Slashdot Mirror


YouTube Hints At Support For Free/Open Formats With HTML5

shadowmage13 writes "After the recent post about YouTube, so many votes were put in for HTML5 using Free and Open formats that Google has already cleared them all out (to make space for others) and issued an official response (requires Google login): 'We've heard a lot of feedback around supporting HTML5 and are working hard to meet your request, so stay tuned. We'll be following up when we have more information. We're answering this idea now because there are so many similar HTML5 ideas and we want to give other ideas a chance to be seen.' Now all the top ideas are concerning copyright and DMCA abuse."

17 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. Well then... by nametaken · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What's a more polite way to say, "be more like Vimeo"?

    1. Re:Well then... by geckipede · · Score: 4, Informative

      I would prefer "be less like vimeo" because the only difference between them that affects me is that the youtube player decodes video efficiently enough that my processor can handle it, and vimeo is a browser locking slideshow.

    2. Re:Well then... by Skapare · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Having a better box to get better stuff is always a good thing. But having to get a better box just for the same old stuff done poorly is always a stupid thing. Let me know when they have the latest dual-socket octo-core i7 processor with 64GB of RAM in a nice portable netbook form factor.

      --
      now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
    3. Re:Well then... by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Funny

      What's a more polite way to say, "be more like Vimeo"?

      Please be more like Vimeo

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    4. Re:Well then... by gedw99 · · Score: 3, Informative

      There are many reasons why this is happening:

      1. ACTA agreement and license fees are up for renewal.
      http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/FAQ.aspx
      All OEM product makers and content encoders are now waiting on the 2010 agreement from the mpegla licensing aggregation company . It will be stiff fees apparently, although not confirmed yet. What is even stranger is that we are now in 2010, and they have still not released the new licensing terms. Very weird; What are they waiting on i wonder ? Maybe ACTA resolution ?
      Most China OEMS don't pay the fees, and hence why ACTA is being "negotiated" so secretly also.
      http://www.eetasia.com/login.do?fromWhere=/ART_8800463180_499501_NT_5bb04467.HTM
      So this is a "double whammy" waiting to explode.

      2. There are many other codecs around to choose from and why not test the water for others.
      There is much discussion in this area. But its a chicken and Egg game.
      You can make a fantastic codec, but you gotta have GPU support, otherwise its pointless.
      See below for how this can happen in the Long Tail version.

      3. Google knows that its Chrome OS is reaching a tipping point where they need to decide how they will handle video - they need to resolve this and get their ducks in a row.
      They can do flash on ARM CPU now, but i am sure they wish they did not have to.
      And they also know that with JavaScript and HTML% coming through like a train, Flash days are definitely numbered. See Sproutcore JavaScript framework for example of one of the many "flash replacements".
      And they have OpenGL covered with O3D and WebGl also moving forward very fast now with working implementations and even content conversion thinks to the Collada Open 3d format specification not fully entrenched.

      they can do NACL (NativeClient), and have already implemented a NACL c language h264 decoder. This was one of the first libraries they did !!
      Native Client FAQ: http://code.google.com/p/nativeclient/wiki/FAQ
      H264 Implementation: http://geekglue.blogspot.com/2008/12/google-native-client.html

      So the cards on the table are all congealing based on the above factors, and its a good time for Google to see where the cards fall for them and their various business models.
      So, why not ask the users too.

      I think it will come down to the h264 licensing terms to be released, and the ability for GPU's and embedded GPUs to handle video decoding.

  2. Re:is html5 going to provide faster better video? by BikeHelmet · · Score: 4, Informative

    Video tags are easier to accelerate. They can be handled by just about anything. That means rather than being locked to Flash, it can be played with Xine/GStreamer on Linux, Quicktime on OSX, DirectShow on Windows, DSP codecs on your phone, etc.; it might also be possible to use VLC on any platform, although that defeats the "accelerate" part.

    And of course, you've always got Flash as a fallback.

    P.S. Posted before, but this might be of interest to someone: Javascript-free HTML5/Flash video embedding, which works on desktops as well as devices like the iPhone: http://camendesign.com/code/video_for_everybody

  3. Can we dump flash now? by Djupblue · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Youtube is pretty much the only reason I need Flash. If it was possible to watch Youtube videos without plugins it would be great. No more choppiness or Flash using 100% CPU. Playing some videos from internet shouldn't be rocket surgery so this is really about time. Flash seems almost purposefully bad on Linux.

