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YouTube Offers Experimental Opt-In HTML5 Video
bonch writes "YouTube is now offering the experimental option to view all YouTube videos using HTML5 in H.264 format. Supported browsers are Chrome, Safari, and the ChromeFrame plug-in for Internet Explorer. Captions, ads, and annotations aren't yet supported but are coming soon."
The three most annoying features of YouTube won't display? Where do I sign?
Firefox supports the video tag. The h.264 support can be added by installing mplayer browser plugin or xine browser plugin.
The largest prime factor of my UID is 263267.
Even with h264 support (through gecko-mediaplayer), Youtube tells me "Your browser does not currently recognize any of the video formats available.".
This
Flash is already on my Symbian phone and various other platforms. Will HTML5 advocates spare time to non cool (!) platforms to code a codec/driver along with testing thousands of different setups to show their Theora video which is clearly missing 2-3 generations in video codec development compared to H264?
Google, a multi billion giant can roll out a good "quicktime interface" for youtube, can even add extra features to it but it doesn't really mean HTML5 with codecs which nobody can agree will crush Flash.
BTW; if you are concerned about Flash CPU usage, use 10.1 beta which has GPU decoding under Windows. I have seen it using almost nothing while playing 1080P video over youtube.
I keep testing Theora and sorry to say, I don't think it will take off unless Google does some amazing thing and make the VP7+ codecs open, free as in freedom. Now that would really change entire media universe. Hopefully they purchased that codec company for that reason.
No. Firefox video tag is free formats only. Tools like mplayer are a cesspool of security holes— they aren't designed to be exposed to hostile content. The video tag requires pretty deep browser integration, ... only apple supports using the native infrastructure and even they disable 99% of their features for security reasons (e.g. try a mov with hyperlinks in it).
Mozilla is committed to an open web, and you can't get their with a wink and a nod and asking users to install codec software which is illegal everywhere in the developed world. (Including europe. I'm so tired of seeing people characterized codec licensing as a US thing— there are more European patents on codecs than US patents)
H.264 is the codec used in youtube when you play videos with the flash player. This HTML5 video viewer just reuses theses videos, only the html client code changes. Using other codec means reencoding all their videos in a different video format, which must not be easy. Specially when the alternatives are worse (theora) or not ready (dirac).
Using Safari/OSX (latest version of each) on a first generation Core2 Duo laptop (2.33 GHz), I tried watching the same video (containing no ads, annotations, etc) at the same size using both the default Flash option and the beta HTML5 option. CPU use was a steady 33-34% during playback in Flash. A steady 12-13% in HTML5. Seems like a winner to me.
> and ffmpeg being free and with H.264 support
Free in what sense? You can use their code in your code. Your code would then not be able to be distributed to users unless you pay the relevant patent licensing fees. The Mozilla Corporation could do that, but then any other Firefox distributors (e.g. Linux distributions) would not be able to distribute Firefox without either removing this functionality or paying the relevant patent licensing fees. Anyone doing a custom build of Firefox and distributing it could be sued by MPEG-LA to recover the money due them.
Effectively, Firefox stops being "free" for practical intents and purposes. It's still "open source", but the only thing you can really do is contribute patches back to the main repository, unless you pay up the patent fees.
That's not exactly a desirable situation. We might end up there, but as a first cut trying to avoid it is a good thing.
Adobe already released a closed-source plugin to play H.264. It's called Flash Player.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
Why throw around bullshit claims based on nothing more than your vague and absurd assertion that "every time you hear..."? You can easily search for that info yourself, which would take less time than it took to post to slashdot. For example, you have this purely subjective analysis which was done by encoding Theora and h.264 files with equivalent size and then having a dude claim what image he preferred. Although he claimed that h.264 was better according to his own personal tastes, you can easily see for yourself that, when comparing Theora and h.264, you get pratically the same quality with the same file size. It's the same bandwidth, same size, practically (and in some cases) indistinguishable quality and although Theora's developers had to intentionally avoid more efficient algorithms due to patents.
So who exactly is spewing those bullshit, FUD claims of "Theora needs triple storage capacity and wastes twice as much bandwidth"?
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
Old technology? Since when is technology's age any relevant to it's value? Electricity was discovered centuries ago and we still rely on it up to this day. Do you believe that just because it's old technology it should be simply be abandoned without any relevant and rational reason to justify it?
And for your information, Theora is on par with other formats such as h.264 in all relevant categories such as file size, bandwidth and encoding quality. So, that's also not it.
Regarding that "hardware accelerated" bit, do you know what it takes for a codec do be "hardware accelerated"? It only takes the will of the manufacturer to offer hardware support for a specific format. The h.264 codec isn't magical nor is the Theora codec cursed. In fact there are Theora hardware decoders in the market already.
So please refrain from spewing ignorance and/or FUD. Theora may eventually stumble on relevant shortcomings but hard
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
Have any proof Theora uses more bandwith? Old doesn't mean bad, HTML is old, so is TCP/IP and UNIX
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I didn't say that Theora needs triple storage capacity. I said that Google would need to triple their storage capacity, the first 100% being taken by H.264 files (obviously).
As for that page you linked to, look at the screenshots. There's nothing subjective about them, H.264 is the clear winner. If you can't see that then you need to calibrate your monitor. Same bandwidth = lower quality results using Theora.
Being a codec snob is trendy.
The reality of it is much less exciting.
Youtube already supports several versions of the files, they could probably drop the flash 7 compatibility in exchange for Theora. In terms of numbers of client Ogg/Theora for firefox is probably a better deal than flash 7. Adding one more to a half dozen isn't a tripling.
As long as h.246 is non-Free, it is irrelevant.
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
>Theora is on par with other formats such as h.264 in all relevant categories such as file size, bandwidth and encoding quality
Much as I support Theora (i.e. totally), that is not even close to true. It is maybe comparable to MPEG-4 ASP (divx, xvid).
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
All religions are nuts.
my God is currently using His noodly appendages to fire a meatball of death upon you for this blasphemy
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
As long as Theora isn't implemented in video chipsets, it is irrelevant. I think more people care about decent performance than RMS-approved GNU/Freedom (Free as in beards).