Google to Open Source the VP8 Codec

Several readers noted Google's reported intention to open source the VP8 codec it acquired with On2 last February — as the FSF had urged. "HTML5 has the potential to capture the online video market from Flash by providing an open standard for web video — but only if everyone can agree on a codec. So far Adobe and Microsoft support H.264 because of the video quality, while Mozilla has been backing Ogg Theora because it's open source. Now it looks like Google might be able to end the squabble by making the VP8 codec it bought from On2 Technologies open source and giving everyone what they want: high-quality encoding that also happens to be open. Sure, Chrome and Firefox will support it. But can Google get Safari and IE on board?"

Comments

Re:Hurrah!

[PenguSven]

if this codec was default on YouTube it would be THE standard in about 15 seconds flat.

I doubt it. I'd imagine sites like Vimo would instead become more popular. You sweaty linux nerds need to realise that end users don't give a flying fuck about what codec the video uses, they care about being able to watch something. Until this codec has even close to the same kind of hardware support as H.264 it's going to be a second choice, especially for embedded/mobile platforms.