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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."
Seems like a pretty reasonable solution to me.
Open slashdot... see add... Microsoft releasing plugin for Firefox (huh?) open article, "oh only works on Win7"... look for reason to get angry at Microsoft... can't find any on this one, seems like a nice thing, hear a bird outside, sip my soda, nice day out.
Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
They are either realizing that either:
1. they are becoming increasingly irrelevant on the desktop as people are using mobile devices more and more for their needs (iPad/Android for email and facebook)(and Apple computer sales have been growing handsomely), and therefore need to compete for customers for the first time in 20 years, or
2. it is a good opportunity for them to pull the old Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
Only time will tell.
Now, off to RTFA.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
(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.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Don't view the plugin as an enhancement for Firefox. View it as an extension for Windows 7 - it's increasing compatibility with a certain feature. And then, it all makes sense - it's Microsoft's business to improve Windows, and now Firefox is getting a free boost on that platform.
Are you proposing that Microsoft should also write Firefox extensions to utilize the lower-level internals of other operating systems such as OSX and Linux, although Microsoft has neither the technical experience nor obligation to do so, just to keep competing operating systems on a level playing field? I'm sure that 3rd parties will quickly follow suite and provide similar functionality for other operating systems, assuming it can be done at all.
Remember, Firefox does not include an H.264 decoder due to patent issues. MS holds the necessary licenses already - essentially those licensed to use Windows have already paid in some way for H.264 codecs, thus MS is doing Firefox users a big favor by extending that functionality. I'm sure Apple can do the same with OSX, but I'm unsure about the whole patent issue when it comes to Linux.
If I remember correctly, when people were complaining about Firefox not supporting H.264 decoding, Mozilla specifically alluded to the fact that OS vendors would have to provide this functionality to work around patent issues.
Better known as 318230.
It's hard to see anything MS does without some cautious skepticism that they may hold ulterior motives. I personally see two possibilities here:
1) They are trying to keep the FF userbase from building up a critical mass of users watching video with open source/patent free codecs such as WebM
2) They are trying to further marginalize Flash video (since at the moment Flash based video is the only H.264 option for FF users).
These two things arent mutually exclusive either, but I think they make more sense given MS's history and the context. What you said would make more sense if MS released a WebM player for IE/FF. To be clear though, having more options is good and this release isn't necessarily bad, but it's a good idea to keep in mind MS's past gift horses.
meep
Presumably Windows 7 has a media decoding architecture that can make use of multiple cores/hardware acceleration, so this takes advantage of that. Why should a browser have to reinvent all this, when the OS provides it? But it must be evil to do this, since it only works on Windows 7. At times, the anti-Microsoft bias here is too much!
How many h264 videos you watching at work? It seems pretty clear he meant for home use.
There's nothing stopping them - QuickTime on the Mac is a well documented system. The Mac version of XBMC uses it for just that reason, for example. It should be trivial for firefox to do the same if they wanted.
They tried to set a standard video codec.
Opera and Gecko refused to implement one of the possible contenders (H.264) for patent reasons. Furthermore, H.264 doesn't comply with the spirit of the W3C patent policy, though it does comply with the letter (because while a W3C spec can't require implementation of a W3C-designed techonlogy that has W3C members holding patents on it and not licensing them, it _can_ require implementation of a patented technology developed by someone else, via citing it by reference).
Apple refused to implement anything other than H.264.
Microsoft refused to comment, basically.
Google implemented H.264 and the other containers+codecs Gecko and Opera implement (WebM/VP8 and Ogg/Theora).
So anything that was going to be specified was going to be a fiction in practice....
Well, I've read about half the comments, and so far the general sentiment of the FOSStard community to my understanding is this:
- Microsoft should have written an h.264 plugin for Firefox on Linux and OS-X.
- It's typical of Microsoft to do something like this and not support XP.
- Etc.
Here's the deal, guys:
H.264 support is not "built into" Windows 7. It's built into Windows Media Player 12. That version shipped with and is exclusive to Windows 7. It can't be installed to XP. Microsoft has previously released a Firefox plugin that enabled some older version of Windows Media Player to run an instance within Firefox. There are some sites out there that use old IE-only extensions to play video and they embed an instance of Windows Media Player directly into the browser window. The old Windows Media Player Firefox extension only enabled Firefox to support this garbage.
Now they have released an updated plugin based on Windows Media Player 12 that (not surprisingly) only runs on Windows 7. Since it's based on Windows Media Player 12, it supports H.264. It probably is even neater now since it interprets HTML5 tags and automatically invokes. It's not just for embedded Windows Media Player crap anymore.
You're right! Not being able to ship a completely free operating systems affect Windows 7 users......uhhh, how exactly does this affect Windows 7 users again? You'd think as libertarian heavy as /. is this would go without explanation, but here goes: MSFT negotiates and buys the right to ship several codecs on their new OS, including H.264. Then MSFT writes a plug in to maximize their ROI by making it easier for more browsers to use what they paid for and thus make their new OS more appealing. And this has exactly what to do with FOSS again?
Lets be honest folks: Nobody is holding a gun to the distro developers and saying "You are NOT allowed to buy any codecs, you commie punks!". They could just as easily buy the rights to the H.264 codec as MSFT did. But they don't want to because they want to be "free as in beer and freedom man!" and you know what? That is just lovely. it is their distros to do as they will. But just because you give something away does not mean everyone else has to as well. The MPEG-LA wants to be paid to ship, you pay them or don't use it. But don't complain just because others decide they want to support it when you don't. It isn't like there aren't groups out there happy to sell codecs to FOSS users, it is just they ain't buying. That is their right but you shouldn't be pissed because Apple and MSFT decide they want to give their customers a smoother experience and are willing to pay for it.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
What we really wanted was a way to let video stay fullscreen on a second monitor without having to re-hexedit the flash dll every time it gets updated or overwritten.
