Microsoft Is Releasing an H.264 Plugin For Firefox

ndogg writes "Microsoft has announced that it is releasing an H.264 plugin for Firefox. This plugin does not add H.264 capabilities to Firefox, but rather allows it to use the H.264 capabilities built into Windows 7. With that in mind, it sounds like it may not work on anything other than Windows 7."

Comments

Good enough?

[Khopesh]

(Speaking as a Linux user here)

This is probably "good enough" since it will apply enough pressure to get the rest of the userbase covered quickly enough. Competitive forces should drive similar efforts for GStreamer (and perhaps Phonon) and QuickTime (is that the right MacOS framework?) soon enough. The problem comes with the fact that it's almost guaranteed to be a closed application, so there's nothing to build atop except the interface and feature set.

The real question is what Google thinks of this; despite YouTube's H.264 ties, they've been pushing WebM (a simplified Matroska container holding VP8 video and Vorbis audio) in place of FLV (or...?) containing H.264 and MP3 (or AAC?). Google will have to react FAST if they want to push WebM. For the sake of free/open standards in HTML5 video, specifically to prevent license/royalty issues with proprietary codecs to let the little guys compete, I'm rooting for Google.

So when I say "good enough," I'm referring to what it might kick-start rather than the more immediate effects. Things should start to get interesting.