Google Funds Ogg Theora For Mobile

An anonymous reader writes "Google has decided to fund the development of Theora optimized for ARM processors. The article on the Open Source at Google blog notes the importance of having a universal baseline video codec for the Web: 'What is clear though, is that we need a baseline to work from — one standard format that (if all else fails) everything can fall back to. This doesn't need to be the most complex format, or the most advertised format, or even the format with the most companies involved in its creation. All it needs to do is to be available, everywhere. The codec in the frame for this is Ogg Theora, a spin off of the VP3 codec released into the wild by On2 a couple of years ago.'"

Comments

Re:Once again

[pv2b]

Non-technical problems, such as H.264 requiring licensing patents.

Patents are specifically intended to restrict usage of technology (to those who are inclined to pay for it).

So - a royalty-free product which produces comparable (if slightly inferior) results *should* become the ubiquitously available option. It is as it should be. :-)

I very much doubt, however, that Apple and Microsoft will include Theora in their web browsers or in the iPhone. I think it is much more likely that the patent-encumbered option is set to become more ubiquitous than the free option, due to corporate politics. (After all, neither Apple's or Microsoft's products support Theora or Vorbis out of the box now.)

Re:WHATWG: The worst thing to happen to the Web.

[Lorien_the_first_one]

Ok, I'm not a web developer, but I follow the news and try things out on my browser, like the acid3 tests. I don't know the difference between the various markup languages. What I do know is that I want a consistent experience across the web. To help this along, I try to use a browser that supports open standards so that web developers get the feedback from my browser.

When I read a well reasoned debate, even on Slashdot (and it does happen), it's encouraging. I would much prefer that to the drama of a flame war. This comment is not just directed to TheRaven64, but to everyone who can participate in the discussion with reasoning, facts and references.

Since I can't know everything about web design, I try to use discussions like this as a chance to become better informed.

Thank you.