    1. Re:Can we dump flash now? by icebraining · · Score: 4, Informative

      If you use Firefox, have you tried some greasemonkey script that replace the Flash player with an embedded version? Like http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/46219

  4. Re:is html5 going to provide faster better video? by Randle_Revar · · Score: 4, Informative

    VLC generally supports acceleration when os/driver/card support exists

  5. Re:Google's purchase of On2 by sznupi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Plus releasing On2 tech as a standard without legal encumbrances, for everyone to take & implement freely, and opening its adoption as the HTML5 video?

    That would be interesting...

    --
    One that hath name thou can not otter
  6. Re:is html5 going to provide faster better video? by beelsebob · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Faster at all 3 if we use h264 because:
    Hardware h264 encoders exist, and I bet google would use them – it would cut their power use massively
    Hardware h264 decoders are common on just about all graphics cards
    h264 can compress a video much more for a given quality than the current flash video they use

    Not faster at all if we use ogg theora because:
    Hardware Ogg encoders don't exist
    Hardware Ogg decoders don't exist
    Ogg barely uses less bandwidth than flash video for a given bandwidth

  7. So wait... by gaelfx · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... you're telling me that I finally got Flash working on my 64-bit Ubuntu box for nothing??? (Admittedly, it wasn't really that difficult) To be honest though, it doesn't really matter for me since YouTube is still blocked in China, but it would be nice to see if this prompts the many streaming sites in China to embrace an open-standard such as this, but that will never happen since everyone continues to use IE6 here and I'm betting that IE will never implement HTML5 until it's long past finished...sooooo another 15 years before IE used HTML5? Bets anyone?

  8. You always could. by RichiH · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you use zsh:

    youplayer () {
                    mplayer "http://youtube.com/get_video?"${${${"$(wget -o/dev/null -O- "${1}" | grep -e watch_fullscreen)"}##*watch_fullscreen\?}%%\&fs=*}
    }

    If not:

    youplayer() {
                    mplayer $(youtube-dl -g $1)
    }

  9. Re:is html5 going to provide faster better video? by moreati · · Score: 5, Informative

    First, do you have a citation for this 'massive' reduction in power?

    Langen, Germany, October 30, 2008 - Fujitsu Microelectronics Europe (FME) today expanded its line-up of H.264*1 CODECs with two new devices that encode and decode full high-definition (HD) (1920 dots x 1080 lines) Video in H.264 format. The first of the two products to be launched, the ultra-low power MB86H55, features power consumption of only 500mW during full HD encoding including the built-in memory, an industry-leading level for low power consumption. In addition, the upcoming MB86H56 will offer processing of full HD video at 60 frames-per-second (progressive) '60p'*2, to improve picture quality even further.

    -- http://embedded-computing.com/fujitsu-full-h-264-codecs

    That's half a Watt encoding HD, a general purpose CPU would be consuming tens, or even a hundred watts to do that.

  10. Re:is html5 going to provide faster better video? by True+Grit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    H264 is an open standard

    A standard that requires shelling out $$ for a license to use it isn't 'open', not by most people's definition of 'open'.

    en/decoders might be covered by patents.

    There should be no 'might' in that sentence. Patents on h264 is the reason for MPEG-LA's very existence. They hold more patents on it than you can shake a stick at.

    That mountain of patents and the control it gives its owners is *precisely* the problem with h264.

  11. How about "Could you please ban gaming videos?" by tepples · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What's a more polite way to say, "be more like Vimeo"?

    How about "I know a lot of people who, to put it mildly, aren't a fan of video games. Can you make subtle changes to your policy so that videos of video games end up all but banned?"

    Background: Vimeo bans use of its service for commercial purposes; this rules out any video uploaded by the video game's publisher. Vimeo also rejects videos uploaded by anyone other than the author; this rules out videos of game play uploaded by anyone other than the video game's publisher because they're "derivative works".

  12. Re:is html5 going to provide faster better video? by cyclomedia · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Problem is, whether we like it or not, h264/mp4 is the standard, because every dvd player, blu ray player, laptop and toaster oven already support it. The same reason Mp3 became the standard portable audio format, not because it's free, or better or gives blow jobs but because everything and everybody already supported it.

    No amount of bitching and whining on slashdot or the w3c mailing list will change the reality of the remainder of the planet. It's the way it is and at the end of the day it's a video codec, not genocide, so there's really no harm in accepting it and getting on with supporting it ourselves.

    --
    If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.