the future of HTML5 video either way. It remains to be seen whether Google's acquisition of On2 has any bearing on their plans for video on the Web."

Comments

VP3 is old

[AKAImBatman]

Theora was based on one of On2's earliest codecs. VP6 & VP7 have been far more successful and are even used as the Flash video codecs. If Google is acquiring On2, it could mean that they're looking to open up the formats that have defined Flash as the media player of choice.

Re:VP3 is old

[Anonymous Coward]

Except VP7 is way too slow to decode on SIMD processors. The problem isn't the total amount of processing, but the amount of processing that is sequential in nature (ie not SIMDizable). So they didn't notice until they tried to optimise for concurrancy (as found in X86 media extensions as well as most DSPs and low power media processors). By then it was too late - oopsie!

Cue a massive backpedal with VP8 which runs in a little over half the cycles compared to equivilant VP7. See http://www.dspdesignline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=214303691

This caused plenty of problems for vendors who tried to support VP7 - often making embarissingly optimistic performance promises based soley on On2's press releases. Oops again!

Chrome, HTML5 disaster coming

[FlashBuster3000]

So now Chrome can support only VP6/7 in die tag, Apple does it's quicktime thing, MS does .wmv and Firefox OGG. Hooray!
Honestly, i don't think that would happen, i hope that it may be open sourced and that Android will get some "high quality" video stuff (as far as you can get that on mobile displays).

Re:Chrome, HTML5 disaster coming

[maxume]

How would a situation that is slightly better than the situation that exists today in any way constitute a disaster?

With the iPhone supporting H.264, plenty of websites are going to follow, and it is reasonably likely that some third party will come up with a shim that enables H.264 in Firefox (using FFMPEG, some derivative of FFMPEG, or maybe Windows internal codecs (if there is support there, I'm not paying attention)).

Re:Chrome, HTML5 disaster coming

[seizurebattlerobot]

I agree that Chrome and Firefox will support anything they can legally, but I do not think that Safari will implement Theora. Here's my rationale:

Right now, Apple sees Google as a threat, as evidenced by the recent hostility Apple is showing toward Google. Specifically, Apple's blocking of Google Voice and Lattitude on the iPhone. They are "partners" in name only.

This is because the smart people at Apple realize that Google's philosophy of inexpensive lowest bidder open platforms is the antithesis of Apple's closed, locked down, and tightly controlled vision for the future. Internally, Apple attributes their closed platform philosophy for their current successes. They realize also that trouble for Google is good for Apple.

The backdrop for all this is the entire telecommunications industry on the verge of a paradigm shift. A growing number of people are foregoing landlines for owning cell phones only. Cell phones themselves have become ubiquitous. Cell phone lag, audio compression artifacts, and frequent drop outs have reduced the phone service expectations of the general public to a point that modern voice over IP, with a modern internet connection is a valid competitor in the phone service arena.

Today's smart phones are basically VOIP clients on a proprietary, closed network (the phone carrier's network), with access to a larger, also closed, network (the international telephone system). Carriers profit tremendously from the closed nature of the network. Byte for byte, a data feed to the moon is cheaper than the text messages on most phone carrier networks. Apple also profits from this closed arrangement via its iPhone exclusivity deal with AT&T, who pays them handsomely for the privilege.

Google aims to open the phone network by implementing its functionality using open Internet based protocols. Google Talk will replace SMS messages and traditional phone calls. Other Google services will be tied in for a richer communications experience than what the telephone networks can provide on their own. Eventually, any phone with Internet connectivity will be able to use Google's services. Once this happens, the phone networks will be mere data providers for an open network, instead of gatekeepers of a closed network. This will drive down prices, telco profits, and the cost of accessing Google's services. Apple will have lost a source of revenue, as networks will not be able to afford to pay them for exclusivity.

Apple pays lip service to open source philosophies when it benefits them, but have no intentions to further these philosophies or their influence. By this, I mean that they love being able to use the work of others, and will contribute back to open source projects they've used (BSD, KHTML, etc.), but it will be a cold day in hell before we ever see an open source version of iTunes because they do not believe in the ideology. Apple is committed internally to the closed platform vision of the future, where they are the sole gatekeeper. Open formats and standards are a threat to the dominance of the gatekeeper model that Apple is committed to. This is also why we'll never see official support for FLAC, Ogg, Theora, Matroska, or any other open codec in iTunes, Safari, or iPhoneOS.

Re:Google probably wants the engineering taltent.

[geekoid]

But that would be evil.

Re:Google probably wants the engineering taltent.

[bezenek]

The non-evil, best way to acquire this talent is to buy the company. Sometimes this is not possible because the company has many other assets which make it expensive. This should not be the case with On2.

Also, maybe the original investors in On2 were smart enough to put non-compete clauses in the contracts of the engineers they hired for their start-up. After all, when you invest millions of dollars in a start-up, you usually want to protect your investment.

-Todd

Re:Cisco anyone?

[Em Emalb]

Gmail? I'd say that's pretty key.

I also didn't say it was a bad thing, it just reminds me of Cisco.

On2's modern codec - vp8

[Jdodge99]

Actually they have vp6 and vp8 http://www.on2.com/index.php?564 which -- surprise, surprise -- on2 claims is better than h.264 -- if google decides to open up vp8 -- it would change the equation radically. Particularly the ogg/vp8 combo. It's also possible some vp3 diffs (theora) would still be useful when applied to vp8 -- although what the chances of this are, I couldn't say. It does solve the h.264 patent license problem for google with android and chrome os. A theora / vp8 release and a move to primacy of vp8 or derivative for youtube would reshape the whole playing field. I'm hopeful, but not gleeful yet.

FFmpeg support

[DarkHelmet]

As a developer using FFmpeg, I run into problems with our clients trying to encode / decode VP6 and VP7. I'm hoping that Google will subsequently offer open source implementations of these. It will make my life a whole lot easier.

Googled OWNED video

[Enderandrew]

YouTube still loses money hand over fist, where as Hulu is growing in revenue and popularity.

It is extremely easy to rip videos from YouTube, which might be a sticking point in YouTube getting more mainstream/commercial content. Frankly, I don't want to see adds for lame user-generated content on YouTube. And I do find most YouTube content lacking. But at the end of the day, if both YouTube and Hulu had say, full Simpsons episodes, I'd rather support Google's site rather than NBC's site.

These developers could perhaps tweak their existing code to develop a closed, DRM-laden codec that would allow YouTube to stream commercial content. And if YouTube doesn't make a move like this, it may just continue to hemorrhage money from here to eternity.

Re:Google probably wants the engineering taltent.

[n8_f]

That's a bonus. They want the IP. YouTube lives or dies by Adobe Flash. They want a codec that is as efficient as H.264 that they can open source and get into HTML5. Google says Theora isn't; apparently they think VP8 is. Then they can start pushing people towards HTML5 browsers. I bet they could get a lot of YouTube visitors to upgrade if it meant they could watch clips in HD versus the quality you see now with Flash.

Re:Why Google is doing this

[evilviper]

So, Google won't save much money and won't make much money by buying On2. I think they are up to something else.

On2 bought Flix... On2 became the one-stop shop for Flash video encoding.

It's readily apparent that Youtube was and is using Flix for Linux, based on all the capabilities and limitations YouTube encoding shares with the open source MPlayer project (http://multimedia.cx/eggs/poking-at-youtube/), which is used by Flix for Linux (http://support.on2.com/gpl/mplayer/).

It wouldn't be the first time Google bought-up an unprofitable company, just to make sure their competitors don't get control of it first...