The first browser to manage that staggeringly complex feat of engineering will be the one I'll use.
No sig today...
You're right of course, because MSFT completely owns H.264 and is using its dominance to....oh wait a tick, that's MPEG-LA. Oh well then they are using their complete stranglehold on the video player market...nope, that's Adobe. Well then they designed all the GPUs to...nope, that's ATI and Nvidia. starting to see a pattern here friend?
I mean here you are along with waaay too many FOSSies getting your panties so twisted they could be used to power fricking windmills when what we are seeing here is a classic case of a company giving their customers what they want. Oh the horror, all my videos are unskippy and don't suck my battery dry, how ever will I cope? And the really sad part? There is absolutely nothing stopping a Linux distro from giving the customer what they want but the simple fact is FOSSies treat it as a religion instead of an OS.
You see you do NOT want to give the customer what they want, because they might want to do things differently than you. They may not give a shit about "free as in freedom man! Fight the power!" and instead just want their videos unskippy, their drivers to drive, and their MP3s to play. Instead you say "Here, here is Vorbis! It is free as in freedom, so convert all your media!" while ignoring the fact that it is crap compared to what is already out there and conversion is a PITA. Now we see the same damn thing in streaming video, with the FOSS group backing a dead horse named WebM that is a couple of years too late and a dollar short.
But that is okay, you are free to sit and complain how the entire planet won't suddenly embrace YOUR way of doing things, it is a free country. Feel free to claim as you do in your post that "MSFT has a fancy little mathematical formula" while ignoring the fact that it is actually the USPTO that gave the rights to MPEG-LA to that math, and how they should instead steal the codec from MPEG-LA to give to FOSS just so FOSSies, who has been so loving to them in the past, will be happy.. If you want your OS to not play H.264, if you want your browser to suck power and be less efficient because MPEG-LA won't give you free unlimited rights just because you're "free as in freedom"? Again that is YOUR CHOICE. Meanwhile the rest of us will quite enjoy our smoother video and less power suckage, thanks. I am typing this on Windows 7 while several vids play in the background and you know what? Smooth as butter and isn't slamming my CPU. Life is about choices, don't get all bent out of shape when others choose to go a different route. That's capitalism, and Linux distros are free to buy any codec they please. If they choose not to that doesn't mean the rest of us should have to deal with it.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Whether I'm the "pissed" communist you want to paint me as or not I will leave to another debate, my point is simply that I see this more as a way of forcing mozilla to give up their stance than a way to improve the experience for Windows 7 users. If their priorities were different, I'm pretty sure Microsoft would be happy to use this leverage to get more people to switch to Internet Explorer instead.
Also, this doesn't just affect distributions. It basically means that anyone who wants to distribute a full browser needs to pay pretty expensive royalties, which would mean that in practice it would be limited to those who have enough money to pay for one.
You're right of course, because MSFT completely owns H.264 and is using its dominance to....oh wait a tick, that's MPEG-LA. Oh well then they are using their complete stranglehold on the video player market...nope, that's Adobe.
I'm sure Microsoft would rather lock everyone into their own VC-1 codec, but fortunately that's not supported by enough other browsers for them to do it. (In particular, it's not supported by Chrome, or by Safari on Mac OS or the iPhone.)
Feel free to claim as you do in your post that "MSFT has a fancy little mathematical formula" while ignoring the fact that it is actually the USPTO that gave the rights to MPEG-LA to that math, and how they should instead steal the codec from MPEG-LA to give to FOSS
There are other codecs that don't have the licensing restrictions that h.264 has - for example, WebM. Microsoft has deliberately decided they won't be supported out the box - apparently Microsoft have no interest in making it easy for their users to play web video when it's in a format that doesn't pose legal problems for FOSS software.
Which, of course, leads me to the other issue - the reason h.264 is so widely used isn't because it's some super-clever format that the MPEG-LA deserve lots of money for (though it is quite clever, even if some stuff is included solely because it's covered by MPEG-LA members' patents). It's because it's so widely used. Microsoft's move ensures that h.264 will be the only video format available everywhere, the format that everyone will use on the Web because they have to... and Microsoft's biggest fear, Linux, can't play because it can't pay.
Lets be honest folks: Nobody is holding a gun to the distro developers and saying "You are NOT allowed to buy any codecs, you commie punks!". They could just as easily buy the rights to the H.264 codec as MSFT did. But they don't want to because they want to be "free as in beer and freedom man!" and you know what? That is just lovely.
The big problem is that the "free as in freedom" means that the distros would have to grant the rights to redistribute h.264 to their customers as well.
Quoting section 7 of the GPLv2 which AFAIK covers most of Linux:
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
So if one Linux distro gets the rights to distribute while allowing royalty-free redistribution, soon all of them would redistribute the piece of code that handles h.264 for free.
Of course, the MPEG-LA knows this too and that's why the price would be quite high. It would amount to buying out the patents to h.264 and I don't think any existing Linux distributor can afford that.
Long term, I guess the expiration of the patents in question will solve the problem. But in the mean time, we'll have several more years of somehow needing to get around stuff like h.264 :-(
C - the footgun of programming languages
Happily, browser users on all platforms will be able to view WebM video content without any plugin.
The very first hardware video decode accelerators for WebM/VP8 are just beginning to appear on the market.
The good news for those of us who don't replace our computers every few weeks is that almost every computer made in the last few years can effectively play H.264 video with hardware acceleration, using the codecs installed into almost every single consumer operating system already. The fact that Firefox doesn't want to trust the OS (at this point I'm a little surprised they're not working on their own printer drivers, it'd be just as moronic) shouldn't become their users' problem.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!